VCF Operations root password incorrectly displays as expired after updating

Products

• VCF Operations

Issue/Introduction

The Ops root password was updated and is still showing expired:

• The VCF Operations root password was updated via the UI under Manage > Passwords > VCF Management.

• Despite the recent update, the password status displays as expired.

• The displayed expiration date shows as the day before the password was updated.

Environment

• VCF Operations 9.1.0.0

Cause

This issue occurs if the password expiration policy was manually altered via the command line to never expire using the chage -M -1 root command.

Running chage -l root on the affected system will show the Password expires value as "never". However, when configuring a Password Policy in the UI under Manage > Fleet Settings > Password Policy, the system strictly dictates that the "Password must be changed every ### days" value cannot exceed 730 days. Manually circumventing this limit via the command line causes the system to fail its date calculations, resulting in the wrong password expiration date being displayed in the UI.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, you must align the command-line password policy with the supported Fleet Settings policy constraints.

1. Connect to the affected VCF Operations node(s) via SSH.

2. Use the chage utility to change the maximum number of days between password changes to a value equal to or less than 730 days. For example, to set it to 730 days, run: chage -M 730 root

3. Verify the changes by running: chage -l root

4. You must update the root password(s) again after making the change from Manage > Passwords > VCF Management
   
   
5. The UI should now calculate and display the correct password expiration date.