T E C H N I C A L W H I T E P A P E R / 5 0
VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide –
Volume One
Enabling Access to the ESXi Shell
Before you can run esxcli commands on the host, you must enable the ESXi Shell. Complete the steps in this
section to enable the ESXi Shell on each ESXi host.
Enabling the ESXi Shell from the DCUI
Perform the following steps in order to enable the ESXi Shell while logged into the DCUI:
• Log in to the ESXi host DCUI.
• Select
Troubleshooting Mode Options.
• Select
Enable ESXi Shell
and press return.
• Press Alt-F1 to access the ESXi Shell.
Figure 55.
Enable ESXi Shell from DCUI
Enabling the ESXi Shell from the vSphere Client
Perform the following steps to enable the ESXi Shell while logged into the vSphere Client:
• Log in to the vSphere Client.
• Select the ESXi host and choose Configuration -> Security Profile.
• From the
Services
section, select
Properties.
• Select the
ESXi Shell
option and choose
Options.
• Select
Start
to start the ESXi Shell, enabling local access to the ESXi Shell.