Lost password recovery

[dlukin]

Hello, first time poster here. I have an Asus RT-AX86U router running asuswrt-merlin RT-AX86U_3004_388.6_2_pureubi.w. My admin password was mangled (not sure how) so am unable to login to
the router through either gui or SSH, and do not have a valid back up to restore.
I've done some searching to find a way to resolve this but haven't found anything that works (or that I really understand).
So my question(s) are:
* Is there a way to gain access to the router to reset the password?
* Failing that and assuming I'm going to have to reset the router, is there a way to copy the router configuration in a human readable form to manually reconfigure after a reset?
* I'm switching my ISP is a couple of weeks; the router is set up for DDNS. Will I need login access to the router to make any changes regarding the new ISP assigned IP address, or will the
router "automagically" pick up/use the new address?

Thanks in advance for any guidance - I'm really kicking myself for not taking the right steps to protect myself from this situation.

 

[bbunge]

Hello, first time poster here. I have an Asus RT-AX86U router running asuswrt-merlin RT-AX86U_3004_388.6_2_pureubi.w. My admin password was mangled (not sure how) so am unable to login to
the router through either gui or SSH, and do not have a valid back up to restore.
I've done some searching to find a way to resolve this but haven't found anything that works (or that I really understand).
So my question(s) are:
* Is there a way to gain access to the router to reset the password?
* Failing that and assuming I'm going to have to reset the router, is there a way to copy the router configuration in a human readable form to manually reconfigure after a reset?
* I'm switching my ISP is a couple of weeks; the router is set up for DDNS. Will I need login access to the router to make any changes regarding the new ISP assigned IP address, or will the
router "automagically" pick up/use the new address?

Thanks in advance for any guidance - I'm really kicking myself for not taking the right steps to protect myself from this situation.

Factory reset is your best choice. See: https://www.asus.com/support/faq/1039078/
Sorry, without a password saving settings is not possible.
Changing ISP you may need router access if PPPoE is or was involved. Anyway, do a hard factory reset. Get the router up to a good stable state, without add on's, and save a settings file.

 

[Jeffrey Young]

If you have SSH access to the router, this post may help. Something tells me though that this method may have been nuked by Asus in more recent versions.

Tutorial - How to reset encrypted admin password via SSH

Asus and Asuswrt-Merlin have introduced encrypted passwords since 3.0.0.4.384_81790 and 384.17 firmware, which I appreciate, but I messed up a few days ago. I tried backing up all encrypted password hashes in nvram in ssh and re-writing to nvram, but I found that even though nvram didn't change...

www.snbforums.com

 

[dlukin]

All - thanks for the replies; fortunately I found a password manager back up that had my router password.