Reset pfSense web interface password through main console

I'm (temporarily) in charge of a network where pfSense 2.0.1 is basically running the whole routing operation. Unfortunately, the network manager before me did not bother to write down what the username and password is to log into the web interface (it does appear to have been changed from the default). I do have full access to the main pfSense console, but as you can see in this photograph, my sorry attempts at getting some sort of admin menu failed miserably.

Is there a way I can reset the web interface username and password through the console? I tried searching for this a bit online, but anything I found about some sort of password reset seems to imply I do it from the web interface, which is where the problem lies in the first place! :)

Would appreciate any help in this matter! I do have a good bit of *Unix console experience, so I can make my way around a command line!

2 Answers

(This is pretty much copy paste from !)

• Reboot the pfSense box
• Choose option 4 (Single User Mode) from the loader menu (The one with the ASCII pfSense logo)
• Press enter when prompted to start /bin/sh

• Remount the drive as rewritable:

  /sbin/mount -o rw /

• Run the built-in password reset command:

  /etc/rc.initial.password

• Follow the prompts to reset the password

Also, this is pretty much the same for most if not all linux boxes, expect you just use passwd and most likely don't need to remount the drive. When in single user mode you are dropped into root by default which can reset any users password. It's VERY nice.

If you have console access:

• Click the option for shell command
• run pfctl -d to disable firewall
• run /etc/rc.initial.password to reset to the default password
• Now you can login with admin/pfsense and change the password
• Finally, run pfctl -e to enable the firewall again.