SSH will not stay enabled

[Tim Poulter]

So I have come across an odd issue.  I will say this has happened before and has happened for different clients at even different esxi patch levels.

Currently the host is at ESXI 5.5 Build 3248547.  But again I have seen it across different customers at different build levels too

These are HP Servers built using the latest HP Customized ISO at the time of the server deployment and then patched up to the latest builds

So what is happening is all of the sudden SSH seems to be disabled and when I try to re-enable it, it goes back to disabled.

I tried to enable it from the console under the Troubleshooting Options

  I select Enable ESXI Shell and Enable SSH and they both say Enabled on that screen. Exit the Troubleshooting Options screen. go back in and they are disabled again

  The time outs are set to 0 so they should be enabled all the time.

I tried to enable it from the vSphere Client but cannot as going into the Security Profile give me a General Error with the following "Call "HostImageConfigManager.QueryHostAcceptanceLevel" for object "ha-image-config-manager" on ESXi "192.168.xx.xx" failed

Also i get the following line that keeps repeating on the alternate console (Alt+F1) 

/bin/initterm.sh: line 12: can't fork

Now this only happens once in a while and it goes away with a reboot of the host but I would like to try to figure out why its doing it but don't have any idea where to start.

[jpsider]

Do you have a host profile that is disabling it? do the logs tell you a reason for the disabling?

[Tim Poulter]

As for the host profile, pretty sure not as we use the hp customized iso and its not happening on other servers we have put into production

As for the logs, not sure which ones to look at to see what the cause would be

[jpsider]

Below is a link, maybe take a look at :

/var/log/shell.log: ESXi Shell usage logs, including enable/disable and every command entered. For more information, see vSphere 5.5 Command-Line Documentation and https://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&docTypeID=DT_KB_1_1&externalId=2004810Auditing ESXi Shell logins and commands in ESXi 5.x (2004810).

https://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2032076