How to reset and unlock the local admin account in vRealize Log Insight

Products

• VMware Aria Suite

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• You have forgotten or lost the password to the local admin account and need to reset it
• You are unable to log in to the vRealize Log Insight UI with the local admin account, even after changing the password using the li-reset-admin-passwd.sh script. This indicates the account may need to be unlocked.

Environment

VMware vRealize Log Insight 8.x

Cause

The need to unlock the admin account is caused when there are multiple invalid login attempts with the local admin credentials.

Resolution

To reset and/or unlock the admin password/account in vRealize Log Insight, follow the steps below:

• vRealize Log Insight 8.8 and later
• vRealize Log Insight 8.1.1- 8.6.2

vRealize Log Insight 8.8 and later:

Reset the admin password

If you have forgotten or lost the credentials to the local admin account, follow the steps below to reset the password.  vRealize Log Insight 8.8 contains the updated script by default, which will allow you to reset the password directly to your preferred password.

1. SSH to any node in the vRealize Log Insight cluster as root
2. Run the following command to reset the admin password:

/usr/lib/loginsight/application/sbin/li-reset-admin-passwd.sh --resetAdminPassword

Note: Using the resetAdminPassword parameter will automatically generate a random password, which you can then change in the UI under the user's preferences in the top right.  Alternatively, you can use the following command to directly supply your desired password

/usr/lib/loginsight/application/sbin/li-reset-admin-passwd.sh --resetAdminPassword NewPassword

Note: Replace NewPassword in the above command with your desired password

Unlock the admin account

If are unable to log in to the vRealize Log Insight UI with the local admin account, even after changing the password using the li-reset-admin-passwd.sh script mentioned above, proceed to the following to unlock the account:

1. SSH to any node in the vRealize Log Insight cluster as root
2. Run the following command to observe whether the admin account is locked:

/usr/lib/loginsight/application/sbin/li-reset-admin-passwd.sh --checkAdminStatus

3. If the returned value shows that the admin account is locked, unlock it with the following command:

/usr/lib/loginsight/application/sbin/li-reset-admin-passwd.sh --unlockAdmin

4. Run the command from step 3 again to ensure the status is showing unlocked

/usr/lib/loginsight/application/sbin/li-reset-admin-passwd.sh --checkAdminStatus

vRealize Log Insight 8.1.1- 8.6.2:

Reset the admin password

If you have forgotten or lost the credentials to the local admin account, follow the steps below to reset the password.

Option 1

1. SSH to any node in the vRealize Log Insight cluster as root
2. Run the following command

/usr/lib/loginsight/application/sbin/li-reset-admin-passwd.sh

Note: This command will reset your admin password to a random generated password

3. Login to the vRealize Log Insight UI as admin with the password output from step 2
4. Click the Admin username in the top right, and then My Settings
5. Enter the Existing Password from step 2, then your new desired password, and click Save

Option 2

1. SSH to any node in the vRealize Log Insight cluster as root
2. Rename the original script to preserve it

mv /usr/lib/loginsight/application/sbin/li-reset-admin-passwd.sh /usr/lib/loginsight/application/sbin/li-reset-admin-passwd.sh.orig

3. Download the attached li-reset-admin-passwd.sh script, and using a utility like WinSCP, copy it to  the/usr/lib/loginsight/application/sbin/ directory on the same node as chosen for step 1
4. Run the following command to set permissions on the script:

chmod 755 /usr/lib/loginsight/application/sbin/li-reset-admin-passwd.sh

5. Run the following command to reset the admin password:

/usr/lib/loginsight/application/sbin/li-reset-admin-passwd.sh --resetAdminPassword

Note: Using the resetAdminPassword parameter will automatically generate a random password, which you can then change in the UI under the user's preferences in the top right.  Alternatively, you can use the following command to directly supply your desired password

/usr/lib/loginsight/application/sbin/li-reset-admin-passwd.sh --resetAdminPassword NewPassword

Note: Replace NewPassword in the above command with your desired password

Unlock the admin account

If are unable to log in to the vRealize Log Insight UI with the local admin account, even after changing the password using the li-reset-admin-passwd.sh script mentioned above, proceed to choose from one of the following options to unlock the account.

Option 1

1. SSH to any node in the vRealize Log Insight cluster as root
2. Connect to the Cassandra database by following the steps described in this article.
3. Enable vertical query results by running the following commands:

expand on;

use logdb;

4. Determine the admin user status and ID

select id,status from user where user_name='admin' allow filtering;

5. If the returned value of status for the admin account is 2, reset it back to one with the following command

update user set status=1 where id=adminUserID;

 

Note: Replace adminUserID with the ID of the admin user observed in the output from step 4

6. Run the command from step 4 again to ensure the status value was set to 1

select id,status from user where user_name='admin' allow filtering;

Option 2

1. SSH to any node in the vRealize Log Insight cluster as root
2. Rename the original script to preserve it

mv /usr/lib/loginsight/application/sbin/li-reset-admin-passwd.sh /usr/lib/loginsight/application/sbin/li-reset-admin-passwd.sh.orig

3. Download the attached li-reset-admin-passwd.sh script, and using a utility like WinSCP, copy it to  the/usr/lib/loginsight/application/sbin/ directory on the same node as chosen for step 1
4. Run the following command to set permissions on the script:

chmod 755 /usr/lib/loginsight/application/sbin/li-reset-admin-passwd.sh

5. Run the following command to observe whether the admin account is locked:

/usr/lib/loginsight/application/sbin/li-reset-admin-passwd.sh --checkAdminStatus

6. If the returned value shows that the admin account is locked, unlock it with the following command:

/usr/lib/loginsight/application/sbin/li-reset-admin-passwd.sh --unlockAdmin

7. Run the command from step 3 again to ensure the status is showing unlocked

/usr/lib/loginsight/application/sbin/li-reset-admin-passwd.sh --checkAdminStatus