Figure 1: ESXi console
When you get to the server interface, press Alt-F1 .
Here, you will see an interface log containing what happened on the server but there is no command prompt and help file. If you hit a key, it will not appear on the screen.
What you need to do here is type and unsupported and press enter . This operation does not appear on the screen either. When you do, this is what you will see:
This enabled what VMware called 'Tech Support Mode'. As what the warning shows you, the things you've just done aren't supported unless you use it with help from VMware Tech Support. Because of this, VMware cannot issue warnings, using this interface, something that is not expected to happen to your ESXi Server. Therefore, you only need to do this on the TEST system.
At this point, please type the original password of ESXi Server.
Figure 4: Login successfully to the hidden interface
At this point, you have successfully logged into the hidden ESXi interface. What can you do when you get here? Let's find out this answer .
What can you do inside the hidden interface?
The hidden interface of ESXi is a Linux-style interface but much lighter when compared to the actual Linux installation. For example, some of the most basic Linux commands are like ls (to list files), cd (change directories), rm (remove file), cp (copy files), vi (edit file) and reboot . However, there are other Linux commands that do not work like pg, nano or man.
The most interesting configuration files are located in / etc, just like in Linux. Most useful commands that you can execute are located at / sbin.
In this article, we will give you an overview of the ESXi command line. In our opinion, the most important thing we have used the hidden interface is to edit the text configuration files on the ESXi server. This is a very important thing because it cannot be done using RCLI. For example, here are some text files that we edited:
Here is an example of editing an inetd.conf file to enable SSH:
Obviously there are other files that can be edited or viewed, such as passwd or inittab files.
Warning that all of these are not supported by VMware unless you are taking these steps under their control.
Conclude
In this article, I have shown you the hidden interface of VMware ESXi Server. Most people know that ESXi does not have a service interface but it does have a hidden interface. In this article, we have demonstrated the benefits of using this hidden interface. First of all, you can edit text files directly on the server to enable services like SSH. When you have access to the server's interface, you can perform many actions other than that, such as you can adjust, but these adjustments are limited by certain commands. on the server.