How to Connect to Vmware ESXi CLI

Written By Christian Castagna (Administrator)

Updated at December 26th, 2025

Table of Contents

→ Applies to: VMware ESXi 6.5 and above

The connection can be established from any Unix shell (bash, zsh, sh, etc.), or using emulators (like PuTTY) on Windows and macOS operating systems.

 

From Shell


Step 1. Connect to VMware ESXi via SSH as root (replace <your_ip_address_or_hostname> with the correct ip)

ssh root@<your_ip_address_or_hostname>

 

From PuTTY


Step 1. Download and install PuTTY (https://www.putty.org/)

Step 2. Open PuTTY

Step 3. Connect to SynetoOS appliance

  • Host Name (or IP address): <your_vmware_esxi_address>
  • Port: 22
  • Connection type: SSH
  • Click on Open

At the first connection, you may receive the alert in following screenshot: just press YES.