The Advisers Group

Enabeling SSH on ESXi is not supported but it is possible, just do the following:

1. Go to the ESXi console and press alt+F1
2. Type: unsupported
3. Enter the root password
4. At the prompt type “vi /etc/inetd.conf”
5. Look for the line that starts with “#ssh” (you can search with pressing “/#ssh”)
6. Remove the “#” (Move teh cursor under the # character, press the Esx key twice then press the “x” key)
7. Save “/etc/inetd.conf”  (Hold down the SHIFT key and Press the colon key at the same time. Then type “wq!” )
8. Restart the management service “/sbin/services.sh restart”

With Update 2 and later the service.sh command will no longer restart the inetd process. To complete the SSH configuration you can restart your host or run ps | grep inetd to determine the process ID for the inetd process. The output of the command will be something like 1365 1365 busybox inetd, and the process ID is 1385. Then run kill -HUP <process_id>. The inetd process will restart and you'll then be able to access the host via SSH.