How to recover a lost password of system user

[jawadmkhan]

Hello,

I have tried to recover lost password of system user but unable to recover.

$ ./cypher-shell -d system

Connected to Neo4j 4.0.2 at neo4j://localhost:7687 .

Type :help for a list of available commands or :exit to exit the shell.

Note that Cypher queries must end with a semicolon.

@system> ALTER USER system SET PASSWORD 'neo4jsys';

Failed to alter the specified user 'system': User does not exist.

Please let me know that how rcover system user password.

[webtic]

You can use neo4j-admin set-initial-password to reset the password.
If there is no default admin you can set it with neo4j-admin set-default-admin

[boydkelly]

This does not seem to help to 'recover' a password as the command output specifically states:

IMPORTANT: this change will only take effect if performed before the database is started for the first time.

The command itself also clearly implies set-initial-password. So how then do you 'recover' the password as asked in the question?

[steggy]

You cannot recover a password - that would be a "bad thing" when it comes to security. The Password and User Recovery section of the docs tell you how to deal with the situation.

[boydkelly]

oh brother, isn't this just semantics? Well lets see: The link you sent explains how to <recover> a lost password. So neo4j thinks this is ok. But in any case, whether you want to recover reset or whatever a password , those instructions in the link you sent tell you how to do it. The instruction above doesn't.

[steggy]

Yes, it's a bit of semantics, but it's also being precise 😀 You can reset a password but you cannot recover the old one. Hope this is helpful.

edit: I just noticed the section heading in the docs "Recover a lost password" - good catch @boydkelly I've notified the doc team