vSphere Command-Line Interface 6.0 Release Notes

To target an ESXi host in an environment that has an embedded Platform Services Controller instance, run commands like this. You are prompted for the name and password of a user who can log in to vCenter Single Sign-On.

#vicfg-nics -l --psc<vc_hostname_or_IP> --username<user> --password <pwd> --vihost <esxi_hostname_or_IP>
#esxcli hardware clock get --psc<vc_hostname_or_IP> --username <user> --password <pwd> --vihost <esxi_hostname_or_IP>

To target an ESXi host in an environment that has an external Platform Services Controller instance and multiple vCenter Server instances, run commands like this:

#vicfg-nics -l --server <vcenter_hostname_or_IP> --psc <psc_hostname_or_IP> --username <user> --password <pwd> --vihost <esxi_hostname_or_IP>
#esxcli hardware clock get --server <vcenter_hostname_or_IP> --psc<psc_hostname_or_IP> --username <user> --password <pwd> --vihost <esxi_hostname_or_IP>

You can still target ESXi hosts directly and you can still target vCenter Server system that manages the ESXi host and specify the host with the --vihost argument as before.

Running ESXCLI vCLI commands — For improved security, ESXCLI now checks whether a trust relationship exists between the machine where you run the ESXCLI vCLI command and the target server. An error results if the trust relationship does not exist. To establish the trust relationship, you can specify a certificate file in the --cacertsfile parameter, supply a thumbprint for target server (ESXi host or vCenter Server system) in the --thumbprint parameter, or use the credential store. See Getting Started with vSphere Command-Line Interfaces for details.

DCLI commands — vCLI 6.0 includes DCLI commands which allow you to manage services presented by the vCloud Suite SDK interface, which is new in vSphere 6.0. DCLI is included in the vCLI package, and is also available from the vCenter Server Appliance shell and from the Windows command prompt in a vCenter Server for Windows installation. In this release, DCLI is limited to new vCenter services.

IPv6 — All vCLI commands have been tested with IPv6. When specifying an IP address, you can now use an IPv4 address or an IPv6 address.

ESXCLI new and changed commands — New commands have been added and one command has changed.

The following commands have been added to the ESXCLI command set.

esxcli device add
esxcli elxnet dbgmask get
esxcli elxnet dbgmask set
esxcli elxnet stats get
esxcli elxnet vib get
esxcli fcoe nic set
esxcli graphics device stats list
esxcli hardware ipmi sel clear
esxcli hardware smartcard certificate list
esxcli hardware smartcard info get
esxcli hardware smartcard slot list
esxcli hardware smartcard token list
esxcli rdma device list
esxcli rdma device stats get
esxcli rdma device vmknic list
esxcli network nic pauseParams list
esxcli network nic pauseParams set
esxcli network nic ring current get
esxcli network nic ring current set
esxcli network nic ring present get
esxcli network nic software list
esxcli network nic software set
esxcli storage core device physical get
esxcli storage core device raid list
esxcli storage vmfs lockmode list
esxcli storage vmfs lockmode set
esxcli storage vmfs pbcache get
esxcli storage vmfs pbcache reset
esxcli storage nfs param get
esxcli storage nfs param set
esxcli storage nfs41 add
esxcli storage nfs41 list
esxcli storage nfs41 remove
esxcli storage nfs41 param get
esxcli storage nfs41 param set
esxcli storage vvol daemon unbindall
esxcli storage vvol daemon unbindall
esxcli storage vvol protocolendpoint list
esxcli storage vvol storagecontainer list
esxcli storage vvol storagecontainer restore
esxcli storage vvol storagecontainer abandonedvvol scan
esxcli storage vvol vasacontext get
esxcli storage vvol vendorprovider list
esxcli storage vvol vendorprovider restore
esxcli system account add
esxcli system account list
esxcli system account remove
esxcli system account set
esxcli system module parameters copy
esxcli vsan faultdomain get
esxcli vsan faultdomain reset
esxcli vsan faultdomain set


The following existing ESXCLI commands have new options:

network nic coalesce set
    --adaptive-rx
    --adaptive-tx
    --sample-interval
storage core device list
    --pe-only
storage core device set
    --data-integrity-enabled
    --force
    --led-duration
    --led-state
    --name
    --no-persist
    --write-cache-enabled
storage core device setconfig
    --not-shared
storage core device detached remove
    --all
storage nfs add
    --ispe
storage nfs list
    --pe-only
system snmp set
    --largestorage
system syslog config set
    --check-ssl-certs


The following ESXCLI commands are not in this release. The corresponding feature was experimental and has been removed from the product.

esxcli network fence commands

The following ESXCLI commands are no longer included on an ESXi host by default. They become available after the host has been prepared for VXLAN.

esxcli vmware vxlan commands.

