Details

When the ESXi Shell or SSH services are enabled on a host they will run indefinitely. To avoid having these services left running set the ESXiShellTimeOut. The ESXiShellTimeOut defines a window of time after which the ESXi Shell and SSH services will automatically be terminated.

Solution

From the vSphere Web Client select the ESXi Host and go to Configure >> System >> Advanced System Settings. Click Edit and select the UserVars.ESXiShellTimeOut value and configure it to 600.

or

From a PowerCLI command prompt while connected to the ESXi host run the following commands:

Get-VMHost | Get-AdvancedSetting -Name UserVars.ESXiShellTimeOut | Set-AdvancedSetting -Value 600

Supportive Information

The following resource is also helpful.

• https://dl.dod.cyber.mil/wp-content/uploads/stigs/zip/U_VMW_vSphere_6-5_Y21M10_STIG.zip

This security hardening control applies to the following category of controls within NIST 800-53: System and Communications Protection.This control applies to the following type of system VMware.

References

• 800-53|SC-10
• CAT|II
• CCI|CCI-001133
• Rule-ID|SV-207643r378994_rule
• STIG-ID|ESXI-65-000042
• STIG-Legacy|SV-104117
• STIG-Legacy|V-94031
• Vuln-ID|V-207643

Source

• Tenable.com/audits