Reset the admin user's password

If your Portainer admin forgets their password, follow these steps to reset it. There are three methods depending on your Portainer environment.

Method 1: Resetting the admin password if Portainer runs as a container

You would typically use this method if you run the Portainer Server on Docker Standalone.

First, go to our reset password container helper in GitHub, then stop the Portainer container by running this command:

docker stop "id-portainer-container"

Next, run the helper using the following command (you'll need to mount the Portainer data volume):

docker pull portainer/helper-reset-password
docker run --rm -v portainer_data:/data portainer/helper-reset-password

If successful, the output should look like this:

2020/06/04 00:13:58 Password successfully updated for user: admin
2020/06/04 00:13:58 Use the following password to login: &_4#\3^5V8vLTd)E"NWiJBs26G*9HPl1

If the helper is unable to find an admin user to update, it will create a new one for you. If the username admin is already used, it will create a user named admin-[randomstring]:

2022/08/10 07:36:33 [WARN] Unable to retrieve user with ID 1, will try to create, err: object not found inside the database
2022/08/10 07:36:33 Admin user admin-u0512b3f0v4dqk7o successfully created
2022/08/10 07:36:33 Use the following password to login: Sr#]YL_6D0k8Pd{pA9^|}F32j5J4I=av

Finally, use this command to start the Portainer container then try logging in with the new password:

docker start "id-portainer-container"

Method 2: Resetting the admin password if Portainer runs as a stack/service

You would typically use this method if you run the Portainer Server on Docker Swarm.

First, scale the Portainer service to zero using this command:

docker service scale portainer_portainer=0

Next, run the reset password container helper using the same bind-mount/volume as the data volume:

docker pull portainer/helper-reset-password
docker run --rm -v portainer_portainer_data:/data portainer/helper-reset-password

If successful, the output should look like this:

2020/06/04 00:13:58 Password successfully updated for user: admin
2020/06/04 00:13:58 Use the following password to login: &_4#\3^5V8vLTd)E"NWiJBs26G*9HPl1

If the helper is unable to find an admin user to update, it will create a new one for you. If the username admin is already used, it will create a user named admin-[randomstring]:

2022/08/10 07:36:33 [WARN] Unable to retrieve user with ID 1, will try to create, err: object not found inside the database
2022/08/10 07:36:33 Admin user admin-u0512b3f0v4dqk7o successfully created
2022/08/10 07:36:33 Use the following password to login: Sr#]YL_6D0k8Pd{pA9^|}F32j5J4I=av

Finally, start up the Portainer service scaling using this command then try logging in with the new password:

docker service scale portainer_portainer=1

Method 3: Resetting the admin password if Portainer is deployed in a Kubernetes cluster

You would typically use this method if you run the Portainer Server on a Kubernetes cluster.

First, scale the Portainer deployment to zero using this command:

kubectl scale deploy portainer --replicas=0 -n portainer

Next, create a pod using the reset password container helper image and mount the Portainer data volume. Create a pod YAML file using the command below:

You may need to change the YAML below to match your Portainer deployment (for example if using a different claimName).

cat > passreset.yml<< EOF
apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: passreset
spec:
  volumes:
    - name: data
      persistentVolumeClaim:
        claimName: portainer
  containers:
    - name: passreset
      image: portainer/helper-reset-password
      volumeMounts:
        - mountPath: "/data"
          name: data
EOF

Create the password reset pod using the command below:

kubectl apply -f passreset.yml -n portainer

Once the new pod is created and transitions into a completed state, you can see the new password in the pod logs:

kubectl logs passreset -n portainer

If successful, the output should look something like this:

2020/06/04 00:13:58 Password successfully updated for user: admin
2020/06/04 00:13:58 Use the following password to login: &_4#\3^5V8vLTd)E"NWiJBs26G*9HPl1

Finally, scale up the Portainer deployment using this command then try logging in with the new password:

kubectl scale deploy portainer --replicas=1 -n portainer

You can delete the password reset pod using the below command:

kubectl delete pod passreset -n portainer