The following ESXCLI VXLAN command has changed.

network vswitch dvs vmware vxlan network mtep list
Now network vswitch dvs vmware vxlan network vtep list

Documentation

vSphere CLI 6.0 documentation is available in the vSphere 6.0 Documentation Center.

• Getting Started with vSphere Command-Line Interfaces— Includes command overviews, installation information for Windows and Linux, and explains how to run commands.
• vSphere Command-Line Interface Concepts and Examples
• vSphere Command-Line Interface Reference— Includes reference documentation for vicfg- commands and esxcli commands. This reference does not include DCLI commands.
• vSphere DCLI Reference- Reference to DCLI commands.
• These vSphere Command-Line Interface Release Notes.

Command-line help for each vicfg- command, esxcli command, and DCLI command is available. The reference is generated from the command-line help.

The technical note Command-Line Management of vSphere 5 and vSphere 6 for Service Console Users is for administrators who migrate from ESX to ESXi and includes reference information that maps deprecated esxcfg- commands to vCLI commands.

Supported Platforms

For this release, vCLI is supported on the following Linux platforms:

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6.3 (Server) — 32-bit and 64-bit
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5.5 (Server) — 32-bit and 64-bit
• Ubuntu 10.04.1 (LTS) — 32-bit and 64-bit
• SLES 11 — 32-bit and 64-bit
• SLES 11 SP2 — 32-bit and 64-bit

For this release, vCLI is supported on the following Windows platforms:

• Windows 7 (32-bit and 64-bit)
• Windows 8 (32-bit and 64-bit)
• Windows 2008 (64-bit)
• Windows 2012 R2 (64-bit)

The vSphere Management Assistant (vMA) is included in this release. You cannot upgrade vMA to include vCLI 6.0 by running the vCLI installer inside vMA. Deploy the new vMA appliance.

Installing vCLI

The vCLI installer behaves differently for RHEL and for other Linux distributions.

Installing vCLI on RHEL (No Internet Access)

On RHEL, the installer prompts you whether you want to install required Perl modules from the installation package or from CPAN. You can install from the package if you do not have Internet access.

1. Uninstall any existing versions of vCLI or vSphere SDK for Perl by running <install_dir>/vmware-uninstall-vSphere-CLI.pl. The default installation directory is /usr/bin.
2. Delete any existing versions of the vCLI or SDK for Perl installation
    rm -rf <install_dir>/vmware-vsphere-cli-distrib
3. Download and untar the vCLI package.
4. Run the installer.
5. When prompted, respond Yes to install the missing Perl modules from the installer package.

The installer stops installation if required modules cannot be found on your Linux system. The installer installs other missing Perl modules, but does not overwrite existing versions of those modules. See Getting Started with vSphere Command-Line Interfaces for detailed installation instruction.

Installing vSphere vCLI on Systems with Internet Access

For all supported Linux distributions with Internet access, the vCLI installer uses CPAN, as it has since vCLI 5.0. You can also direct the RHEL installer to use CPAN.

• Explicitly uninstalling previous versions of the software is no longer required.
• You must have access to the Internet to successfully install vCLI.
• Depending on your environment, you might need to set your http:// and ftp:// proxies, as follows:
  export http_proxy=http://<proxy_server>:port
export ftp_proxy=http://<proxy_server>:port
  
• The installer installs missing Perl modules from CPAN, but does not overwrite existing versions of those modules.

Note: Downloading modules from CPAN can take a long time.

See Getting Started with vSphere Command-Line Interfaces, available in the vSphere Documentation Center, for detailed installation instructions. .

Installing vCLI on Windows

The vCLI Windows installer works as before and installs the vSphere SDK for Perl, the vSphere CLI, and all prerequisite software including Active Perl 5.14.4. If you do not want to overwrite an existing Active Perl installation, exit the installer and install vCLI on a different system.

Important: Reboot your Windows system after installation. If you do not reboot, Active Perl might report that it cannot find some of the Perl modules.

