Changing passwords for ACF

Changing passwords in Alpine Linux

Note: this document covers version 1.8 and under. In future versions, the hope is to store the ACF user details in a database to make it more secure.

This provides documentation for beginner Alpine Linux users on how to change passwords for the console login as well as the ACF. It is pretty simple.

Change the password from the command line

To change a system user's password on the command line, do the following, where 'username' could be a system user, such as root:

passwd username

The logins and passwords for the ACF users are stored in a separate location: /etc/acf/passwd. Although of course you should change the ACF (web interface) user passwords via the System >> User Management page, there may be times when you cannot remember the login password for the ACF user, and have to change it from the command line:

The syntax for the /etc/acf/passwd file is as follows:

username:md5sumpassword::ROLE

For example, change the default ACF user Alpine as follows:

Generate a md5sum hash of the password testing123, and send it to the passwd file:

echo -n "testing123"

Edit the passwd file to put the hash in the correct place as shown below, deleting the existing hash:

Alpine:92707c3c2766ce04133e0f85681add8b::ADMIN

To change passwords from the ACF Interface

Log on as a user with the Admin role, which has rights to change user passwords other than it's own.

Browse to System >> User Management

Under the Existing Account section, click Edit this account under the user whose password you want to change.

Enter the new password in the Password and Password (Confirm) fields.

Click Save to save the changes.

Finally, remember to commit all changes:

lbu ci