fpineau
Contributor
Contributor

It's not necessary to boot from a LiveCD or linux rescue disc.

When the appliance starts, the GRUB boot loader shows briefly.

  • When it appears, hit the up or down arrow to stop the boot countdown clock (which is only like 2 seconds).
  • Following the instructions at the bottom of the screen, hit "p" to enter the unlock password (which is the root password).  This will allow you to change the boot-time string.
  • Highlight "VMWare vCenter Server Appliance" and press "e" to edit the boot settings.
  • Highlight the "Kernel..." line and press "e" to edit the boot string.
  • Append a "1" to the end so that it looks like this: "...showopts 1" (minus the quotation marks)
  • Press enter, and then "b" to boot.

This will cause the appliance to boot in init level 1 (or single-user maintenance mode).  From here, the root password will get you into the console where you can delete /etc/vmware-vpx/ssl/allow_regeneration.  Reboot the server when you're done with "shutdown -r now".  It shouldn't be necessary to go back into GRUB to remove the "1" you added earlier.