Recovery from power failure

[jwoodmls]

To be clear at the outset, this is a theoretical situation - I don't currently have a power outage

However, we did have a power outage several months ago.  I am still very new to vmware.  We have a 3 host cluster and I could not connect to my vcenter server because it didn't power on automatically, so what I learned was I needed to connect to the individual hosts til I found the one that housed my vcenter server.  Once I got that powered on, I was fine.

Fast forward to no - I was trying to document this process for future use and am having problems connecting to an individual host in the cluster.  I can't figure out if it is just credential issues (I've tried everything I know, and obviously at one point I knew what it was) or if the cluster is up and running normally, if I am prevented from logging into an individual host.  Basically I don't want the whole thing to go down in the future and find out I don't know what the credentials are.  We use our domain creds but my understanding is that those are not what you would use on an individual host.

[a_p_ · Accepted solution]

It's up to you to decide whether to configure the ESXi hosts for AD integration. However, in most cases vCenter Server is added to a domain, and the hosts are standalone machines, i.e. use the "root" user to login if required. If this isn't possible, "Lockdown Mode" may be enabled for the hosts!?

André

[bspagna89]

Hi,

So for the end goal, are we wanting to reset the local ESX root credentials?

[jwoodmls]

We do use AD in our everyday use, but it would appear that connected to an individual host it isn't enabled.  So yes it sounds like perhaps I would log in to those as a root user.  Okay, I think you just fixed my issue - I had been trying administrator because that is what I saw listed - I guess "root" is not listed but that worked to get me logged in to an individual host!

Second question then - will changing the "root" password have any affect on any services? I believe I figured out where it is done but wanted to make sure it wouldn't cause any problems.  I'm assuming that the root user is only used if all else fails but wanted to make sure first.

[bspagna89]

Changing the root password shouldn't disrupt services. You may need to reconnect it in vCenter once you do it (not certain).

Here is the KB article describing the process :

VMware KB: Changing an ESXi/ESX host root password

[a_p_]

The root password can be changed anytime without impact on the vCenter Server environment. Once an ESXi host is connected to vCenter Server (this is where you need to enter the root user/password), vCenter Server configures the "vpxuser" account on the host which it then uses to manage the host.

André

[bspagna89]

Thanks for the clarification a.p. !