Supported Protocols and Platforms for Commands

The resxtop command requires an HTTPS connection. All other commands support HTTP and HTTPS.

Most vCLI commands can run against an ESXi system or against vCenter Server. vCenter Server support means that you can connect to a vCenter Server system and use - -vihost to specify the ESXi host to run the command against. The only exception is svmotion, which you can run against vCenter Server systems, but not against ESXi systems.

The following commands must have an ESXi system, not a vCenter Server system target.

■	vicfg-snmp

■

vifs

■	vicfg-user

■	vicfg-cfgbackup

■	vihostupdate

■	vmkfstools

■	vicfg-ipsec

You cannot run the vihostupdate command against an ESXi 5.0 or later system.

You cannot run the vihostupdate and vicfg-mpath commands that are in a vCLI 4.0 or later installation against ESX/ESXi 3.5 or vCenter 2.5 systems. Instead, run vihostupdate35 and vicfg-mpath35, included in the vCLI 4.x installation, against those systems. vihostupdate35 is supported for ESXi, but not for ESX.

You cannot run vicfg-syslog --setserver or vicfg-syslog --setport with an ESXi 5.0 or later target.

Important If you run vCLI 4.x commands against ESX/ESXi 3.5 systems, you can use only the options supported by those systems. See the VMware Infrastructure Remote Command-Line Interface Installation and Reference Guide for ESX/ESXi 3.5 Update 2 for a list of supported options. To access that document, select Resources > Documentation from the VMware web site. Find the vSphere documentation set and open the archive. A few vCLI 4.x options are supported against hosts running ESX/ESXi 3.5 Update 2 or later even though they were not supported in RCLI version 3.5. Run a vCLI 4.x command with - -help for information about option support with ESX/ESXi 3.5 Update 2, or see the VMware knowledge base article at http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1008940 for more detail.

Platform Support for vCLI 5.x Commands lists platform support for the different vCLI 5.x commands. These commands have not been tested against VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 2 systems. You can, however, connect to a vCenter Server 4.x system and target ESX/ESXi 3.5 Update 2 hosts.

Platform Support for vCLI 5.x Commands 

Command	ESXi 5.x	VC 5.x	ESXi 4.x	ESX 4.x	VC 4.x	ESXi 3.5 U2+	ESX 3.5 U2+
esxcli	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
resxtop	Yes (from Linux)	Yes (from Linux)	Yes (from Linux)	Yes (from Linux)	Yes (from Linux)	Yes (from Linux)	Yes (from Linux)
svmotion	No	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	No
vicfg-advcfg	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
vicfg-authconfig	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
vicfg-cfgbackup	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	Yes	No
vicfg-dns	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
vicfg-dumppart	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
vicfg-hostops	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
vicfg-ipsec	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
vicfg-iscsi	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
vicfg-module	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
vicfg-mpath	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Use vicfg-mpath35 instead.
vicfg-nas	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
vicfg-nics	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
vicfg-ntp	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
vicfg-rescan	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
vicfg-route	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
vicfg-scsidevs	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
vicfg-snmp	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
vicfg-syslog	No	No for 5.0 target	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No
vicfg-user	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
vicfg-vmhbadevs	Not included in vCLI 4.x and vCLI 5.0. Use vicfg-scsidevs instead.					Yes	Yes
vicfg-vmknic	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
vicfg-volume	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
vicfg-vswitch	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
vifs	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
vihostupdate	Use esxcli software vib instead.		Yes	Yes	No	Use vihostupdate35 instead	No
vmkfstools	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
vmware-cmd	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
vicfg-mpath35	No	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes
vihostupdate35	No	No	No	No	No	Yes	No