Creating a second userid in ESXi with root privileges

For advanced debugging of any driver software, whether it is VirtuCache, SSD or HBA driver, we need root access to the host.

Either we get the password for root on the host or a new userid with root privileges should be created.

In version 5.0, a second root userid cannot be created.

In versions 5.1 and above a second userid can be created using vsphere client.
1. Use thick viclient and connect to the host (not to vcenter)
2. Goto ‘local users and groups’ tab and create a new userid. Leave UID and Group fields blank. Check ‘Grant shell access’ check box
3. Goto Permissions tab and assign Administrator permissions to this userid.

All remote CLI tools have restricted scope compared to root access using SSH shell.