Recover the root password when shell prompt is available

If you forgot the password for the VM root account and when shell prompt is available, you can recover the default password.

Before you begin

Note

To perform the recovery process, you will need access to the shell prompt.

The shell prompt is only available in SLX 9540 when the platform is running version SLX-OS 20.1.x and below.

1. Reboot the device.
   

   # reboot
   Press Esc during reboot.
   Hit ESC to stop autoboot:  0
   FPGA f6000720 -> 0x12
   
   1) Start system.
   2) Recover password.
   3) Enter command shell.
   
   Option?
   

2. Choose option 3 to access the uboot prompt.
   

   Option? 3
   =>
   

3. Define the root password value for the root recovery environment variable.
   

   => bootenv VM_Root_Recover RootPasswd
   =>
   

   This step sets the VM_Root_Recover variable with the RootPasswd value.
4. Save the variable to flash memory.
   

   => saveenv
   Saving Environment to SPI Flash...
   SF: Detected W25Q128BV @ 0:0 with page size 256 Bytes, erase size 64 KiB, 32 KiB, 4 KiB, total 16 MiB
   Erasing SPI flash...Writing to SPI flash...
   Erasing SPI flash...Writing to SPI flash...done
   =>
   

5. Reboot the device.
   

   => boot
   6912784 bytes read in 152 ms (43.4 MiB/s)
   Valid Boot Flag
   Setup Size = 0x00004400
   Magic signature found
   Using boot protocol version 2.0c
   Linux kernel version 3.14.17 (raop@hq1-ub-ecbld-373) #1 SMP Thu Jul 7 19:43:15 UTC 2016
   

   The root account is now enabled. You can log in with the default fibranne password.