Is there a way to reset Sitecore admin password from database level?

Question

I forgot my Sitecore admin password and was thinking a way to reset from database level.

Is there a SQL query to reset Sitecore admin password ?

Answer 1

The accepted answer is valid for previous version of Sitecore, but it does not reset the password salt and doesn't in fact reset the password to 'b'. In order to do this, you need the following script (which also will unlock the admin user if locked):

UPDATE 
    [aspnet_Membership] 
SET 
    [Password]='qOvF8m8F2IcWMvfOBjJYHmfLABc=', 
    [PasswordSalt]='OM5gu45RQuJ76itRvkSPFw==', 
    [IsApproved] = '1', 
    [IsLockedOut] = '0'
WHERE 
    UserId IN (
        SELECT UserId FROM dbo.aspnet_Users WHERE UserName = 'sitecore\Admin'
    ) 

Answer 2

Yes there is.

Switch to your core database and execute the SQL below to reset the password to b:

UPDATE [aspnet_Membership] SET Password='qOvF8m8F2IcWMvfOBjJYHmfLABc=' 
WHERE UserId IN (SELECT UserId FROM [aspnet_Users] WHERE UserName = 'sitecore\Admin')

Alternatively navigate to /sitecore/admin/unlock_admin.aspx and click Unlock Administrator. For this to work, you must first "unlock" the functionality. Open up the .aspx file and modify the following code:

// TODO: to enable the page, set enableUnlockButton = true;
private bool enableUnlockButton = false;

Answer 3

Unlock_Admin doesn't work when you will decide to change your password encryption from SHA1 into SHA512 (regarding to Sitecore recommendations). It does NOT reset password for Sitecore admin - it just unlock the Sitecore account - as the name of method says. Here you have got a code of this method:

public override bool UnlockUser(string username)
{
  this._api.CheckParameter(ref username, true, true, true, this._api.UserNameLength, "username");
  ID applicationId = this.GetApplicationID(this.ApplicationName, false);
  if ((object) applicationId == null || applicationId == ID.Null)
    return false;
  SqlMembershipUser userByName = this._api.GetUserByName(username, applicationId);
  if (userByName == null)
    return false;
  return userByName.Unlock();
}

To reset the password you need to change code inside unlock_admin.aspx file which you will find in path:

\sitecore\admin\unlock_admin

Just replace:

Membership.GetUser("sitecore\\admin").UnlockUser();

With:

var user = Membership.GetUser("sitecore\\admin");
user.UnlockUser();
user.ChangePassword(user.ResetPassword(), "b");

Additionally you can put this file directly in the webroot if you can not access it in default location - remember to delete it later.

Answer 4

To get this to work with my version of Sitecore (8.1u3) after switching hashing algorithms to SHA512, I needed to make the following small adjustment to Derek's answer.

USE [sitecorecmsSitecore_Core];

UPDATE 
    [aspnet_Membership] 
SET 
    [Password]='K8N8GUW8UiNT2mPdjvuBDH+QmvA3R61M9buVvCwFHwtDjpMzTxs34lg0uQ0azCITqh6FkUZlX4kM72lsAyuyXQ==', 
    [PasswordSalt]='p5B6HOWKt0ctMZaSNXTlfw==', 
    [IsApproved] = '1', 
    [IsLockedOut] = '0'
WHERE 
    UserId IN (
        SELECT UserId FROM dbo.aspnet_Users WHERE UserName = 'sitecore\admin'
    );

Answer 5

It's not a SQL query, but this will work even when you switch HashingAlgorithms. You can create a small console application to reset/change passwords. I based this console app on the one from Bas Lijten on Github.

public class Program
{
    public static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        var userName = args[0];
        var password = args[1];
        var user = Membership.GetUser(userName, false);
        var oldPassword = user.ResetPassword();
        user.ChangePassword(oldPassword, password);
    }
}

You can then use it in the command line like this.

ResetPassword.exe "sitecore\admin" b

I'm switching to a different Hashing algorithm, and when you change the HashAlgorithm both in Sitecore and in your console app config, it just works. Here's the app.config

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration>
  <startup> 
      <supportedRuntime version="v4.0" sku=".NETFramework,Version=v4.6.1" />
  </startup>
  <connectionStrings>
    <add name="core" connectionString="connectionstringtocoredb" providerName="System.Data.SqlClient"/>
  </connectionStrings>
  <system.web>
    <membership defaultProvider="sql" hashAlgorithmType="SHA512">
      <providers>
        <clear />
        <add name="sql" type="System.Web.Security.SqlMembershipProvider" connectionStringName="core" applicationName="sitecore" minRequiredPasswordLength="1" minRequiredNonalphanumericCharacters="0" requiresQuestionAndAnswer="false" requiresUniqueEmail="false" maxInvalidPasswordAttempts="5" />
      </providers>
    </membership>
  </system.web>
</configuration>