How to Reset the Administrator Password

The administrator password is lost or forgotten.

• Palo Alto Firewall.
• Any PAN-OS version.
• Lost Administrator Password.

Recovering the administrator password is not possible. The password must be reset by booting into maintenance mode to load a previously saved configuration for which the password is known.

1. To boot into maintenance mode, connect to the console via the physical console port and use terminal software.
2. Reboot the firewall and keep pressing 'm' (or 'maint' for newer versions).
3. The device boots into "Maintenance mode" 
4. Once you enter maintenance mode, continue to the 'Select Running Config' option.

5. Choose a previous version of the running-config for which the administrator password is known and reboot the device with this config.

Note: If a previous config cannot be loaded or the password is unknown for all saved configs, the firewall will need to be factory reset in order to set a new administrator password.