Recovery – Almost a ninja

So, its been quite some time since my last post, dealing with personal issues and the festive season and and and, so, here I am, back in 2017 and hopefully bringing awesome content.

So, lets kick it off with resetting the vSphere password. This works on the vCenter, an external Platform Service controller or an AIO system.

The reason behind me doing this is due to the password expiring and someone resetting it and not recording it in our password management software.

Requirements:

A Live boot ISO – I used this one: ADRIANE-KNOPPIX_V7.2.0gCD-2013-07-28-EN
Console access to the VM you want to reset.

Caveats:

Be sure to have ESXi host access to the host where these VMs reside as the VMs WILL require a reboot, meaning your entire vCenter will be offline for the during of this password reset.

Let’s begin:

I assume you have some basic ESXi / vSphere knowledge so I will not go in to how to do simple things like mount the ISO – I will continue from the boot process.
Boot from the ISO, till you reach

Continue reading Resetting vSphere 6.0 Password →

Today I needed to reset a DSRM password, not because we forgot it, but more due to wanting to have different passwords for our domain controllers.

Although, you could have the same password for each Domain Controller – this is not always secure. If your server gets compromised and they hack the DSRM password, they will try that exact password on a different server in order to gain access to it.

What is DSRM?

DSRM is a special boot mode (or option) for Windows Server Domain Controllers (ONLY). Think of it as a kind of “SafeMode” for directory services. With DSRM, the administrator is able to repair, recover or restore Active Directory services. DSRM is configured during the promotion of Active Directory Services. This Administrator account that you configure is completely unrelated and separate to the DOMAIN\Administrator account.

Continue reading Resetting DSRM or Directory Services Restore Mode password in Server 2012 R2 →