ESXCLI and Lockdown Mode
Lockdown mode can
disable all direct root access to
ESXi
machines.
To make changes to
ESXi
systems in
lockdown mode you must go through a vCenter Server
system that manages the ESXi
system. You can
use the vSphere Client
or ESXCLI
commands that support the --vihost
option.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.
See the vSphere Security
documentation.