How To Enable SSH Access Remotely?

[choinga]

I'm running a couple ESX 4.0 hosts in a cluster configuration.

I read this KB article:  http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=8375637

Which states:

To create a user in ESX host for using a SSH client:

1. Log in to the vSphere Client as a root user.

   
   

2. Click Users & Groups.

   
   

3. Right-click on a blank area and click Add.

   
   

4. Enter a username and password. Confirm your password.
   
   Note: Starting in ESX 4.0, the password needs to be at least 8 characters in length.

   
   

5. Select Grant shell access to this user and click OK.

   
   

In my vSphere client (connected to vCenter), I see no such option "Users and Groups".

I see "Roles" and I can see a "Permissions" tab for each host but clicking on that to modify permissions only allows me to pull domain accounts not create a new ESX account.

Any ideas?

[choinga]

OK - I needed to login to the ESX hosts with the vSphere client, not vCenter. :smileyhappy:

Alright, I got the accounts setup on both hosts, matched the group membership exactly as they are with the root account and can login via Putty now.

However, I can edit the /etc/ssh/ssh_config file, for example but when I attempt to edit the /etc/ssh/sshd_config, I get a permission error:

Anyone have any idea what I'm missing here?

[RockYRahul]

Can you give more info on this ?

Check if you are logged in as 'root' user and you have permission to edit the file .

run 'chmod 777 /etc/ssh/sshd_config' before you open the file.

[choinga]

Thanks.

The issue is, my lab is remote to me and I won't have hands on again for a few weeks.  In the meantime, I'm trying to get the actual root account permission to log on to the console via SSH.

This KB article describes how to enable that if you are remote (which is creating another user, using the vSphere client on the respective host to give it 'root' type permissions and console access and then go in and edit this file).

So, the problem is - even though I'm matching permissions exactly with the root account - I apparently don't have the right file permissions.

Given that, attempting to do a chmod is producing the same error:

So, my question is - how do you enable root to get SSH access when you can't sit down at the console to log in as root - can only do this via SSH?

[Mauro Bonder]

do loggin with ROOT user.

or try run command sudo vi /etc.......

[choinga]

I finally figured it out - was missing a step.

I can login as the newly created user - but needed to type "su -" to get root access.

Once I did that, I was able to edit the sshd_config file and can now login via SSH as root.

Thanks!

[Mauro Bonder]

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