Changing the ovs-agent password on Oracle VM Server 3.0

The Oracle VM Server password is used by Oracle VM Manager when you discover an Oracle VM Server. You set this password during the Oracle VM Server installation. I’ll tell you how to change the ovs-agent password on an Oracle VM Server after installation. This post will detail how to change the password on an existing Oracle VM Server, as well as generate an Oracle VM Server password for use in a kickstart file for automated installs of Oracle VM Server.

Changing an existing agent password

To change an existing Oracle VM Server's password, use the ovs-agent-passwd command:

# ovs-agent-passwd <username> <password>

The username used by Oracle VM Manager to communicate with the agent is admin, so the command would look like this:

# ovs-agent-passwd admin MyNewPasswordIsVerySecure

To enable batch discovery of Oracle VM Servers in the Manager, ensure that the agent password is the same on all the servers you want to discover in a single job.

Creating an encrypted password for kickstart

The ovs-agent-passwd utility can also be used to generate an encrypted password hash that can be used in kickstart files for automated builds of Oracle VM Server:

# ovs-agent-passwd --encrypt <password>

This will output the encrypted password hash that can be used by adding the following line in the kickstart file:

ovsagent --iscrypted <password hash>