VMware ESXi 5 - VNC to a guest
One of the more annoying things is that by default one have to use the vSphere client to access the console of a guest. Some people have decided to modify the firewall on the host to get direct access to the guest, but there is a simpler way to accomplish this. enable ssh key authentication on the host add the following to the guest configuration (needed no matter what) RemoteDisplay.vnc.enabled = "true" RemoteDisplay.vnc.port = "<port number for the vnc server>" configure your vnc client to use ssh, for example with Chicken of the VNC : Host: <your vmware esxi host> Port: the port number specified for the guest [X] Tunnel over SSH SSH Host: root@<your vmware esxi host>