Comments on: Hacking your ESX 3i Server

By: Raul

Raul — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 15:12:15 +0000

I try to use passwdReset=”TRUE” in a ESX 3i that I don’t have the password but it don’t go well. When I try to config the system it continuous asking for the root password.

By: DGC

DGC — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 13:29:35 +0000

“First ESX 3i is based on the new ESX platform and therefor now supporting SATA drives ”

Tried to install ESX 3i (3.5.0-82664) on my IBM Thinkpad x61s.
The SATA disks are not there

I’m trying to figure out if there is a big difference between the IBM Thinkpad x60 and IBM Thinkpad x61s or did you make another trick to enable the SATA support?

Yahooooo my ass!

By: Frank

Frank — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 15:46:58 +0000

for 3.5i this is not working anymore, nether shift-O, nether vmkernal.boot.logOnScreen.

By: Phil C

Phil C — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 21:54:46 +0000

Sorry to say but the option for the shell seems to be gone in build 39330 release, and the setting VMkernel.Boot.Shell also, but checking out the new vmkernal.boot.logOnScreen check box option…. and VMKernal.boot.vmkKeyboard ….

By: Planet Malaysia

Planet Malaysia — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 06:18:55 +0000

3i is really cool! I’m still waiting to get 3i here.

By: Tom Elder

Tom Elder — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 15:06:16 +0000

liked the article; is the 32mb program available for download and if so where ?

By: Techie

Techie — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 09:49:04 +0000

Hi Domnic ,

instead of re-registering all the VM’s again , you can take the backup of your ESX3.X VM’s inventory i.e “/etc/vmware/hostd/vmInventory.xml” and after booting into ESX3i just replace this file in the same place and then restart the mgmt service.Your all VM’s will be back .

By: Tom

Tom — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 16:27:42 +0000

erm, is 3i available by download? Where may i get it from, as ESX3.5 is currently announced only?

By: Administrator

Administrator — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 12:54:22 +0000

On mike with this one… Any Windows, Linux system can be administrator password bypassed, so this is no issue what so ever for an 3i server.

By: Mike DiPetrillo

Mike DiPetrillo — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 11:16:19 +0000

For the password reset, this feature is available in almost every hardware based appliance that I know of. You can do a similar trick with Cisco switches and routers. You can do this with Brocarde switches. You can do it with McData switches. You can do it with Checkpoint firewalls. You can do it with F5 load balancers. I could go on and on. You need some way to be able to recover a password otherwise if you forget it you’d just have to throw the thing away (or reinstall in our case).

Remember, that this does require physical access. If you don’t trust your security for physical access then you have bigger issues then being able to do a password reset on a host. People could just go in and take your drives and walk out with your data or do other malicious activities like install a small device to do network captures (it’s happened). Work on physical security first before you start complaining about convenience features.