• The root password for the vSphere Replication (VR) appliance is not known by the administrator
• vSphere replication root password is lost or is locked

• Shutdown vSphere replication appliance from vSphere web client
• Delay the boot sequence of the VM 
• Power on vSphere replication appliance. When the Photon OS splash screen appears, press 'e' to enter GNU GRUB edit menu

Note:  The Photon OS splash screen only appears very briefly, so be quick about it. It is better to use VMware Remote Console rather than the Web Console


 

• In the GNU GRUB edit menu, go to the end of the line that starts with linux, add a space and type rw init=/bin/bash. After adding these values, GNU GRUB edit menu should look exactly like this:

• Press the F10 key to boot and at the bash command prompt mount the root partition 

• Enter passwd to change the password

passwd: password updated successfully ​​​

• If the account is locked you will need to clear the lock with the following command

/sbin/pam_tally2 -r -u root

For VR & SRM 8.8 and upwards use the commands -

/sbin/faillock --user admin --reset 
/sbin/faillock --user root --reset 


 

• At the command prompt, unmount the file system using the below command

• Reboot the appliance 

• After the vSphere replication appliance reboots, log in with the new root password