While our netwrokd administrator was admitted to a hospital for an emergency surgery (he is now in coma), being as a temporary delegate, I was ordered by our Institution to turn OFF Mail funciton and to change the admin account password for Mac OS X Server 10.9.2 for security reasons. While changing the password, I took a memo for the new password, but later it turned out to be wrong! My stupidity.
After restart, I cannot open Server.app
that controls Mail service because it requires the unknown new password.
Currently Mail service is OFF (it had been turned OFF for security reason before password change), but I' going to need to turn it ON soon after the order is lifted. To do that, however, I need the new password. Luckily, the server still provides access to the Internet. Thus I can still ask you.
Thanks to the following instruction, I find a way to reset the admin password. http://fixedbyvonnie.com/2013/09/how-to-reset-the-admin-password-on-your-mac-without-a-disk/#.Uz5eM8cT-pe
I carried out a test of the same procedure on another Mac (10.9.2). In the test, although resetpassword
command in Recovery Mode
successfully updated the account password, it didn't update default Keychain password
at the same time.
After restart, the OS asks if I want to update 'default Kecyhain password'. To update it, I need to enter the older Keychain password that I don't know. If I skip the update, Keychain asks passwords repeatedly, and without the old Keychain password, I can't launch and open Keychain Access
.
Then I found this. It says you can reset the Keychain password by Keychain First Aid
.
https://discussions.apple.com/message/24171670#24171670
However, in my test, Keychain First Aid
still asks the older Keychain password, so this doesn't work.
In short, I can update the admin password, but not the Keychain password without knowing the old password. So if I carry out this on the server machine, The Server won't run properly and would ask passwords over and over again.
On the test Mac I tried to activate root
user, hoping the root user could change Keychain password without knowing the old Keychain password. But I couldn't access to the "login" Keychain of the account in question from the root account.
Does anyone know a work-around?
Is there a way to reset the default Keychain password
without the old Keychain password?
Or, is there a way to know the old Keychain password? Probably not.
Or, do you think TimeMachine
can undo my failure in changing the admin password and recover the old admin password?
During this mail shutdown period, I assume many people have asked his health status by email. It's an emergency and I really need your help!