System information

Recovering a Lost Password
Book Title
24-482
Step 7 Answer no to all the setup questions.
Step 8 Enter the enable exec command at the Router> prompt.
Step 9 Enter the show startup-config or show configuration privileged exec command to see
whether your password is cleartext (is not encrypted) or if it is encrypted.
Step 10 If your password is cleartext, proceed to Step 14.
or
If your password is encrypted, continue with Step 11.
Step 11 If your password is encrypted, enter the configure memory privileged exec command.
This transfers the stored configuration into running memory.
Step 12 Enter the configure terminal privileged exec command to enter router configuration
mode.
Step 13 If you lost the enable password, use the enable password global configuration command
to configure a new password and press ^Z to exit configuration mode. The following is
the command syntax for the enable password command:
enable password [level level] {password | encryption-type encrypted-password}
Syntax Description:
• level level—(Optional) Level for which the password applies. You can specify up to
16 privilege levels, using numbers 0 through 15. Level 1 is normal exec-mode user
privileges. If this argument is not specified in the command or the no form of the
command, the privilege level defaults to 15 (traditional enable privileges).
• password—Password users type to enter enable mode.
• encryption-type—(Optional) Cisco-proprietary algorithm used to encrypt the
password. Currently the only encryption type available is 7. If you specify
encryption-type, the next argument you supply must be an encrypted password (a
password already encrypted by a Cisco router).
• encrypted-password—Encrypted password you enter, copied from another router
configuration.
Example:
In the following example, the password pswd2 is enabled for privilege level 2:
enable password level 2 pswd2
If you lost the login password, configure the console line using the login and password
line configuration commands. Enter ^Z to exit configuration mode and proceed to
Step 15.
Syntax:
To enable password checking at login, use the login line configuration command:
login [local | tacacs]
Syntax Description:
• local—(Optional) Selects local password checking. Authentication is based on the
username specified with the username global configuration command.
• tacacs—(Optional) Selects the TACACS-style user ID and password-checking
mechanism.
Examples: