UNIX for Beginners Questions & Answers

Boot again from LiveCD
Open a terminal

Code:

sudo -i

Find which one is the root partition of the OS

Code:

lsblk

Most likely is /dev/sda1

Code:

mkdir /mnt/forgot
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/forgot

Test if you have mounted the root partition, go to it:

Code:

cd /mnt/forgot
ls -l

You should be seeing a proper directory hierarchy with: boot, bin, home, dev, opt, var, etc
If not, umount /mnt/forgot and start again with /dev/sdaX where X is another number you think is a possibility from the output of lsblk

Code:

chroot /mnt/forgot
passwd username
exit
umount /mnt/forgot
reboot

Extra note:
If you do not know which one is the user with admin privileges, while you are still chrooted in /mnt/forgot

Code:

cat /etc/passwd

Look for any user name (first column, if you separate it by the :)
Choose one that is not root and it says /bin/bash at the last column

Code:

id username

Look for the (sudo) in the output. That's an user you can use to gain access to your system.

As I mentioned, cannot get chroot to run

chroot /mnt/forgot

You are not giving much to go on. Your feed back needs to be more detailed. What's the error?
What's the user you are login as when you get the error? Are you booting from the LiveCD?
Did you follow the instructions step by step? I took the time to put clear instructions I know that works, with minimum requirements to understand.
Were you able to identify the CORRECT partition? I suspect /dev/sda6 is NOT.
Were you able to identify the user you want to reset the password for?
Which user is that?

A question I should had asked before:
When you did login originally as a guest user, did you see the screen with an option to choose another user? What's the reason you were logging in as a guest? What's the other option user that it shows at the UI login screen?

It is /dev/sda6

I only had hagbard as user or login as guest. For Hagbard using my original password does not work


---------- Post updated at 03:07 PM ---------- Previous update was at 03:06 PM ----------

I am booting from LiveCD

Boot again from LiveCD

Code:

sudo -i
mkdir /mnt/forgot
mount /dev/sda6 /mnt/forgot
cd /mnt/forgot
vi etc/shadow

Now, carefully, find the line that starts with user hagbard and delete the hash for the password. Be careful, here. Start deleting from the $6 all the way to the next :
Leave it as something like this:

Code:

hagbard::16930:0:99999:7:::

Count the colons, there should be 8.
Save the file.

Code:

cd ~
umount /mnt/forgot
reboot

After that, you should be able to login back with user hagbard by not entering anypassword and pressing enter.

Let's give it a go then

---------- Post updated at 04:02 PM ---------- Previous update was at 03:30 PM ----------

Still a problem

Code:

root@trisquel:/mnt/forgot# more /etc/shadown
/etc/shadown: No such file or directory

It is etc/shadow no / in front and not n at the end. The n was my mistake, I do not know how it got in. And you are in /mnt/forgot