Have you forgotten or misplaced your Airport or Time Capsule passwords? If so, you should consider using the Soft Reset feature that Apple builds into Airports and Time Capsules. You could also review my previous Tech Tip about retrieving your Airport password from your Keychain which could save you from having to perform a Soft Reset. I should also point out that you may have either 1 or 2 Airport passwords. One password is used to connect devices, like Macs and iPhones to the wireless network created by your Airport. This is commonly called your wireless network password. The other password is used to configure the Airport. This is commonly caused your device password, where device refers to the Airport or Time Capsule.

Apple’s Soft Reset feature disables both the wireless network password and the device password for 5 minutes. During this time, you could connect your Mac, for example, to your wireless network and then you could open Airport Utility and connect to the Airport. Finally, you can edit the Airport’s configuration by assigning a new wireless network password and a new device configuration password. Apple provides detailed instructions about where to find the reset button on various Airport and Time Capsule models as well as instructions performing a Soft Reset.