To reset the root password:
- Connect to vSphere Client and open the appliance virtual machine console.
- Go to VM > Power > Restart Guest to restart the appliance.
- Wait for the virtual machine to reboot.
-
Press
e when you see the
GNU GRUB Menu appearing on the screen.
Note: There is a minor delay before the system will automatically begin booting. Ensure the halt "
e" button is pressed before this menu timeout.
-
Press
e again. The output will be similar to:
-
Go down until you see a line beginning with linux /vmlinuz.
- Press "e" one last time to edit the end of this line, add the command:
init=/bin/bash
Example:
- Press "Enter" or "Return" on the keyboard then Press " b" to boot the /boot/vmlinuz that was previously edited.
- Once loaded you will be presented with a (none):/# shell.
- (Optional): Reset root password usage history and reset root expiration:
chage -M -1 root; echo "" > /etc/security/opasswd
Note: There are two parts to the above command: The first will reset the root expiration date to never expire. Set this value based upon the company security policies. The second will echo a blank value into the password history file, purging previously used passwords. This is necessary if you wish to re-use an old root password.
- (Optional) Validate the password is not locked out and unlock if necessary:
Note: The pam_tally2 module is configured to unlock the root account after 300 seconds, or 5 minutes.
pam_tally2 -u root
If locked:
pam_tally2 -u root --reset
- Type the command passwd to reset the root password.
- On some appliance(s) you may receive this error due to the file system mounted in read only.
- In such case, type the command "mount / -o remount,rw" and try again:
- After the reboot, attempt to access the VAMI interface with the new password.