Running Commands on Linux After installation, you can run vCLI commands and vSphere SDK for Perl utility applications at the command prompt. To run a vCLI command on Linux 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. For example: esxcli - -server <server> - -username snow\-white - -password dwarf\$ network ip interface list vicfg-mpath - -server <server> - -username snow\-white - -password dwarf\$ --list The system prompts you for a user name and password for the target server.