Hi,
part 3 of my (incomplete) list of the esx cli.
ESXi Advanced Kernel Settings/Parameters
Get all
esxcli system settings advanced list
Set one, i.e. disable the shell respectively ssh warnings
esxcli system settings advanced set -o /UserVars/SuppressShellWarning -i 1
ESXi Kernel modules
List loaded kernel modules
vmkload_mod -l
Get a list of all enabled kernel modules
esxcfg-module -q
Continue reading VMware ESXi: A (incomplete) list of host commands Part 3
Hi,
here is part 2 of my (incomplete) list of ESXi shell commands
Managing virtual machines
First get the VMID of the vm you want to manage, you need this ID in the following commands
vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms
Vmid Name File Guest OS Version Annotation
36 .......................................
Power On
vim-cmd vmsvc/power.on 36
Power Off (Soft)
vim-cmd vmsvc/power.off 36
Power Off (Hard)
get the world ID of the virtual machine
esxcli vm process list
TestComputer
World ID: 1625788
Process ID: 0
VMX Cartel ID: 1625786
UUID: 56 4d 9e d3 8b ce ab 59-9b 22 ac 87 40 6c 48 c3
Display Name: TestComputer
And kill them
esxcli vm process kill -t [soft,hard,force] -w
esxcli vm process kill -t hard -w 1625788
Reboot a virtual machine
Continue reading VMware ESXi: A (incomplete) list of host commands Part 2
Hi,
here is a list of some cli’s to control a VMware ESXi host from the command line. Enable the ESXi shell and login to console or connect with a ssh client remotely.
Management
Restart Management, HA Services
/sbin/services restart
Installing Software. List/Install/Uninstall VIBs (vSphere Installation bundle)
List vibs
esxcli software vib list
Install a vib
esxcli software vib install -v file:/tmp/[NewVIB].vib
Uninstall a vib (determine the Name of the VIB by the list command)
esxcli software vib remove -n VIBname
Install a patch
esxcli software vib install /tmp/[patchName].zip
Network
firewall state
esxcli network firewall get
Firewall rules
Continue reading VMware ESXi: A (incomplete) list of host commands Part 1
For VMware Workstation or ESX Server and other virtualisation Software it is sometimes necassary to have a virtual floppy disk file.
For example if you want to install Windows XP in a VMware virtual environment and you want to use a SCSI Disk at the virtual LSI Controller. Windows XP hasn’t any driver for this controller and therefore no harddisk ist found and the installation aborts. Solution is, creating a virtual floppy file, copy the driver to this and attach the file as virtual floppy to the virtual machine.
Note: In the vSphere GUIs you can only enlarge SCSI Disks online. For IDE Disks you have to do this at the ESXi host command line which is described here.
Best system for do this is linux, here for example debian. There are all tools which are needed, except two are missing, installed by default . Check if the dostools and unzip are not installed or get them via
apt-get install dosfstools unzip
Creating a empty floppy image with an 1,44MB FAT 12 filesystem is very easy. Name the file as you want. For VMware vSphere the extension .flp should be the better choice. Create the floppy by using the following command
mkfs.msdos -C /tmp/floppy.img 1440 -F 12
Floppy is now ready to take some files .
Continue reading Creating a virtual floppy disk image for Windows XP installation on VMware