It’s not unusual for users to forget their root passwords. It’s a common occurrence especially if you haven’t logged in as the root user for a long period of time. It can happen to the best of us. But don’t worry. In this guide, we will walk you through how you can reset a forgotten root password in Linux Mint.
Read Also: How to Reset Forgotten Root Password in Debian 10
To get started, power on or reboot your Linux Mint system. After a few seconds, you should get a grub menu on the screen as shown below.
On the first highlighted option, press 'e' on the keyboard to edit the grub parameters. You should get the screen shown below.
Next, scroll down using the arrow down cursor key until you get to the line beginning with 'linux'. Navigate until you get to the ro quiet splash section and add rw init=/bin/bash.
Then press ctrl + x or hit F10 to boot into a single-user mode as shown below.
To reset the forgotten root password in Linux Mint, simply run the passwd root command as shown.
# passwd root
Specify the new root password and confirm it. If the password matches, you should get a ‘password updated successfully‘ notification.
And finally, press Ctrl + Alt + Del to exit and reboot Linux Mint. You can now log in as the root user using the newly created password. And that’s how you can reset a forgotten root password om Linux Mint.
My PC doesn’t recognize my root password when I try to run anything requiring it (e.g. the Update Manager). I have my PC set up to log on automatically without a password on power-up, and that works OK. ‘Sudo Su‘ in a script also rejects my password.
Since the last time I used root mode, I’ve had an Nvidia card fail, and replaced it with a different Nvidia card, prior to which I did a kernel update and a Timeshift. Looking at various forums any of these could be responsible.
Should the fix described above work OK on Linux Mint 20.3 with Cinnamon 5.2.7 and Kernel 5.4.0-135-generic?
@Bob,
We have tested it under Linux Mint 19.2, but I think the instructions provided in this article should work on Linux Mint 20.3 with the Cinnamon edition.
It’s not working in Linux Mint 19.2.
Does not work in Linux Mint LMDE.
Thank you very much I won’t have done it without you.
Thanks
Do not need to reboot just type:
After sudo su type your user’s password to enter super user then try the procedure on it.
Works on my Linux mint 19.3 cinnamon :)
Way to go Quantro !
sudo passwd rootworks in some cases in the single-line command given.If the system’s superuser and other system users are the same people, passwords for superuser and regular username with restricted permissions are different in both users.
I was resetting the root password on my Linux Mint 20.1 Ulyssa 64-bit version earlier last month with a single-line comment
I think it worked very well.
Before I used Ubuntu variant Lubuntu 14 on my second Linux laptop brand new in the year 2005 and there was the solution by mounting your hard drive with reading and writing permissions before changing the password command in Recovery mode but like in this James Kiarie great blog post article, you have to reboot your system holding SHIFT-key.
It’s not necessary anymore for Mint users’ to reboot the whole system I think nowadays.
This option and possibility to reset admin’s and superusers passwords in Ubuntu and Mint make it there’s no way to use Mint or Ubuntu system in industrial use due to security issues what makes sense when Linux/Unix System Administration comes to industrial zone (For ie. Small company’s server for it needs excluding traffic outside of office’s IT Infra).
Thanks a lot, it works on Linux Mint XFCE 20.x release.
You are welcome @Misbachul. I’m glad this guide was beneficial.
Does not quite work in Linux Mint 20 in single-user mode,
The solution, after doing: passwd root
do passwd your username
with your username (no caps) I suggest you set both the same password.
I have an added problem it says I was successful at changing my password but it still doesn’t work to log in. Is there a way to eliminate the password? I have not been able to get into my computer for a while now.
Running Linux Mint 20 updated on 1/1/2021 in single-user mode requiring entry of user password. Followed your instructions exactly and everything went as described. Entered and confirmed a new password and got “Password Successfully Changed”.
Used
F10key to continued booting. Got Enter the Password login screen and entered the new password. It said “the wrong password” I tried the new password several times and still got “the wrong password” — So I entered the OLD password and log-in proceeded as normal. Did several reboots including one from the power-down state — no luck. The new password is not recognized by the OLD password is.So, as of January 1, 2021, the Grub modification of the root password does not seem to work. There is only one user on the system, so unless I don’t understand something the root password should be the Username password, right?
I have tried everything possible to change the login password on my laptop, with no results. I’m using Linux mint 19.3 cinnamon. Any suggestions out there!!
Thank you so much. Problem solved, thanks to your article.
You are very much welcome,