Enable SSH Service on ESXi hosts using PowerShell

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I found myself wanting to enable the SSH service on my ESXi hosts. I could use Host Profiles to enable it but I decided to PowerShell script it! To enable SSH there are three parts to it:

You will need to start the SSH service and set it to Start and Stop with Host:

And you will need to suppress the SSH is enabled warning message:

esxi-hosts-ssh-warning

This script does all of the above to an entire cluster. Let’s see it in action!

######################################################################
# Start SSH Service, change Startup Policy, and Suppress SSH Warning #
######################################################################

#Variables
$vCenter = "LABVC01.virtuallyboring.com"
$Cluster = "Nested ESXi Cluster"

### Start of Script
# Load VMware Cmdlet and connect to vCenter
Add-PSSnapin vmware.vimautomation.core
connect-viserver -server $vCenter

$VMHost = Get-Cluster -Name $Cluster | Get-VMhost

# Start SSH Server on a Cluster
ForEach ($VMhost in $Cluster){
Write-Host -ForegroundColor GREEN "Starting SSH Service on " -NoNewline
Write-Host -ForegroundColor YELLOW "$VMhost"
Get-VMHost | Get-VMHostService | ? {($_.Key -eq "TSM-ssh") -and ($_.Running -eq $False)} | Start-VMHostService
}

# Change Startup Policy
ForEach ($VMhost in $Cluster){
Write-Host -ForegroundColor GREEN "Setting Startup Policy on " -NoNewline
Write-Host -ForegroundColor YELLOW "$VMhost"
Get-VMHost | Get-VMHostService | where { $_.key -eq "TSM-SSH" } | Set-VMHostService -Policy "On" -Confirm:$false -ea 1
}

# Surpress SSH Warning
ForEach ($VMhost in $Cluster){
Write-Host -ForegroundColor GREEN "Setting UserVar to supress Shell warning on " -NoNewline
Write-Host -ForegroundColor YELLOW "$VMhost"
Get-VMhost | Get-AdvancedSetting | Where {$_.Name -eq "UserVars.SuppressShellWarning"} | Set-AdvancedSetting -Value "1" -Confirm:$false
}
### End of Script

Paste the script in PowerShell ISE as we need to update a few variables:

  1. $vCenter: Enter your vCenter name of your vCenter name
  2. $Cluster: Enter the name of your Cluster

You are now ready to run the script!

4 thoughts on “Enable SSH Service on ESXi hosts using PowerShell”

  1. This worked like a champ, however I’m using PowerCLI 6.5 and I got an error on this:
    Add-PSSnapin vmware.vimautomation.core

    Reply

  3. There’s quite some redundancy and unnecessary stuff in your scipt. Basically you can compress lines 14-35 to this:

    Get-Cluster -Name $Cluster | Get-VMhost | %{
    Write-Host -ForegroundColor YELLOW “Proeccsing $_”
    Write-Host -ForegroundColor GREEN “Starting SSH Service”
    $_ | Get-VMHostService | ? {($_.Key -eq “TSM-ssh”) -and ($_.Running -eq $False)} | Start-VMHostService

    Write-Host -ForegroundColor GREEN “Setting Startup Policy”
    $_ | Get-VMHostService | where { $_.key -eq “TSM-SSH” } | Set-VMHostService -Policy “On” -Confirm:$false -ea 1

    Write-Host -ForegroundColor GREEN “Setting UserVar to supress Shell warning”
    $_ | Get-AdvancedSetting | Where {$_.Name -eq “UserVars.SuppressShellWarning”} | Set-AdvancedSetting -Value “1” -Confirm:$false
    }

    Reply

  4. Worked awesome, thanks!!!

    I would add a line at the bottom:

    Disconnect-VIServer -Server $vCenter -Confirm:$false

    This way you don’t end up with multi-sessions open.

    Reply

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