Vsphere inaccessible via web and logins aren't working.

[jhendry01]

I work in a school system with a 3 person IT department west of Fort Worth, Texas.  None of us have any experience with VMWare.  Yeah, that's a problem.  The previous IT manager is no longer with the district and, for the most part, was the only one who worked with the system.  He "taught" me how to spin up a VM session about 3 years ago (which is still running).  I have the UID and PW from those sessions, so I know they did work at one time.

Here is our problem... when he left, the VSphere console became unresponsive when we tried to access via IP or FQDN.  I can get to a login screen on our VMWare EXSi machines, but the two UIDs I have do not work. 
I tried an SSH session into the VSphere client, but I get an invalid UID or Password. 

This hasn't been a problem until this week, when one of our VMs became unresponsive.  We need some help.  I'm already aware that there is not an official back door into the unit, but there has to be some way for us to get into this box. 

I believe the Vsphere is a physical machine, but I am unable to determine where it is located.  I am able to physically locate our two ESXi servers.

If I can locate the VSphere server,  can I just cold shutdown and restart, and will that accomplish anything?

Are there any other steps that I can take?

(And yes, I need to look into VMWare training, so suggestions are welcome on that).

Thanks for your help.  I've been searching the forums, but unfortunately, either I'm using the wrong search terms, or this is a unique problem.

John

[brandonbazan]

Hey John, 

When you say the vSphere Client, are you trying to login to a vCenter(appliance to manage multiple ESXi hosts and workload...well and a bunch of other things in a single UI) ?

If you can find that(vCenter) machine, rebooting it could help to bring back the UI and allow logins OR following a process like this https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2147144 depending on the version you are running would allow you to reset a password. Note, that does NOT provide a reset option for the ESXi hosts itself.

This is a somewhat current guide on the SSO password reset once you have SSH access if required: https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2146224

[BivasM]

if you attach a monitor to a physical machine. it should show the ip address of the vmware esxi and hostname(if the physcial machine is responsive)

[Sachchidanand]

Have you tried accessing ESXi through direct console as you are able to locate physical esxi server. Try loign to esxi host through DCUI and see if you are able to login.

Regarding training/learning, you can try "VMware Hands-on Labs" to learn and practice without installing anything in your enviornment:

https://pathfinder.vmware.com/v3/page/ds-hands-on-labs?menu=hands-on-labs-catalog

Regards,

Sachchidanand

[CallistoJag]

It may well be that your vCenter is actually an appliance running on one of the ESXi hosts as a VM. If the ESXi servers are new enough, you should be able to connect to them by navigating to IP. Log in with root user and PW (if you have them). If older, you might need the old now redundant C# client to connect. Once connected you should be able to see the VMs running and carry out basic tasks such as restarting, powering on/off and opening a console. Good luck 🙂

[jhendry01]

Good morning Brandon,

I believe we are trying to log into a virtual vSphere Client.  I was able to do some network tracing and believe that (as someone else suggested)  its on a virtual instance.

I have two ESXi servers, running version 7.0.0.  It appears that I also have two and possibly more storage servers (the vSphere client ip address traces to one of those storage servers).

I have 3 logon id's,   adminstrator and tech on vsphere.local  and a root password.  None of the passwords appear to be valid (since I have not been able to log in on SSH using PuTTY

We are going to try a reboot of the VSXi and storage servers when I can get a clear time to do it.  I need to make sure I'm not gonna break anything. 

Thanks for your help!

John

[jhendry01]

That is one bit of information I do have!

I have all the IPs for the ESXi servers, the vSphere client (which appears to be virtual) and the storage servers. 

I'm going to double check my tracing to make sure what is physical and what is virtual. 

John

[jhendry01]

I am able to physically access both of my ESCi servers, but unfortunately the UID/PW combos I have do not work.  I've been told that the credentials I have may be for vSphere only, and no one has any idea what the ESCi servers authentication accounts are. 

Thanks for your help!

John

[jhendry01]

I believe you are correct on that. I was able to get into my switch this morning and trace all the ports to each server, and I'm pretty sure that the vSphere client is running as a virtual on one of our storage servers.

I know that the ESXi version is 7.0.0, but I do not appear to have a valid root password. 

I believe that does not require the client (but I am pretty clueless on all of this).

Thanks for your help

John

[VRO123]

Is your Vcenter IP accessible over the network? , as you mentioned in the previous reply, VCenter is an appliance, if you're able to log into ESXI, and you take the console of VCenter VM, sometimes reboot will help you to bring back your VC.

[jhendry01]

Thank you to everyone who replied.  Thanks to the many different insights, we made the decision to completely shut down the two ESXi servers, the separate hard drive server, and a fourth storage server.  

We crossed fingers, and turned all four back on and the VMWare Client was back up and we were able to log in to the system!

Whew!!!

Crisis averted!

John