Resetting and accessing Droplet password

No, resetting the password updated /etc/shadow where the password is actually stored.

Follow Attempt Recovery with a Recovery ISO | How To Recover from File System Corruption Using Fsck and a Recovery ISO | DigitalOcean. You can skip the Set Up Networking in the Recovery Environment section.

Once you’ve mounted the filesystem, open /mnt/etc/passwd in nano or any other editor, and add the following line at the beginning:

root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash

Then, save the file, unmount the filesystem, and power off the droplet:

cd /
umount /mnt
poweroff

Finally, reply to the support ticket to remove the ISO image from the droplet so you can then boot your droplet normally.

Hi, Just want to say a big thank you for your help on this issue. Finally, after a month I got round to fixing this.

Yes, resetting your root password can potentially help, but it won’t directly restore the missing entry in /etc/passwd. When you change the password using a reset tool it typically updates the password hash in /etc/shadow, but it does not restore the /etc/passwd file, which contains essential account information like user IDs.

Since you’ve deleted the root user entry, your system won’t recognize the root user for logins or any root-level operations like sudo.

You can boot into a recovery or rescue mode where you’ll have access to the filesystem without needing root or sudo permissions. Here’s what you can do:

1. Boot into recovery or rescue mode from your provider’s dashboard.
2. Mount the disk (usually under /mnt or /media).
3. Navigate to the mounted filesystem and manually edit the /etc/passwd file to restore the root user line.
4. Add this line (or something similar, depending on your distro) to restore the root user:

root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash

Then save the file and reboot back into normal mode.

If you have any backups or snapshots of the system, you can restore the /etc/passwd file from there.

If you’re completely locked out and cannot get into recovery mode, you could spin up a new droplet and replicate the setup from your current system. You can still mount the old droplet’s filesystem in recovery mode and copy important data to the new droplet.

Regards