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  • philw 99 posts 434 karma points
    May 01, 2015 @ 17:59
    philw
    0

    Password reset?

    I have a thousand sites and a zillion passwords. I use systems, I write things down.

    I have an Umbraco 7 and it won't let me in. I need to reset the password. I have access to the code and the database, but I can't get in.

    I tried this 

    https://our.umbraco.org/forum/using/ui-questions/49134-Forget-My-Password-For-Umbraco-Admin-Site

    (repeated below), but I'm still not getting in although I can see my clear password etc. Anyone any ideas? I just want the darned password to be reset. I don't care about anything if I can't get into the thing.

    I'm getting fairly desperate, maybe I can hack ASP to remove the security from web.configs or something. I can read the fields from the DB table for users but I still can't get into *my own install*. What if I did a repeat install using another webserver and a backup of this database - maybe I could get back to "admin" /"admin". This is crazy stuff, what does it take to reset the password? I could not use my standard password as Umbraco thinks my password-generator's characters are illegal. Just a little password reset thing is all I need...

     

    1: In the web.config of the Umbraco application search for "hashed". It should give you 2 hits concerning passwords for users and members. Change both from "hashed" to "clear". This make Umbraco store the password as clear text in the database.

    2: Go the user table in the database. In the password column you'll see your current password...in a hashed format. So change the password in this column to one you can remember in clear text.

    3: Login to Umbraco and stay logged in while you do step 4

    4: Change the web.config back to using "hashed" instead of "clear", since "clear" is not recommended due to security reasons.

    5: When the web.config is changed back to storing password in a hashed format - in Umbraco you go to the users section and change your password once again so the password is being hashed again.

  • Alex Skrypnyk 6163 posts 24143 karma points MVP 8x admin c-trib
    May 01, 2015 @ 19:00
    Alex Skrypnyk
    0

    Hi philw,

    So you are seeing the hashed password even if you set 'clear' in config ?

  • philw 99 posts 434 karma points
    May 02, 2015 @ 10:04
    philw
    0

    This is on Rackspace so there can be cache effects. I could not understand why the pwd was wrong nr first place. Thinking about it, perhaps it is a machine key thing. Of Umbraco standard setup doesn't have a machine key, then on Rackspace that could vary across the cluster

     So maybe I have to set that.

     

    I managed to get a clear pwd into the dB, and logged in with it. I later lost access to that.

    I didn't change back as I'm likely to forget the pwd again: I have hundred of accounts and GI can't use password maker.org then I'm broadly insecure due to notyself being a machine.

  • philw 99 posts 434 karma points
    May 02, 2015 @ 11:31
    philw
    100

    Ok, I think I get it. The problem is that Rackspace Cloud is a cluster whose architecture I do not know. I've used Umbraco 6 and 7 on there for a long time without hassle, but this is my 1st Umbraco 7.2.4 install.

    In 7.2.4, I'm guessing Umbraco is using ASP.NET password hashing, because if I don't explicitly set a machine key, then the password I set works on the Rackspace Cloud node I set it up on, but if later I get a different bit of that Cloud, then my password doesn't work any more.

    Previous versions of Umbraco I have running don't set Machine keys, yet don't suffer from this feature, so I'm guessing the authentication was changed to be more "ASP like" recently. That's a good thing, but if you're on a cloud then you need to explicitly set a machine key, or you'll get random inexplicable login failures. That's because machine keys are inherited, and each cluster node will have a different one, I think.

    I just set an explicit machine key in my web.config (from http://www.developerfusion.com/tools/generatemachinekey/), then I did the clear->hashed dance. I'm back in now, and I can log in from different machines. You can never be quite sure which node you're on though, so it's not a confirmed kill until it's been fine for a few days.

    The Bottom Line (unless I come back in a few hours still whining...)

    From 7.2.4 at least onwards, you need to add an explicit machine key if you're running in Rackspace Cloud.
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