213 update, forgot password

if you are in the admin group the password should be your password, otherwise should be the root one.

if you forgot "your" password you have to change it with a live cd, if you forgot the root password you have to type
sudo passwd root in
a terminal and change it in a new one

That is incorrect.

There is no root password by default in Ubuntu--the root account is disabled. You should keep it that way, unless you really, *really* know what you are doing, in which case you probably should and probably will still keep it that way. LocutusOfBorg's advice may be correct for some GNU/Linux distributions; it is not correct for Ubuntu. See https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RootSudo. You should both read that [ ;-) ] -- Ed, if you are unfamiliar with how to use sudo, then you should definitely read it. LocutusOfBorg, I'd encourage you to read that before offering more advice on this topic.

It is especially important that you (Ed) *not* run "sudo passwd root" or "sudo passwd" (not followed by the name of some non-root user) unless you really know what you are doing. Enabling the root user account intentionally can be problematic, but enabling it unintentionally is really bad.

To find out if you are an administrator, with the ability to use sudo to run commands as root, run:

groups

If admin (not to be confused with adm) is listed, then you are an administrator. If you are not an administrator, then you should log on as some administrative user and make yourself one (or just use that user account to perform the necessary tasks). If you do not know how to do that, or there is no other user (or there is but you cannot log in as that user because you do not have that user's password, or for any other reason), then please post a reply, as these are all easily solvable situations but I don't want to cover each and every one of them in detail in this post.

To reset your user account password if you have forgotten it, see http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/resetpassword.

But from your question, I am wondering if you are experiencing some totally different situation. You should never see anything that says "password sent", nor is there any 6-digit code, involved in resetting your Ubuntu system password. What password are you trying to reset? Please provide as great detail as possible.