Common and Necessary Command-Line Interface (CLI) Commands

This chapter focuses on the commands that are most likely to be used to manage ESX Server from the Service Console. The Service Console is a modified version of Red Hat Linux, which is used to boot and load the VMkernel for VMware ESX Server and provide services such as the Apache web server for the management interface (MUI) and command-line management. This chapter provides a quick reference for the commands that will most likely be used at the Service Console command line. This chapteralso provides some insight to administrators on how commands can be used to effectively manage their ESX Server deployments. The Service Console has several commands that are unique to ESX Server such as vmware-cmd, vmkfstools, vmkpcidivy, esxtop, and custom scripts that can be used to manage the virtual environment. These command lines provide the ability to compress and archive files as well as view and manage processes on the server. If one needs to add additional software packages such as backup software or management agents, this needs to be done from the Service Console command line as well.