Part 3 of our Networking Guide explains how to find the default username and password for your router.
Transcript
Networking Guide: Part 3 – Finding Your Router’s Default Username and Password
Good afternoon this is ApexCCTV’s video tutorial on port forwarding, this video will cover how to find user name and password for routers.
Usually you run into a situation where someone is running a default user name and password , most people don’t follow the best practice of changing that default password and that gives us a little bit of luck when we’re trying to login to a customer’s router.
I’m going to browse to my router first, you can see that the part number is WGR6.4v9 just a simple Netgear router, very common to find in someone’s home or small business. If the login page doesn’t have the part number, they usually do, but if not, you can look at the top or on a sticker on the bottom of the router. This part number is all we really need to find default user name and password. Then go to Google and type in the part number followed by default password. Many results will pop up, surprisingly most of these are correct, just try the first one if it doesn’t work try the next one. The default username and password for this router is admin and password, it’s the same thing that printed in the user manual.
Of course If the user manual is available you can look there, if not you can go to the manufacturers site. They should have a support link and you put in the model number in the search they should have a link leading to the default passwords or from the home page search the model number which should take you to the routers page and usually they ‘ll have documents on the page. If you find an installation guide you should be able to find a default password in there.
As a last resort, go to portforward.com they list the exact steps to forward port in hundreds of router models. Click on router list and it takes you to a huge lost of routers. It’s very rare to not find a router on this list; just do a quick search for your router’s number, when you find it click on the link. Now this is a list of different applications and there default ports. So if I were forwarding GeoVision card or software they have instructions for center v2, dispatch, remote playback, webcam. Webcam is the most common and so I’ll click on that and now I have a full set of steps on how to forward ports for this router. I’ll just put my private IP in the box and I’ll have a full populated guide on how to set it up. And right under the image of the log in screen is the default username and password. I usually look here first because I can usually find my port forwarding application from this list and then I don’t have to jump around very much I can just get my notes from one place and jump into a router.
If worse comes to worse and the router username and password have been changed of course you’re stuck with the error prompt please contact your network administrator. Typically that’s a 3rd party, usually a homeowner or small business owner won’t know their router username or password or its been given to them in a note that s been lost. It may be Comcast or AT&T, if their ISP may have set it up. Or if they are a business they may have a contractor that set it up for them grab the owner get eh phone number and try to get the username that way.
If you find that the router has a default username and password encourage them to let you change it to something they can remember so that someone can’t just get on Google and login to their router later.
That concludes the video tutorial on finding a routers default username and password.
