Hi there.
Yes… I did it… 2 days ago I have locked myself out of my own bitlbee account :). Easy fix if You have root on the machine that the bitlbee server runs on tho.
Get root:
su
Stop the bitlbee service. In Arch Linux that would be done with:
systemctl stop bitlbee
Move Yourself to where bitlbee stores the accout xml files.
cd /var/lib/bitlbee
List the content of the folder and filter listing for xml files.
ls ./ | grep -i xml
You will get something like:
yourbitlbeelogin.xml
obviously instead of yourbitlbeelogin You will see Your actual login for Your bitlbee server.
Now generate new md5 hash for Your new password:
bitlbee -x hash yournewpassword
Replace yournewpassword with Your actual new password for bitlbee server. Terminal will spit out something like:
7EcI4byy9MgrAPiK9
Write it down / copy it – whatever floats Your boat.
Use mcedit / nano / vi / emacs / joe – whatever suits You and open yourbitlbeelogin.xml.
mcedit ./yourbitlbeelogin.xml
First line will look somewhat like this:
user nick=”yourbitlbeelogin” password=”md5hashofyouroldbitlbeepassword” version=”1″
Remove the md5hashofyouroldbitlbeepassword bit and replace it with the new md5 hash that You have just generated for yournewpassword so it looks like this:
user nick=”yourbitlbeelogin” password=”7EcI4byy9MgrAPiK9″ version=”1″
Save the file and re-start Your bitlbee service.
systemctl start bitlbee
Use yournewpassword to log into the bitlbee server.
Because bitlbee uses Your password (or its hash – not sure) to create hashes of passwords for Your accounts (jabber / gadu-gadu / msn etc.) after manually editing that .xml file You won’t be able to log into any of those accounts – they will reject Your passwords as incorrect. You need to re-set all the account passwords. Use:
account tag set password
on all Your accounts (luckily I only had 2) diconnect and reconnect back to the bitlbee server.
Tada… All is bitlbee with the world again.
Cheers.
Andrzej
