Nortel Default Router Passwords

Nortel Networks supplied carrier and enterprise telephony until its collapse in 2009; Avaya and Ciena took the pieces. The Nortel records here run across the Meridian line.

Point a browser at whatever your computer reports as its default gateway. On Windows that is the Default Gateway line from ipconfig; on macOS, Network settings shows it under the active connection. Meridian and Norstar entries are PBX logins entered from a system phone or a maintenance terminal, not a browser.

admin is the username on 3 of the 32 entries. 6 of them ask for no username at all. 3 of them shipped with no password at all.

Where one is set, 0 comes up most often, on 3 entries. There are 21 different passwords across the Nortel set, so check your exact model rather than assuming. 2 of them are reached over a protocol that puts the password on the wire in clear text, so work from a machine on the same wired network rather than across the internet, and change the password once you are in.

There is a recessed reset button on the back or underneath that needs a straightened paperclip. Hold it in for thirty seconds with the unit powered on. Let go when the lights change pattern, and give it a couple of minutes to come back up.

The catch with an ISP-supplied unit is that a reset also clears the broadband credentials, and on some lines the router will not reconnect until those are re-entered. Find them before you press anything, or be ready to ring the provider.