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Resetting the Administrator Password or Account on Tableau Server


Published: 23 Jan 2014
Last Modified Date: 07 Aug 2023

Question

How to reset the Tableau Server administrator password or account.

Environment

  • Tableau Server for Windows 2018.1 and earlier
  • Tableau Server for Windows 2018.2 and Later
  • Tableau Server for Linux

Answer

Tableau Server For Windows 2018.2 and later

Reset Server Admin account and password

  1. tsm reset - For more information, see tsm reset 
  2. tabcmd initialuser - For more information, see initialuser 

Tableau Server for Linux

Reset Server Admin account and password

  1. tsm reset - For more information, see tsm reset 
  2. tabcmd initialuser - for more information, see initialuser


Tableau Server for Windows 2018.1.x and earlier (pre-tsm)

Reset the Administrator Password

  1. On the computer running Tableau Server, open the Command Prompt as an administrator, and navigate to the "bin" folder.
  1. At the command prompt, run the following command: tabadmin passwd <username> where <username> is the account for which you want to reset the password.
    This command prompts you to provide the password twice to validate it, after which you will be able to sign in to Tableau Server as that user.

Reset the Administrator Account

  1. On the computer running Tableau Server, open the Command Prompt as an administrator, and navigate to the "bin" folder.
  2. At the command prompt, run the following command: tabadmin reset
  3. Open a browser window, and type localhost in the address bar to set up the administrator account for Tableau Server.
Note: In order to run tabadmin commands, you must be signed in to the computer running Tableau Server as an administrator. Running this command will create a new administrator account. 

 

Additional Information

  • If using Active Directory or LDAP for the Tableau identity store, then the account and password you specify must match an account in the directory.
  • The username is case sensitive.
  • For 2018.1.x and earlier: The tabadmin reset command will reset Tableau Server and require you to set up a new administrator account.
  • For 2018.2 and later: See the TSM reset commands list for Windows Server
  • For Linux versions on Tableau Server please see the TSM reset commands list for Linux Server

Please note: If there is no free Creator seat, one of the existing Creator users will be unlicensed in order to add the new Server Administrator.  If using only Core licenses and there is no free Explorer seat, the addition of the Server Administrator will unlicense an Explorer user in order to fulfill the request.  The user that is set to unlicensed will be either a user who has never logged in to Tableau Server or the oldest non-active user.

For Tableau Cloud, please view the article How to Reset a Current Site Admin Account for Tableau Cloud
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