6.5
Table Of Contents
- vSphere Command-Line Interface Concepts and Examples
- Contents
- About This Book
- vSphere CLI Command Overviews
- Introduction
- List of Available Host Management Commands
- Targets and Protocols for vCLI Host Management Commands
- Supported Platforms for vCLI Commands
- Commands with an esxcfg Prefix
- ESXCLI Commands Available on Different ESXi Hosts
- Trust Relationship Requirement for ESXCLI Commands
- Using ESXCLI Output
- Connection Options for vCLI Host Management Commands
- Connection Options for DCLI Commands
- vCLI Host Management Commands and Lockdown Mode
- Managing Hosts
- Managing Files
- Managing Storage
- Introduction to Storage
- Examining LUNs
- Detach a Device and Remove a LUN
- Reattach a Device
- Working with Permanent Device Loss
- Managing Paths
- Managing Path Policies
- Scheduling Queues for Virtual Machine I/O
- Managing NFS/NAS Datastores
- Monitor and Manage FibreChannel SAN Storage
- Monitoring and Managing Virtual SAN Storage
- Monitoring vSphere Flash Read Cache
- Monitoring and Managing Virtual Volumes
- Migrating Virtual Machines with svmotion
- Configuring FCoE Adapters
- Scanning Storage Adapters
- Retrieving SMART Information
- Managing iSCSI Storage
- iSCSI Storage Overview
- Protecting an iSCSI SAN
- Command Syntax for esxcli iscsi and vicfg-iscsi
- iSCSI Storage Setup with ESXCLI
- iSCSI Storage Setup with vicfg-iscsi
- Listing and Setting iSCSI Options
- Listing and Setting iSCSI Parameters
- Enabling iSCSI Authentication
- Set Up Ports for iSCSI Multipathing
- Managing iSCSI Sessions
- Managing Third-Party Storage Arrays
- Managing Users
- Managing Virtual Machines
- Managing vSphere Networking
- Introduction to vSphere Networking
- Retrieving Basic Networking Information
- Troubleshoot a Networking Setup
- Setting Up vSphere Networking with vSphere Standard Switches
- Setting Up Virtual Switches and Associating a Switch with a Network Interface
- Retrieving Information About Virtual Switches
- Adding and Deleting Virtual Switches
- Checking, Adding, and Removing Port Groups
- Managing Uplinks and Port Groups
- Setting the Port Group VLAN ID
- Managing Uplink Adapters
- Adding and Modifying VMkernel Network Interfaces
- Managing VMkernel Network Interfaces with ESXCLI
- Add and Configure an IPv4 VMkernel Network Interface with ESXCLI
- Add and Configure an IPv6 VMkernel Network Interface with ESXCLI
- Managing VMkernel Network Interfaces with vicfg-vmknic
- Add and Configure an IPv4 VMkernel Network Interface with vicfg-vmknic
- Add and Configure an IPv6 VMkernel Network Interface with vicfg-vmknic
- Setting Up vSphere Networking with vSphere Distributed Switch
- Managing Standard Networking Services in the vSphere Environment
- Setting the DNS Configuration
- Manage an NTP Server
- Manage the IP Gateway
- Setting Up IPsec
- Manage the ESXi Firewall
- Monitor VXLAN
- Monitoring ESXi Hosts
- Index
n
Virtual Flash storage - Use commands in the esxcli storage vflash namespace to manage
VMware vSphere Flash Read Cache.
n
Virtual volumes - Virtual volumes oer a dierent layer of abstraction than datastores. As a result,
ner-grained management is possible. Use commands in the esxcli storage vvol namespace.
Datastores
ESXi hosts use storage space on a variety of physical storage systems, including internal and external
devices and networked storage.
A host can discover storage devices to which it has access and format them as datastores. Each datastore is a
special logical container, analogous to a le system on a logical volume, where the host places virtual disk
les and other virtual machine les. Datastores hide specics of each storage product and provide a uniform
model for storing virtual machine les.
Depending on the type of storage you use, datastores can be backed by the following le system formats.
n
Virtual Machine File System (VMFS) - High-performance le system optimized for storing virtual
machines. Your host can deploy a VMFS datastore on any SCSI-based local or networked storage
device, including Fibre Channel and iSCSI SAN equipment.
As an alternative to using the VMFS datastore, your virtual machine can have direct access to raw
devices and use a mapping le (RDM) as a proxy. See “Managing the Virtual Machine File System with
vmkfstools,” on page 30.
n
Network File System (NFS) - File system on a NAS storage device. ESXi supports NFS version 3 over
TCP/IP. The host can access a designated NFS volume located on an NFS server, mount the volume, and
use it for any storage needs.
Storage Device Naming
Each storage device, or LUN, is identied by several device identier names.
Device Identifiers
Depending on the type of storage, the ESXi host uses dierent algorithms and conventions to generate an
identier for each storage device.
n
SCSI INQUIRY identiers - The host uses the SCSI INQUIRY command to query a storage device and
uses the resulting data, in particular the Page 83 information, to generate a unique identier. SCSI
INQUIRY device identiers are unique across all hosts, persistent, and have one of the following
formats.
n
naa.<number>
n
t10.<number>
n
eui.<number>
These formats follow the T10 commiee standards. See the SCSI-3 documentation on the T10 commie
Web site for information on Page 83.
n
Path-based identier. If the device does not provide the information on Page 83 of the T10 commiee
SCSI-3 documentation, the host generates an mpx.<path> name, where <path> represents the rst path to
the device, for example, mpx.vmhba1:C0:T1:L3. This identier can be used in the same way as the SCSI
inquiry identiers.
The mpx. identier is created for local devices on the assumption that their path names are unique.
However, this identier is neither unique nor persistent and could change after every boot.
vSphere Command-Line Interface Concepts and Examples
44 VMware, Inc.