Problem:
You try to shutdown a virtual machine but it is not shutting down through the OS or through the vSphere client. It is stuck and you have completely lost access to the virtual machine.
Solution:
This applies to ESXi 5.x and above.
You should first determine why the machine isn’t shutting down. There are a number of reasons for this such as backups, snapshots, 3rd party operations, etc. Forcing a virtual machine to shutdown could result in corruption and a restore from backup may be required.
If you need to take action on the machine immediately, follow the process below.
- SSH into the host where the virtual machine is running.
- Run “esxcli vm process list” to get the WorldID of the machine you want to shutdown. Note the WorldID as you will need it for the next step.
- Run “esxcli vm process kill –type=[soft,hard,force] –world-id=WorldNumber
As you can see there are a few options to shutdown.
- Soft is the most graceful.
- Hard performs and immediate shutdown.
- Force will shutdown the server immediately. Force should be used as a last resort.
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