VCF Automation: Unable to SSH to the VCFA appliance with known root account credentials

Products

• VCF Automation

Issue/Introduction

• Logging in as the root user over SSH is rejected: Access denied
• No other user accounts / passwords are known for the VCFA host
• Password locked or lost for the vmware-system-user account on VCFA

Environment

VMware Cloud Foundation Automation

Cause

SSH login as the root user is disallowed on VCFA

Resolution

Log in to VCFA over ssh using the vmware-system-user account. Once logged in, a root shell can be opened by running   sudo -i