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  • in vCenter
  • 5 min read

vCenter 6.7 Update 2 – Code Capture

One of the very cool new features that came with the latest vCenter update is Code Capture. This feature allows you to “record” actions in the HTML 5 web client. When the “recording” is ended, Code Capture will generate PowerCLI.NET code. For those who used Exchange 2007, you may remember a similar feature in the GUI management console. At the end of each wizard, there was a summary of PowerShell code that would perform the same task you just finished.

Code Capture has been around for a while as part of the HTML 5 Client Web Fling. However, at the time, it was not appropriate for production use. With the feature being included in 6.7 Update 2, it now is appropriate for use.

Installing ElasticStack Beats on vCenter 6.7

I recently deployed a vCenter appliance to 6.7 after a power outage corrupted the 6.5 instance. A followup task for the virtual appliance was getting the ElasticStack Beats (MetricBeat, Filebeat) installed again. In this post, I will go through the process of installing the Beats and some of the minor issues I ran into.

  • in vCenter
  • 2 min read

VCSA 6.5 Root Account Password – Reset and Cause Investigation

One of the more frustrating experiences one can experience with VMware’s vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) is having the root account locked out or forgetting the password for it. I recently experienced this after I rebuilt the VCSA in my home lab from scratch.

How to Reset the VCSA Root Password VMware have a short process on how to reset the password for the root account, detailed in KB2147144. THe process is:

  1. Backup the VCSA (via snapshot or other means)
  2. Reboot the VCSA
  3. During the boot process, when the photon splash screen appears press the e key to get into the boot menu
  4. In the text box that appears, go to the line starting with “linux”. Go to the end of the line (which is right after the text “consoleblank=0”) and enter the text rw init=/bin/bash This will cause the boot process to jump right into the bash shell without needing credentials
  5. Press F10 to continue booting
  6. At the command prompt, run the passwd command to reset the password
  7. Unmount the file system by running umount /
  8. Reboot the VCSA using reboot -f
  9. Following reboot, confirm the new password works
  10. If you took a snapshot in step 1 remove it