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How to change the password in Mac OS X 10.7 Lion without knowing the current Password
11:19:00 PM
This
approach is different, it lets you change the password of the user
currently logged into Mac OS X Lion,without knowing the user password,
and without a reboot:
·
Launch the Terminal, located in /Applications/Utilities/
·
Type ‘whoami’ at the command line to get the current users precise login
name, which will look something like this:
$ whoami
Will
Will
·
Type the following command, replacing ‘username’ at the end with the
exact current users login name that you retrieved from whoami:
dscl localhost -passwd
/Search/Users/username
·
Enter the new password once, hit return, and confirm the new password
again hitting return
The password is now
changed.
No
authentication is required, you simply enter the new password and confirm the
changed password. This is much easier than the manual reset methods and it
doesn’t require a reboot or any manipulation of user data in Mac
OS X.
Remember
that like anything else in the command line, capitalization matters, so if the
username is reported back as “Will” that would be different than “will” – be
sure to use the proper caps for the password to be changed.
This tip
is undeniably useful for a wide variety of situations pertaining to system
administration, troubleshooting, and theft
recovery, but could also post a potential security risk. Regarding the security
risk, it’s realistic to assume that if someone has a computer in their
possession, little is safe unless the drive itself is encrypted.
Update: Additional
reports and comments are suggesting this is a bug in OS X Lion, if so we could
expect a Security Update to Mac OS 10.7 in the near future that would remove
the ability to run dscl without administrative authentication. We’ll keep you
posted.
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