How to reset your password in Ubuntu

This tutorial will help you reset your Ubuntu user account password, regardless of what reason you have for resetting it.

First, you have to reboot into recovery mode.
If you have a single-boot (Ubuntu is the only operating system on your computer), to get the boot menu to show, you have to hold down the Shift key during bootup.

From the boot menu, select recovery mode, which is usually the second boot option.
After you select recovery mode and wait for all the boot-up processes to finish, you’ll be presented with a few options. In this case, you want the Drop to root shell prompt option so press the Down arrow to get to that option, and then press Enter to select it.

The root account is the ultimate administrator and can do anything to the Ubuntu installation (including erase it), so please be careful with what commands you enter in the root terminal.

In recent versions of Ubuntu, the filesystem is mounted as read-only, so you need to enter the follow command to get it to remount as read-write, which will allow you to make changes:

mount -o rw,remount /

If you have forgotten your username as well, type

ls /home

To reset the password, type

passwd <username>

You’ll then be prompted for a new password. When you type the password you will get no visual response acknowledging your typing. Your password is still being accepted. Just type the password and hit Enter when you’re done. You’ll be prompted to retype the password. Do so and hit Enter again.

Now the password should be reset. Type

exit

to return to the recovery menu.

After you get back to the recovery menu, select resume normal boot, and use Ubuntu as you normally would—only this time, you actually know the password!