Unsupported Console and SSH on ESXi 4

by bunchc on May 26, 2009

This will likely not generate as much fanfare as it did for the 3.5 release of ESXi, however I can confirm that it does indeed still work in vSphere ESXi 4. This is the procedure I used to get it up and running on my “Lab” box.

  1. alt-f1 (Note: As pointed out below, you will not see your typing on this screen, just trust us, it is there).
  2. unsupported
  3. root pw
  4. vi /etc/inetd.conf
  5. delete the “#” from ssh
  6. services.sh restart

I’ve also poked around a bit, and found that while scp works, sftp does not. Also note that some commenters had to do the following to get this to work: ps aux |grep inetd (getting the PID) and then kill -HUP PID

Tagged as: esxi, vSphere

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  • Amir Fasad

    This does work, thanks.

    But I have found that SCP transfers are excruciatingly slow under ESXi 4, even though I have all gigabit NICs and switches. It appears they are doing some sort of throttling on transfers. At best I am getting about 10MB/s transfers on downloads (to the VM host machine, that is) and horribly slow /unusable speeds of around 1MB/s on uploads (from the VM host machine to other boxes).

    I didn't have these same issues under 3.5 U4. Are you seeing the same problems or hearing any other reports of this? Thanks!

  • http://professionalvmware.com professionalvmware

    I have a 1/2 written post on this actually. I believe it has to do with the
    way ESXi is setup (busybox, etc) and the service console being diminished.

    -C

  • Umbra

    I believe that if you use blowfish encryption instead of AES (which is the default) that it will transfer much faster. Try it.

    Cheers,
    Umbra

  • http://professionalvmware.com professionalvmware

    Not sure dropbear can be reconfigured in that way. I'll take a look.

  • http://google.com/ niko

    Did you find any solution? I am running a Dell server out of the box, installed ESXi 4.0 and it so damned slow :-( It has a GBit NIC but transfers are all less than 10MB/s. :-(

  • James

    This doesn't work for me. Pressing Alt+F1 only shows me the VMWare version (4.0) and the copyright info.
    I cant type diddly at this screen :(
    VMWare 4.0/Build 171294

  • verbert_p

    James, when you press alt-F1 you will indeed not see that you are typing inything, but in fact you are !
    so hit alt-F1, type “unsupported”, press enter and type in your root password.

    regards

  • http://professionalvmware.com professionalvmware

    Verbert,

    Thanks for that! James, he is entirely correct. The post has been updated to
    reflect this.

    -C

  • karnash

    works fine witn ESXi 4.0. Many thanks for the simple steps

  • http://professionalvmware.com professionalvmware

    No problem!

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  • vmwarenovice

    I am using SunBlade6000 with x6250, and console is a kind of java virtual session. Tried Alt+F1 and blindly typed 'unsupported' and pressed 'ENTER'..nothing happens :-(

  • http://professionalvmware.com professionalvmware

    Unfortunately I don't have any sun gear to play with. Are you sure the
    Alt+F1 gets passed through?

    -C

  • sonicmarshall

    I did the steps to uncomment ssh but I still can't connect to ESXi via scp. I get a “connection refused”.

    Help please.

  • http://professionalvmware.com professionalvmware

    Are you able to connect over ssh at all? If not you may need to restart the
    services again.

  • sonicmarshall

    I got this to work by issuing a ps aux |grep inetd (getting the PID) and then kill -HUP PID. Restarting the services does not work. In fact it fails to kill the PID, you can see it on the screen. I am able to scp now.

  • http://professionalvmware.com professionalvmware

    Awesome. I'll update the post to include this.

    -C

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  • http://www.thenorth.com/apblog Andrew Pollack

    Thanks for posting – Confirmed, it does work great on esxi 4. I also avoided rebooting or restarting. Just found and killed the inetd process, the restarted it.

    This is just a busybox implementation of linux, so once you have console access there's no reason you couldn't install a package manager and any other kinds of packages you wanted. Seems to me that would largely be a waste, but some scripting tools wouldn't be a bad thing to put in for managing vm's.

  • http://professionalvmware.com professionalvmware

    That is where vMA and PowerCLI come into play :-)

  • sureshs

    Can somebody say, how to run Linux application in hidden console

  • http://professionalvmware.com professionalvmware

    'depends' on the linux application. The unsupported console is not linux,
    rather it is a VMware specific BusyBox implementation.

    -C

  • sureshs

    Thanks..
    i dont know, how to copy my linux application into the unsupported console. Can you please tell. i am unable to mount the floppy drive. Appreciate any help…

  • http://professionalvmware.com professionalvmware

    I wouldn't imagine you could. Like I had stated prior, it isn't Linux you
    are working with, it is BusyBox (http://www.busybox.net/). Which is a “Linux
    Like” environment. Sorry.

    -C

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  • sureshs

    i able to copy using SCP.. thanks..

    i need to trigger System Management Interrupt(SMI), Is it possible?

  • http://professionalvmware.com professionalvmware

    Awesome re: SCP. I'm not sure, however, what you're trying to do with the
    SMI?

  • kurtplaatjes

    Hi Guys,

    I have a solution for your SCP woes.

    Just setup an NFS on any linux machine on your network, then mount the NFS share on Esxi,

    Once you have it mounted.

    Ssh to your ESXi host and simply copy to / from the NFS share and your datastore. Both the box's datastore and nfs mount will be sitting under /vmfs/volumes/xxxxxx.

