Even if you are prompted to set a password, you can still NOT provide it by closing the popup or pressing <CTRL>+C in the terminal.
To be precise, apart from alpha and beta which I have not tried (if is changed something):
The password is applied exclusively if:
- In the NAND/XOR flash memory there is written the password [is not generated everytime based on hardware “something” on current RouterOS software].
- If defconf-caps or get-custom-defconf is launched because:
on netinstall does NOT select the option to not apply defaults,
OR doing a software reset does NOT remove the “Default Config” option AND does NOT select the “CAPS mode” option AND “kee current users” should NOT be selected either,
no reset key combo was made to launch defconf-caps or get-custom-defconf - On netinstall is NOT selected “keep previous config”
NOTES:
a) Even if defconf-caps or get-custom-defconf are launched, the password is not set if the BIOS/firmware did not find it or it is empty and set from the appropriate memory area to $defconfPassword,
b) even if defconf-caps or get-custom-defconf are launched,
if $keepUsers = “yes” it is still not applied.
[...]
:if (!($keepUsers = "yes")) do={
:if (!($defconfPassword = "" || $defconfPassword = nil)) do={
/user set admin password=$defconfPassword
:delay 0.5
/user expire-password admin
}
}
[...]
All this is valid until one or more of these happens:
- netisntall is provided with a script that permanently replaces defconf.
- On a reset inside winbox or from terminal, an alternative script is provided (and exists, and is valid) to run instead of defconf (just for that one time)
- A branding package is applied, version 6.46.8 and earlier, that applies custom-script instead of defconf in case of hard or soft reset (except point 2))
- A branding package is applied, versions 6.47 and later, that applies another script instead of defconf and also caps-mode-script instead of defconf-caps in case of hard or soft reset (except point 2))