6.5

Table Of Contents
vCLI 4.1
Command
vCLI 5.1 and later
Command Comment
vmkfstools vmkfstools (No ESXCLI
equivalent)
Creates and manipulates virtual disks, le systems, logical
volumes, and physical storage devices on an ESXi host.
See “Managing the Virtual Machine File System with vmkfstools,”
on page 30.
vmware-cmd vmware-cmd (No ESXCLI
equivalent)
Performs virtual machine operations remotely. This includes, for
example, creating a snapshot, powering the virtual machine on or
o, and geing information about the virtual machine.
See Chapter 8, “Managing Virtual Machines,” on page 123.
Targets and Protocols for vCLI Host Management Commands
Most vCLI commands are used to manage or retrieve information about one or more ESXi hosts. They can
target an ESXi host or a vCenter Server system.
When you target a vCenter Server system, you can use --vihost to specify the ESXi host to run the
command against. The only exception is svmotion, which you can run against vCenter Server systems, but
not against ESXi systems.
The following commands must have an ESXi system, not a vCenter Server system as a target.
n
vifs
n
vicfg-user
n
vicfg-cfgbackup
n
vihostupdate
n
vmkfstools
The resxtop command requires an HTTPS connection. All other commands support HTTP and HTTPS.
Supported Platforms for vCLI Commands
Platform support for vCLI commands diers depending on the vCenter Server and ESXi version.
You cannot run the vihostupdate command against an ESXi 5.0 or later system.
You cannot run vicfg-syslog --setserver or vicfg-syslog --setport with an ESXi 5.0 or later target.
The following table lists platform support for the dierent vCLI commands.
Command ESXi 5.x and 6.x
vCenter Server 5.x
and 6.x ESXi 4.x ESX 4.x
vCenter Server
4.x
DCLI
No No No No No
esxcli
Yes Yes Yes Yes No
resxtop
Yes (from Linux) Yes (from Linux) Yes (from
Linux)
Yes (from
Linux)
Yes (from Linux)
svmotion
No Yes No No Yes
vicfg-advcfg
Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
vicfg-authconfig
Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
vicfg-cfgbackup
Yes No Yes No No
vicfg-dns
Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
vicfg-dumppart
Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
vicfg-hostops
Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Chapter 1 vSphere CLI Command Overviews
VMware, Inc. 15