ESXi 6.5 Password Reset Without Older Software

[dixonjaimy]

Hi, I am new to the community so please let me know if I am posting my question in the wrong place. I have recently started supporting a customer that has ESXi version 6.5 on their server. They recently left their MSP on what I thought were good terms and the MSP provided a list of documentation but the password for the ESXi root does not work. I asked them about the password and they said what they have documented is what they have. I was told that the only way to reset the password is to reinstall the ESXi 6.5 software which no one has locally. I do not want to disturb the VMs that are currently on the machine so I would like to pay for support to get this process done. Do I have an option to pay for one time support for this or do I need to pay some type of subscription?

[a_p_]

VMware basically offers one time support, but not for any version prior to 7.0. vSphere 6.x went out of support in October last year.

Is this a single ESXi host, or is it managed by vCenter Server?

André

[dixonjaimy]

This is a single ESXi host

[dixonjaimy]

Is it possible to upgrade the ESXi version to version 7 without having the version 6.5 password? And if so, how can I know if the server the customer currently has can support version 7?

[a_p_]

I'm afraid that in this case the only supported (well no support for 6.x anymore) way to reset the root password is by reinstalling the ESXi host, which however requires the correct installation image (often a vendor customized image), the license key, and some knowledge about the configuration.
Another way - not supported - is to remove the root password manually with booting into a Linux Live system (see. e.g. https://www.altaro.com/vmware/reset-esxi-root-password/). If you consider this, i strongly recommend that you test this in a lab first.

Regarding an upgrade. The root password is still required. For hardware compatibility see https://www.vmware.com/go/hcl

André

[a_p_]

One more thought: How are the virtual machines backed up? In case of a VM based backup, maybe there's a password hint in the backup documentation!?

André

[dixonjaimy]

There was no VM based backup. The folks who managed this did this as cheaply as possible. Super tiny VMs. They backed up the files in the file server to a cloud backup service and that was it. We have the VSphere 6 Essentials key but no software or ISOs to speak of. I checked iLO on the server to see if the installer for the software is there but no luck. Looks like I may have to live migrate these server VHDs to another machine and then redo the old server with updated software if it's even compatible with newer versions of VMWare. 

[E_Espinel]

 

Hello.
If you have the VSphere 6 Essentials license key, make sure it is the license key and not an activation key.

The vmware license must be registered with a user and password on the VMware website. Do you have that User and Password?

Do you have any other user with which you can login to the VMware Vsphere, or by SSH connection (putty) ?
The fastest and safest method is to reinstall from an ISO image with the option to install and preserve the existing datastore (VMFS). But make sure you have the license.

When you install VMware vSphere it automatically activates a 60 days demo pro license.

If you can log into the ESXi host and know the version, update and build, you may be able to find an ISO from the manufacturer (if you have ILO it must be HPE) or try the latest version 6 iso image available.

 

[IRIX201110141]

You are/was  a payed customer because of your Essentials license. So recovering of the license keys should be easy as long as you have access to the customer portal.

When booting with a gparted Live CD it took 15min to remove the encrypted key from both bootbanks and your Host will boot without a password. Done that a dozen times in the past.

Regards,
J.B