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by lunarg on March 19th 2013, at 14:29

If a host cannot be managed via vCenter or from vSphere client, you can still use the CLI (on the host itself or via network using SSH or vSphere CLI/RCLI) to partially manage the VMs on the host.

For this to work you must have already enabled the local console, Tech Support Mode and/or SSH access:

Once logged in, you can use these commands to control the VMs. Note that there are differences between ESX and ESXi.

CommandESXiESX
List the registered VMsvmware-vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvmsvmware-cmd -l
Get power state of VMvmware-vim-cmd vmsvc/power.getstate vmidvmware-cmd path-to-VMX-file getstate
Power on a VMvmware-vim-cmd vmsvc/power.on vmidvmware-cmd path-to-VMX-file start
    vmid = the ID in the inventory of the VM. Can be retrieved by listing the inventory in ESXi (first column in the output).