VMware: How do I change a forgotten root password on my ESX Server Host?

How do I change a forgotten root password on my ESX Server Host?

Normally there are also a keyboard issue which cause the problems you should also test the keyboard in different physical machine. but if its remote please follow the below suggestion

If you have forgotten or don't know the password for the root user on an ESX Server host, you can change it without reinstalling ESX Server. 

Warning: This can be used maliciously and should be safeguarded against through proper physical access to the host, authenticated remote console access, monitoring and protection against reboot procedures (e.g. grub password) and limited access to the management network.

Note: The procedure below performs a password reset, it "blindly" replaces the existing root password with a new one. This is not password recovery, it does not allow you to learn the original root password. VMware does not provide tools or methods to recover the original root password of an ESX host.

To change the password for the root user, you must reboot the ESX Server host into service console only in single-user mode. To do this, follow the steps below appropriate for your version of ESX:

 

ESX Server 3.x and ESX Server 4.x: 

1.     Reboot the ESX Server host.

2.     When the GRUB screen appears, press the space bar to stop the server from automatically booting into VMware ESX Server.

3.     Use the arrow keys to select Service Console only (troubleshooting mode).

4.     Press the a key to modify the kernel arguments (boot options).

5.     On the line presented, type a space followed by the word single .

6.     Press Enter.  The server continues to boot into single-user mode.

7.     When presented with a bash prompt such as sh-2.05b#, type the command passwd and press Enter.

8.     Follow the prompts to set a new root user password.

9.     When the password is changed successfully, reboot the host using the command reboot and allow VMware ESX Server to boot normally.

ESX Server 2.x:

1.     Reboot the ESX Server Host.

2.     When the LILO screen appears hit the space bar to stop the server from automatically booting into VMware ESX Server.

3.     At the LILO prompt select "linux" adding the -s to the end of the line, it should read: linux -s

4.     Press Enter. The system begins to boot.  The server continues to boot into single-user mode.

5.     When presented with a bash prompt such as sh-2.05b#,  type the command passwd and press Enter.

6.     Follow the prompts to set a new root user password.

7.     When the password is changed successfully, reboot the host using the command reboot and allow VMware ESX Server to boot normally.

When the system is finished booting up, you can log in as the root user using the new password.