- Stopping the virtual machine by issuing the command vmware-cmd /vmfs/volumes/<datastorename>/<vmname>/<vmname>.vmx stop. This must be done on the ESX host where the Virtual Machine is running!
- If this does not work, one can issue the following command: vmware-cmd /vmfs/volumes/<datastorename>/<vmname>/<vmname>.vmx stop hard. This will try to kill the Virtual Machine instantly.
- A final solution is to kill the PID (process ID). Issue the following command: ps auxfww | grep <vmname> to locate the correct PID (BTW: this cannot be done via *ESXTOP*). The first number to appear in the output is your PID. The PID can be used to terminate the process by issuing kill -9 PID.
- There is a problem using PS to kill the running VM process, in that it can still leave the VM World running in the background.
Another way to stop an errant VM is to issue the commands vm-support -x to list the running VMs and their World IDs, then vm-support -X worldid (note the x is case sensitive in both commands). This then prompts the user with a couple of questions, then runs a debug stop of the VM, and creates a set of log files as well that you can forward to VMware tech support for them to check if you so desire
This document was generated from the following thread: esxRanger and ESX 3.01 and Kill Process?
