It’s scenario time again .  Just today, I was given the task to aid someone with his Joomla website.  The challenge:  The previous webmaster was being fired.  One of these reasons was that he made a total mess of the password administation (And he was working for other “customers” during work hours.  And, he’s quite incompetent; but that was not a reason for my customer to fire him). 

To make a long, complicated story short:  I needed a Super Admin password, and there was no option to get it from anyone.  So, I had to mess around in the database. 

Here’s the tale of how I changed the password of the Super Admin.

1.  First of all, I registered an account for myself. 

2.  Second of all, I logged on to the mysql server; and went to the table jos_users (jos might be something else in your case). 

3.  I looked up my user; and edited the record.  I then copied my hashed password.

4.  I looked up the Super Administrator account, and edited it.  I replaced his hashed password with mine, and saved the change.

5.  That’s all there is to it.  I could now log in as the Super Administrator, using my password. 

Alternative solution: [With thanks to this blog post]:    If you can’t register a new account (it happens more than you think); and / or aren’t afraid of executing a SQL command, try this alternative:

1.  Again, log in to the mysql server. 

2.  Select the database (if necessary) and execute the following SQL statement:

UPDATE `jos_users` SET `password` = MD5( ‘new password’ ) WHERE `jos_users`.`username` = "admin";

Obviously, you’ll want to replace new password with what you actually want to use as your new password.