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Before I found out about this method to reset my root password, I was forced to reinstall Ubuntu. Now, in just 6 easy steps, everything is as good as ever, with the root password changed.

This is the method that Jason Striegel posted over at Hackszine.com and it is very easy to use if you find yourself in this rather embarrassing situation (or if you want to hack a machine running Ubuntu and having the GRUB bootloader).

Just follow the steps below to get out of this situation easily and elegantly.

Boot Linux into single-user mode

1. Reboot the machine.
2. Press the ESC key while GRUB is loading to enter the menu.
3. If there is a ‘recovery mode’ option, select it and press ‘b’ to boot into single user mode.
4. Otherwise, the default boot configuration should be selected. Press ‘e’ to edit it.
5. Highlight the line that begins with ‘kernel’. Press ‘e’ again to edit this line.
6. At the end of the line, add an additional parameter: ’single’. Hit return to make the change and press ‘b’ to boot.

Change the admin password
The system should load into single user mode and you’ll be left at the command line automatically logged in as root. Type ‘passwd’ to change the root password or ‘passwd someuser’ to change the password for your “someuser” admin account.

Reboot

That’s it, just reboot into your normal configuration with the new root password.