1. Open VMware vSphere Web Client (the HTML5 vSphere Web Client is used in this case) by entering the IP address of your vCenter Server in a web browser. In this example, https://192.168.101.103 is the necessary address.
2. Go to Host Profiles that you can find in the Shortcuts menu.
3. Click Extract Host Profile.
4. On the pop-up screen, select the ESXi host you wish to use as a basis for creating a host profile. In this example, 192.168.101.215 has been selected. Hit Next.
5. Enter the name of the new extracted profile, for example, ESXi-password. Type the description if needed. Hit Finish.
6. Then, in the Host Profiles menu, select the host profile you have recently created (ESXi-password in this case). Right click the created host profile and select Edit Host Profile in the context menu.
7. Expand the menu in the left pane of the new assistant window and go to Security and Services > Security Settings > Security > User Configuration > root.
8. Uncheck all unnecessary options.
9. Select Fixed password configuration in the drop-down menu.
10. Enter a new ESXi password (for example, ChangeMe_357) for root, confirm the password and hit Save. Note: If you have extracted a host profile from an ESXi whose password has been forgotten, changing the password at this step is necessary. If you have extracted a host profile from an ESXi host whose password is known, you may leave the password unchanged.
11. The ESXi-password host profile has been saved after editing. Make sure that the ESXi host whose root password must be reset is powered on.
12. Go to Host Profiles, and right-click the host profile you have edited before (ESXi-password) and select Attach/Detach Hosts and Clusters.
13. Select the ESXi host whose root password you don’t know (tick the checkbox). In our case, this is 192.168.101.211. Hit Save.
14. Put your recovered ESXi host into maintenance mode – go to Hosts and Clusters, right click the host and in the context menu click Maintenance Mode > Enter Maintenance Mode. The icon of your ESXi host will be changed after that in the web interface.If there are VMs running on the ESXi host whose password you are going to recover, please shut down all running VMs or migrate the running VMs to other ESXi hosts within vCenter by using VMware vSphere Client.
Note: Maintenance mode is a special mode that must be used for an ESXi host
when the host is in service, such as memory installation, software update, applying
patches, etc. After entering maintenance mode and migrating or shutting down
VMs, an ESXi host can be rebooted or powered off.
15. When the ESXi host whose password must be recovered is in the maintenance mode, go to Host Profiles, right click the host profile and hit Remediate.
16. In the window that appears, select the ESXi host whose password is lost by ticking the checkbox (192.168.101.211 in our case).
17. You can click Pre-check remediation to check the target host.
18. Finally, click Remediate
19. After successful remediation, exit the maintenance mode (right click the ESXi host and select Exit Maintenance Mode).
20. Try to log into the ESXi host console as root with the password you have set in the host profile (ChangeMe_357 was set as the ESXi password for root in this case).
Now everything should work properly – an ESXi password for root is reset and access to the ESXi host is restored. You can set a new complex password for your ESXi host now
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