Manual Password Reset

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Manual Password Reset Discussion Summary

The discussion revolves around the need for a manual password reset feature in Discourse. arwen requests this feature due to issues with users not receiving password reset emails, which are often caused by problems on the user’s mail server.

Two potential solutions are proposed:

  1. Manual Password Change: Allowing admins to manually change a user’s password without accessing the database.
  2. Generated Password Reset Links: Enabling admins to generate password reset links that can be emailed to specific users.

arwen also mentions that this feature would be particularly useful for non-technical users and emphasizes that it should only be available to responsible admins to prevent abuse.

Alternative suggestions include:

  • pfaffman proposes running a command to create an admin account, which would allow for password changes, but requires access to the database.
  • codinghorror recommends checking the Admin, Logs for sent emails and bounces to identify issues with user email addresses.
  • fefrei suggests asking users for an alternative email address and changing it for them.
1

I have several users on the forum that aren’t receiving password reset emails. The trouble is on their mail server, so I can’t really help them there. I’ve tested it with many other users, and they all can receive the emails. Could there be an option to allow the admin to manually change a user’s password if needed as a last resort without going into the database as shown here? I administer the forum, but I don’t have access to the DB as that is the responsibility of the company’s IT department.

Another alternative idea that would be more secure is to have a way to generate password reset links as an admin that could be copied and emailed to a specific user.

Either way would be immensely helpful, especially when you’re dealing with users who have no idea about anything technical to even start to troubleshoot their mail account. Plus, if this ability is only for admins (who should be responsible), there should not be concern about it being abused.

If there is a current fix for this, I’d love to know about it!

2 Likes
2

Sounds like it’s not a solution, but if you could get one of the IT people to do this:

cd /var/discourse
./launcher enter app
rake admin:create

That will allow you to (optionally) set a password (as well as optionally make them an admin).

3

You should be checking Admin, Logs under sent email and bounces. If someone has a broken email they are screwed eventually because they will never be able to reset their own password or get a forgot password email.

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4

You could ask your user for an alternative email address and change it for them :slight_smile:

2 Likes