ESXi consoles (SSH and Lights Out Management) fail to connect or flicker with black screens.

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• SSH connections immediately fail as if SSH is not running, though the DCUI indicates it is. 
• Accessing a console such as iLO, iDRAC, or ALT+F1 from DCUI results in a flickering black screen that seems to show some text very briefly.
  • If the text can be captured it may indicate an error similar to "getty: cannot open ‘/dev/null/ no such file or directory".
• If a console is established before the issue starts, it is observed that /dev/null is no longer present in the ESXi Operating System. 
  
  
  
  
• The ESXi hosts' hostd.log, depending on configured log level and other factors, may show one or more VM's having been configured with their swap location pointing to /dev/null. 
  
  2026-02-19T08:07:10.001Z Wa(164) Hostd[2104153]: -->       (vim.option.OptionValue) {
2026-02-19T08:07:10.001Z Wa(164) Hostd[2104153]: -->          key = "sched.swap.derivedName", 
2026-02-19T08:07:10.001Z Wa(164) Hostd[2104153]: -->          value = "/dev/null"
2026-02-19T08:07:10.001Z Wa(164) Hostd[2104153]: -->       }, 
  
  
• Later, when such a VM is deleted, may see the following log print in hostd.log showing /dev/null getting removed as well. 
  
  2026-02-19T08:06:47.419Z In(166) Hostd[2104179]: [Originator@6876 sub=Libs opID=56b64e8e-##-#### sid=52###51f user=######:VSPHERE.LOCAL\<username>] SNAPSHOT: SnapshotDeleteFile deleted '/dev/null'.
   
• This state with /dev/null having been deleted can lead to other symptoms occurring, such as vSAN potentially becoming unhealthy. 

Environment

VMware ESXi 

Cause

If a VM is deployed with a swap location pointing to /dev/null, and the VM is later deleted, the host's /dev/null is also deleted.

Resolution

This issue is currently being reviewed by ESXi engineering. 

Workaround

• Revert ESXi to the previous version to boot it up from the altbootbank to restore /dev/null - Reverting to a previous version of ESXi 6.x, 7.x or 8.x.