Resolved Issues

The vCLI 6.0 release has the following resolved issue:

• resxtop fails to run against vSphere targets
  When you run resxtop against a vSphere 5.1 target, an error results.

  If the SSL certificate is set in the vCLI client, the following error results:
  SSL Exception: Verification parameters
  If the SSL certificate is not set, the following error results:
  Login failed, reason: HTTPS_CA_FILE or HTTPS_CA_DIR not set

Known Issues

vSphere 6.0 has the following new known issues:

• DCLI not included in default path in vSphere Management Assistant
  DCLI is not part of the path in vSphere Management Assistant. Unless you are in the DCLI directory, an error results if you run a DCLI command. Workaround: You have these options:

  • Navigate to the dcli directory and then run the /usr/lib/vmware-vcli/bin/vmware-dcli/dcli command.
  • Add DCLI to the vSphere Management Assistant PATH as follows: export PATH=$PATH:/usr/lib/vmware-vcli/bin/vmware-dcli/.



• Running a DCLI command from vCLI results in connection error.
  If you run DCLI without options on a vCenter Server Appliance, a detailed introductory message results. If you run the same command on a system where you installed vCLI, a connection error results.
  Workaround: Specify the vCenter Server system to run against, or display help by using dcli --help.

• DCLI tab completion in interactive mode not supported on Windows systems.
  When you run a DCLI command on Linux, tab completion is supported. When you run a DCLI command from the command prompt of a vCenter Server installation on Windows or on a Windows system on which vCLI is installed, tab completion is not supported. Workaround: See the command-line help and type the full command.

The following known issues documented for earlier versions of vSphere CLI have not yet been resolved:

• vicfg-user group management commands do not work.
  Starting with vSphere 5.5, the vicfg-user commands are no longer supported with the group option. A SOAP fault results.

  Workaround: Make changes to groups with the vSphere Client.

• vicfg-user group management commands do not work.
  Starting with vSphere 5.5, the vicfg-user commands are no longer supported with the group option. A SOAP fault results.

  Workaround: Make changes to groups with the vSphere Client.

• vmkfstools reports the same volume twice.
  If a VMFS (Virtual Machine File System) volume and its snapshot are both mounted, vmkfstools reports the volume twice.

  Workaround: No workaround needed.

• Parameter values with spaces result in error for esxcli image command.
  When you run esxcli image with --vib|-v, --depot|-d, or --meta|-m and supply a parameter value that contains spaces, the second part of that parameter value is treated as a separate argument. An error results.

  Workaround: Surround the parameter value with double quotes.

• Cannot clone VMDK files from a non-VMFS directory using the vmkfstools vCLI.
  When you attempt to run the vmkfstools vCLI to clone a VMDK file that is not located in a VMFS directory, the command fails with a message Invalid datastore path. The operation does not fail if you use the vmkfstools service console command.

  Workaround: Move the VMDK file into the VMFS datastore and repeat the clone operation.

• Users with read-only role cannot display some information on target servers.
  You create a user running the vicfg-user vCLI, and you assign the read-only role to the user. When that user attempts to retrieve information from an ESX/ESXi host, the information is not always available. For example, when the user runs vicfg-module <conn_options> --list, no modules are displayed even if those modules actually exist. When the user runs vicfg-dumppart <conn_options> --list, no diagnostic partitions are displayed.

  Workaround: No workaround for this issue. You can log in as a user with read and write permissions to display the information.

• Connection failure message when running ESXCLI commands under SELinux.
  When you run an esxcli command on a Linux system that is using SELinux enhanced security, the command reports Connect to 1.2.3.4 failed. The command records the following information in /var/log/messages setroubleshoot: SELinux is preventing esxcli from loading /usr/lib/vmware-vcli/bin/esxcli/_ssl.so which requires text relocation.

  Workaround: Make one of these changes on the system on which you run esxcli commands:

  • Run the following command to resolve the text relocation issue:

    chcon -t textrel_shlib_t /usr/lib/vmware-vcli/bin/esxcli/_ssl.so

  • Disable SELinux or change the SELinux policy to permissive. Note that this is a significant change to the security of the client system. Do not make this change unless you have in-depth knowledge of SELinux and your local network security policies.

• Missing DLL error during first command execution after installation (Windows).
  A vCLI installation on Windows completes successfully. However, when you later run vCLI commands, errors about missing DLLs might result. For example:
  libxml2.dll wasn't found

  Workaround: Reboot your Windows system.

