Thursday, December 9, 2010

Reset a user's password in single user mode

We needed to reset the password on a Leopard system, but we didn't have the OS X install DVD available. 
  1. Boot into single user mode (press Command-S at power on)
  2. Type fsck -fy
  3. Type mount -uw /
  4. Type launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.DirectoryServices.plist
  5. Type dscl . -passwd /Users/username password, replacing username with the targeted user and password with the desired password.
  6. Reboot
This allows you to reset the password in single user mode without booting from the install media. 

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