Suppress the ESXi ssh shell warning
I know most of you (like myself) have SSH enabled. I use ssh for esxtop. I know that the vMa or vCLI is the way to go with esxtop (of in that case resxtop) but running esxtop on the ESXi server itself is a lot easier, just because you don’t have to provide credentials every time. I know you can use a session file, but I find this a lot easier.
When ssh is enabled you’ll get a warning in vCenter that ssh is enabled. On the summary page a warning is displayed:
ESXi shell for the host has been enabled SSH for the host has been enabled
Of course you can discar this warning the exclamation mark on the server icon is not nice. It indicates that there is a configuration issue. Maybe this is a configuration mark:) Of course enabling ssh for ESXi is a potential security risk and you only want to enable ssh by default if you often make use of it.
If you want to disable the warning and the exclamation mark do the following:
- Select the ESXi host in the Inventory tab.
- Click the Configuration tab.
- Under Software, click Advanced Settings.
- Click UserVars.
- Change the value of UserVars.SuppressShellWarning to 1.
- Click OK.
Michael Wilmsen is a experienced VMware Architect with more than 20 years in the IT industry. Main focus is VMware vSphere, Horizon View and Hyper Converged with a deep interest into performance and architecture.
Michael is VCDX 210 certified, has been rewarded with the vExpert title from 2011, Nutanix Tech Champion and a Nutanix Platform Professional.
