Overview of the serveradmin user account

The serveradmin user account is a system user account that is a preconfigured on IBM Spectrum Protect Plus and the vSnap server. It is used to manage both virtual appliances deployed in VMware and Microsoft Hyper-V environments.

The serveradmin account can be used to authenticate to the IBM Spectrum Protect Plus virtual appliance administrative console, the virtual console and using secure shell (SSH). It can also be used to access the vSnap server through the virtual console and using SSH. The initial password for the serveradmin user account is sppDP758-SysXyz. When authenticating using the serveradmin user account for the first time through the administrative console, the virtual console, or via SSH, you will be prompted to set a new password. For default configuration, the serveradmin user account password policy has these characteristics:

  • The password for the user account does not expire.
  • The user account is not locked after a number of failed attempts.

This may not be suitable for some environments. To harden the serveradmin user account password policy for IBM Spectrum Protect Plus and the vSnap server, the configuration for the account must be updated in the underlying CentOS operating system. To configure password aging, see 4.1.1.3. Configuring Password Aging. To configure account locking, see 4.1.2. Account Locking.

Before modifying the serveradmin user account password properties, consider these statements:
  • On vSnap servers, the operating system credentials are used for authenticating management requests from IBM Spectrum Protect Plus and for authenticating access to SMB/CIFS file shares during backup and restore operations. If you enable and configure password aging and then later change an operating system password when it expires, the change can cause interruptions to routine IBM Spectrum Protect Plus operations. Use command vsnap user update to change the operating system password for an account that has been used to register the vSnap server into IBM Spectrum Protect Plus. This ensures passwords used for application programming interface (API) access and SMB/CIFS access stay in sync with the operating system password.
    Note: Even if you have changed the password using other means, repeat the change by running vsnap user update on the vSnap server.

  • In IBM Spectrum Protect Plus, edit the registration of the vSnap server to update the credentials to specify the new password.

  • On IBM Spectrum Protect Plus and vSnap servers, if you enable account locking for the serveradmin account, you may be unable to log in to the appliance if there are too many failed attempts. Depending on how you configure the account locking, the access should unlock after a certain amount of time has passed.

  • You may want to log in and reset the serveradmin account password without waiting for the configured time to pass. This can be done through using the root account. By default on IBM Spectrum Protect Plus and vSnap server OVAs, the root account can only be accessed through the virtual console and the password for the account is unknown. The root account password must first be reset in order to reset the serveradmin account password. For more information, see Resetting the serveradmin password.