Ubunite Classic: How to Change your System user password & Secure your Boot loader on Ubuntu

To get started, just boot your computer and when you see "Loading Grub" press the ESC (Escape) key. If you missed it, just reboot and try again.

Once you see the Grub prompt, press 'e' to enter Edit mode (as shown by the arow in below screen shot).

ubunturesetpwd1.png

Next, highlight the line that begins with kernel and press 'e'.

ubunturesetpwd2.png

Now, what you see may seem a little odd, but go the very end of the line, hit the space bar once, then type the following command after the word 'splash':

rw init=/bin/bash

Then at the prompt type in
nano /etc/shadow

Edit the line
root:!:parthere:XXXX:XXXX
& then save it

reboot in recoverymode under netroot & change your passwords by typing in

passwd yourusername

then passwd to change the root password

http://www.ubunite.com

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• forgotton
• password
• linux
• ubuntu
• shadwfile
• system

[ralph1bart]

Great Info! You can password (+encript) protect grub internaly but screw that up and you've got a problem. Besides, somebody that can comfortably edit grub syntax doesnt really need the "installed" boot loader to get in. Gotta try this out. Thanks!

[Freshrock]

a time 2:48 when u rebooted i got lost... what did you press to reboot. im guessing the power button, but i dont wanna F*** it up... pls respond asap

[j8oj3o]

hi my sis has an hp laptop any idea on how to get in to the shadow file? on that it runs linux which i have never used and my sis for got her password it doesn't have the grub page. thanks

[Laoch111]

The security tab on startupmanager is gone. I use Ubuntu 9.10 (startupmanager in Ubuntu 9.04 did have a security tab!).

Is there a way to get the startupmanager security tab back?

[Laoch111]

Excellent tutorial.