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How to enable SSH on the VM host:

VMware Server 2.x

: Enable the SSH daemon and configure identity key authentication according to the underlying VM host OS

ESX/ESXi 3.5 & 4.0

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• Connect to the console of the ESX/ESXi host
• Press ALT-F1 - you should see a black screen with the VMware product name at the top
• Type the word unsupported and press Enter (you won't see the letters appear as you type them)
• You should see a password prompt, type in the root password and press Enter
• Edit the file: vi /etc/inetd.conf
• Uncomment the first line beginning with #ssh by deleting the # character
• Save the file - press Esc and then :wq
• Kill the inetd process
  • Determine the PID of the inetd process: ps | grep inetd
    You should see a line that looks like: 5065 5065 busybox inetd
  • Kill the process (enter the PID from the output of the previous command): kill -HUP 5065

ESXi 4.1

Beginning with ESXi 4.1, SSH can be enabled using the vSphere Client:

• Select the ESXi host
• Select the Configuration tab
• Select Security Profile under Software
• Click Properties
• Select Remote Tech Support (SSH)
• Click Options
• Select Start automatically
• Click Start
• Click OK

ESX 4.1

In the case of ESX 4.1, SSH  is enabled as the default. Using the vSphere Client, you can confirm it:

• Select the ESXi host
• Select the Configuration tab
• Select Security Profile under Software
• Click Properties
• Select SSH Server
• Click Options
• Confirm that Start automatically is selected
• Click OK

IMPORTANT: You need to log in as root and to enable PermitRootLogin by editing /etc/ssh/sshd_config:

Then, you should restart sshd:

How to configure ESX/ESXi to use SSH identity key authentication:

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