Can't login to console after alt - f1

[mooncaptain66]

I just upgraded to esxi 6.0 update 2 from esxi 5.5. After update vcenter appliance didn't start and I cannot login from any client including SSH. I want to do this to start vcenter appliance or at least try to. However, when I go to the console I can login OK to the UI then I type Alt f1 to get to the command line interface and the same credentials I used to login to console fail here. What is going on - how do I recover from this? Most of the rest of the VM's seem to be running OK except for vcenter.

[mooncaptain66]

What if I redo the update but install the host software from scratch - basically reconfigure the networks and re add the vms? That may be the only way to get back in.

[mooncaptain66 · Accepted solution]

OK - after sleeping on it - and not sleeping on it. There are 3 problems - the main one is this - When upgrading to exsi 6.0 the Lockout root feature is enabled and it even applies to the local console command interface. Secondly, this ones on me, I never configured vCenter to auto start - duh! Thirdly, even if I had, the upgrade swapped the network static IP addresses  of the interface cards from the previous configuration so none of the vms on that box were visible on the network.