HPE MSA2040 Password Recovery / Factory Reset

I recently needed to reset the password on an HPE MSA2040 SAN to which I had physical access. It turns out this information was more difficult to find than I had presumed.

The often recommended action is to contact HPE who will send a engineer on-site to reset the MSA password/settings. Don’t hesitate to do that if you have an active support contract. However, here are the instructions for doing it yourself, without a call to support:

1. Preparing a Linux computer before cabling to the CLI port
   1. Although Linux operating systems do not require installation of a device driver, certain parameters must beprovided during driver loading to enable recognition of the MSA 2040 controller enclosures. To load the Linux device driver with the correct parameters, the following command is required:
      modprobe usbserial vendor=0x210c product=0xa4a7 use_acm=1
      Optionally, the information can be incorporated into the /etc/modules.conf file
2. Downloading a device driver for Windows computers
3. Connect to the MSA CLI interface over the USB serial port using teraterm or your preferred serial terminal emulator (see HPE documentation).
4. Hit enter to display to the MSA welcome banner and login prompt
   1. proceed to login with different possible usernames:
      1. UN: manage PW: !manage
      2. UN: admin PW: !admin
5. alternatively if these not working, try username: restoreusers with serialnumber as password of the MSA Controller you are pluged in.
6. If restoreusers not work, try finally username: restoredefaults and the serialnumber of the MSA Controller as password
7. The controller will reboot to factory settings, however, while retaining the network configuration (IP)
8. Once the controller has rebooted, you can login with HPE default username: manage and password !manage

If you have any questions or feedback, feel free to leave a comment. 🙂