Change Raspberry Pi Password, Username and Hostname

Rapsberry Pi is the single most popular computer in the world. And it is easily one of the most hacked systems as well. That’s due to single fact - most users never change the default username and password. But is a relatively a simple process, so there is no reason not to do it. If you already have your Raspberry Pi up and running, you can get going.

Changing the hostname

First of all, change the hostname. This has two benefits: it will make it slightly harder for hackers to identify your Pi, and it will also any prevent any clashes on network if you have multiple Raspberries. So, fire up raspi- config:

$ sudo raspi-config

And choose the option “Change the Hostname”. Then type in the new hostname (for example fileserver, webserver) and confirm it. Done.

Change the username and password

Next on the chopping block is username. Since renaming user is a bit of a hassle, just create a new one and lock the pi account. (Substitute newuser for your desired username.)

$ sudo useradd newuser -m -g pi
$ for GROUP in $(groups pi | sed 's/.*:\s//');
  do sudo adduser newuser $GROUP;
done

The new user should be set up and have the same priviledges as pi. All that remains is changing the password:

$ sudo passwd dak
Enter new UNIX password:
Retype new UNIX password:
passwd: password updated successfully

Finally, login to the new user account to check if everything is working as expected:

$ su newuser

If you don’t encounter any trouble, go ahead and lock the pi user:

$ sudo passwd -l pi

Hostname, username, password - everything is changed. Now you can sleep tight, knowing that the hackers cannot simply login to your Pi as if it were their own.