Supported Method for accessing HCX Fleet Appliances (IX/NE)

Products

• VMware HCX

Issue/Introduction

• The HCX Manager generates, encrypts, and securely stores the credentials for fleet appliances (IX/NE), and is solely responsible for their lifecycle and password rotation.
• Although these appliances require credentials for authentication, the passwords are never exposed externally.
• All operational tasks and appliance interactions must be performed using the Central CLI (CCLI).
• CCLI utilizes cert based authentication to connect to IX/NE rather than using the stored credentials.

Environment

VMware HCX

Resolution

Accessing HCX-IX and HCX-NE via CCLI :
Access the appliances directly from the HCX Manager's Central CLI (CCLI) without a password:

1. Log in to the HCX Manager via SSH using the admin credentials.
2. Enter the Central CLI by executing: ccli
3. List the deployed appliances by executing: list
4. Connect to the target IX or NE appliance by executing: go followed by ssh.

Changing the Default Credentials :
To gain direct SSH access to the admin or root accounts on the IX or NE appliances, define custom passwords through the HCX Manager UI.

1. Navigate to Interconnect > Service Mesh > Appliances.
2. Select the target HCX-IX or HCX-NE appliance.
3. Click **CHANGE PASSWORD**.
4. Enter custom passwords for the root and admin accounts and click **UPDATE**.

 

(Note: The HCX Manager will override and reset these credentials during future appliance upgrades or redeployments).

Additional Information

Using the HCX Manager Central CLI
HCX - IX/NE appliance error "InvalidGuestLogin: Failed to authenticate with the guest operating system using the supplied credentials"