- Mark as New
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Mute
- Subscribe to RSS Feed
- Permalink
- Report Inappropriate Content
Hi cyberfed2727,
This is a great question that made me consider that perhaps VMware really has quietly delivered on the 'appliance' nature of ESXi. So much so that there isn't really even a market for discussing the local CLI. Truly the API is king, so there is no shortage of excellent books.
On the PowerCLI side, and to add to the great recommendations from minor76, the most recently released Epic work of art is:
VMware vSphere PowerCLI Reference: Automating vSphere Administration 2nd Edition
Also, since at least one of the topics you were interested in is filesystem:
Storage Implementation in vSphere 5.0 (VMware Press)
Note: Though the book is based on 5.0 it is still relevant.
Also, I recommend playing with the CLI (i.e. ssh to host) to understand the layout and available commands. Keep in mind that each deployment may look a bit different For example, if you install ESXi on a USB stick your layout may look a bit different than if you installed on localdisk or via Autodeply for example.
Once at the CLI, you should consider running a vm-support to see all the magic it does. It will certainly give you an idea of commands to look at. Also play around with esxcli and just keep hitting enter to dig deeper (it's very much like IOS or netsh).
Since there seems to be an absence of such a physical book (and I can't disagree with your desire to avoid PDF's), honestly there is no reason that you can't learn this though immersion while at the CLI. You can of course deploy an ESXi host as a nested VM if you want a safe way to practice scenarios.
.