Resetting admin & root account passwords on vSphere Replication & Site Recovery Manager 8.x
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Article ID: 312789
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Updated On:
Products
VMware Live RecoveryVMware vSphere ESXi
Issue/Introduction
GNU GRUB menu contains slight changes due to change of operating system from SUSE linux to Photon OS in vSphere replication 8.1 This article provides steps to reset root password for vSphere Replication Appliance 8.1
Symptoms:
The root password for the vSphere Replication (VR) appliance is not known by the administrator
vSphere replication root password is lost or is locked
Environment
VMware Site Recovery Manager 8.x VMware vSphere Replication 8.x
Resolution
Shutdown vSphere replication appliance from vSphere web client
Power on vSphere replication appliance. When the Photon OS splash screen appears, press 'e' to enter GNU GRUB edit menu
Note: The Photon OS splash screen only appears very briefly, so be quick about it. It is better to use VMware Remote Console rather than the Web Console
In the GNU GRUB edit menu, go to the end of the line that starts with linux, add a space and typerw init=/bin/bash. After adding these values, GNU GRUB edit menu should look exactly like this:
For 8.4 the screen will look different
Press the F10 key to boot and at the bash command prompt mount the root partition
mount -o remount, rw /
Enter passwd to change the password
passwd
New password:
Retype new password:
passwd: password updated successfully
NB : The above will change only root password, if you need to change admin password need to perform additional steps as below
Passwd admin
New password:
Retype new password:
passwd: password updated successfully
If the account is locked you will need to clear the lock with the following command