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Reset the Admin User

A fresh installation seeds one administrator account and blocks the rest of the product until you replace its password. This page covers that first reset, and the recovery reset you need if the password is later lost.

Bootstrap credentials​

FieldInitial value
Usernameadmin
Passwordpassword

These credentials work only until the forced password change completes.

Reset the password on first login​

  1. Open http://127.0.0.1:8080 from the machine where Linkiir is installed.
  2. Sign in as admin with the password password, using Login to dashboard.
  3. The same card switches to Choose a new password. Enter New password and Confirm new password.
  4. Click Set new password.

You land on the dashboard, and the rest of the Studio becomes available.

Password rules​

RuleDetail
Minimum length8 characters
Must differThe new password cannot match the current one

Both rules are enforced by the server, not just the browser, so you cannot bypass them with a direct API call.

There is no complexity requirement, no reuse history beyond "not the current one", and no account lockout. Set your own standard through your organisation's policy, and keep the account out of daily use.

What is blocked until you finish​

Until the change completes, the account can reach only login, logout, its own profile, and the change-password call. Every other API request is refused with password_change_required. This is why an install that appears to sign in and then bounce back to the login page is almost always an unfinished password change rather than a broken installation.

:::caution Do this before opening remote access Linkiir binds to 127.0.0.1 on a fresh install. Complete this password change before you change the bind address, publish the port through a proxy or load balancer, or open a firewall rule. See Security. :::

Create named accounts​

Once you are in, stop using the bootstrap account for daily work:

  1. Open Settings → Roles and create the roles you need. A fresh install ships one role, admin, holding every permission.
  2. Open Settings → Users and click Add User. Fill in Username, Name, Email address, Password, and assign Roles.
  3. Keep the admin account for administrative recovery only, and store its password in your privileged-access system.

If a user will push or pull a project to a Git remote, also set SSH private key path on their account.

See Users and Roles for the permission set and how to combine it into roles.

Session timeouts​

Sessions are held in the running Studio process. Two timeouts apply, both configurable in the Instance tab of Settings:

TimeoutDefaultMeaning
Idle15 minutesSigned out after this long without activity
Absolute24 hoursSigned out this long after signing in, regardless of activity

Background polling the Studio does on its own does not count as activity, so an unattended tab still times out. Restarting the Studio signs everyone out.

Recovery: reset the admin user when the password is lost​

If the administrator password is lost, you can make Linkiir re-seed the bootstrap admin account. Every time the Studio starts it checks its working directory for missing files and restores them without overwriting anything: if the admin account's file is gone, it recreates admin with the password password and the forced-change flag set — exactly like a fresh install.

So the recovery is: move the admin account aside, restart, and sign in with the bootstrap credentials again.

:::warning Move only what you need to Moving the whole users directory removes every account, not just admin. Named users, their roles, and their passwords are gone and have to be recreated. Moving only users/admin re-seeds the administrator and leaves other accounts intact.

Your projects, workflows, message history, and settings are not affected either way.

Copy whatever you move somewhere safe first — that copy is your only way back if you recover a password later. :::

Windows​

# 1. Stop the Grid
Stop-Service LinkiirGrid

# 2. Move the accounts aside (keep the copy)
Move-Item "C:\ProgramData\Linkiir\data\users" "C:\ProgramData\Linkiir\data\users.backup"

# 3. Start the Grid — it re-seeds the admin account
Start-Service LinkiirGrid

macOS and Linux (Docker)​

The user store lives in the linkiir_work volume, so work through the container.

# 1. Move the accounts aside (keep the copy)
docker compose exec linkiir-grid \
  mv /var/lib/linkiir/work/users /var/lib/linkiir/work/users.backup

# 2. Restart so the Grid re-seeds the admin account
./scripts/linkiirctl restart

:::note Confirm the path for your release The working directory inside the container is set by your installation's configuration. Confirm it before running the command:

docker compose exec linkiir-grid sh -c 'ls "$LINKIIR_WORK_DIR"'

If that variable is not set in your build, find the working_dir value in the rendered config.ini:

docker compose exec linkiir-grid sh -c 'grep -A2 "\[paths\]" /etc/linkiir/config.ini'

:::

Linux (native install)​

Stop the service, move users aside inside the configured Linkiir data directory, then start the service again:

sudo systemctl stop linkiir-grid
sudo mv /var/lib/linkiir/data/users /var/lib/linkiir/data/users.backup
sudo systemctl start linkiir-grid

Adjust the path to match your installation's data directory. See Install on Linux.

After the recovery reset​

  1. Open http://127.0.0.1:8080.
  2. Sign in as admin / password.
  3. Complete the forced password change.
  4. Recreate any named accounts you removed.
  5. Delete the users.backup copy once you are satisfied, since it still contains the old password hashes.

Restarting the Studio ends every session, so anyone still logged in is returned to the login page.

The Studio also writes a warning to its log when it re-seeds the account, which is a useful confirmation that the step worked:

Created default admin account with password 'password' — change it in Settings › Users

Next​

Continue with Create a Project, Workflow, and Source HTTP Node.