vRops 8.x

How to unlock root account in vRealize Operations 8.X

Mohammad Hossein Khoshraftar Yari

Hi, In this post I showed you, how you can reset the root password. Now, I would like to show you, how you can unlock the root account in vRealize Operation 8.x.

  1. Log into the vRealize Operations admin UI as the local admin user. 
  2. Select the desired node and click Take Node Offline/Online.

Note: If using a single node cluster, click Take Offline under Cluster Status.

  1. In the vSphere Client, open the console of the desired node.
  2. With the console open, restart or power on the virtual machine.
  3. Type the letter e to go to the GNU GRUB edit menu.
  4. When the GRUB loader menu appears, immediately use the up and down arrow keys to navigate to the end of the line that starts with Photon OS or linux for new 8.x deployments.
  1. Add a space, then type rw init=/bin/bash which adds another option to the line.

8. Press F10.

Note: The virtual appliance starts in single-user mode.

9. To unlock the root account, open /etc/pam.d/system-auth in a text editor.

Comment out the following line by adding a # in front of it:

auth    required    pam_tally2.so onerr=fail deny=3 unlock_time=900 root_unlock_time=900 file=/var/log/tallylog

Example:

 #auth    required    pam_tally2.so onerr=fail deny=3 unlock_time=900 root_unlock_time=900 file=/var/log/tallylog
  • 10. Save and close the file.
  • 11. Type sync and press Enter to flush the data to disk.
  • 12. Type umount / and press Enter.
  • 13. Type reboot -f and press Enter.

Note: If the reboot command fails, restart the Virtual Machine through vSphere.

  • 14. In the vSphere Client, reopen the console of the desired node and login using root.
  • 15. Run the following command:
pam_tally2 -u root --reset

Note: This command may need to be run twice.

  1. Open /etc/pam.d/system-auth in a text editor.
  2. Uncomment the line from step 10 by removing the # in front of it.

Example: 

auth    required    pam_tally2.so onerr=fail deny=3 unlock_time=900 root_unlock_time=900 file=/var/log/tallylog
  1. Save and close the file.
  2. Log into the vRealize Operations admin UI as the local admin user. 
  3. Select the desired node and click Take Node Offline/Online

Main Resource:

https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2001476

Finish 🙂