Reseting WordPress admin password via the command line (terminal)

First you need to identify the table responsible for storing WordPress user accounts. Usually the table that stores all user information is wp_users but you may have different database prefix so you can check your wp-config.php file and search for the following line:

$table_prefix = 'wp_';

Also you need to know the name of the database as well. You can get this information from wp-config.php as well. You need to check these lines:

define( 'DB_NAME', 'digital_ocean' );
define( 'DB_USER', 'digital_ocean' );
define( 'DB_PASSWORD', 'RANDOMPASS' );
define( 'DB_HOST', 'localhost' );

Now when you know the table prefix and the database.

1. You need to access MySQL

# mysql -u root -p
MariaDB [(none)]> show databases;
MariaDB [(none)]> use digital_ocean;

2. You can query the wp_users table to retrieve all the needed information:

MariaDB [(none)]> SELECT ID, user_login, user_pass FROM wp_users;

+----+--------------+------------------------------------+
| ID | user_login   | user_pass                          |
+----+--------------+------------------------------------+
|  1 | digitalocean | $P$lkasflsakhflkashflkashlkfhasfkl |
+----+--------------+------------------------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

3. Now you need to generate a MD5 generated password in order to change/reset the password. There is two ways to generate update the password.

The first one is to create a MD5 hashed password via the command line:

# echo -n "password" | md5sum

Replace the “password” string used in this example with your own strong password.

Now you need to update the password using the following query:

MariaDB [(none)]> UPDATE wp_users SET user_pass= "5f4dcc3b5aa765d61d8327deb882cf99" WHERE ID = 1;

Now you should be able to access the WordPress admin area using the new password

The other method is to update the password without using any MD5 password generator:

MariaDB [(none)]> UPDATE wp_users SET user_pass = MD5('password') WHERE ID=1;

You need the change the password string with the actual password you want to use.

Once the query is executed you should be able to login using the new password.

I hope this helps.

Regards, Alex