VMware Wget on host

There are times where it is easyier or faster to download a file directly on a VMware ESXi host from a webserver rather than SCPing or uploading via the web interface.

Enable SSH Service on ESX

To enable the SSH service, log in to the web interfaces for your ESX servers. Then click on Host at the top right. Click Actions then Services then make sure Enable Secure Shell (SSH) is enabled.

This step can also be done from the service console under "Troubleshooting Options"

Enabling outbound HTTP/HTTPS

By default outbound HTTP/HTTPS connections are disabled but can be turned on from the ESX CLI.

To enable outbound connections run the following command:

esxcli network firewall ruleset set -e true -r httpClient

Downloading a file with Wget

Wget cab now be used as normal but ESXi's certificate store will likely be out of date so use the "--no-check-certificate" option.

wget "<url>" --no-check-certificate