How to Power-Off / Shutdown Virtual Machine on VMWare ESXi5

How to Power-Off / Shutdown Virtual Machine on VMWare ESXi5

 

Symptoms

You are experiencing these issues:

• You cannot power off an ESXi hosted virtual machine.
• A virtual machine is not responsive and cannot be stopped or killed.
• You cannot power off an ESXi because it’s hanged with lots of SCSI Storage I/Os

You can start by obtaining the <VMID> and you can run the power action against the VMID generated by the below command;

vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms – list all VMs registered on the host

vim-cmd vmsvc/power.getstate <vmid> – show power state of a VM
vim-cmd vmsvc/power.shutdown  <vmid>  – shutdown a VM (shutdown guest)
vim-cmd vmsvc/power.reset  <vmid>  – reset a VM
vim-cmd vmsvc/power.off <vmid>  – power off a VM
vim-cmd vmsvc/power.on <vmid> – power on a VM
vim-cmd vmsvc/power.reboot <vmid> – reboot a VM
vim-cmd vmsvc/get.summary  <vmid>  – get summary information for a VM
vim-cmd vmsvc/unregister  <vmid>  – unregister a VM from a host

Example;

# vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms

Vmid   Name             File                  Guest OS       Version   Annotation

2      VM01   [vESXi5-01] VM01/VM01.vmx   winLonghornGuest   vmx-08

~ # vim-cmd vmsvc/power.getstat 2

Retrieved runtime info

Powered on

~ # vim-cmd vmsvc/power.shutdown 2

(vim.fault.ToolsUnavailable) {

dynamicType = <unset>,

faultCause = (vmodl.MethodFault) null,

msg = “Cannot complete operation because VMware Tools is not running in this virtual machine.”,}

In the above example, it gives me an error that cannot Shutdown the VM as the VMWare Tools is not running.

But by running the command to forcibly power off the VM with Power.Off command, it’s immediately powered off the named VM ID. (2)

~ # vim-cmd vmsvc/power.off 2

Powering off VM:

~ # vim-cmd vmsvc/power.getstat 2

Retrieved runtime info

Powered off

~ #

Commands available under vmsvc/:

~ # vim-cmd vmsvc/
Commands available under vmsvc/:
acquiremksticket                 get.spaceNeededForConsolidation
acquireticket                    get.summary
connect                          get.tasklist
convert.toTemplate               getallvms
convert.toVm                     gethostconstraints
createdummyvm                    login
destroy                          logout
device.connection                message
device.connusbdev                power.getstate
device.disconnusbdev             power.hibernate
device.diskadd                   power.off
device.diskaddexisting           power.on
device.diskremove                power.reboot
device.getdevices                power.reset
device.toolsSyncSet              power.shutdown
device.vmiadd                    power.suspend
device.vmiremove                 power.suspendResume
devices.createnic                queryftcompat
get.capability                   reload
get.config                       setscreenres
get.config.cpuidmask             snapshot.create
get.configoption                 snapshot.dumpoption
get.datastores                   snapshot.get
get.disabledmethods              snapshot.remove
get.environment                  snapshot.removeall
get.filelayout                   snapshot.revert
get.filelayoutex                 snapshot.setoption
get.guest                        tools.cancelinstall
get.guestheartbeatStatus         tools.install
get.managedentitystatus          tools.upgrade
get.networks                     unregister
get.runtime                      upgrade
get.snapshotinfo
~ #