When local users are created via the vSphere client on ESXi 4.1 hosts, the shell value is set to /sbin/nologin shell that prevents login and the home directory is set to a non existant /home/<username> directory this prevents successful logins by local users.
To resolve this issue, create the home directory and change the shell values:
- Access the ESXi 4.1 host via Tech Support mode (local or remote) as the root user.
- Issue these commands to set the shell to /bin/ash and to create the home directory (replace <username> with the username to be modified).
usermod -s /bin/ash <username>
mkdir -p /home/<username>
chown <username> /home/<username>
Note: To make these changes persistent across reboots, consider setting the user's home directory to a folder residing on a local VMFS volume.