Lost password, option 3 didn't work, but I have backup

[charlesa920]

is it possible to convert the password as listed in the backup config file into the original password?
thanks
Chalres

[phil.davis]

The config contains the hashed password (that also ends up in the FreeBSD passwd file). It is generated from the real password by crypt() : http://php.net/manual/en/function.crypt.php

As that says:

Note: There is no decrypt function, since crypt() uses a one-way algorithm.

So pfSense and FreeBSD can verify the password you enter, but can't (easily) reverse it.
I guess you could use some brute-force cracker to run against the hash value that you have.

But I wonder why console menu option 3 did not work?

[charlesa920]

doing a search, I saw another instance where 3 didn't work and they speculated it had reached some max and converted to read only…. IDK