Stopping an Unresponsive VM

Sometimes a Virtual Machine can’t be stopped via the VIClient. The job just hangs. There are a number of options to stop your Virtual Machine from within the Service Console. Keep in mind that these are last resort options!

Stopping the virtual machine by issuing the command:
vmware-cmd /vmfs/volumes/datastorename/vmname/vmname.vmx stop
This must be done on the ESX host where the Virtual Machine is running!

If this does not work, one can issue the following command:
vmware-cmd /vmfs/volumes/datastorename/vmname/vmname.vmx stop hard
This will try to kill the Virtual Machine instantly.

A final solution is to kill the PID (process ID). Issue the following command:
ps auxfww | grep vmname
to locate the correct PID (BTW: this cannot be done via ESXTOP). The first number to appear in the output is your PID.
The PID can be used to terminate the process by issuing the command:
kill -9 PID.

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