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I am running Oracle VMware and installed Ubuntu 17.10 Artful. When I start Ubuntu it asks for a user name and password. I did not set up a user name or password. How do I open Ubuntu without a password? I am beginner and do not have a clue. Thanks for any help at all.

WinEunuuchs2Unix
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JHennesay
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    Yes you did. You can not install Ubuntu without a username. during install you are asked to insert a username and installation will not continue unless you do. You also added a password at that time. – Rinzwind Jan 14 '18 at 16:37
  • @Rinzwind - unless he downloaded an image for use in vbox ;). All the same - https://askubuntu.com/questions/24006/how-do-i-reset-a-lost-administrative-password and https://askubuntu.com/questions/967847/ubuntu-17-10-gdm-auto-login-not-working/969600 may both help – Panther Jan 14 '18 at 16:52
  • he said "installed" ;-) – Rinzwind Jan 14 '18 at 17:43

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Well, you kind of need a user to run the whole graphical interface, but you can set Ubuntu to skip the login screen.

But first you need to reset the password of your user, you can do it like this: (taken from Ubuntu Recovery Mode)

Switch on your computer. Wait until the BIOS has finished loading, or has almost finished. (During this time you will probably see a logo of your computer manufacturer.) Quickly press and hold the Shift key, which will bring up the GNU GRUB menu. (If you see the Ubuntu logo, you've missed the point where you can enter the GRUB menu.)

Select the line which starts with "Advanced options".

Select the line ending with "(recovery mode)", probably the second line, something like:

Ubuntu GNU/Linux, with Linux 3.8.0-26-generic (recovery mode)

Press Return and your machine will begin the boot process.

After a few moments, your workstation should display a menu with a number of options. One of the options (you may need to scroll down to the bottom of the list) will be "Drop to root shell prompt". Press Return with this option highlighted.

The root partition is mounted read-only. To mount it read/write, enter the command

mount -o remount,rw /

Since you seem to have forgotten what your username was, have a look at the passwd file :

cat /etc/passwd

Near the bottom of the output you should find a line that tells you your username next to "1000:1000"(which is the ID of the first user)

<username>:x:1000:1000:<username>,,,:/home/<username>:/bin/bash

now you can set a password for this user 

passwd <username>

Now you can reboot your VM

reboot

Log in with your username and password (that you just set)

Now you can enable "automatic login" - click the small downwards arrow in the right upper corner

Click your username

Click the symbol of a padlock that is displayed in the menu bar near "Unlock" and enter your password

Now you can toggle on "Automatic Login" and close the window and you are done - on the next reboot you should not need to login any more

Robert Riedl
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  • Thank you for the reply. I just finished following your directions and the login did not work. The user name was evidently a default name (osboxes). So I left it as is and added my password. rebooted and attempted to login and got 'this did not work' So far I have found 6 different ways to accomplish this with Ubuntu 17.10 and it seems that none work. Not sure what to do now. Thanks again for trying to help though. – JHennesay Jan 15 '18 at 16:34
  • Very strange ! Did all the commands (mount, passwd) work, without error messages ? – Robert Riedl Jan 15 '18 at 16:41
  • yes, all went through without any errors. That's what gets me. – JHennesay Jan 15 '18 at 16:42
  • I discovered something a few minutes ago while checking out the the osbox vmware. There is an encryption tab in the set up box and I am wondering if that is for the box itself or for Ubuntu. Any thoughts – JHennesay Jan 15 '18 at 16:44
  • Oh, maybe the /home is encrypted ? If you repeat the steps and additionally mount everything else with "mount -a" - can you navigate to the users home directory ? – Robert Riedl Jan 15 '18 at 17:54
  • I tried the encryption tab and it was only for the vbox and not Ubuntu. I am not sure what you are instructing me to do after repeating the steps. I am taking a class to get back into IT after 35 years so having a difficult time catching up on the new stuff out here. I understand the mount command but navigating to the users home directory is another story. – JHennesay Jan 15 '18 at 18:03
  • (Sorry I'm on the mobile app) no worries ! after the "mount -o remount", see if you can execute " mount -a", this should mount all remaining Mount points. Then try "cd /home/osboxes/” and see if that works. If you get any errors, please put the output in the original question (via edit). Alternatively, you can try the standard passwords from here. https://www.osboxes.org/faq/what-are-the-credentials-for-virtual-machine-image/ – Robert Riedl Jan 15 '18 at 18:09
  • Oh wow, Thanks for the link to FAQ, I tried that page earlier from the main page and could not find an answer. I used the default osboxes.org passwd and bingo. Got the passwd changed and on my to learning something. Thank you so much for the help, Robert. You've been awesomely patient and kind. – JHennesay Jan 15 '18 at 18:33
  • Great! If you want, you can try the rest of my answer to try and disable the log-in screen ! – Robert Riedl Jan 15 '18 at 18:37
  • Thanks, but with this class I guess i need the security to reflect what I am doing since it is graded. Just no assistance from the professor. lol – JHennesay Jan 15 '18 at 18:45
  • if this was an acceptable answer, please accept it and then we can clean up the comments – Robert Riedl Jan 31 '18 at 21:09