• Problems using vmkfstools to create VMFS3 volume when using VML name of LUN.
  When you run vmkfstools -C vmfs3 to create a VMFS3 volume, and you use the VML name for the LUN, the command might fail even if the VML name is a soft link to a device name (naa.xxx name). The command might fail, for example, if a VMFS3 volume already exists on the LUN.

  Workaround: Use the device name (naa.xxx or eui.xx) to refer to the LUN.

• Running vmkfstools -C does not prompt for confirmation.
  When you run vmkfstools -C to create a VMFS on a partition that already has a VMFS on it, the command erases the existing VMFS and creates the new VMFS without prompting for confirmation.

  Workaround: No workaround. Check the command carefully before running it.

• vmkfstools might print misleading error when running against free ESXi.
  When you run the vmkfstools vCLI against an ESXi host with a free license, some options, e.g. vmkfstools createvirtualdisk, might return a message like the following:
  Unable to create virtual disk with specified parameters
  The error message should instead indicate that the operation cannot be performed because of licensing issues.

  Workaround: No workaround. While the error is misleading, performing the operation against free ESXi is not supported.

• resxtop not supported in replay mode.
  The resxtop command is supported only in interactive mode and batch mode. The esxtop service console command is supported in interactive mode, batch mode, and replay mode.

  Workaround: On ESX 4.x systems, use esxtop instead. On ESXi 5.0 systems, use esxtop in the ESXi shell.

• vicfg-route displays gateway that has been removed.
  If you add a gateway using vicfg-route, and then remove that gateway, a follow-up call to vicfg-route still displays the gateway although it has actually been removed.

  Workaround: Use the esxcli network route command instead.

• Diagnostic partition change is not persistent under certain conditions.
  If you call esxcfg-dumppart or vicfg-dumppart to change the diagnostic partition, and if your ESX/ESXi system experiences a failure within an hour after this change is made and before the host is rebooted, the diagnostic partition reverts to the original setting.

  Workaround:

  • Use the esxcli system coredump commands instead. If using vicfg-dumppart, reboot the ESXi system immediately after changing the partition.

• When using svmotion in interactive mode, cannot specify non-ASCII characters as input.
  When you use svmotion in interactive mode, you cannot specify non-ASCII input, for example, a German datacenter name.

  Workaround: Run svmotion in non-interactive mode and use quotes around the datacenter name.

• Error when using vicfg-iscsi to set up IP, subnet, and gateway separately.
  You perform a factory reset on a QLogic hardware iSCSI card that results in an error. If you then use the vicfg-iscsi vCLI command to set IP address, subnet mask, and gateway separately, an error status results in which the addresses for IP, subnet mask, default gateway, and DNS are set to NULL (0.0.0.0). This is also a problem if the address is 0.0.0.0 for other reasons.

  Workaround: Use the following command to reset the IP address, subnet mask, and gateway at the same time:

  vicfg-iscsi --network --ip <ip_addr> --subnetmask <subnet_mask> --gateway <default_gateway> <adapter_name>

• Cannot modify hardware iSCSI adapter MTU using vicfg-iscsi.
  When you call vicfg-iscsi <conn_params> --pnp --mtu <number> <vmhba> to modify the MTU for a hardware iSCSI adapter, the MTU does not actually changed and an error indicates the property cannot be set.

  Workaround: None

• vicfg-vmknic completes successfully but displays error.
  When you set up an ESXi Installable system with a DHCP IP address, and then set an explicit IP address by running vicfg-vmknic -i -n -p, the IP address is set successfully. However, a SOAP error is displayed. This problem has been found on ESXi Installable only.

  Workaround: No workaround needed, the IP address is set successfully.

• vicfg-volume does not maintain global data center information in a distributed environment.
  In a distributed environment you mounted (persistent/no persistent) an unresolved volume from one ESX/ESXi system using vicfg-volume -M. From another ESX/ESXi system, you run vicfg-volume -r to resignature that unresolved volume. If the mounted volume is not active, running the volume resignature command unmounts the volume. The volume appears as a resignatures volume to all hosts in the environment.

  In contrast, if you use vSphere Client to mount an unresolved volume from one host and issue resignature from another host, the vSphere Client generates a warning to let users know that volume has been mounted on another host and resignature does not succeed.

  Workaround: Use esxcli storage filesystem commands or the vSphere Web Client instead of the vicfg-volume command to resignature volumes in a distributed environment.