The reason for this is the RCLI has locked down write access, you can find more details here: http://vmetc.com/2009/03/31/esxi-u4-ends-free-version-read-and-write-access-from-the-rcli/

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William Lam
VMware vExpert 2009
VMware ESX/ESXi scripts and resources at: http://engineering.ucsb.edu/~duonglt/vmware/
http://twitter.com/lamw

There are many opinions on why this may have been done, if you're dissatisfy with this modification, provide feedback to VMware: http://www.vmware.com/support/policies/ (go to the bottom and there is a feedback box) The voice of people can make a difference and perhaps they may re-consider. In terms of rolling back, you'll need to rebuild and install U3, you can not revert upgrades or patches.

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William Lam
VMware vExpert 2009
VMware ESX/ESXi scripts and resources at: http://engineering.ucsb.edu/~duonglt/vmware/
http://twitter.com/lamw

The rebuild process is exactly that, you'll need to reinstall as did in the initial installation of ESXi on your system.

Please note : Remember to backup your VM(s) to an external storage because when you reinstall it may override the local VMFS volume, I know in the classic ESX installation you can be prompted to not override the VMFS volume but for safety precaution, I highly recommend backing up your VM(s) before attempting this re-installation.

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William Lam
VMware vExpert 2009
VMware ESX/ESXi scripts and resources at: http://engineering.ucsb.edu/~duonglt/vmware/
http://twitter.com/lamw

Well I've discovered that we can't really use the RCLI at all for things like creating snapshots etc, which kills my plans to use scripts to backup and restore VMs. This wipes out one of the two major advantages of using ESXi. Actually I'm not complaining; VMware has provided this software freely and it is good. They have the right to restrict it any way they like, and we could just pay the subscriptions to get access to what appears to be a great set of tools. We are very grateful for their VMware Server and all the associated tools, which is useful in a light use server environment (small non-profit organization in our case). For a slightly heavier use environment we need something a bit more performant. I'll have to move on to looking at Xen again.

Ken

Many thanks William, ssh and scp work fine so this is one possibility. I'll have a go at VMware-vix a bit later on.

cheers, Ken

While you are correct, that that VMware is free to modify free software as they like - they should have told this loss of functionality in a clear statement on the download page of the update.

Whereas the unablilty to to manage ESXi from any other OS than Windows in a supported way does not place a reliability problem onto existing installations, the removal of the possibility to shut down the guests and the host in an automated way via RCLI/CLI scripts without telling people in a not overseeable way can put existing installations in a very dangerous state:

I am pretty sure there are many people out, who had installed some RCLI script, to shut down their guests and the ESXi host in case of a power failure, which do not use those scripts every day and therefore do not know, that after installing U4 those scripts do not longer work. All those installations are now at a severe risk of data loss on all VMs running on ESXi 3.5 U4 because in case of a power failure their VMs and the host will run without any graceful shutdown till the UPS shuts off the power. That may easily lead to hardware defects, too.

I am pretty sure, that all people, which will get into data loss out of that situation are lost as customers for VMware forever - so a rethink of this situation should be done asap.