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This is an odd issue we are currently experiencing. The administrators have created a VM for a user. The administrators can log in via the vsphere console as root without any issue.

However, when the user tries to log in via the vsphere console as root, their password is not accepted. Even though it is the exact same user (root), password, and theoretically console.

The virtual guest is running CentOS 6.6.

Inside the host, /var/log/secure shows the following lines:

Aug 18 15:14:18 myhost.mylab unix_chkpwd[1812]: password check failed for user (root)
Aug 18 15:14:18 myhost.mylab login: pam_unix(login:auth): authentication failure; logname=LOGIN uid=0 euid=0 tty=tty1 ruser= rhost=  user=root
Aug 18 15:14:19 myhost.mylab login: FAILED LOGIN 1 FROM (null) FOR root, Authentication failure
Aug 18 15:14:49 myhost.mylab unix_chkpwd[1816]: password check failed for user (root)
Aug 18 15:14:51 myhost.mylab login: FAILED LOGIN 2 FROM (null) FOR root, Authentication failure
Aug 18 15:15:58 myhost.mylab login: pam_unix(login:session): session opened for user root by LOGIN(uid=0)
Aug 18 15:15:58 myhost.mylab login: ROOT LOGIN ON tty1

The first two failures are when we tried to log in from the user's workstation. The final succesful login is from my administrator workstation.

Does anyone know why it would be failing on one system, yet working on another? Aren't all consoles technically the console? Why would there be a difference?

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  • Can you set the password to something super simple to ensure it's not a character-table mismatch, something like 'ABCDEFGH' or similar. Also does this behavior remain if you use SSH?
    – Chopper3
    Aug 18, 2015 at 16:02
  • Are both the user and admins using the same console (Web vs C#)?
    – GregL
    Aug 18, 2015 at 16:20
  • Both users are using the vSphere client application (C#). I also created a new user for the user to try logging in as, and they are unable to login using that user as well.
    – Matthew
    Aug 18, 2015 at 16:27
  • Just to make sure the problem is on the client system: What happens when the user uses the admin's workstation and the admin uses the user's workstation? Both with their own and the other one's credentials?
    – Mario Lenz
    Aug 18, 2015 at 18:36
  • If we log out of the user's vSphere account, and then into the administrator account, the root login suddenly works in the virtual guest. If you log back out and back into the user's account, the root login begins failing. This happens on both the user and the admin's workstation.
    – Matthew
    Aug 19, 2015 at 15:19

1 Answer 1

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No, the consoles are not equivalent.

Please see: Can't use ctrl+c to kill process in VM

Try troubleshooting with different browsers to start.

More detail on the version of vSphere, the type of client you're using, the OS of the client and what else you've tried could be helpful.

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  • We aren't using browser, this is vSphere 5.5, using the vSphere application. I'll take a look at the link. Thanks
    – Matthew
    Aug 18, 2015 at 16:56

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