The keyboard combination CTRL+ALT+DEL has been a long known shortcut on Linux systems to immediatley shutdown the server.

In most recent Linux distributions this has been disabled for obvious reasons.

I know myself I have accidentally shutdown a Linux server from standing at a the console on a KVM, pressed CTRL+ALT+DEL (thinking it was a windows server to get it out of power save and logon), the screen came on showing it was shutting down the server! A mistake not made twice.

Because the ESX COS is based on a customized version of Red Hat, this keyboard sequence still exists, and if pressed will shutdown your ESX server and all VMs running on it.

Until VMware disable this by default in a later release, I suggest you manually disable it for now to save this problem arising in the meantime.

Fortunatley its a simple process and can be done in seconds....

1. Login to your ESX server at the console or via SSH

2. Edit the following file:

vi /etc/inittab

3. Comment out the following line (pressing "i" starts editing mode in vi)

ca::ctrlaltdel:/sbin/shutdown -t3 -r now

CHANGE TO

# ca::ctrlaltdel:/sbin/shutdown -t3 -r now

4. Save the file:

:wq! <enter>

5. To invoke the settings without reboot run:

init q

This will also work for any Linux servers you have that have (it will be similar if not the same!).

NOTE: Update ESX400-201002402-BG (Updates initscripts) released 03 March 2010 to resolve this in ESX http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1017459