Recovering your Password on Cisco ASA

Thanks to: https://www.networkstraining.com/

Step1: Connect to the firewall using a console cable

Step2: Power cycle the appliance (power off and then on)

Step3: Press the Escape key to enter ROMMON mode

Step4: Use confreg command to change the configuration register to 0x41

rommon #1> confreg 0x41

Step5:  Configure the security appliance to ignore the startup configuration.

rommon #2> confreg

The ASA firewall will display the current configuration register value and boot parameters and ask you if you want to change them

Current Configuration Register: 0x00000041

Configuration Summary:

boot default image from Flash

ignore system configuration

Do you wish to change this configuration? y/n [n]: y

Step6: At the prompt enter Y to change the parameters.

Step7: Accept the default values for all settings (at the prompt enter Y)

Step8: Reload the ASA appliance by entering the following command

rommon #3> boot

The firewall will reboot and load the default configuration instead of the startup configuration.

Step9:   Enter into EXEC mode

hostname> enable

When prompted for the password, press Enter (the password in blank now)

Step 10: Access the global configuration mode and change the passwords as required:

hostname# configure terminal
hostname(config)# password password
hostname(config)# enable password password
hostname(config)# username name password password

Step 11: Load the default configuration register value (0x1) by entering the following command:

hostname(config)# no config-register

Step 12: Save the new passwords to the startup configuration by entering the following command:

hostname(config)# copy running-config startup-config

The above works for all ASA models such as 5505, 5510, 5520 etc