After upgrading from VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 5.

InVMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.0, the management of appliance credentials and lifecycle operations is centralized within theVCF Operations Fleet Manager(which subsumes the roles of the legacy SDDC Manager Life Cycle Management).

The Problem:The administrator is unable to log in as root via the console or SSH. This indicates a credential synchronization issue or account lockout, which prevents them from manually enabling SSH via the console (the traditional method).

The Solution (Remediate Password):The "Remediate Password" workflow in VCF Operations allows the administrator to reset and synchronize the root password for VCF components (like the VCF Ops instance itself) directly from the management plane.

By navigating toFleet Management > Passwords(or similar path in VCF 9.0), the administrator can select the affected instance and chooseRemediate.

This process updates the password in the centralized database and on the appliance, restoring the ability to log in.

Once the root access is restored via remediation, the administrator can then proceed to enable SSH (either via the VCF Operations settings UI or the console). Without the correct password (which "Remediate" fixes), SSH cannot be enabled.

Note: Options A and B (Reset/Reboot) are legacy manual steps that do not ensure the VCF inventory database is updated, potentially leading to further "configuration drift" or sync errors. Option C is unnecessary for a credential issue.