1

I've installed Ubuntu and enabled the home folder encryption, I was working on it and everything was right, but I've changed my password recently and forgot the old one, so I got the home folder unmounted. I know it's complicated till I can find where I stored my passphrase to mount the home folder again.

So my question now is that I want to add a new user that has the same privileges as my own that can have access to everything and change everything and install all the updates. I have the new password to create a user but I'm not sure how to make it as a master administrator. and can I do that on user management GUI without terminal like we usually add users ?

Kaylee
  • 63

1 Answers1

2

I am afraid the encryption will complicate matters here. Encryption involves that the password is also involved in creating the encryption keys. That means that that specific password, and only that, is required to decrypt the partition. Resetting the login password will not change that.

So if you have lost the password, consider the encrypted partition lost.

That with respect to problem X, decrypting the partition after the password is lost.

With respect to the problem you ask about (Problem Y, creating a new user with root privileges hoping that will allow to decrypt the partition): you only can use the user management GUI if you can log in to an account that has sudo privileges. Else, you need to use terminal tools from a command line where you can access root privileges. That can be a user account with root privileges, or a recovery prompt with root privileges.

Sorry for the harsh post, but the important take home message is that you have to be very careful with passwords when working with encryption. What you are now experiencing, is one of the factors why encryption indeed is pretty safe.

vanadium
  • 97,564