How to set proper passwords on an NSX-T 2.x Bare Metal Edge Server

Problem: When installing a Bare Metal NSX-T 2.x Edge from the ISO (as described here), you aren’t asked to set passwords for the ‘root’ and ‘admin’ accounts. Instead, the pre-set default user names / passwords are admin/default and root/vmware.

Make sure you change these as soon as possible. Default passwords are a huge risk since, you know.. everybody knows them.

The ‘admin’ password is automatically prompted for a change upon first login (see screenshot below), so this isn’t a big problem, but the ‘root’ passwords stays the same until you manually change it.

Solution: Change the NSX-T 2.5 bare metal edge server ‘root’ password by typing st e in the CLI. That will force you to login using the default ‘root’ password (which is vmware) and to immediately change it in the same manner as you had to above with the ‘admin’ password.

Hope this helps! Also, stay tuned for more blog posts about managing the Bare Metal Edges.