"Orchestrator Blues" Part 2: VCO and VCG password traps and recovery actions


When you set up new Orchestrator and Gateways it typically takes some time until you need to relogin via SSH or via Console in order to do for example an upgrade to a new version.

Default password expiration is typically set to 90 days.

Normally when for an account the password is expired you still can login via console and specifiy a new password afterwards.

Unfortunately VMware SD WAN Orchestrator and Gateways have a specific setting, that completely disables login of vcadmin after the first 90 days without any password change even on console.

In that case you are left with unreachable VCO and VCGs regarding CLI.

So the only way to overcome is a password reset procedure:

And there are as far as I have seen, 2 ways to do such a password reset:

  1.  Password Reset via GRUB Recovery Mode 
  2.  Reconnect of Disk to separate Unix System and doing Password  Reset from there

As the first method is much simpler you should always try that one, before using the 2nd one.

WARNING: Be careful and have a Snapshot or backup done before attempting the following procedures, the author takes no responsibility for the correctness of the following commands and sequences. 

Password Reset via GRUB Recovery Mode

a.) Connect to VCO (VCG) via Console
b1.) Send <CTRL+ALT+DEL> to Console
or
b2.) Reboot Virtual Machine
c.) press <SHIFT> during reboot until GRUB screen turns up
d.) by using the drop-down menu select the OS version stating recovery mode
e.) after starting of the mode wait until it prompt you to select recovery mode
f.) when the root@<VCO> prompt is there remount the disk in RW mode by using
     mount -o remount,rw /
g.) now you can set a new password by entering passwd vcadmin
h.) finish by using  reboot to start the device in normal mode. 

 

Reconnect of Disk to separate Unix System and doing Password  Reset from there

a.) shutdown the device
b.) mount the disk on another linux system as second disk
c.) start that system 
d.) Activate the correct LVM partition of VCO or VCG
     pvscan --cache -aay /dev/nbd0p2
e.) Mount the root volume
     mount /dev/vols/root1 /mnt
f.) change root and set new root password
     chroot /mnt
     passwd root
g.) exit and unmount the disk
     umount /mnt
     vgchange -an vols 
h.) shutdown the linux system and reconnect disk to original VCO or VCG VM 
i.) start up the VCO or VCG and login via root and the specified password
j.) reset the vcadmin password lock and set new vcadmin password
     pam_tally2 --reset
     passwd -w -1 -x 99999 vcadmin
     passwd vcadmin
 

 

Both methods presented allow you to continue without needed to reapply and reconfigure the whole device.

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