In this quick blog post, I’ll go over how to reset the root password on How to reset the root password on VMware Cloud Director on v10.6. There’s been a slight change compared to previous versions, so here’s what’s new.

In earlier versions, we used the pam_tally2 command to reset failed login attempts. However, with version 10.6, this has changed — now we need to use the faillock command instead.

Step 1 – Enter GRUB and Boot into Single User Mode

Reboot the Photon OS VM.

When the GRUB menu appears, press e to edit the boot entry.

Look for the line that starts with linux and add the following at the end:

rw init=/bin/bash

Your screen should look like this:

Press Ctrl + X or F10 to boot with these changes.

Step 2 – Remount, Unlock, and Reset

Once you land in the shell, run the following commands:

mount -o remount,rw /

Then, check the login failures (optional, but helpful):

/usr/sbin/faillock --user root

Now, reset the failed login attempts:

/usr/sbin/faillock --user root --reset

The, update the root password(if needed):

passwd

You’ll be prompted to enter and confirm the new password.

Here’s how the full process looks in action:

Step 3 – Reboot

Once done, cleanly exit:

umount /
reboot -f

If needed (but not recommended in production environments), you can also set the password to never expired: To set the root password never to expire: chage -I -1 -m 0 -M 99999 -E -1 root 

And that’s it!  You’ve successfully reset the root password on VMware Cloud Director 10.6. This change to faillock reflects updates in the newer Photon OS versions, so keep this in mind when troubleshooting future access issues.

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