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controllerpasswordslocalhostreset

UniFi Contoller password reset

I recently got locked out of my UniFi controller (locally installed) and I had remote access turned off. The controller is installed on a Windows 10 (20H2) VM. I can get into the VM just fine, but when I try to log into the localhost website, it doesn't like the password I thought I had set.

Anyone know a way to do this?

Solution

  • After hunting around and looking at various answers, I was able to put together a set of instructions that worked for me. I thought I would share those here. Please let me know if these don't work on Mac or Linux as I only tested on Windows.

    Mongo

    Windows, Mac, and Linux:

    Find out what version of mongodb the UniFi controller installed:

    %UserProfile%/Ubiquiti UniFi/Logs

    The 3rd line of the mongo.log file will show the DB version number, my case it was:

    I CONTROL  [initandlisten] db version v3.4.15

    Visit https://www.mongodb.com/try/download/community

    On the MongoDB Community Server area, change the version to the closest match to your controller, in my case it was 3.4.24

    OS should default to your current OS Windows/Mac/Linux

    Select Package type of zip as unless you want to install this version of mongo, you only want to run the executable.

    Download and unzip

    CMD/Terminal

    Launch CMD/Terminal as Administrator

    Navigate into the unziped mongo install folder's sub-folder 'bin' in CMD. Type:

    mongo --port 27117

use ace

db.admin.find()

    Copy the "_id" key and value

    Copy the "x_shadow" key and value

    mkpasswd

    Linux/Mac:

    Next you will need the whois package installed in order to access the mkpasswd utility

    • Ex: For Ubuntu: sudo apt install whois

    Windows:

    Use a WSL linux distro or you can alternately use Cygwin Utilities which has the required mkpasswd utility (NOTE: Cygwin's version of mkpasswd does NOT support the --method option)

    The Salt

    The salt for UniFi's mongo install is 9Ter1EZ9$lSt6

    Run:

    mkpasswd --method=sha-512 --salt=9Ter1EZ9$lSt6 your-new-password

    Copy the result to a text file

    Add the following to the same text file and update the x_shadow with the data you just generated:

    db.admin.update({ "_id" : ObjectId("your-ObjectId-value-string")},{$set: {"x_shadow" : "result-of-mkpasswd-here"}})

    CMD/Terminal

    Copy and paste the above into the cmd

    UniFi Controller

    Login to the UniFi controller with your email and new password

    Note: you can also update the email or username, but that shouldn't be required as you will get that information in the dump from running db.admin.find()

    Sources used:

    - https://www.robsblog.co/2018/10/how-to-reset-unifi-controller-admin-password-without-email-including-32bit/

    Note: The site mentioned in Rob's Blog at 'https://quickhash.com/crypt3-sha512-online' doesn't seem to be active anymore and the similarly named quickhash-gui.org doesn't offer a salt option that I could find.