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VCSA has a default 90 days root password policy. You can change this password policy or you can manage the password policy through AD if VCSA is integrated with Microsoft AD.  If you don’t change the password policy when deploying VCSA then the root account get locked after 90 days.

How to Unlock the VCSA Password

The default root password of the VCSA is vmware. If the account is locked out so you can’t login back you have the option to go to the single mode and use this password for GRUB.

If the password was changed during installation, then the GRUB password is the same password as been given to the root account during installation.

Steps to proceed:

1. Reboot VCSA appliance and press the spacebar, then type p to enter the boot options.

2. Enter the GRUB password

3. Highlight the VMware vCenter Server Appliance menu and type e to edit the options.

4. Scroll to the second line displaying the kernel boot parameters and type e to edit the boot command.

5. Append init=/bin/bash to the kernel boot options and press Enter

6. The GRUB menu reappears an type b to start the boot process. 

7. The VCSA appliance will boot and you’ll be presented with a possibility to enter a new root password. 

8. Type passwd root at the prompt. Enter the new root password.

9. Restart the appliance by running reboot command.