tested on ESXi 5.5

• connect a console to your ESXi host (eg. SSH or ESXi Shell)

To get a list of all VMs running on the host use this command:

esxcli vm process list

To kill / power off the virtual machine use the following command:

esxcli vm process kill –type=xxxx  –world-id=nnnn

for -type=xxxx use: soft, hard or force

for world-id=nnnn use the World ID listed in the process list command

Some information about the three possible shutdown methods:

soft = prefer this if you want to shut down “softly”

hard = equal to an immediate shutdown

force = hard kill of the VM