Recovering Password/Restore system defaults
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Recover Junos OS root access or restore a Junos device to factory defaults.
Validation status
Reviewed against current Juniper Junos OS recovery and factory-default documentation on 27 September 2026.
Password recovery and factory reset are different operations
Use password recovery when the configuration should be retained. Use factory-default or zeroize only when configuration and stored secrets are intended to be removed.
Password recovery
Password recovery requires console access and the release/platform-specific Junos recovery procedure. Enter the recovery environment during boot, start the CLI/configuration workflow, and set a new root authentication password.
Load the factory-default configuration
Factory-default configuration
configure load factory-default set system root-authentication plain-text-password commit
Securely zeroize the device
Zeroize Junos
request system zeroize
Zeroize is destructive and reboots the device
Juniper documents that zeroize removes configuration, logs, passwords, secrets and private keys before rebooting the device.