I have forgotten my authentication password.Ubuntu 14.4

Question

I have followed instructions found on line ie GRUB, recovery mode, etc but I get stuck at the point of typing in a new password as that screen is read only. I have then followed more instructions to set to read/write ie - mount -rw -o remount/...... this did not work. Help please. I would need step by step instructions as I don't understand most of the terminology. Thanks

Thanks for the responses. The problem is that when I get to reset 'read only' to 'read write' with the command given it just does not work. I don't get an error it just reverts to the line as before I entered the read/write command.

Thank you Muru but it won't accept the remount command.

Use Oli's answer (chroot method) if you have issues in recovery — Zanna, Dec 16 '16 at 14:36
"The problem is ... it just does not work." What error do you get? — muru, Dec 18 '16 at 18:02
That command is not supposed to give any output. Have you tried resetting the password after remounting? — muru, Dec 20 '16 at 08:34

score 0 · Answer 1 · edited Mar 17 '17 at 02:56

When you power on the computer does it show the 'Recovery Mode' option in the grub menu? If not you can hold the 'Shift' key and it will bring the option for the recovery. You can select in the menu the 'root' option.

It will drop you to the command line with root options:

root@ubuntu:~#

Then you should be able to remount the FS as read/write:

mount -rw -o remount /

Then you can reset the password of your user or root:

root@ubuntu:~# passwd root
Enter new UNIX password:
Retype new UNIX password:
passwd: password updated successfully
root@ubuntu:~#

After that you need to reboot the machine. You can check Canonical documents regarding recovery passwor in:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RecoveryMode

and

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LostPassword

I have forgotten my authentication password.Ubuntu 14.4

1 Answers1