6.5

Common Options for vCLI Host Management Command Execution
You can use connection options that are available for all vCLI host management commands and common
options that you can use when you run a vicfg- vCLI command.
vCLI Connection Options
The following table lists options that are available for all vCLI host management commands in alphabetical
order. The table includes options for use on the command line and variables for use in conguration les.
Options for executing DCLI commands are dierent.
I Starting with vSphere 5.5, vCLI supports both IPv4 and IPv6 connections.
See “Run Host Management Commands from a Windows System,” on page 43 and “Run Host
Management Commands from a Linux System,” on page 43.
Option and Environment Variable Description
--cacertsfile <certsfile>
-t <certs_file>
VI_CACERTFILE=<cert_file_path>
ESXCLI commands only.
Used to specify the CA (Certicate Authority) certicate le, in PEM format, to
verify the identity of the vCenter Server system or ESXi system to run the
command on.
In vCLI 6.0 and later, you can only run ESXCLI commands if a trust
relationship exists between the host you are running the command on and the
system you are targeting with the --server option (ESXi host or
vCenter Server system). You can establish the trust relationship by specifying
the CA certicate le or by passing in the thumbprint for each target server
(ESXi host or vCenter Server system).
--config <cfg_file_full_path>
VI_CONFIG=<cfg_file_full_path>
Uses the conguration le at the specied location.
Specify a path that is readable from the current directory.
--credstore <credstore>
VI_CREDSTORE=<credstore>
Name of a credential store le. Defaults to
<HOME>/.vmware/credstore/vicredentials.xml on Linux and
<APPDATA>/VMware/credstore/vicredentials.xml on Windows.
Commands for seing up the credential store are included in the vSphere SDK
for Perl, which is installed with vCLI. The vSphere SDK for Perl Programming
Guide explains how to manage the credential store.
--encoding <encoding>
VI_ENCODING=<encoding>
Species which encoding to use. Several encodings are supported.
n
utf8
n
cp936 (Simplied Chinese)
n
shftjis (Japanese)
n
iso-885901 (German)
You can use --encoding to specify the encoding for vCLI to map to when it is
run on a foreign language system.
--passthroughauth
VI_PASSTHROUGHAUTH
If you specify this option, the system uses the Microsoft Windows Security
Support Provider Interface (SSPI) for authentication. Trusted users are not
prompted for a user name and password. See the Microsoft Web site for
detailed information on SSPI.
This option is supported only if you are connecting to a vCenter Server system.
--passthroughauthpackage
<package>
VI_PASSTHROUGHAUTHPACKAGE=
<package>
Use this option with --passthroughauth to specify a domain-level
authentication protocol to be used by Windows. By default, SSPI uses the
Negotiate protocol, which means that client and server try to negotiate a
protocol that both support.
If the vCenter Server system to which you are connecting is congured to use a
specic protocol, you can specify that protocol by using this option.
This option is supported only if you are running vCLI on a Windows system
and connecting to a vCenter Server system.
Getting Started with vSphere Command-Line Interfaces
40 VMware, Inc.