Ubuntu 8.04 LTS, How to Recover or Reset Admin account pass

[Mad Angel on FB]

I forgot the password on my computer with hardy heron....I managed to get the command prompt window open....now what?

 

[bmouring]

Now, are we talking about the root password (which, even back in Hardy, I believe by default is a randomly-scrambled password) or the user account's password (which, by default, on Ubuntu, is the password you must enter anytime you issue a sudo command)?

Also, I mean it should go without saying, but you should not be breaking onto someone else's machine, so I will assume that it's your own machine and you did simply forget your password. If this is the case, you can interrupt the boot process, enter into what's known as single mode, and directly edit the /etc/shadow file which contains a hash of the passwords of all user accounts on the system (including the utility accounts needed for some of the system-level functionality, so be careful with this file). We've discussed how to do this in other forum topics, so just do a little searching, please.