How to reset admin password in vMA 5

How to reset admin password in vMA 5

vMA – vSphere Management Assistant. Since the introduction of ESXi version of VMware Hypervizor, there is plenty of different ways to manage and configure ESXi hosts after the RedHat linux console is gone. This console was part of the ESX classic version and many VMware users had used that console to execute scripts, install backup agents etc….

Today there is many tools and scripting languages to configure ESXi. There is vCLI, PowerCLI, local DCUI….  and there is vMA, which is the VMware's privileged solution for management and scripting, since you can manage several ESXi hosts without the need to authenticate yourself each time, by configuring vi-fastpass authentication.

vMA 5 is build on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP1 64-bit: This is a major change over previous versions of the vMA. Those versions were all based on Red Hat or CentOS. The How to reset admin password in vMA 5 differs from the previous versions of vMA.

If you're not familiar with vMA, you should read some of my posts about the basics of vMA here:

– How to configure vMA as a destination of ESXi log files

– VMware vMA – how to change default English keyboard (RedHat Version)

– Nice video showing vMA – what is the vSphere Management Assistant

– vMA + Splunk = Syslog Awesomeness (Andy Grant)

How to reset admin password in vMA 5

vMA uses CentOS as an OS. The admin account's name is vi-admin. IT's usefull to know the steps for reseting this admin password. Because if you have “fat fingers” or forget this vi-admin password, you're stuck.

If you're preparing to pass a VCAP5-DCA exam, you can read my post where I do the recap on the preparation and also with some user experiences from the beta. The VCAP5-DCA is now available.

Step 1 – Reboot the vMA appliance and then select the first option in the menu “SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP1 for VMware” and press “e” to edit this line.

You should see a screen like this.

Now press “e” once again

Step 2 – You should see a screen like this.

Go to the second line, that starts with “kernel /vmlinuz..” and press “e” once more time. Move to the end of the line and add the following : init=/bin/bash and press [Enter] …… as you can see on the screenshot above.

Step 3 – Now type “passwd vi-admin” to invoke the password change command and change the password on the vi-admin account. You'll be asked twice for the new password to confirm the changes.  As you can see this step by step – How to reset admin password in vMA 5 (release notes vMA) – was quite simple, and it's always handy such a procedure, to have it online.

The password for the vi-admin user is used for logging in to vMA. The password must conform to the vMA password policy. The password must have at least:

• Eight characters
• One upper case character
• One lower case character
• One numeral character
• One symbol such as #, $

The vi-admin user has root privileges on vMA. The root user, by default,  is disabled.

Does the password complexity bothers you and you are not able to set more easier to remember password?

Quick tip – change the vi-admin password with elevated priviledges, like this: sudo passwd vi-admin

The Suse will complain, but It accepts it !!

Enjoy..

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