I have forgotten my password. Is there anything I can do?

not_a_smart_person

10/16/23, 2:38 PM

Preface: my question is not the typical "I have forgotten my password" question.

I am running Ubuntu 22.04

I have forgotten the password to both my administrative account and for hard drive encryption. That being said, the machine in question is currently on and logged into a non-administrative account (i.e. I'm using it right now to type this.)

I realize that if I turn the machine off, the encryption key is effectively wiped and there will be no chance to recover any information after that point. But is there anything that I could do now?

Is it possible to hot-swap an OS and by-pass Ubuntu's user permission restrictions? Is there any active vulnerabilities that will allow me to by-pass those restrictions and read the files?

EDIT: I should add that the goal at this point is just to recover the data I have stored in my main user account. Also, because I am idiot, I changed the permissions of the user home folder directories so they couldn't be read by others. So I can't just look into the home file of my account.

0 + 6

encryption

password

pLumo

10/16/23, 2:42 PM

I highly doubt there is. If it would be known, it would be fixed quite immediately. And we would not discuss about this in askubuntu.

not_a_smart_person

10/16/23, 2:44 PM

Ok. I was hoping that because I had physical access to the machine while logged into an account that it would change something. Thank you though

24601

10/16/23, 2:56 PM

" But is there anything that I could do now?" yes - back up everything you can while you can and re-install the OS this time taking a careful note of all passwords keys.

not_a_smart_person

10/16/23, 3:05 PM

@24601 I wish I could back up everything, but everything that I want exists in the home folder of the other user. Thanks though. Its looking like I will just have to accept defeat

Rinzwind

10/16/23, 3:13 PM

Store the pwd in a passwordsafe next time (and store that safe somewhere off line with an easier to remember password) Brute force might be an option but you would need to install tools on that system ... needs admin pwd. So you could unattach the disk, put in into another system and hack away from there... but you will not be able to boot it anymore if you can not unlock it. By the way: you do not have a backup? Or a backup tool active? That would be my 1st to set up for a system like this

mondotofu

10/19/23, 3:09 AM

can you use the sudo command such as **sudo su -**

Elon Musk

I sit in a Tesla and translated this thread with Ai:

EN: I have forgotten my password. Is there anything I can do?

Post an answer

Most people don’t grasp that asking a lot of questions unlocks learning and improves interpersonal bonding. In Alison’s studies, for example, though people could accurately recall how many questions had been asked in their conversations, they didn’t intuit the link between questions and liking. Across four studies, in which participants were engaged in conversations themselves or read transcripts of others’ conversations, people tended not to realize that question asking would influence—or had influenced—the level of amity between the conversationalists.