Enable SSH in ESXi 4.0

By default SSH is disabled in ESXi however you can enable it by follow these steps:

1. At the Administration Windows press Alt+F1. You will get a black screen
2. Type the word unsupported and press Enter
3. Enter your root password and press Enter, you will get a prompt
4. Change directory into /etc
   #cd /etc
5. Open inetd.conf in vi
   #vi inetd.conf
6. arrow down until you see #ssh stream tcp…
7. With the cursor on the # type x to delete the #
8. Type :wq! to exit vi and save your changes
9. Restart host or restart inetd process

Restart inetd process

• Now we need to find the process running inetd. To do that run the following command
  #ps -a grep inetd
• Find the process number, lets pretend it is 1234. Run the following command to kill the inetd process
  #kill 1234
• Now we need to start inetd again
• #inetd
• You then will be able to access host via SSH