Tech Support Mode is a great feature of ESXi that lets admins and support personnel access the command directly on a ESXi hosts. This can be done via SSH or thru the host console. The security risk is that the console does not shut down automatically by default. There is a simple fix for this however, you can set the auto-timeout so that Tech Support Mode will shutdown automatically after a certain time has passed. You can find a great article on tech support mode here.
To enable the Tech Support Mode Timeout via the vSphere Client (from the KB Article):
- Select the host and click the Configuration tab.
- Click Software>Advanced Settings. ESXi 5.0: Change the UserVars.ESXiShellTimeOut field to the desired value. ESXi 4.1: Change the UserVars.TSMTimeOut field to the desired value.
- Click OK.
The time is set in seconds so make sure you have it turn off but also leave enough time to work.
