ESXi local account locked after ESXI server crash

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• Prior to ESXi reboot, the ESXi experiences a boot disk failure. 
• Local accounts passwords had been change between boot disk failure and ESXi reboot.

Environment

ESXi

Cause

This is an expected behavior.

If ESXi experiences a boot disk failure,  configuration changes are not persistent across reboot as ESXi is not able to write the configuration changes on disk. 

Resolution

Use one of the following methods:

• use the passwords configured before boot disk failure
• Reset host root password with Host Profile https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article/323617/reset-esxi-root-password-with-host-profi.html