Lost password on second hand Ubports PinePhone?

[Peter Gamma]

I bought a second hand Ubports PinePhone. When I boot the phone, it asks me for the password. The seller told me, I had to reinstall Ubports to solve this problem. Is there no other option to solve this problem?

[wibble]

Any other option would be a security issue - the password protection would be worthless if anyone who obtained the phone could bypass it. Why don't you want to reinstall?

[evilbunny]

You could write jump drive to a sdcard and boot from the sdcard. Then mount the phone's internal memory on a computer and edit the /etc/shadow file.

Having physical access is a major security problem if you lose phones etc I'd wipe it for security reasons, you have no idea what the previous owner setup.

[wibble]

I keep forgetting some people don't install with FDE (full disc encryption). If it's not encrypted then it can be done, but if you don't already know them then a reinstall is probably easier. It may be instructive as to why you might want to start using FDE though.

[Peter Gamma]

Thank you both. After I received my PinePhone on the fastest way possible trough Ricardo Switzerland, it arrived at my place after 5.5 days. But unfortunately, nothing worked. I googled all the default passwords of all distros, which is quiet confusing. Finally I decided to reinstall the OS. But it was quiet easy following this instruction:

https://youtu.be/Zf0zwq6jI30

Now, it finally works. This is my second PinePhone. The first, I immediately sold after I received it. The buyer then immediately wanted to know the default password, which I googled to be 12345 in his case. I also enlarged the packing documentation of my PinePhone, but this was not helpful.

[fxc]

Thank you both. After I received my PinePhone on the fastest way possible trough Ricardo Switzerland, it arrived at my place after 5.5 days. But unfortunately, nothing worked. I googled all the default passwords of all distros, which is quiet confusing. Finally I decided to reinstall the OS. But it was quiet easy following this instruction:

https://youtu.be/Zf0zwq6jI30

Now, it finally works. This is my second PinePhone. The first, I immediately sold after I received it. The buyer then immediately wanted to know the default password, which I googled to be 12345 in his case. I also enlarged the packing documentation of my PinePhone, but this was not helpful.

Regarding the last sentence: The document shipped with the phone is included for legal reasons. For instructions I strongly recommend you to visit the wiki: https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/PinePhone

[Peter Gamma]

Thanks, fxc, the WIKI is much more readable .