The free hypervisor ESX 3i from VMWare has some limitations. One of them is that access via SSH to the server is not possible.

This can be enabled with this little trick:

1. At the console of the ESX 3i hit ALT+F1 to view the console window
2. Enter the word unsupported and press ENTER (Nothing will show on the screen)
3. A support warning will show if you typed in correctly.
4. Enter root login password
5. At the ~# prompt type vi /etc/inetd.conf to edit the configuration
6. Find the line #SSH and remove the # by placing the cursor on the sign, press ESC and press x
7. Be sure that complete line moves to the left, so that there's no space before SSH
8. Save the file by pressing ESC and :wq! (Remember that standard keyboard layout is english, which means that for danish keyboard the : key is at the same place as æ)
9. Back at the ~# enter /sbin/services.sh restart
10. Now test if SSH is working with f.ex PuTTY (Can be downloaded here: http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html).
11. If it's not, try rebooting the ESX 3i server....

When I get the time I'll show you how to backup your VM's, make a simple template of a W2K3 server and other usefull stuff now that you have SSH access....