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