Servers may need to reset the password either because users forgot the password or to maintain password security.
And in Webmin, there is a feature to reset the password. But, it may not work as intended at all times.
Today, we’ll see the top 2 common issues why this happen while resetting password in Webmin and how our Support Engineers fix it.
How to reset the Webmin root and user password?
You can reset the root password by accessing the system shell by SSH and use the below command to reset Webmin’s root user password.
For RHEL/CentOS:
/usr/libexec/webmin/changepass.pl /etc/webmin root NEWPASSWORD For Debian/Ubuntu:
/usr/share/webmin/changepass.pl /etc/webmin root NEWPASSWORDAlso to change the user password from your Webmin interface, we execute the below steps:
1) Login into Webmin interface.
2) Click on the option ‘System’ in the left sidebar of Webmin.
3) Select the option ‘Change Password’ and you will see all users listed.
4) Select the user which you want to change the password from the list.
5) Enter the new password. Here you need to select the following options:
- Force user to change password at next login.
- Change password in other modules.
6) After that click on the ‘Change’ button.
Common errors and fixes related to Webmin reset password
Recently one of our customers reported us with some problems after resetting password in Webmin.
Let’s take a look at some of the common errors and how we fix them.
1. Webmin installation corruption
In some cases, after resetting password Webmin refuses to grant permission to root user. It probably indicates that the Webmin / Virtualmin installation is corrupted.
1. In this case, we run the scripts to reset the installation of Webmin.
sh /install.sh --uninstall2. Then, completely uninstall Webmin / Virtualmin package:
In Ubuntu / Debian:
apt-get remove webmin3. If the Webmin packages are not completely removed then you get an error like this:
4. Repeat step 1 and after that install Webmin again.
2. Code in documentation doesn’t work
Sometimes, the script given in the installation document of Webmin doesn’t work. This really happens when you copy and paste the script you might have missed the complete part to copy. So, when you try to run the command you get an error like this.
/usr/libexec/webmin/changepass.pl: command not foundAs a solution make sure that you copy the command correctly and also try to give strong password so that attackers find it difficult to guess. Thus, your web server is protected.
[Having trouble in Webmin reset password? We’ll fix it for you.]
Conclusion
To be more precise, resetting password helps to protect from unauthorized users attack and to secure your web server. Today, we saw how our Support Engineers reset password in Webmin and fixed the related issue.
https://forum.virtualmin.com/t/odd-issue-with-solution-with-rocky-linux/110863/4
This issue has been resolved for Webmin 1.974+. We added a new webmin command called passwd, which enables you to change Webmin user password from any location by running:
webmin passwd username