At the command line, run the following command: # grub2-mkpasswd-pbkdf2 Enter a secure password and ensure this password is stored for break-glass situations. The vCenter root account cannot be recovered without knowing this separate password. Copy the resulting encrypted string. An example string is below: grub.pbkdf2.sha512.10000.983A13DF3C51BB2B5130F0B86DDBF0DEA1AAF766BD1F16B7840F79CE3E35494C4B99F505C99C150071E563DF1D7FE1F45456D5960C4C79DAB6C49298B02A5558.5B2C49E12D43CC5A876F6738462DE4EFC24939D4BE486CDB72CFBCD87FDE93FBAFCB817E01B90F23E53C2502C3230502BC3113BE4F80B0AFC0EE956E735F7F86 Navigate to and open: /boot/grub2/grub.cfg Find the line that begins with "set rootpartition". Below this line, paste the following on its own line: set superusers="root" Below this, paste the following, substituting the encrypted string from the steps above: password_pbkdf2 root <YOUR-LONG-STRING-FROM-ABOVE> Photon ships with one menuentry block by default. Copy that entire block and paste it right below itself. Example: menuentry "Photon" { linux "/"$photon_linux root=$rootpartition net.ifnames=0 $photon_cmdline coredump_filter=0x37 consoleblank=0 if [ "$photon_initrd" ]; then initrd "/"$photon_initrd fi } menuentry "Photon" { linux "/"$photon_linux root=$rootpartition net.ifnames=0 $photon_cmdline coredump_filter=0x37 consoleblank=0 if [ "$photon_initrd" ]; then initrd "/"$photon_initrd fi } Modify the first menuentry block to add the "--unrestricted" option as follows: menuentry "Photon" --unrestricted { Modify the second menuentry block to add the allowed user as follows: menuentry "Recover Photon" --users root { This concludes the fix. To verify, here is an example grub.cfg snippet: ... set rootpartition=PARTUUID=326e5b0f-42fb-471a-8209-18964c4a2ed3 set superusers="root" password_pbkdf2 root grub.pbkdf2.sha512.10000.983A13DF3C51BB2B5130F0B86DDBF0DEA1AAF766BD1F16B7840F79CE3E35494C4B99F505C99C150071E563DF1D7FE1F45456D5960C4C79DAB6C49298B02A5558.5B2C49E12D43CC5A876F6738462DE4EFC24939D4BE486CDB72CFBCD87FDE93FBAFCB817E01B90F23E53C2502C3230502BC3113BE4F80B0AFC0EE956E735F7F86 menuentry "Photon" --unrestricted { linux "/"$photon_linux root=$rootpartition net.ifnames=0 $photon_cmdline coredump_filter=0x37 consoleblank=0 if [ "$photon_initrd" ]; then initrd "/"$photon_initrd fi } menuentry "Recover Photon" --users root { linux "/"$photon_linux root=$rootpartition net.ifnames=0 $photon_cmdline coredump_filter=0x37 consoleblank=0 if [ "$photon_initrd" ]; then initrd "/"$photon_initrd fi }