Enabling a Secure Shell on VMWare ESXi 3.5 or ESXi 4.0
Posted On:
9/23/2009 7:15:09 PM
by
jstarr
This is a bit more of a technical posting for those of you out there that have harnessed the power of VMWare and want to get more out of their latest ESXi 3.5 server.
ESXi server is a baremetal hypervisor used for running virtualized instances of physical machines. In short, it's a virtual machine server. It's also free to use, since it strips out some of the pay features you'd find in VMWare Infrastructure's full blown ESX/vSphere offerings.
By default, ESXi doesn't allow SSH (Secure Shell) connections. This is a problem for those that want to manage the host from the command line, or utilize SCP to transfer data through an encrypted tunnel.
No worries, there's a way to enable SSH so that you can further leverage VMWare's free server solution!
Follow these steps, and you'll have a secure shell available.
1. Go to the ESXi console and press alt+F1
2. Type: unsupported
3. Enter the root password(No prompt, typing this blindly)
4. At the prompt type “vi /etc/inetd.conf”
5. Look for the line that starts with “#ssh” (you can search with pressing “/”)
6. Remove the “#” (press the “x” if the cursor is on the character)
7. Save “/etc/inetd.conf” by typing “:wq!”
8. Restart the management service “/sbin/services.sh restart”
9. Kill inetd by typing: kill `ps | grep inetd | cut -f2 -d” “‘
10. Start the inetd service by typing in: inetd
Permanent Link:
http://www.infinistorm.com/blog/enabling-a-secure-shell-on-vmware-esxi-35-or-esxi-40