Trying to attach to Farm but for Passphrase SharePoint 2010

Question

My Front End Server Crashed for one of my SharePoint 2010 (Version 14.0.4762.1000) Farms. I restored the Farm via my backup system. However, I am unsuccessful trying to connect to the original Farm Configuration Database. This is because I forgot the Farm passphrase. :(

My 1st question is: Is there anyway to recover the original farm passphrase?

My 2nd question is: Is there a way around this if the original farm passphrase is not recoverable?

I tried creating a new Configuration Database and then changing the phrase using the below Powershell script. That only works for the new Configuration Database not the old one.

*$passphrase = ConvertTo-SecureString -asPlainText -Force
Set-SPPassPhrase -PassPhrase $passphrase -Confirm*

Answer 1

AFAIK, in short there's no way to recover the passphrase. WHY? Because it was intended this way in the first place for security reasons. The answers that you find from other sites/people are all right to CHANGE the passphrase, not to recover them. So if you've forgotten your passpharse, the best you can do is to create a new one.

Hope this helps you.

Answer 2

I am not entirely sure as this has never happened to me but I will throw my best guess out there.

This procedure worked on my farm.

In powershell:

cmd.exe /c $env:windir\system32\inetsrv\appcmd.exe list apppool "SharePoint Central Administration v4" /text:ProcessModel.Password

Taken From:

http://joelblogs.co.uk/2012/09/22/recovering-passwords-for-sharepoint-2010-farm-web-application-and-service-application-accounts/