Environment
Forum 7.0
Forum 7.1
Forum 7.2
Forum 7.3
Forum 8.0
Forum 8.1
Forum 7.1
Forum 7.2
Forum 7.3
Forum 8.0
Forum 8.1
Situation
How to reset the password of any Forum user, including administrators.
Resolution
- In a command prompt window, use the cd command (in either Windows or
Linux) and cd to the directory in which Forum is installed. At the prompt, type:
$ avf-butler (Windows)
-or-
$./avf-butler (Linux) - at the % prompt, type:
% reset_user_password -zone <zoneName> -user <userName> -password <newPassword>
% exit
where:
zoneName is the name of the Forum zone in which you wish to reset the password
userName is the name of the user whose password should be reset
newPassword is the new password
Additional Information
Root Cause:
If the administrator password is lost or forgotten, it must be reset manually, since all other mechanisms for resetting passwords in Forum require that some user be logged in.
Additional Details:
Users can reset their own passwords while logged in. Administrators can reset other users' passwords or their own. If the site administrator has enabled it, there will also be a "forgot my password" link on the login page, which will send via email a new password for the user who is trying to log in to that user's email account as registered in the Forum profile. However, Forum will not send new passwords to administrators; this is considered a security violation.
The mechanism described in this TID requires physical access to the server running Forum. Once this access is available, the password of any user, including an administrator, may be changed. The master administrator is wf_admin; this password may also be changed, by specifying "wf_admin" as the userName in the instructions above.
Zones and Users:
Each Forum Zone has a separate user database. It is possible to have the same username registered in multiple zones. When using the reset_user_password command, it is necessary to specify the zone for which you want the change to take place. If you are unsure about which is your zone, it appears in the URL of every Forum page, just before /dispatch.cgi. For example, in this Forum URL,
http://my-server.com/forums/zone23/dispatch.cgi/_admin/workspace
the zone name is "zone23".
If the administrator password is lost or forgotten, it must be reset manually, since all other mechanisms for resetting passwords in Forum require that some user be logged in.
Additional Details:
Users can reset their own passwords while logged in. Administrators can reset other users' passwords or their own. If the site administrator has enabled it, there will also be a "forgot my password" link on the login page, which will send via email a new password for the user who is trying to log in to that user's email account as registered in the Forum profile. However, Forum will not send new passwords to administrators; this is considered a security violation.
The mechanism described in this TID requires physical access to the server running Forum. Once this access is available, the password of any user, including an administrator, may be changed. The master administrator is wf_admin; this password may also be changed, by specifying "wf_admin" as the userName in the instructions above.
Zones and Users:
Each Forum Zone has a separate user database. It is possible to have the same username registered in multiple zones. When using the reset_user_password command, it is necessary to specify the zone for which you want the change to take place. If you are unsure about which is your zone, it appears in the URL of every Forum page, just before /dispatch.cgi. For example, in this Forum URL,
http://my-server.com/forums/zone23/dispatch.cgi/_admin/workspace
the zone name is "zone23".