ESXi - [Unsupported] Console Access

ESXi - [Unsupported] Console Access

To access the ESXi console in unsupported mode do the following.

1. Open the console of your ESXi host, you should see a screen that look something like the following ( altered to protect the innocent ):


2. Use the key-combo Alt+F1, and you'll bounce to a virutal terminal (vtty1) with some log messages in it. Though you won't get a response to any characters that you type in here type 'unsupported' and then hit enter.


3. Once you access the unsupported mode, you'll be greeted with a friendly reminder that you shouldn't be accessing the console without the help of your friendly neighborhood VMware support engineer. Enter your root password here and you'll have unfettered access to the console. Some of your old friends are still here like esxtop and esxcfg-mpath, and so are some new ones like esxcfg-locker.



Standard warnings apply here. You really shouldn't be messing around in here if you don't know what you're doing.