Admin user gets locked and fails login to the GUI in VCF Operations

Products

• VCF Operations/Automation (formerly VMware Aria Suite)

Issue/Introduction

• Admin user fails to log in to the VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) Operations UI with Error "Incorrect user name/password".
• Upon checking the /storage/vcops/user/conf/adminuser.properties file, multiple failed authentication attempts are present. Even after clearing these failed attempts, the account locks itself out again within 5 minutes.

Environment

VCF Operations 9.1

Cause

This issue occurs if the admin account password was reset using the unsupported Linux OS command (passwd admin). Using the native OS command does not synchronize the password correctly across the application components, leading to automated internal authentication failures that trigger the account lockout policy.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, run the official python script to reset the admin user password.

1. Connect to the VCF Operations Primary node via SSH.

2. Execute the official password reset script by running the following command:

   $VMWARE_PYTHON_BIN $VCOPS_BASE/../vmware-vcopssuite/utilities/sliceConfiguration/bin/vcopsSetAdminPassword.py --reset

3. Follow the on-screen prompts to set the new password.

4. Monitor the system for 5 minutes to ensure stability and verify that no new failed attempts are logged in the adminuser.properties file.