I’ve run into this situation a couple of times now as a consultant - I go on site, we need to make some changes that require (or would at least benefit from) SSH or console access into an ESXi host, but the root password is unknown for any number of reasons - the old admin who set it left, we forgot, whatever. Rather than rebuild the host, here’s a neat trick with Host Profiles to reset the root password.

Since this is using Host Profiles, this assumes your ESXi host(s) are up, available in vCenter Server, and licensed with vSphere Enterprise Plus. This is only possible because the vpxa user on each ESXi host, added when the ESXi host is connected to vCenter Server, has root privileges.

Create the Host Profile

1. Right click any host in your inventory (it doesn’t matter which), choose Host Profile, then Create Profile from Host.

create host vmware esxi resized 600

 

2.