VMware ESX 6.x without password

Do you ever asked yourself why I have to put in my esxi password everytime I login to it?

This might be over now!

This is just a quick article. I just upgraded ESXi servers from 6.5 to 6.7u1 and wanted to let you know how I add my SSH-Key to it.

If you already have a ssh-key than you might want to use it.

For example by default it lays under ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

$ cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
ssh-rsa AA[...]== <name you gave it>

So now you need to login to your esx.

$ ssh root@myESXi
Password: <type your password for the last time>

Now you edit the ssh-authorized-key-file…

$ vi /etc/ssh/keys-root/authorized_keys

Than you add yours + those of your collegues for example… and quite using :x (means quite+save)..

Now logout from your esx.

When relog you should find the following.

$ ssh root@myESXi
he time and date of this login have been sent to the system logs.
[...]
The ESXi Shell can be disabled by an administrative user. See the
vSphere Security documentation for more information.
[root@esx-myESXi:~] 

Cheers!