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How to reset a lost MD5 encrypted admin password of a dynamic website with phpmyadmin

Sun, 06/01/2008 - 09:36 — funk

I found an interesting technique for resetting a lost admin password of a dynamic website using a phpmyadmin account with full privileges. This easy technique can save you the time of restoring a backup, and can be used for every CMS that uses MD5 encryption for passwords.

Install phpmyadmin

If you don't have phpmyadmin, you'll have to install it:

sudo apt-get install phpmyadmin

Log in to phpmyadmin

login to phpmyadmin with an account with full privileges.
Choose the database of the website.
Find the users table.
Look for userid "1"
select 'browse"

Resetting the password

Now you will see a row with all the data concerning the admin user.
There should be a field with a lot of numbers. This is the MD5 encrypted password you lost.
Write this down, in case it didn't work and you remembered it.
Select the pencil icon on the left to edit this row.
Replace the encrypted password with the following string:

21232f297a57a5a743894a0e4a801fc3

This string is a MD5 encrypted version of 'admin'

Next, you have to select the save-action and click on 'go'.

You have just reset the MD5 encrypted password for the admin user.
Login to your site, using your login name and 'admin' for the password,
And change the 'admin' password immediately.

I tried it, it worked!

Comments

Sat, 11/29/2008 - 15:25 — Alparcade (not verified)

Hi mate,
Thank you so much for your very useful help! I had same problem with admin pass. I did try to fix it in many ways but nothing helped. Today l fixed with your wonderful tips. Thanx a lot!
You have a nice site.
Best regards

Sun, 01/11/2009 - 05:24 — Noob (not verified)

Thank you. I was feeling like an idiot for losing it in the first place, but this did the trick in a jiffy. Yay I said! Thanks for sharing it.

One little note, in PhpMyAdmin, you do NOT need to use the "Password" dropdown encoding in the Function column.

Wed, 11/18/2009 - 10:22 — kevin (not verified)

I have downloaded windows password key 8.0. It is a very quick and useful utility for resetting passwords. It not only supports XP, 2000, and NT, I have personally tested it with Vista Home Premium and Ultimate. It works perfectly to reset any local user account to a blank password.
Just an easy to use bootable CD/DVD . It can also be used on a USB Flash Drive. http://www.lostwindowspassword.com/

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