Reset and recover a dedicated server password

You can view the root password in the control panel: in the top menu, click Products → Dedicated Servers → Servers → server page → Operating System tab. The password is available for viewing for 24 hours from the moment the OS installation, reinstallation, or configuration change starts.

If you have forgotten or lost your password, you can recover it using recovery and diagnostic modes:

• for Linux and Windows servers — restore the server password in Rescue;
• for Windows servers — restore the server password in WinPE.

You cannot recover the password for macOS servers. To continue using the server, create a ticket.

Restore the server password in Rescue

Ubuntu and Debian

1. Boot the server in Rescue recovery and diagnostic mode.

2. Connect to the server in Rescue mode via KVM console or via SSH.

3. Mount the OS file system.

4. Change the password for the root user:

   passwd root

5. Enter the new password twice. The password will not be displayed in the command line.

6. Wait for the confirmation that the password has been changed:

   passwd: password updated successfully

7. If you mounted the file system manually using the mount command, synchronize the data:

   sync

8. Exit the environment:

   exit

9. If you mounted the file system manually using the mount command, unmount the file system:

   umount /dev/<partition> /mnt

   Specify <partition> — the disk partition you mounted the file system to in step 3.

10. Restore the previous server boot template or reboot the server from the OS. When rebooting the server from the OS, the boot template will automatically change to the one that was set before changing the server boot template.

CentOS

1. Boot the server in Rescue recovery and diagnostic mode.

2. Connect to the server in Rescue mode via KVM console or via SSH.

3. Mount the OS file system.

4. Change the password for the root user:

   passwd root

5. Enter the new password twice. The password will not be displayed in the command line.

6. Update the password checksums:

   touch /.autorelabel

7. If you mounted the file system manually using the mount command, synchronize the data:

   sync

8. Exit the environment. The partition will be unmounted automatically:

   exit

9. Restore the previous server boot template or reboot the server from the OS. When rebooting the server from the OS, the boot template will automatically change to the one that was set before changing the server boot template.

Windows

1. Boot the server in Rescue recovery and diagnostic mode.

2. Connect to the server in Rescue mode via KVM console or via SSH.

3. Display information about the partitions on the available disks:

   lsblk

   A list of disks and their partitions will appear in the response. For example:

   NAME    MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
   sda       8:0    0   2.9G  0 disk
   └─sda1    8:1    0   2.9G  0 part
   sdb       8:16   0   160G  0 disk
   ├─sdb1    8:17   0 159.9G  0 part
   ├─sdb14   8:30   0     4M  0 part
   └─sdb15   8:31   0   106M  0 part

   Here, sda1, sdb1, sdb14, sdb15 are disk partitions. Partition names may differ in your OS.

4. Select the system partition; this is usually the largest partition on the disk. In the example in step 2, this is sdb1.

5. Mount the disk partition with the OS to the /mnt directory:

   mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/<partition> /mnt

   Specify <partition> — the disk partition you selected in step 4.

6. Switch to the Administrator user account editing mode:

   chntpw -u Administrator /mnt/Windows/System32/config/SAM

7. To reset the password, select Clear (blank) user password. The options may differ in various versions of the program; in the example, this is option 1:

   1

8. Close the file:

   q

9. Confirm the changes:

   y

10. Restore the previous server boot template or reboot the server from the OS. When rebooting the server from the OS, the boot template will automatically change to the one that was set before changing the server boot template.

11. Connect to the server. After resetting the password, you can sign in for the first time without one.

12. Set a new password on the server. To do this, go to Settings → Accounts → Sign-in Options.

13. In the Password block, click Add.

14. Enter a new password.

15. Click OK.

Restore the server password in WinPE

1. Boot the server in WinPE recovery and diagnostic mode.

2. Connect to the server in WinPE mode via KVM console or via VNC.

3. Run the NTPWEdit password editing utility.

4. Ensure that the Path to SAM file field contains the path to the SAM file — this is the Security Account Manager file.

5. Click Open.

6. Select an account. If the account is locked, unlock it by clicking Unlock.

7. Click Change password.

8. Enter a new password. If you set an empty password, you will not be able to connect via RDP or change the password using the NTPWEdit utility.

9. Confirm the password.

10. Click OK.

11. Click Save changes.

12. Restore the previous server boot template or reboot the server from the OS. When rebooting the server from the OS, the boot template will automatically change to the one that was set before changing the server boot template.