CUMA OS Password Reset Fails with the "pwrecovery" Process

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Updated:May 13, 2011

Document ID:112908

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Introduction

Prerequisites

Requirements

Components Used

Conventions

Problem

Solution 1

Solution 2

Related Information

Introduction

Cisco Unified Mobility Advantage (CUMA) is part of the Cisco Unified Communications family of products. CUMA is a server software deployed behind your enterprise firewall that connects employees' mobile phones to your directory servers, IP Communications system, groupware, and conferencing servers as well as other company resources. This extends critical business communications capabilities to mobile handsets and allows everyone to communicate more effectively.

This document provides the guidelines to troubleshoot the password recovery in the Cisco Unified Mobility Advantage Server.

Prerequisites

Requirements

There are no specific requirements for this document.

Components Used

The information in this document is based on the CUMA server version 7.1.2.3.

The information in this document was created from the devices in a specific lab environment. All of the devices used in this document started with a cleared (default) configuration. If your network is live, make sure that you understand the potential impact of any command.

Conventions

Refer to Cisco Technical Tips Conventions for more information on document conventions.

Problem

The issue is you cannot log in with SSH or CLI, or Platform page. The pwrecovery procedure has been tried, but you still cannot login to the console. If an unacceptable password is entered during a pwrecovery, the password is not usable. There are at least three types of passwords that are not accepted during a password reset:

Password is too short
Passwords do not match
Password in dictionary

Note: If any of these types are used, an error is displayed. Then if a correct password is entered, it appears the password has been reset. However, the password is not usable. Any attempt to do a password recovery will not work in this case. You will be unable to login to the platform GUI or CLI.

Solution 1

If you do not remember the admin password, here is the procedure to reset it. There are two methods to reset the password. The first one is without using a recovery CD and the other is with a CD.

Login to the linux box with the root account (this is a standard linux box).
Make sure these services are running:
- /sbin/service cuma_db start
- /sbin/service cuma_admin start
- /sbin/service cuma_nm start
Edit the file using vi editor: /opt/cuma/conf/admin/admin.xml.

Find this line:

<name>admin_password</name>

<value>{MD5}xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx</value>

And change it to:

<name>admin_password</name>

<value>{plain}new_password</value>

Use this command in order to restart the service:
```
/sbin/service cuma_admin restart
```
Login with "admin" and the "new_password".

Solution 2

The issue is you cannot reset the OS Admin Password when using the pwrecovery process. Complete these steps in order to resolve the issue:

Boot the system with the recovery CD (7.1.2 or later is recommended).
Make sure it can detect installation (that is printed with the main menu of recovery CD).
Press alt+F2 to get access to the recovery CD's root shell.
Active partition should be on /mnt/part1. Make sure it is mounted properly.
Run the chroot /mnt/part1 rpm -q master and chroot /mnt/part2 rpm -q master commands in order to find the active partition.
After you run these commands and find the working version of the server from the returned results, you need to use it as the working partition.
Enter the active partition by chroot /mnt/part1, if it is a new installation.
If the server has been upgraded, use that specific part number (chroot /mnt/part<no>).
On earlier releases, run /root/.security/unimmunize.sh to remove the immutable bit from /etc/passwd.
Edit /etc/passwd and change root:x:0:0:root:/root:/sbin/nologin to root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash, then save the changes.
Run the passwd root command and give a password at the prompt, then confirm. Now you will have root access when you boot into the active partition.
Press Alt+F1 to get the main recovery CD menu and enter q to quit. Then, eject the cd.
Press ctrl+alt+delete to reboot.
After this, SSH in as root and set a temporary password for the OS admin with this command: passwd admin, where admin is your OS Administrator's user login name.

Note: Here, the password is only used temporarily. You will need to do it again.
Start up the CLI with the su - admin command, where admin is the OS Administrator's login name.
Change the password in the database with the set password user <admin id> CLI command.
Exit from the CLI.
Set the OS Administrator's system password to match the database password with this command: passwd admin, where admin is the OS Administrator's login name.

Note: This is documented by Cisco bug ID CSCtf25554 (registered customers only) .