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ESX 3i Interactive Shell

Started by arjanhs, September 24, 2007, 08:26:25 AM

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arjanhs

September 24, 2007, 08:26:25 AM Last Edit: September 24, 2007, 08:35:48 AM by arjanhs
Building on top of an earlier post (regarding how to ESX 3i beta to run in a VM), I have made some pretty good progress. I was able to get an interactive shell to ESX 3i beta. The shell is ash (yes 'ash' and not 'bash) . The process to get the shell is actually quite simple.

As always:

    * There is no warranty associated with these instructions. Use at your own risk.
    * I highly recommend you make a backup of your USB flash drive (you can do so with dd as detailed in my earlier post or one of the methods here)


To get the interactive shell:

    * At the boot loader screen, press shift + o (uppercase O). This will present you with a '>' prompt at the bottom of the screen.
    * If you are not running ESX 3i from a USB flash drive (such as in a VM), type (without quotes):
          o 'nousbboot shell'
    * Press enter to begin the boot process
    * When the boot process is complete, press alt + f1 (if you are using Fusion, it is option + f1) to access the shell
    * Login with root and a blank password (by default; if you set a root password, use that instead)

I am aware that not everyone was able to attend VMworld and get a hold of the beta files, so I have included a video of the process:



You may have noticed that when you access the shell, there is already some text there. You can press alt + f1 while ESX 3i is booting to get more information during the boot process (loading modules, starting processes, etc).