Onyx (MLNX-OS) BIOS Password Reset

May 6, 2023bytheDXT

Recently I’ve been playing with some Nvidia/Mellanox switches specifically the SN2410. An issue that I ran into was that I didn’t have the BIOS password.

All of the documentation says that the default BIOS password is admin. That password did not work on my switch.

You can absolutely use the switch even without the BIOS password, however it may limit some of your options in the future specifically recovery options if needed.

The documentation that I found says that if the default password doesn’t work you need to contact Mellanox/Nvidia support. The issue with that is I’m playing with this switch in my home lab so I don’t exactly have a support contract to contact support.

I took the switch apart and there doesn’t appear to be a CMOS battery to pull to clear the BIOS either. There might be a jumper for it but it wasn’t obvious which one it might be and I didn’t want to risk breaking it.

In the end I ended up figuring out a way to reset the BIOS password back to default.

Here’s how to do it.

The Process

Boot up the switch normally into Onyx (MLNX-OS)
Google around and find the full license key of that starts off like this LK2-RESTRICTED_CMDS_GEN2-88
Run the following command to install that license license install

That license gives you access to restricted system functionality such as shell access to the OS that runs the switch.