[ovirt-users] HEVM root reset?

[Chas Ecomm]

TIA for any guidance you can give me here, I'm in a bit of a pickle and have
spent many hours reading many posts and blogs that don't seem to get me
where I need to be, and despite my gut feeling that someone has had to have
dealt with this somewhere else, my google-fu is failing me in finding anyone
who has dealt with this particular problem.

 

My issue:

 

I've inherited a 4.1 hosted-engine setup.  This is for a non-profit, so the
previous consultant did what she could to save capital expense by using
older gear and oVirt rather than VMware/Hyper-V and newer equipment.  For
the most part it has worked quite well as I understand it.  This particular
setup has gone from 3.5 with a standalone engine to 4.1 with a hosted
engine, in case that matters.

 

The VMs hosted on the 2 clusters associated with this engine are currently
working fine, but I am trying to get into the hosted-engine VM, and either
there was a problem with the root password during setup and the
hosted-engine-setup script didn't catch it or I've been given a bad
password.  The previous admin didn't setup any alternative users, which is a
major no-no in my book, and so I'm trying to do that - but I can't login to
the VM.  I can log into the portal and manage the hosts, storage, VMs, etc.,
just not the HEVM.  As I understand it, even if I could set aside my need
for alternate users, when it comes time to upgrade I will need access to the
HEVM, so I have to solve this at some point.

 

If this were a physical machine, I'd reboot in single user mode and work at
things from there, but it's not, and I've not found a good guide to get to
the engine console to put it into single user mode.  I've found lots (and
lots, and lots) of links on the oVirt docs site regarding hosted engine
setups that simply don't exist as pages anymore and others that don't
address this issue, as well as a couple of links on the RedHat site that
made me think I could connect via ssh to the host running the VM, and do
some sort of X forwarding, but I haven't come anywhere close to success with
that, and since I can't log into the VM, I'm not sure how that would work
anyway.  I've always struggled with X forwarding, too, so that doesn't help,
I'm sure.

 

I read a few posts from what look like the early days of the hosted-engine
OVA implying you could launch a console from the management portal and maybe
try to reboot and set single user mode there, but they all dead-ended.
Also, I may be confused on how the hosted engine works (I find this much
more confusing than either VMware or Hyper-V), but if I'm connected to the
console via the oVirt management portal and I reboot the VM to try and get
into single user mode, wouldn't I lose my connection and still not be able
to get into single user mode?

 

I can connect via hosted-engine -console, but that asks me for the root
password, which of course I don't have.  

 

Am I just doomed to have to rebuild this whole set of servers from scratch
or is there some way I could either re-run hosted-engine -deploy so I can
set the root password and not lose my current config; or alternatively is
there a way to get the VM into single user mode and accessible so I can use
normal Linux practices for a lost root password?

 

Thanks for listening and for any help you can possibly give.  I'm sure
there's some simple thing that I've overlooked, but after hours and hours of
trying to solve this one on my own, I have to admit the need for help.

 

Thank you!!!!

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