There has been some discussions on adding ESX host accounts recently (see  Add local users to multiple servers).

In that thread a problem with the CreateUser method and the shell field in the passwd file came to light.

To solve it the HostPosixAccountSpec object needs to be used.

For your question, this script should do what you require

Connect-VIServer -Server <VC-server>

$rootpswd = <root-password>

$accspec1 = New-Object VMware.Vim.HostPosixAccountSpec
$accspec1.id = "root"
$accspec1.password = <new-root-password>
$accspec1.shellAccess = "/bin/bash"

$accspec2 = New-Object VMware.Vim.HostPosixAccountSpec
$accspec2.id = "vmuser"
$accspec2.password = <new-vmuser-password>
$accspec2.shellAccess = "/bin/bash"

Get-VMHost | %{
  Connect-VIServer $_.Name -User root -Password $rootpswd
  $si = Get-View ServiceInstance
  $acctMgr = Get-View -Id $si.content.accountManager

  $acctMgr.UpdateUser($accspec1)
  $acctMgr.UpdateUser($accspec2)
}

You didn't state if these 50 ESX servers are all your ESX servers.

If not, the Get-VMHost will have to be replaced by something else.

Apparently the forum SW dropped some line feeds while you copied the script.

Try the attached version.

sorry spoke too early I saw your latest response and the script actually worked wihtout any errors. When i viewed the code i couldn't really find anything changed except for the formatting. Do you mean that could create the difference in errors i was getting?

Cool..how do i secure the password i am typing?. I tried the steps suggested in few forums but couldn't succed. Actually get-credential worked but not sure how to assign it to $accspec1.password variable..any idea?

Hi

I have been using this script to change root password on multiple hosts. There is one problem, if there is an issue with any 1 host, the script terminates. I end up with only half the servers done and since the current root password becomes mismatched, I cannot run this anymore.

Is there a way to add error-check or something so the script skips any problem hosts and moves on changing the rest of the hosts? help appreciated

Script I am using is attached.

the script works perfectly fine if I have multiple hosts that have exact old password and am changing to new one.

Problem is when it is running through the 1...50 hosts and hiccups on say #33 because someone had changed the password to anything else other than what is listed as current root password in the above script. The script then fails with bad password on that host and does not continue to the rest of 34-50 hosts either. I want to be able to mark the one with the problem but still move ahead changing the pwd on rest of them.

Maybe before the script runs we could check password age on all hosts and make sure it is same? I am not sure how to do this.

This can also be done with Koen Warsons ESX tasks

http://www.svmotion.com/