FNG admin needs help with Eval VCenter installed by previous admin (cannot login) and finding orphans datastores (cannot find in ESXi)

[Touchsuite]

A previous admin at my company installed an evaluation license VCenter and ESXi, did not document the SSO logins and created a bunch of VM servers.  I am unable to login to SSO VCenter and unable to administer much of the virtual systems, cannot find orphaned VM datastores, cannot register existing VMs with VCenter or ESXi.

What I want to do is (1:) regain access to VCenter by resetting the SSO Admin p/w if possible, (2:) try to register the existing, orphaned VMs to get them squared away and eventually (3:) convert all the VMWare VMs to Hyper-V since we have only the one VM host (plus fail-over host) and less than a dozen VMs, many of which are going to go away.

Can anyone help with regaining control of VCenter?  VMWare support will not talk to me because I will not buy licenses for all the VMs that should have never been set up.

[berndweyand]

the first step is to reset the root-password: VMware Knowledge Base

then you are able to login with root via ssh and reset the admin-password: How to Reset vCenter SSO password for VCSA Appliance

[a_p_]

Welcome to the Community,

please follow the below KB articles, which explain how to reset the root password (if needed) for a vCenter Appliance, and the password for the administrator@vsphere.local account.

https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2147144

https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2034608​

André

[Touchsuite]

Thanks however, I do not have an appliance, I have a Windows VM running an eval license of VCenter.

[a_p_]

The second link that I've provided contains the steps for resetting the admin password for both Windows vCenter, and the vCSA. Just follow the link in the KB to the version the you are using.

André

[Touchsuite]

"To unlock an account using another session or using another user account with SSO administrator privileges:"  no help since I cannot login using another account with admin privilege.  Thanks for trying.

[IRIX201110141]

Can you login into ESXi yes or no? Because you mentioned orphaned datastores.

If you have access to ESXi than why bother with the unwanted vCenter if your intension is to migrate VMs from vSphere to Hyper-V?

In older windows based vCenter versions the local windows administrator was automaticly signed up as a vCenter User with admin permissions. Yes, its not the same as the SSO Admin but you get control back over your VMs.

Regards,
Joerg

[berndweyand]

if you have the windows version and you are able to login to windows-os with admin privileges just follow a.p. second link and follow the procedure to reset the sso password: VMware Knowledge Base

if you cannot login to windows with admin-priveleges you must ask some windows-guru

[Touchsuite]

Without access to VCenter I have lost a lot of functionality.  I have at least one VM not in Inventory and the vdmk is not in the datastore.  I am trying to regain VCenter functionality to gain control of all the VMs.

[berndweyand]

do you have the root-account of one of the hosts ? then you can manage/register the vm from this place

[Touchsuite]

Except the second article does not explain how to reset the password from Windows, it says I must login to VCenter with another administrator account.  If you can explain it better than the article does, I'm all ears.

[berndweyand]

you need this:

1. Log in to vCenter Server with a domain administrator account. If the Platform Services Controller is installed separate from vCenter Server, log in to the Platform Services Controller server.
2. Open an elevated command prompt ( Run command prompt as administrator )
3. Run c:\> "%VMWARE_CIS_HOME%\vmdird\vdcadmintool.exe".
4. and so on

you must not login to vcenter - you must login to the vcenter-server (that means the windows-os where vcenter is installed on) to reset the password