Running ESXCLI Commands in the ESXi Shell ESXCLI commands in the ESXi Shell are fully supported unless they are marked as internal in the online help. The ESXi Shell is disabled by default. You must enable the ESXi Shell before you can run commands in the shell. See ESXi Shell Access with the Direct Console. To run an ESXCLI command in the shell 1 Log in to the shell. 2 Run the command. For example, to list NAS storage devices, run the following command. esxcli storage nfs list You can use --help at any level of esxcli for help on available namespaces, commands, or options.