How to recover a non-accessible Email Security appliance and also reset the admin password

10/28/2024 1,258 People found this article helpful 486,550 Views

Description

Resolution

Problem Definition:

An Email Security appliance can be considered non-accessible when the following is true:

1.<span font-size-adjust:="" font-stretch:="" new="" none;="" normal;"="" roman";="" style="font:7pt/normal;" times=""> No Ping possible

2.<span font-size-adjust:="" font-stretch:="" new="" none;="" normal;"="" roman";="" style="font:7pt/normal;" times=""> No port 22 access

If this is the case, the email security will usually stop processing emails (because it is not available over the network) and the customer cannot log on to the Web-interface to investigate. This guide will also explain how to reset the local admin credentials to “admin”/”password”.

The Web-Interface is only available over the network and cannot be accessed with the Monitor and Keyboard connected to it directly.

Resolution :

To recover from this position, you will need to connect a monitor and keyboard directly to the appliance. This will allow you to verify that you are using a correct IP configuration and also to access the Sonicwall Command Line Interface if this becomes necessary.

1. Connect keyboard and monitor to ES
2. Restart
3. Keep pressing the "tab" button while it restarts. After a few moments, you will see the “Grub Loader Menu” like below:

4. Select "SonicWall Safe Mode" and you will have the option to change the IP address like below:

5. You can set IP address/ Subnet mask/gateway and then "enter":

Also note that after you press “Enter”, you will essentially see the same prompts again but this time, it will reflect the IP configuration that you have entered and the machine will have that IP configuration from that moment onwards:

Once you have a working IP configuration, you can try to access the machine over the network to get to the WebUI. This can be done by opening a browser and entering http://<<new< a="">IP Address></new<> in the address bar. Because the machine is in safe mode, you will only see the Email security’s safe mode screen. Here, you can upload new firmware.

NOTE: Please Do NOT use the "WIPE" option as it will format all the file system and the device will be unusable.

This option is for Tech support/ Engineering purposes only.

Another option while having a Monitor and keyboard connected to the appliance is to connect to the Sonicwall CLI.

For that, you need to restart the machine and wait for the machine to finish its boot up sequence.

After a while, you will see the following logon screen:

Here, you can log in with the snwlcli, then admin, the admin-password credentials:

Finally, you will get the usually CLI prompt that allows for more detailed configuration:

The Grub Loader Menu also gives you the option to reset the local admin credentials to “admin”/”password”.

You will simply need to select the “Sonicwall Authentication Reset” option and the machine will reboot with the new credentials automatically:

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How to recover a non-accessible Email Security appliance and also reset the admin password

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