Reference documents:
[1] http://daiheeq.blog.51cto.com/876282/1179197 VM ESXI 5.0 forgot root password what to do
[2] http://www.vm-help.com/esx/esx3i/Reset_root_password.php (one of the main URLs, commented on the feasibility of the method)
[3] http://blog.csdn.net/wangxiaofei2006/article/details/44242923 Vmware ESXi forgot password reset method (blog content below)
Method One, reinstall ESXi, do not overwrite datastore, this is relatively simple.
method Two, if you want to recover password
1, with Linux boot CD-ROM, such as RHEL5 installation CD-ROM or Knoppix boot
2, to the command line, run Mount/dev/sda5/mnt/sda5
3. cp/mnt/ sda5/stage.tgz/tmp/.
4. Cd/tmp
tar xvfz stage.tgz
tar xvfz local.tgz
5. vi/tmp/etc/passwd
put similar root:x : 143434343:12232:9:99999:7
143434343 in this line clears
6. Rm-f stage.tgz local.tgz
tar czvf local.tgz etc
Tar czvf stage.tgz local.tgz
cp local.tgz/mnt/sda5/.
7. Re-set the root password by restarting ESXi
Summarize:
1. Make a startup disk with the U-disk, and then you can enter the operating system via the boot disk.
2. Not necessarily using mount, I use the Ubuntu desktop, automatically mounted. Sda5 is one of the disks, and the one that finds the most files is Sda5.
3.esxi versions different compressed files have different names, and ESXi 5.0 corresponds to State.tgz
4. Copy to the desktop, unzip, unzip, and then the shadow directory root corresponding to the line of the hash of the password deleted. Then re-compress, using reference [3] Sixth step compression on the line. You can also right-click to compress and then modify the file name.
5. Replace the original file. Reboot. You can then enter the settings without entering your password. You can change your password.