Reset the root password in VCF Operations Fleet Management Appliance

Products

• VCF Operations

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms

• The root account of the VCF Operations Fleet Management Appliance is locked.
• The root account password has been lost or forgotten.
• Unable to login to Fleet Management Appliance with root account.
• Can't login with root password.
• Password/login issues.

Additional Symptoms Reported

The root account of the VCF Operations Fleet Management Appliance has expired

Resolution

To reset the root password for the Fleet Management Appliance:

1. Before proceeding with the steps below, take a snapshot of the Fleet Management Appliance. 
   
   • Caution: Do not skip this step
2. Reboot the Fleet Management Appliance.
3. After the Photon OS starts, press the e key to enter the GNU GRUB Edit Menu.
4. Locate the line that begins with the word "Linux".
5. Append these entries to the end of the line -
   

   rw init=/bin/bash

6. Press the F10 key to continue booting.
7. Run the command -
   
   mount -o remount,rw / 
   
   
8. Unlock the 'root' account using the command below if it is already locked due to multiple logins with incorrect passwords.
   
   /usr/sbin/faillock --user root --reset
   
   
9. In the Command prompt, enter the command passwd and provide a new root password (twice for confirmation):
   
   passwd
   
   
10. Unmount the filesystem by running this command (yes, the unmount command is umount  -  it's not a spelling error):
    
    umount /
    
    
11. Reboot the vCenter Server Appliance by running this command:
    
    reboot -f
    
    
12. Verify access to the vCenter Server Appliance using the new root password.
13. Remove the initial snapshot if applicable.
14. Check the status of the root account's expiration:
    
    chage -l root

15. Set the root account to never expire:

    chage -m 0 -M -1 root

16. Confirm that the root account is no longer expired:
    
    chage -l root

 

Additional Information

If root account password is expired and you remember it, refer to following KB to reset it:

https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article/422906/vcf-fleet-manager-root-account-disconnec.html

If admin@local account password needs to reset, refer to KB:

https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article?articleNumber=416090