How to Recover from a Forgotten Password through GRUB on Dell EMC Networking OS9 Switches

This article explains how to recover from a forgotten username and password, or enable password with FTOS switches using GRUB

Warning: Password recovery requires rebooting the switch

Entering GRUB and FTOS Boot prompt

1. Open a serial console session to the switch
2. Power cycle the switch
3. Press Esc when you see the following prompt...

" Press Esc to stop autoboot"

You will now see several boot options. Use the ^ and v keys to highlight FTOS-Boot Line Interface and press Enter.  You will now see a BOOT_USER# prompt

  Note: You will not see the boot option menu in the S3100 switch model. It will directly to go to  BOOT_USER#

Password Recovery

Once in the U-boot prompt, follow these steps to recover from a forgotten password.
Enter the following commands to ignore the startup-configuration

BOOT_USER#ignore startup-config
BOOT_USER#reload

When the switch is done booting, apply the startup-configuration to the running-configuration
Dell>enable
Dell#copy startup-config running-config

Enable Password/Secret Recovery

The following commands removes any enable password or enable secret from the switch
Dell#config
Dell(config)#no enable password
Dell(config)#no enable secret
 
The following command adds an enable secret to the switch. For an enable password, just replace the option "secret" with "password". Enable secret uses MD5 as opposed to DES, and is a stronger encryption.
Dell(config)#enable secret <enter password here>

Username and Password Recovery

The following command finds any configured users, and removes them
Dell(config)#do show run | grep username
username Delluser password 7 66a88a701a5b6b80 privilege 15

Dell(config)#no username Delluser
 
The following command creates a new user "Delluser" and password "P@$$w0rd123" with read and write access
Dell(config)#username Delluser password P@$$w0rd123 privilege 15

Line Console Recovery

Remove all authentication statements for the console, if needed.
Dell(conf)#line console 0
Dell(config-line-console)#no authentication login no password
Dell(config-line-console)#do write memory
Dell(config-line-console)#exit

 

Saving Configuration

When done, save the configuration and reboot the switch.
Dell(config)#do write memory
Dell(config)#do reload

Note: Please contact Dell Support for assistance with re-configuring the authentication settings of the console line, if needed.