Lost vmware esxi password after a host reboot

[palszabo]

Dear Experts!

We use a server with esxi 6.x.

The server has internal vflash card installed. However, when we start the server again, the root password of the esxi become empty, and the customer have to install the server back to vcenter. We can change the password via vcenter and command line too, but if we restart the server the password become blank.

Question: - How can we solve this problem?

We using esxi 6.0.0. We can make a file on the flash card,it is writable, so the card  isnt read only.

BR:
Pal Szabo

[pwolf]

I'd try to change the vflash card - maybe this one is defective. I often had flash cards, which got broken all of a sudden.

[narenotpp]

Please try this, see if helps.

1) change root password

2) Use ESXi shell to run command /sbin/auto-backup.sh

3) restart your host

refer following KB for more information

Applying vSphere host configuration changes after an unclean shutdown (2001780) | VMware KB

[Finikiez]

It's going to be a broken flash card because ESXi can't save it's config.

[palszabo]

Thanks for all!

We did this test:

Broke the mirror

1. Start the server with sd card1: config remains the same, changed files are disappear after reboot

2. Start the server with sd card2: config remains the same, changed files are disappear after reboot

Both cards has an error.  What do you suggest?

BR:
Pal

[Finikiez]

Just in case - did it use to work on this host and this issue appeared unexpectedly? Can you try reinstall ESXi on the host>

[pwolf]

Obviously, you do not write changes to the SD cards, if all changes are lost after reboot. Either the cards are not writeable at all or not writeable by the ESXi system.