Need password clear and SNMP Public name change help on J9626A

[John W. Klimek]

            I have a customer with an HP J9626A / 2620-48 switch. The Michigan state security auditors have requested that I change the SNMP name from PUBLIC to something else. I am not an HP switch programming expert, but have been assigned this task. I need simple instructions on the following items: (1) A third party IT company has password protected the switch, and nobody there remembers the password. My understanding is that if I press the “Clear” button on the front panel of the switch, it will clear the passwords, but not affect the switch’s config in any way. Is this correct? (2) After the password is cleared, does it default back to BLANK user and BLANK password, or Admin user and BLANK password, or Manager user and BLANK password, or what? (3) In fairly easy step by step instructions, how do I change the SNMP name from PUBLIC to something else? Thank you in advance for any help that you can give.

[John W. Klimek · Accepted solution]

Not having received any answers from the community and being under a deadline, I contacted HPE Support, who were EXTREMELY helpful. I cannot say enough how terriffic they were. For the 2620 series switch, holding the clear button for 2 seconds clears all passwords and does not affect any thing else on the switch, nor does the switch require a power cycle or reset after this. Just push the button and you are all set. As for renaming the "Public" snmp community string, you cannot rename it. What you do is use the CLI interface and create a NEW snmp communit string, and then DELETE the old one. This way you still have snmp, but do not have the "Public" snmp community string for hackers to target. My problem was that I was googling for ways to CHANGE the name, which you can't. Be sure to then create new passwords for an operator user and a manager user, which you can do in the CLI interface or the Web interface.

[RenRom2]

If security is an issue, then also consider disabling webaccess (command: no web-management).

also consider using SSH over telnet.