Reset Admin Password for Joomla 1.5, 1.6, 1.7 and 2.5

You can use Reset Admin Password to reset the admin password (or any user's password) in case you forgot it and lost access to the Joomla back end. You must still have ftp access.

How to install and use Reset Admin Password

1. Download, unzip, and upload by ftp

Download the component. Unzip the downloaded package. You will obtain the com_resetadminpassword folder. Use your favourite ftp application, such as for example Filezilla, to connect to your server and upload the folder com_resetadminpassword to the joomla_root/components folder:

2. Navigate to the Reset Admin Password page and enter a new password

Next, use your web browser to navigate to:

http://yourdomain/index.php?option=com_resetadminpassword

By default, the User Name textbox will load the first user name in the super administrator group. You can change the User Name to any other username for which you want reset the password. Enter the new password in New Password textbox and click the Set New Password button.

After clicking the "Set New Password button", you will see the following message:

"Password for user 'username' reset to 'newpassword'.
Remove this component immediately by removing the folder components/com_resetadminpassword."

Now you can log in with your new password. Remove the folder com_resetadminpassword from your components folder to prevent other people from using it to reset the password for your admin user.

3. What if the site is offline?

If the site is offline, you must first bring the site back online. Use ftp to download configuration.php from the server to your own machine. Look for the following line in the file: public $offline = '1'; Change it to: public $offline = '0'; Use ftp to upload the modified configuration.php file to the server again.

4. Why don't we make com_resetadminpassword an installable component?

After forgetting your admin password, you will be unable to access the site's back end, and that is where you would need to go to install the component. So, there is no way you could install it anyway. :-)

WARNING: THIS IS AN APPLICATION ADMINISTRATION TOOL TO RESET YOUR ADMIN PASSWORD. REMOVE THE TOOL IMMEDIATELY AFTER SUCCESSFUL USE.