A little help for everyone who struggles a little bit with enabling the serial console in ESXi. This manual works 1:1: https://www.juniper.net/documentation/en_US/vmx15.1f4/topics/task/configuration/vmx-vm-connecting-vmware.html   in short:   # at ESXi: open Firewall for serial Console   # at VM: add Serial Port 1 - Use Network - Connect at Power - Direction: Server - Port URI: telnet://:8601   In PuTTY the connection will be made as: