Siemens TIA/Wincc Password Help

[exiled]

hi guys, I know some people winch a little when the topic of password recovery crops up.

The engineers on site have forgotten their password to a Hmi.

I have the project on my pc. I know I can just over write the existing password with a new one.

Is there a way I can view the old one (under the Asterisks) in my project? thus saving me having to go online etc.

Written in TIA ver 13 SP1

Thanks in advance

 

[jacoffey85]

I have never been able to figure this out in WinCC Flexible 2008. Hopefully someone can shed some light.

 

[mk42]

My understanding is that the passwords are intentionally write-only, you can't read them.

 

[rQx]

If you have incorporated a user view in the HMI program you should be able to log in with administrator rights and create new users, maybe even reset passwords but not sure on this one.

/Tim

 

[m_turk]

The only trick I have on this is to run it in simulation and try as many times you like, since on the site, you could lock the password that way..

 

[beethoven_ii]

It is not possible as far as I know to recover them, only to overwrite them with a download. One tip I have picked up recently in TIA portal is to actually write the password in the comment section for future reference.

 

[m_turk]

It is not possible as far as I know to recover them, only to overwrite them with a download. One tip I have picked up recently in TIA portal is to actually write the password in the comment section for future reference.

I always make "my" extra user and password that I don't share until everything is locked

 

[Jeebs]

Nope. Have yet to find a way to read the passwords once entered.

I suggest you create a User View. This view allows you to restore users to their groups, since they get booted from their group when getting locked out. As admin user you can change the password on the panel, no need for a download. As long as you do not enable 'Overwrite password list' when downloading, everything should be OK.

On this User View I also suggest you add 2 buttons. A log out and a log in. Log out for the admin user and log in to test the user you just modified. Most importantly, when logging in as another user it erases the admin username from the pop-up.

 

[exiled]

Hi folks,
thanks for your reply's unfortunately I had to do this the hard way, which meant a 400 mile round trip on some crazy Saudi roads. hence my dissapearence.

Not sure what you mean about a user view probably something I've seen but not noticed.

Cheers guys

 

[Bratt]

To late now but next time you can create a so called "pack and go" and send to your customer. The pack and go transfers the complete project with the password file to the HMI without having the need to have Tia portal or WinCC flexible installed for the transfer.

 

[Jeebs]

Not sure what you mean about a user view probably something I've seen but not noticed.

Toolbox > Controls > User View (guy with key pictogram)

 

[wimpiesplc]

back in the old windows days (95?) there were softwares to disenclose those asterixed boxes... but I highly doubt these still work these days but maybe it's worth the try?

 

[fredz0003]

Here is an easy trick. Get a notebook and write down all passwords in your plant, keep in a locked environment or use a notepad.txt file and save it in a thumbdrive.
If you are really paranoid use something like KeePass 2 to keep passwords locked with a master password preferably something that you won't forget.
For HMI projects sometimes our engineers write a script and put the password there, since this is something operators can get their hands on anyways.
On Siemens panels you can also locked people from downloading a project with a password on the hmi panel, I hope you didn't forget that one.

 

[Outback American]

Look in the compiled *.DATA files

The User names and Passwords are just ASCII strings so you can cheat the system by opening the compiled file in a basic text editor. most of it will look like garbage, but luckily the ASCII characters still come through.

1. compile the project
2. locate files on hard drive usually in a folder (HMIes) or something like that
3. there will be several *.DATA files
4. right click and select "Open with"
5. choose notepad
6. Ctrl+F and search for the user name
7. it will probably appear in multiple locations, especially if it is "Admin" or the like, but one of those places will have a the password on the same line it looks something like this

"sdf dsfhf -password ,/username,, dslfkfg;lk"

 

[beethoven_ii]

Thanks for the tip. I just tried it with a couple of projects I knew the password for and it does work but I found it easier to search for the phrase GroupID and it took me straight to the admin account details clearly showing the password. Thanks for that. I'm sure it'll come in very handy.