MikroTik Wiki and Forum say that there is no way to recover MikroTik user password without losing MikroTik configuration. But if you have an unencrypted configuration file backup taken before, you will be able to recover your user password using MikroTik password recovery tools. How to Backup and Restore MikroTik configuration file manually was discussed in my previous article. I also discussed how to backup MikroTik configuration file automatically via Mail in another article and in this article I will show how to recover forgotten user password using MikroTik configuration file backup.
Recover MikroTik User Password using Configuration File Backup
If you have a practice to store MikroTik configuration file backup regularly, you will be able to recover your MikroTik user password if you forget unfortunately. There are two methods to recover MikroTik user password from unencrypted configuration file backup.
- Recover MikroTik password using online password recovery tool
- Recover MikroTik password using Linux password recovery tool
Recover MikroTik Password using Online Password Recovery Tool
If you have an unencrypted backup file, you can easily recover your user password using MikroTik Password Recovery Online Tool. The following steps will show how to recover MikroTik user password using online password recovery tool.
- Go to MikroTik Password Recovery Online Tool [mikrotikpasswordrecovery.net].
- Upload your unencrypted backup file using Choose File button.
- Put provided captcha for security purpose.
- Click on Upload and show me passwords button and you will find your username and password list within a textarea.
Recover MikroTik Password using Linux Password Recovery Tool
If you face any problem to use Online Password Recovery Tool or like to use Linux command rather than online tool, you can use MikroTik Password Recovery Tool in Linux. If you are a new Linux user, follow my article about how to setup CentOS Linux and how to configure CentOS network and then continue this article. The following steps will show how to use Linux password recovery tool to recover MikroTik’s forgotten user password.
- Login to your CentOS Linux operating system with root user using Putty or SSH Secure Shell Client.
- Install wget and openssl-devel packages if not installed before with yum command [yum install wget openssl-devel -y]. It will be also better to update your operating system with update command [yum update] if you face any problem to run Linux password recovery tool.
- Create a temporary folder [mkdir /temp] in root directory and go to this directory with cd command [cd /temp].
- Go to [manio.skyboo.net/mikrotik] and download latest mtpass released package and store this package in temp folder. Alternately, you can run wget command to download this package [wget http://manio.skyboo.net/mikrotik/mtpass-0.9.tar.bz2].
- Extract this downloaded package with tar command [tar jxvf mtpass-0.9.tar.bz2].
- Now go to mtpass extracted folder [cd mtpass-0.9] and then run make command [make] to compile this package.
- Now upload your unencrypted backup file (MikroTikBackup.backup) into temp folder and run this command [./mtpass /temp/MikroTikBackup.backup]. If everything is OK, you will find your MikroTik user name and password.
Complete CentOS Linux command to recover MikroTik user password with password recovery tool.
[root@localhost ~]# yum install wget openssl-devel –y
[root@localhost ~]# mkdir /temp
[root@localhost ~]# cd /temp
[root@localhost temp]# wget http://manio.skyboo.net/mikrotik/mtpass-0.9.tar.bz2
[root@localhost temp]# tar jxvf mtpass-0.9.tar.bz2
[root@localhost temp]# cd mtpass-0.9
[root@localhost mtpass-0.9]# make
[root@localhost mtpass-0.9]# ./mtpass /temp/MikroTikBackup.backup
If you face any confusion to follow above steps properly, watch my video about How to Recover MikroTik User Password using password recovery tool. I hope it will reduce your any confusion.
How to recover MikroTik user password using password recovery tool has been discussed in this article. I hope you will be able to recover your forgotten password using MikroTik password recovery tool. However, if you face any confusion, feel free to discuss in comment or contact with me from Contact page. I will try my best to stay with you.