ESXCLI Host Management Commands and Lockdown Mode

For additional security, an administrator can place one or more hosts managed by a
vCenter Server
system in lockdown mode. Lockdown mode affects login privileges for the
ESXi
host.
See the
vSphere Security
document for a detailed discussion of normal lockdown mode and strict lockdown mode, and of how to enable and disable them.
To make changes to
ESXi
systems in lockdown mode, you must go through a
vCenter Server
system that manages the
ESXi
system as the user
vpxuser
and include both the
--server
and
--vihost
options.
esxcli --server MyVC --vihost MyESXi storage filesystem list
The command prompts for the
vCenter Server
system user name and password.
If you have problems running a command on an
ESXi
host directly, without specifying a
vCenter Server
target, check whether lockdown mode is enabled on that host.