Which privilege is needed to run the esxtop utility?

To run the esxtop utility, the root user privilege is required. This is because esxtop is a powerful command-line tool that provides real-time performance monitoring and statistics for ESXi hosts. It allows users to analyze various system metrics, including CPU, memory, disk, and network usage. The root privilege grants complete access to all system resources and functions, enabling effective use of esxtop for performance tuning and troubleshooting.

Other user roles, such as vStatsUser and vStatsAdmin, do not possess the necessary permissions to access and utilize the esxtop utility because they have limited rights specific to monitoring statistics rather than full administrative capabilities. The Administrator role may provide significant privileges, but only the root user can execute all commands and access critical system-level operations, including esxtop. Hence, root user privilege is essential for ensuring that users have the highest level of control needed to effectively use esxtop.