Tag: firewall

VMWare: How to add RDP rule to esxi firewall via cli

Sometimes I need to ssh jump to esxi host and tunnel RDP to an internal host across the ssh session

Backup:
cp /etc/vmware/firewall/service.xml /etc/vmware/firewall/service.xml.bak

chmod 644 /etc/vmware/firewall/service.xml

chmod +t /etc/vmware/firewall/service.xml

vi & enter towards the bottom of service.xml (below 0037):

<!– MY RDP –>
<service id=’0038′>
<id>myrdp</id>
<rule>
<direction>outbound</direction>
<protocol>tcp</protocol>
<porttype>dst</porttype>
<port>3389</port>
</rule>
<enabled>false</enabled>
<required>false</required>
</service>

chmod 444 /etc/vmware/firewall/service.xml

esxcli network firewall refresh

esxcli network firewall ruleset list

esxcli network firewall ruleset set -e true -r myrdp

Now feel free to RDP via ssh tunnel. I usually disable the rule after via:

esxcli network firewall ruleset set -e false -r myrdp

Enable service in VMWare ESXI firewall

To list your current configuration:
# esxcli network firewall ruleset list

To enable sshClient to enable copying using ssh:

#esxcli network firewall ruleset set -e true -r sshClient

For older esxi versions (5 and below)
# esxcli network firewall ruleset set –ruleset-id sshClient –enabled yes

To refresh the configuration:
# esxcli network firewall refresh