After installation, you can run vCLI commands and vSphere SDK for Perl utility applications at the command prompt.

1

Open a command prompt.

2

(Optional) Change to the directory where you installed the vCLI.

Default is /usr/bin.

3

Run the command, including the connection options.

<command> <conn_options> <params>

Specify connection options in a configuration file or pass them on the command line. The extension .pl is not required on Linux. The following examples show the difference between ESXCLI and vicfg- syntax.

esxcli --server <esxi_HOSTNAME_OR_IP> --username snow\-white --password dwarf\$ network ip interface list
vicfg-mpath --server <esxi_HOSTNAME_OR_IP> --username snow\-white --password dwarf\$ --list

The system prompts you for a user name and password for the target server.