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Reset the password on a Dell EqualLogic SAN

The last few months we were asked several times to reset a password seton the main account for Dell EqualLogic storage, also known as the grpadmin account. If you really dont know the password set on the grpadmin but still have physical accessto it you can start a recovery procedure to reset the grpadmin account back to thedefault password: grpadmin.Important:Because you must power-cycle one group member as part of thepassword reset procedure, volumes with data stored on that member will beunavailable and active iSCSI connections to those volumes will be lost until the memberis restarted. You may want to warn users of any impending offline volumes and iSCSIdisconnections before resetting the password.

To temporarily reset the grpadmin account password to the default factory-setpassword, follow these steps:

1.)On one group member, connect the appropriate serial cable to serial port 0 (thecorrect cable will be different on different models of the PS Array) on the active controlmodule. The active control module is indicated by the green control module status LEDlabeled ACT. The status LEDs are located on the controllers sometimes on the left sideor next to the serial port on other controllers.

2.)Turn off power to the member (if you have dual power supplies, turn off bothpower supplies). Volumes with data located on the member will be offline and iSCSIconnections to those volumes will be lost until the member is restarted.

3.)If the member has two control modules, after it is shut down, remove the controllerthat your serial cable is not connected to. This is to ensure that, while you are settingpassword-recovery mode on one controller, the other controller doesnt run past us andstart the array up. Controllers just have to be removed a little so they dont makecontact any more to be disabled. (2 cm out is far enough)

4.)Turn on power to the member by turning on all the power supplies.

5.)While the member is restarting, press Ctrl/p when the following message appearson the console: Press Ctrl/p to enter setup mode. This will halt the boot process andallow you to enter commands to the boot monitor.

6.)At the CFE> prompt, enter the following commands, which are case-sensitive andmust be typed exactly as shown:

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CFE> setenv RESETPASSWORD 1CFE> reload

7.)When the member restarts, the PeerStorage login prompt appears. After a shortpause, the following message should appear: WARNING:Password recovery mode

Temporarily resetting grpadmin password.If you get the previous message, log in the the group using the grpadmin account andits factory-set password, grpadmin:

Login: grpadminPassword: grpadmin

At this point, you are logged in to the group with read-write permission and canperform any group administration task. At this point, you should set the grpadminaccount password to a known value.

Use the procedure described in the Modifying Accounts section in the GroupAdministration manual or use the following command:> account select grpadmin passwdEnter New Password: xxxxxxxRetype password: xxxxxxx

Note: Unless you set the grpadmin account password within five minutes after thepassword recovery mode message appears, the grpadmin password will revert back tothe value it had prior to the password reset procedure (that is, you will no longer beable to log in with the factory-set password).

However, as long as you remain logged in to the grpadmin account, you can set thepassword to a known value. If the password recovery mode message does not appear,the password reset procedure did not succeed (for example, because you did not enterthe CFE commands exactly as shown). In this case, allow the member to completelystart up, and then retry the password reset procedure, shutting down the member andfollowing the steps above.

8.)If the member has two control modules, after logging in to the group and settingthe grpadmin password, reinsert the second controller, this restarts the secondarycontrol module and allows it to be used. Within one minute, you should see a console

message, indicating that the secondary control module is operational.