Try changing the shell to sh from bash and see if that works

$ echo $0

/bin/bash

$ exec /bin/sh

$ echo $0

/bin/sh

It is not bash command.

After you log in to vcenter do not enter shell, just execute this command.

You will have to run this command from appliancesh

chsh -s /bin/appliancesh root --> Execute this command and establish a new ssh session

is there a way to prepopulate the password - I've tried and get PASSWORD_STR cant use passwords on the command line error

Manual entry of the password seems to be the only way -