topic Re: FTDv cli password recovery in Network Security

FTDv cli password recovery

Dkiptoo — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 01:10:55 GMT

Hi, I have FTDv managed by FMCv both residing on the same VMWare EXSi host. I want to recover the cli password of the ftd. Any leads will be highly appreciated

Re: FTDv cli password recovery

Marvin Rhoads — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 16:16:10 GMT

If you setup external authentication in FMC and enable it for ssh access on the devices, you can use an admin level login with RADIUS-based authentication. With that, you can login to the FTDv and change the local admin password.

Otherwise, there is no direct recovery method by design.

Re: FTDv cli password recovery

Dkiptoo — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 11:36:13 GMT

How can I achieve this given that we don't have RADIUS server such as ISE? Can Windows Server NPS achieve this? If so, any leads to documentation walkthrough?. Also, I accessed the console on ESXi and interrupted the boot process where I was presented with the following screenshot. Not sure what do next if I ware to rest password through this methodology. First option would be great if I can get any leads as it carries less risk.

Re: FTDv cli password recovery

Marvin Rhoads — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 13:45:45 GMT

The "asa..." bin files will appear even for FTDv devices. By design, these are built to NOT allow local password recovery.

If you have access to the FMC, you can see all the relevant configuration bits and just rebuild the FTDv as a new VM and then associated the existing configuration parameters and policies to it.