Brocade 300 password recovery and factory reset

Let’s say you purchase a couple of 300s on the Ebay and someone forgot to reset config but you can’t get in as all default passwords got changed. Here’s what we need to do:

1. Connect to the serial console port of the switch (make sure to use correct Brocade cable as typical Cisco console cable will not work).
2. Power on switch
3. When promted to stop test or stop AutoBoot, press ESC.
The Boot PROM menu is displayed with the following options:
• Start system
Used to reboot the system.
• Recover password.
Used to generate a character string for your support provider to recover the Boot PROM
password. Use this feature only when directed by technical support personnel.
• Enter command shell.
Used to enter the command shell, to reset all passwords on the system.
Checking system RAM - press any key to stop test
Checking memory address: 00100000
System RAM test terminated by keyboard
set_bootstatus: BS_LOAD_OS, platform_idx = 6
Hit ESC to stop autoboot: 0
1) Start system.
2) Recover password.
3) Enter command shell.
Option?

4. Type 3 at the prompt to open the command shell:
Option? 3
5. Type the Boot PROM password, if prompted, and press Enter.
The Boot PROM has a password only if one was defined.
NOTE
If you are prompted to enter a new Boot PROM password, make sure it is at least 8 characters
in length. Do not select this option unless specifically instructed by support personnel.
6. To change the “OSLoadOptions=quiet;quiet” setting so that the switch boots into single user
mode, enter the following command:
Fabric OS Password Recovery Notes 9
53-1000114-05
Password recovery using the Boot PROM interface 1

=> setenv OSLoadOptions “single”
7. Enter the printEnv command to verify the change:
=> printenv
AutoLoad=yes
BootromVerbose=no
InitTest=MEM()
LoadIdentifiers=Fabric Operating System;Fabric Operating System
OSLoadOptions=single
(output truncated)

8. Save the changes:
=> saveenv
Saving Environment to Flash…..Done
9. Enter the boot command with no parameters to bring up the device in the single user mode:
=> boot
Map file at LBA sector 0x17da68
## Booting image at 00400000 ...
(output truncated)

10. Enter the mount command with the following parameters to remount the root partition as
read/writecapable:
sh-2.04# mount -o remount,rw /
EXT3 FS on hda1, internal journal
11. Mount the secondary partition.
If the previous command returns hda2, then use hda1 in this command. If the previous
command returns hda 1, use hda2.
sh-2.04# mount /dev/hda2 /mnt
kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3 FS on hda2, internal journal
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.

12. Enter the passwddefault command to reset all passwords to default values as follows:
sh-2.04# /sbin/passwddefault
All account passwords have been successfully set to factory default.
If additional user accounts existed, they are deleted. Only the default accounts and passwords
remain.

13. Reset the OSLoadOptions to “queit;quiet”:
sh-2.04# bootenv OSLoadOptions ”quiet;quiet”
14. Reboot the switch using the reboot –f command.
sh-2.04# reboot -f
Traffic flow resumes when the switch completes rebooting. If you do not use the –f option you
will have to manually reboot the switch.
15. Log in with admin account using default password.
The password recovery procedure is now complete.

Next, we need to reset configuration to factory default:

1. Disable switch
>switchdisable
2. Disable config
>cfgdisable (hit “y” at prompt)
3. Clear config
cfgclear (hit “y” at prompt)
4. Save clean configuration
>cfgsave (hit “y” at prompt)
5. Reset configuration to default
>configdefault (hit “Y” at prompt)
6. Re-enable switch
>switchenable
7. Reboot to activate changes
>reboot

And finally we need to change management IP address with the following command
>ipaddrset

This procedure was tested with Fabric OS 7.4.1c
Default passwords for Fabric OS:

admin/password
root/password
root/fibranne

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31 Responses to Brocade 300 password recovery and factory reset

  1. Daniel Silva says:

    This Post saved my life. I had a couple of switches that needed to be reset and this did the job.

    Thank you so much.

  2. Francesco says:

    Thank you very much!! Works like a charm

  3. Pascal says:

    Hi. Great instructions, however I am stuck between the inital ‘boot’ and the ‘mount -o remount,rw /’ line. After I hit ‘Enter’ on boot, the system boots up but comes to the login prompt. Alas as I do not have the username/password combination, it doesn’t allow me to use the ‘mount’ steps. Am I missing something?
    Thanks.

  4. Dave S. says:

    Worked perfectly!

  5. Alex says:

    Awesome! Thank you so much. I used the first set of instructions to reset the passwords on my Brocade 6510 running Fabric OS: v7.4.0a

  6. Sergej says:

    Thank you, very much!!!
    This is the bestest instruction for brocades.
    No any normal instructions from IBM, HPE, Brocade and others….

  7. SB says:

    I just came across this article, and it helped me tremendously. This is what the internet is for. Thanks you for the post.

  8. Daniel Silva says:

    This post saved my life again! my boss was on my ass for not saving the passwords in our secure vault. Cheers.

  9. stu macintyre says:

    Thanks very much this helped me out too!
    What caught me out and I think with the chap Pascal above, is that if you copy the commands from the webpage here, the quotes copy across differently in a terminal window and then you get stuck in limbo between point 9 and not getting to mount the volume.

  10. Khizer Saleem says:

    Awesome Document.

    Thanks a lot.

  11. Marc says:

    Cool document, thanks a lot.

    But I get stuck when using /sbin/passwddefault

    I get back
    sh-2.04# passwddefault
    /sbin/passwddefault: [: !=: unary operator expected

    Any idea on that?

  12. Prasopak says:

    Thanks a ton, You save my life.

  13. Amicis says:

    I have question to last step. Do I have to reset switch config ? Will pass reset work, If I wont reset switch, ale leave configuration ?

  14. Dave says:

    Thanks for the “How To” documentation.
    I ran into trouble at “=> boot” instruction, I overcame it by using the instructions here:
    https://community.emc.com/docs/DOC-70927

  15. LUONG VU says:

    Thanks a lot for the post.

  16. Ahmed Sayeed says:

    Thanks – may god bless you for this act of kindness

  17. Mike says:

    I was able to reset the passwords on my switch with this. Does clearing out the config remove the licencing, as well?

  18. Don says:

    Thanks, this saved me on a couple that I needed to recover passwords and factory reset. The only thing that was different for me was the mount where I used the command: sh-2.04# mount /dev/sda2 /mnt
    as my env showed the drives as sda1 and sda2

  19. SP says:

    This saved us!

  20. Pingback: Brocade Default Login - UK Login Database

  21. Han says:

    This was the only online manual that I could actually be successful on reseting Brocade 300 SAN switch to factory default

  22. Serg says:

    Okay guys, I was able to figure out the problem for those who have get stuck in => boot…. its the order you guys put it.
    Press 3
    printenv
    setenv OSLoadOptions single
    saveenv
    boot ….

    will take you to sh-2.04#

  23. Dmitry says:

    Very super good manual! Not english, but I can do this! Spasibo

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