Retrieve the service accounts credentials from SDDC Manager

Products

• VMware Cloud Foundation
• VMware SDDC Manager

Issue/Introduction

• Unable to SSH into an ESXi host with the stored root credentials on SDDC.
  
  
• This article provides the steps to retrieve the ESXi service accounts from SDDC Manager.

Resolution

  

1. SSH into the SDDC Manager with vcf user and su to root
   
   
2. Create a token on the SDDC Manager. (You will need to update the username and password value)

   TOKEN=$(curl -d '{"username" : "<sso_username>", "password" : "<sso_password>"}' -H "Content-Type: application/json" -X POST http://127.0.0.1/v1/tokens | jq -r '.accessToken')

   
   The <sso_username> needs to be [email protected] or admin@local account
   
   
3. Pull the credentials from SDDC.

   curl -k -X GET -H "Authorization: Bearer "$TOKEN"" --insecure 'https://localhost/v1/system/credentials/service' | json_pp | less

   
   Sample output

   {
         "serviceType" : "SDDC_MANAGER",
         "entityId" : "9189####-####-####-####-########8251",
         "username" : "svc-vcf-####-##",
         "id" : "688d####-####-####-####-########ad5e",
         "entityType" : "ESXI",
         "targetType" : "ESXI",
         "serviceId" : "2f7a####-####-####-####-########cb79",
         "secret" : "##############",
         "credentialType" : "SSH",
         "creationTime" : 16#######96,
         "modificationTime" : 16#######96

Additional Information

Once you have the service account password you can connect to the ESXi host with the service account to clear out a root lockout or to reset the root password.