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Resetting a forgotten password

Re: Re: texvc

Re: Resetting a forgotten password

Sy Ali

17 Jan 2006 17 Jan '06

6:34 p.m.

Is there the facility to get or reset a user's lost password when email functions have been turned off?

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Ashar Voultoiz

17 Jan 17 Jan

6:53 p.m.

New subject: [Mediawiki-l] Re: Resetting a forgotten password

Sy Ali wrote:

Is there the facility to get or reset a user's lost password when email functions have been turned off?

Nop, the new temporary password is sent by email :/ -- Ashar Voultoiz - WP++++ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hashar http://www.livejournal.com/community/wikitech/ IM: hashar(a)jabber.org ICQ: 15325080

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Rick DeNatale

8:47 p.m.

New subject: [Mediawiki-l] Resetting a forgotten password

On 1/17/06, Sy Ali <sy1234(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Is there the facility to get or reset a user's lost password when email functions have been turned off?

I don't think that there's a facility to do this, however - The user table in the database stores the MD5 hash of the password salted with the user id, if you can generate this hash value you can manually reset a password via an SQL update. It ain't pretty but failing all else... Details of how the password is salted can be found in User.php Good luck -- Rick DeNatale Visit the Project Mercury Wiki Site http://www.mercuryspacecraft.com/

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Sy Ali

9:06 p.m.

New subject: [Mediawiki-l] Resetting a forgotten password

On 1/17/06, Rick DeNatale <rick.denatale(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On 1/17/06, Sy Ali <sy1234(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Is there the facility to get or reset a user's lost password when email functions have been turned off?

I don't think that there's a facility to do this, however - The user table in the database stores the MD5 hash of the password salted with the user id, if you can generate this hash value you can manually reset a password via an SQL update. It ain't pretty but failing all else... Details of how the password is salted can be found in User.php

Hmm.. it might be more simple to just delete the user out of that table and create it again.

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Rick DeNatale

9:13 p.m.

New subject: [Mediawiki-l] Resetting a forgotten password

On 1/17/06, Sy Ali <sy1234(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Hmm.. it might be more simple to just delete the user out of that table and create it again.

DON'T DO THAT! The user id is used as a foreign key in other tables. Mediawiki kind of depends on User records being permanent. -- Rick DeNatale Visit the Project Mercury Wiki Site http://www.mercuryspacecraft.com/

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Sy Ali

9:51 p.m.

New subject: [Mediawiki-l] Resetting a forgotten password

On 1/17/06, Rick DeNatale <rick.denatale(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On 1/17/06, Sy Ali <sy1234(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Hmm.. it might be more simple to just delete the user out of that table and create it again.

DON'T DO THAT! The user id is used as a foreign key in other tables. Mediawiki kind of depends on User records being permanent.

On a work-wiki an old user has been deleted with no ill-effect.. but I'll stop this from happening. =) I think the easiest thing is to temporarily enable emailing and then get the password emailed.. so we're not doing anything too crazy. I'll go hunt through the bugzilla to check for / vote on a feature for admins (or beaurocrats?) to be able to reset passwords.

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Sy Ali

10:04 p.m.

New subject: [Mediawiki-l] Resetting a forgotten password

On 1/17/06, Sy Ali <sy1234(a)gmail.com> wrote:

I'll go hunt through the bugzilla to check for / vote on a feature for admins (or beaurocrats?) to be able to reset passwords.

I couldn't find a feature request when I searched from a couple of angles, so I submitted one: http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4645

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Rob Church

10:08 p.m.

New subject: [Mediawiki-l] Resetting a forgotten password

Check the maintenance folder. There should be a setPassword (or similar-named) script in there. Rob Church On 17/01/06, Sy Ali <sy1234(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On 1/17/06, Sy Ali <sy1234(a)gmail.com> wrote:

I'll go hunt through the bugzilla to check for / vote on a feature for admins (or beaurocrats?) to be able to reset passwords.

I couldn't find a feature request when I searched from a couple of angles, so I submitted one: http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4645 _______________________________________________ MediaWiki-l mailing list MediaWiki-l(a)Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l

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Brion Vibber

10:12 p.m.

New subject: [Mediawiki-l] Resetting a forgotten password

Rick DeNatale wrote:

On 1/17/06, Sy Ali <sy1234(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Hmm.. it might be more simple to just delete the user out of that table and create it again.

DON'T DO THAT! The user id is used as a foreign key in other tables. Mediawiki kind of depends on User records being permanent.

Do it if you like, but be aware it may cause occasional. In particular, note that if you delete a user record, anyone can now create a new user account with the same name, but it will have a different user id number. In addition to being confusing and annoying, this can cause mismatches where things can't be looked up that matched the old user. -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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Sy Ali

10:16 p.m.

New subject: [Mediawiki-l] Resetting a forgotten password

On 1/17/06, Brion Vibber <brion(a)pobox.com> wrote:

In particular, note that if you delete a user record, anyone can now create a new user account with the same name, but it will have a different user id number. In addition to being confusing and annoying, this can cause mismatches where things can't be looked up that matched the old user.

This particular case has a user which hasn't been used before, so it's not so big a deal. Still, Rob mentioned the password setting maintainance script in the ticket I started.. and so that's an excellent solution for me.

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Sy Ali

11:13 p.m.

New subject: [Mediawiki-l] Resetting a forgotten password

UPDATE user SET user_password = MD5(CONCAT(user_id, '-', MD5('yourpassword'))) WHERE user_name = 'username'; yourpassword == the password you want username == the username to act on tested and works in phpmyadmin

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10 comments

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participants (5)

Ashar Voultoiz
Brion Vibber
Rick DeNatale
Rob Church
Sy Ali