Retrieve your lost vSphere 5.1 SSO password

Keeping the passwords safe and up to date is a task not too many system administrators take seriously. One of the most common passwords missing is VMware SSO administrator (admin@system-domain) username and password. However, there is a way to retrieve the password without having to go through VMware recommended procedure of resetting both SSO admin and master password.

Note that the password you have used during the initial installation of the SSO service is your master password. You can later change the SSO admin password, but the master password remains the same! Notice that the SSO admin in vSphere 5.1 is admin@system-domain while in 5.5 is administrator@vpshere.local

To retrieve your SSO admin (master) password locate the file config.properties in C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\SSOServer\webapps\lookupservice\WEB-INF\classes\. This is basically a text file containing password and database information. Look for the line db.pass=

Not very good from the perspective of security, but it works. This is just an example of the file:

## Jdbc Url\ndb.url=jdbc:jtds:sqlserver://;serverName=;portNumber=1433;databaseName=RSA
## DB Username\ndb.user=RSA_USER
## DB password
db.pass=P@ssw0rd! <- This is your SSO admin password
## DB type
db.type=Mssql
# DB host
db.host=db01.sefnet.local