Catalyst 9400 password Recovery

[Mohamed Alhenawy]

                                                           

Let's Talk today about recovering password for Cisco Catalyst 9400.

       Is it the one of the most important thing should be we know it ? YES

NOTE : This procedure need to have a physical access to the Device         

        Power off the Switch.

• Connect your laptop to active supervisor , if you have supervisor 1 is active so connect with it  and supervisor 2 is stand by so remove from chassis before any action in the  procedure.  Check Figure-1
• Power on the switch and Press Ctrl+C to get the Rommon mode while the active supervisor is getting up.

 :SWITCH_IGNORE_STARTUP_CFG

 After this boot the switch right now form Flash 

 :boot flash:package.con

Would you like to enter the initial : No

Right now you can enter to the exec mode and change the password

     # Enable 

     # configure terminl 

     # Enable password [Cisco]

 Also you can go through the line console and VTY  

 # Line Console 0

 # password [Cisco] 

 # Login 

 ---------------------------------------- 

 # Line Vty 0 4 

 # password [Cisco] 

 # Login  # Copy running  configuration  startup config

Now you can reload the Switch  and return the boot loader to the original  to let the Switch boot again  from startup config, also disable the boot manual by # no boot manual

Now you can access to your switch.

[faheem97132]

Hi Mohammad,

                        I am in a similar situation and want to recover the password on 9407. But the booting process is not being interrupted by entering CTR+C. it still continues to boot. Do you have any further tips? My configuration looks like as following. 

line con 0
logging synchronous
login local
stopbits 1
line aux 0
stopbits 1
line vty 0 4
login local
transport input ssh
line vty 5 15
login

[Mohamed Alhenawy]

Hi faheem97132

There are the steps we need to follow for the password recovery since in the Cat9400 we do not have the mode button:

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/switches/lan/catalyst9400/software/release/16-6/configuration_guide/sys_mgmt/b_166_sys_mgmt_9400_cg/b_166_sys_mgmt_9400_cg_chapter_01100.html#task_nzq_q4z_n1b