How to get the Serial Number from an ESXi Host

The easiest way to retrieve the serial number from an ESXi host is to use the esxcfg-info command.

First login via SSH and run the below command:

[root@esxi01:~] esxcfg-info | grep -w "Serial Number"
      |----Serial Number............................................96QP71Y
      |----Enclosure Serial Number..................................96QP71Y

This command by itself outputs a lot of information so you may want to pipe it though less.

[root@esxi01:~] esxcfg-info | less