Root password reset on VMware Identity Manager 3.3.x

Products

• VCF Operations/Automation (formerly VMware Aria Suite)

Issue/Introduction

How to reset the root account password in vIDM 3.3.x

The resolution below is only to be used if the expired root password is unknown and the password has expired.

If the password has expired and you know the expired password please follow the steps in How to change Expired Password for "root" and "sshuser" in VMware Identity Manager

Environment

VMware Identity Manager 3.3.x

Cause

When root account gets locked due to numerous wrong password attempt or if /var partition on the appliance is full

Resolution

Prerequisites

• You have valid snapshots or backups of the node(s) participating in the cluster.

Procedure:

Note: If completing the steps on a 3 node vIDM cluster it is important to start with the primary node.

Follow below procedure for GRUB version 2.0 and above:

1. Restart VMware Identity Manager appliance and wait for the Photon OS Splash screen during boot.

2. Enter 'e' to go to GNU GRUB boot menu editor:

3. In the GNU GRUB editor, enter "init=/bin/bash" at the end of the line that begins with linux.

4. Click the F10 key to push your change and restart the appliance.

5. Mount the / partition as RW with mount -o rw,remount / and reset the root password with the passwd command:

6. Validate the root account is not locked out and unlock if necessary:

To check the status of root account: 

pam_tally2 -u root

If root account is locked, run:

pam_tally2 -u root --reset

NOTE: If pam_tally2 is not present on the appliance use faillock instead (faillock -u root; faillock -u root --reset)

 

7. Reboot the appliance with " reboot -f " command.

 

Follow below Procedure for GRUB version 0.97:

To reset root account password from single user mode

1. Reboot the appliance from vCenter server console view and press p  or e when you see bootloader 
2. You will be prompted for password. Enter the password as H0rizon! and enter
3. You will have different options select the first option and enter e to execute
4. From the available options select boot option starting with Kernel and select e to execute 
5. You will be on editor page add the following value and hit enter rw init=/bin/bash

6. You will be back to the previous list with boot option starting with Kernel select press b key
7. You will be booted into single user mode and following command can be used to reset root password
     passwd root
8. Reboot the appliance using reboot -f command to check the root login again