    I have a post on my blog somewhere if you have issues.

    blog.hidden.za.net

  • bjkamp

    Gents, I have created the following script to backup vm's to an ftp (or ssh) server. I got close to 300Mbps
    Change it to your requirements, tested on vmware ESX 4.0:
    #!/bin/sh
    VERSION=1.1
    if [ -z "$1" ]; then
    echo “Usage: $0 vmname”
    exit 1
    fi
    SERVNAME=$1
    # Backup host information
    BACKUPHOST=172.16.100.210
    BACKUPUSER=vmbackup
    BACKUPPW='password'
    BACKUPDIR='/vmbackup'
    # Get vm info
    VMID=`vim-cmd /vmsvc/getallvms | grep -v “^Vmid” | grep “$SERVNAME” | awk '{ print $1 }'`
    # $j is now VMID
    VMNAME=`vim-cmd /vmsvc/getallvms | grep -i “^$j ” | awk '{ print $2 }'`
    VMSTAT=`vim-cmd /vmsvc/power.getstate $j | grep Powered | awk '{ print $2 }'`
    VMDATASTORE=`vim-cmd /vmsvc/get.datastores $j | grep url | awk '{ print $2 }'`
    VMLOCATE=”$VMDATASTORE/$VMNAME”
    echo “Location: $VMLOCATE”
    echo “Name : $VMNAME”
    ALLFILES=`ls -1 $VMLOCATE`
    VMSTAT=`vim-cmd /vmsvc/power.getstate $j | grep Powered | awk '{ print $2 }'`
    if [ "$VMSTAT" = "off" ]; then
    echo “Server $VMNAME with VMID $j is already powered off”
    else
    echo “Powering off server $VMNAME with ID $j”
    vim-cmd /vmsvc/power.shutdown $j

    VMSTAT=on
    echo “Checking status (now $VMSTAT)”
    while [ "$VMSTAT" = "on" ]; do
    echo wait for $VMNAME to shutdown..
    sleep 10
    VMSTAT=`vim-cmd /vmsvc/power.getstate $j | grep Powered | awk '{ print $2 }'`
    done
    # ensure to start vm again when it was running:
    VMSTAT=on
    fi

    for i in $ALLFILES; do
    echo backup $VMLOCATE/$i to $BACKUPDIR/$VMNAME/$i on $BACKUPHOST
    ftpput -u $BACKUPUSER -p $BACKUPPW $BACKUPHOST $BACKUPDIR/$VMNAME/$i $VMLOCATE/$i
    done

    if [ "$VMSTAT" = "on" ]; then
    # vm was on when we started the backup, now start it again
    vim-cmd /vmsvc/power.on $j
    fi

    done

  • blahman

    YOU MUST USE A PS/2 KEYBOARD TO ACCESS THE CONSOLE.. USB DOES NOT PARSE THE ALT+F1 COMMAND PROPERLY…

    Spent 2hrs resolving that little beauty….

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  • dan

    services.sh only affects the services listed in config.db, and inet and ssh aren't listed there on my system.

  • dan

    services.sh only affects the services listed in config.db, and inet and ssh aren't listed there on my system.

  • tiffany1111
  • iV@n

    Not 100% correct – it works on my HP ML110 G5 – USB is the only keyboard I use…

  • JF

    Doin Alt+F1 bings me to a black screen. However everything I write in this just goes in clear text. Am I missing something?

  • Ben

    For ESXi 4.0 Update 1

    1. alt-f1 (Note: As pointed out below, you will not see your typing on this screen, just trust us, it is there).
    2. unsupported
    3. root pw
    4. vi /etc/inetd.conf
    5. delete the “#” from ssh
    6. press ESC and type in :wq to save the file
    6. services.sh restart

  • Ben

    I found on my Dell T610 Alt-F1 didnt work, but via the DRAC it worked fine. Maybe its something about the USB keyboard?

  • steve

    Hi All,
    Just tried on esxi 4.0 update 1 , log in all OK, but services restart does not seem to work.
    all the services load, but Dropbear / ssh fails to run.
    Attempted the kill -HUP *pid*
    Other than reboot any ideas??

  • rvdv

    Well, just shoot me:
    I have followed all these steps and after using kill -HUP, I can connect via SSH just fine.
    When I re-open the inetd.conf file, the SSH line is still uncommented.

    However, as soon as I reboot the server, in whatever way, the SSH line is commented again and SSH is disabled. I have really tried all options and all order of things, but I can't seem to figure out when the SSH line is commented out again…

    I have killed the inetd and restarted all services after uncommenting the SSH line.
    After that, the SSH line is still uncommented. But after a reboot, it's commented again…

    I would be really grateful for any help.

  • mobodojo

    The one thing I'm not finding is any information on enabling password-less SSH for ESXi. I'm currently testing a deployment of openQRM as a management option, but it needs SSH to be configured in a certain way. I've got SSH turned on. That was easy. Just figuring out the password-less part is turning out to be a challenge :)

    Any ideas? Thought?

  • Pfeifenraucher

    Thanx for these simple steps. But on my console i can type unsupported an root-pw as often as i like – there is neither a shell nor vi shows anything?
    When we tried ESXi3.5 we manaeged ssh to work properly.

    any suggestions?

  • Andrew

    A bit belated, but in ESXi 4.1 you can enable SSH through the console without going into support mode – just hit F2 to enter the configuration section, go into the 'technical support' section and enable 'remote technical support'

  • http://professionalvmware.com professionalvmware

    Yuppers. I'll have to send out an updated post.

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  • James

    How do you get out of the unsupported console once you have completed this? I am running ESXi 4.0.0. Thanks.

  • Atigris

    There is no need to play with the command line and change stuff .. this is old school now. SSH is supported on ESXi 4.0 and it is configurable via GUI http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1017910

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