{"id":36909,"date":"2019-01-02T09:00:23","date_gmt":"2019-01-02T08:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nolabnoparty.com\/?p=36909"},"modified":"2023-07-16T11:30:30","modified_gmt":"2023-07-16T09:30:30","slug":"reset-vcsa-root-password","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nolabnoparty.com\/en\/reset-vcsa-root-password\/","title":{"rendered":"Reset vCSA root password"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-37001 size-full\" title=\"reset-vcsa-root-password-01\" src=\"https:\/\/nolabnoparty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/reset-vcsa-root-password-01.jpg\" alt=\"reset-vcsa-root-password-01\" width=\"602\" height=\"202\" \/><\/p>\n<p>If the vCSA root password is lost or forgotten, you <strong>no longer have access<\/strong> to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vmware.com\/products\/vcenter-server.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">vCenter Server Appliance<\/a>\u00a0management console and you can't SSH the appliance.<\/p>\n<p>This affects <strong>updates and patching<\/strong>\u00a0operations through the GUI or the command line, and also the <strong>NTP<\/strong> and root <strong>password policy<\/strong> configuration settings. The troubleshooting process is also affected due to the limited access to the appliance.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-37003 size-large\" title=\"reset-vcsa-root-password-02\" src=\"https:\/\/nolabnoparty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/reset-vcsa-root-password-02-600x340.jpg\" alt=\"reset-vcsa-root-password-02\" width=\"600\" height=\"340\" \/><\/p>\n<p>To reset vCSA root password is a pretty simple procedure but it requires some <strong>correct steps to follow<\/strong>\u00a0to avoid potential issues.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Reset vCSA root password<\/h2>\n<p>The password reset is anything complicated but it is suggested to <strong>take a snapshot<\/strong> before proceeding to easily recover the appliance in case of problems.<\/p>\n<p>To proceed with the password reset, you need to <strong>reboot the vCSA<\/strong> first. Right click the VM from the <a href=\"https:\/\/nolabnoparty.com\/en\/vsphere-6-7-install-vcsa-6-7-pt-1\/\">vSphere Client<\/a> and select <strong>Power &gt; Restart Guest OS<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-37005 size-large\" title=\"reset-vcsa-root-password-03\" src=\"https:\/\/nolabnoparty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/reset-vcsa-root-password-03-600x401.jpg\" alt=\"reset-vcsa-root-password-03\" width=\"600\" height=\"401\" \/><\/p>\n<p>When the VM boots, press the letter <strong>e<\/strong>\u00a0from the keyboard to access the <strong>GNU GRUB Edit Menu<\/strong>. Append the following entry at the end of the first line:<\/p>\n<pre class=\"lang:default decode:true \">rw init=\/bin\/bash<\/pre>\n<p>Press <strong>F10<\/strong> to continue with the boot.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-37007 size-large\" title=\"eset-vcsa-root-password-04\" src=\"https:\/\/nolabnoparty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/reset-vcsa-root-password-04-600x390.jpg\" alt=\"eset-vcsa-root-password-04\" width=\"600\" height=\"390\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Now enter the following command to set a <strong>new password<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"># passwd<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-37009 size-large\" title=\"reset-vcsa-root-password-05\" src=\"https:\/\/nolabnoparty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/reset-vcsa-root-password-05-600x297.jpg\" alt=\"reset-vcsa-root-password-05\" width=\"600\" height=\"297\" \/><\/p>\n<p>When the password has been set, run the following command to <strong>unmount the filesystem<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"># umount \/<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-37011 size-large\" title=\"reset-vcsa-root-password-06\" src=\"https:\/\/nolabnoparty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/reset-vcsa-root-password-06-600x101.jpg\" alt=\"reset-vcsa-root-password-06\" width=\"600\" height=\"101\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Now <strong>reboot the appliance<\/strong> to activate the new password.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"># reboot -f<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-37013 size-large\" title=\"reset-vcsa-root-password-07\" src=\"https:\/\/nolabnoparty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/reset-vcsa-root-password-07-600x121.jpg\" alt=\"reset-vcsa-root-password-07\" width=\"600\" height=\"121\" \/><\/p>\n<p>With the new password you are now able to <strong>access the appliance's management console<\/strong> again.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-37015 size-large\" title=\"reset-vcsa-root-password-08\" src=\"https:\/\/nolabnoparty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/reset-vcsa-root-password-08-600x333.jpg\" alt=\"reset-vcsa-root-password-08\" width=\"600\" height=\"333\" \/><\/p>\n<p>As a best practice, the vCSA root password should be <strong>changed on regular basis<\/strong> to keep the highest security level.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" title=\"signature\" src=\"https:\/\/nolabnoparty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/images\/firma.jpg\" alt=\"signature\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If the vCSA root password is lost or forgotten, you no longer have access to the vCenter Server Appliance\u00a0management console and you can't SSH the appliance. This affects updates and patching\u00a0operations through the GUI or the command line, and also the NTP and root password policy configuration settings. The troubleshooting process is also affected due to the limited access to the appliance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":37001,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"linkedin_93tdZWzMZc_93tdZWzMZc":"","facebook_2879994398731222_17841400390232720":"","twitter_113568041_113568041":"","mastodon_115463926174894442_115463926174894442":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[903,2701],"tags":[602,187,89,1551],"class_list":["post-36909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-vmware-en","category-vsphere-en","tag-password-en","tag-reset","tag-root","tag-vcsa","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nolabnoparty.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nolabnoparty.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nolabnoparty.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nolabnoparty.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nolabnoparty.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nolabnoparty.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36909\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nolabnoparty.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nolabnoparty.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nolabnoparty.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nolabnoparty.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}