using vmware-cmd
i always end up having to look up how to use vmware-cmd so i’m finally notating the useful options.
to shutdown a VM use vmware-cmd <myvm.vmx> stop
to start a VM use vmware-cmd <myvm.vmx> start
then of course it’s nice to use esxtop to see which VMs are currently running on a host.
if you’re ever in a situation where you have disconnected/orphaned VMs because a particular ESX host has become unstable/unreachable (fairly extreme circumstances) you can forcibly reregister VMs on a healthy host by running vmware-cmd -s register <full .vmx file path> (/vmfs/volumes/<datastore>/myvm/myvm.vmx)
note: vmware-cmd is only valid for ESX 4.x and earlier. in ESXi 5.x the equivalent command is vim-cmd