Loosing your root password for Ubuntu prevents you from logging into your system or carrying out any administrative process, effectively locking you out of most parts, if not all of your system. Two posible option would be to either re install your entire operating system and risk loosing all your data, or follow the guide bellow to reset your root password.

1. Boot your system up and press the ‘e’ key when the GRUB boot loader starts up, This will allow you to edit the boot entry for your system

2. Once you are in the boot entry editor add the word ‘init=/bin/bash’ to the end of the last line, it should look similar to the line bellow

linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31-14-generic root=UUID=b8080487-b557-4f55-b288-d7ef2c2b9cc1 ro quiet splash init=/bin/bash

3. Once done press enter to save your modifications

4.Boot from your edited boot entry, you will then boot into a non graphical user interface shell, logged in as root.

5.Run the following command to change your password:

[root]$ passwd

You will then be prompted by the system to enter a new password.

Tags: Configuration, Grub, Passwords, Permissions, Restore

This entry was posted on Monday, January 11th, 2010 at 1:42 pm and is filed under Tutorials, Uncategorized. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.