The Shut Down Guest OS for VM action shuts down the guest operating system and powers off the virtual machine. You shut down a virtual machine when you are managing resources and reclaiming wasted space.

How the Action Works

The Shut Down Guest OS for VM action checks that VMware Tools, which is required, is installed on the target virtual machines, then shuts down the guest operating system and powers off the virtual machine. If VMware Tools is not installed or installed but not running, the action does not run and the job is reported as failed in Recent Tasks.

If the target virtual machine is already powered off, the recent task status reports success on the machine, even though the state of the virtual machine did not change.

Where You Run the Action

For the supported objects and object levels, this action is available in the following locations in VMware Aria Operations:
  • Embedded just below the top menu.
  • From the left menu click Environment > Object Browser, select an object, click the Details tab, and click Views.
  • From the left menu click Environment > Object Browser. Select an object, click the Environment tab, and select an object in the list view.
  • From the left menu click Environment and then click Inventory. Select an object in the list.
  • In configured alert recommendations.
  • In the Object List and Topology Graph dashboard widgets.

Action Options

Review the following so you can be sure you are taking the right action.

Option Description
Selected objects

Check box indicates whether the action is applied to the object. To not run the action on one or more objects, deselect the associated check boxes. This option is available when two or more objects are selected.

Name

Name of the virtual machine as it appears in the environment inventory.

Power State

Indicates whether the virtual machine is powered on or powered off.

Idle VM

Indicates whether the virtual machine is considered to be in the idle state based on the configured idle virtual machine metric.

Possible values include:
  • false. The virtual machine is active.
  • true. The virtual machine is idle.
  • unknown. VMware Aria Operations does not have the data required to calculate the idle metric.
Idle VM Percentage

Calculated threshold of the idle virtual machine percentage based on the configured reclaimable wasted space policy.

Host

Name of the host on which the virtual machine is running.

Adapter Instance

Name of the VMware Adapter as it is configured in VMware Aria Operations. The adapter manages the communication with the vCenter Server instance.

After you click OK, the next dialog box provides the task ID and a link to the task list.

Table 1. Task ID Dialog Box
Option Description
Recent Tasks To view the status of the job and verify that the job finished, click Recent Tasks.
OK To close the dialog box without further action, click OK.