ESX root Password Complexity Workaround

ESX server enforces complexity requirements on passwords and if the one you want to set up doesn’t meet them, password change will fail with something like that:

Weak password: not enough different characters or classes for this length. Try again.

You can obviously play with PAM settings to lower the requirements, but here the the tip on how to really quickly workaround that.

Simply generate a hash for you password using the following command:

# openssl passwd -1

And then replace the root password hash in /etc/shadow with the new one.

From my experience on ESX 4.1, you won’t even need to reconnect the host to the vCenter. It will continue working just fine.

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Initial Cisco switch configuration

First steps you need to do when you unpack your Cisco switch, for example Catalyst 2960, are configuring passwords and IP access via telnet and ssh. Cisco networking switches and routers have two primary operation modes: User (unprivileged) and Enable (privileged). In User mode you can simply look around, but in Enable mode you can reboot a switch, change configuration info, as well as screw everything up. You are safe in User mode. Switch also has tons of hierarchical configuration modes where you perform actual configuration.

Switch has three passwords: two for User mode (for connection from serial console and for external telnet and ssh connections) and one for Enable mode. Here is how you configure passwords after you unpack your switch and connect the serial cable.

Enter configuration mode:

enable
configure terminal

Configure console password:

line console 0
password pass1
login
exit

Configure ssh and telnet password:

line vty 0 15
password pass2
login
exit

Configure Enable password:

enable secret pass3
exit

‘login’ command tells switch to ask for User mode password. It doesn’t do that by default. Switch has 16 virtual (ssh and telent) consoles, that is why you see ‘0 15’ range in ‘line vty 0 15’ command.

Now to get IP access to the switch you need to configure so-called ‘VLAN 1 interface’:

enable
configure terminal
interface vlan 1
ip address 192.168.1.200 255.255.255.0
no shutdown
exit

ip default-gateway 192.168.1.1
exit

VLANs are not subject of this topic. But to make it a bit more clear, VLAN 1 is a special VLAN where all switch ports are connected. It’s done so that you could connect to the switch by telnet/ssh from any port. ‘no shutdown’ command here brings interface up. It’s disabled by default.

After you’ve made an initial configuration, your changes are active but not saved. After a reload you will have empty switch configuration. To save the configuration changes run:

copy running-config startup-config

Cheers!

How to reset Active Directory DRSM password

Login to the domain controller, run ntdsutil from the command line. Then enter:

set dsrm password
reset password on server null

After that you will be asked for the new password.