Question

Root password will not work

The root password my prior developer claims to have set up will not work in PuTTY. I get “Access denied”. How do I reset it? This is just horrible! I am cancelling as soon as I can get my information back!!


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alexdo
Site Moderator
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March 2, 2023

Hello @dallasdisabilityattorney

You can reset your root password for your account. Navigate to the control panel. From the project, the Droplet is in, or from the main navigation’s Droplets page, locate the Droplet. Click the Droplet’s name to open its detail page, then select Access in the left navigation.

Click Reset Root Password to reset the Droplet’s password. You will receive an email containing the Droplet’s temporary password.

Note: Some operating systems use internally-managed passwords, which means you cannot reset the root password from the control panel. In these cases, you’ll see the following message in the Reset root password section:

Once you have received your new password you can either ssh to the droplet using your ssh client or access the droplet using the DigitalOcean console:

https://www.digitalocean.com/docs/droplets/resources/console/

Log In with the Console

From the DigitalOcean Control Panel, first click the name of the Droplet you want to access, then select Access from the left navigation. Click the Launch Console button to open a web-based console session.

When the console opens, click the console screen and press ENTER to ensure that the login prompt has focus. At the login prompt, enter the user you want to log in as. This is typically the root user or a user configured with sudo privileges.

When prompted, enter the password associated with the account. For security purposes, your password will not be displayed on the screen as you type or paste it into the command line.

Once you’ve entered the password, press ENTER. If this is the first time you’ve logged in after resetting the root password through the control panel, you are prompted to enter the password again, then asked to choose a new password.

Once you’ve successfully entered your credentials you should be logged in to your Droplet.

https://docs.digitalocean.com/support/how-do-i-reset-my-droplets-root-password/

Regards

KFSys
Site Moderator
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March 2, 2023

Hey @dallasdisabilityattorney,

We have a docs on how to reset your root password which you can check here

https://docs.digitalocean.com/support/how-do-i-reset-my-droplets-root-password/

Hope that this helps!

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