The ESXi host must disable ESXi Shell unless needed for diagnostics or troubleshooting.

Overview

Finding ID	Version	Rule ID	IA Controls	Severity
V-207637	ESXI-65-000036	SV-207637r378841_rule		Medium

Description
The ESXi Shell is an interactive command line environment available locally from the DCUI or remotely via SSH. Activities performed from the ESXi Shell bypass vCenter RBAC and audit controls. The ESXi shell should only be turned on when needed to troubleshoot/resolve problems that cannot be fixed through the vSphere client.

STIG	Date
VMware vSphere 6.5 ESXi Security Technical Implementation Guide	2021-09-22

Details

Check Text ( C-7892r364310_chk )

From the vSphere Web Client select the ESXi Host and go to Configure >> System >> Security Profile. Under Services select Edit and view the "ESXi Shell" service and verify it is stopped. or From a PowerCLI command prompt while connected to the ESXi host run the following command: Get-VMHost | Get-VMHostService | Where {$_.Label -eq "ESXi Shell"} If the ESXi Shell service is running, this is a finding.

Fix Text (F-7892r364311_fix)

From the vSphere Web Client select the ESXi Host and go to Configure >> System >> Security Profile. Under Services select Edit then select the ESXi Shell service and click the Stop button to stop the service. Use the pull-down menu to change the Startup policy to "Start and stop manually" and click OK. or From a PowerCLI command prompt while connected to the ESXi host run the following commands: Get-VMHost | Get-VMHostService | Where {$_.Label -eq "ESXi Shell"} | Set-VMHostService -Policy Off Get-VMHost | Get-VMHostService | Where {$_.Label -eq "ESXi Shell"} | Stop-VMHostService