Remote shutdown VMs

[dennisgu]

Hello,

what's the best way to shutdown VMs remotely? Is there a remote command line tool for this? I saw that there's some kind of Remote CLI, can this be used to shutdown virtual machines remotely (e.g. from a Linux server)? I saw that the Remote CLI was read-only for ESXi 3.5, so I'm not sure if this still applies.

Thanks,

Dennis

[DSTAVERT]

A paid licensed version is still a requirement for remote start stop and almost all write operations from the RCLI tools.




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[lamw]

You actually have a few "CLIs" that you can use whether that is vCLI which is supported on both a Windows/Linux platform or PowerCLI which is Windows only. The "read-only" issue you're referring to is specific to ESXi, IF you are using the FREE version of ESXi. If you're using the free version, all API/CLIs are read-only unless you pay for a license. Any license other than "free" will give you full read/write capabilities with the API/CLIs and you can remotely shutdown along with other type of operations that can be performed using the vSphere Client.

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[dennisgu]

Thanks for the helpful responses. I assume that buying "VMware vSphere Essentials Kit" would do the trick? This would allow me to run ESXi on up to 3 machines with 2 cores each, and I could use the API to remotely shutdown VMs, is that correct?

Are there any other differences between the free and Essential Kit version?

Thanks,

Dennis

[DSTAVERT]

You also get vCenter which greatly adds to VM management. http://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere/buy/small_business_editions_comparison.html for a comparison of features.

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