The plug-ins in the vCenter Server Appliance provide you with access to various administrative tools. The plug-ins reside in the CLI itself. The plug-ins are standalone Linux or VMware utilities, which do not depend on any VMware service.

Table 1. Plug-Ins Available in the vCenter Server Appliance
Plug-In Description
com.vmware.clear A plug-in that you can use to clear the terminal screen.
com.vmware.cmsso-util A plug-in that you use for orchestrating changes to PNID, Machine Certificate, unregistering a node from Component Manager, vCenter Single Sign-On, reconfiguring vCenter Server with an embedded Platform Services Controller, and repointing vCenter Server to an external Platform Services Controller.
com.vmware.dcli vAPI based CLI client.
com.vmware.nslookup A plug-in that you can use to query the Domain Name System (DNS) to obtain domain name or IP address mapping or for any other specific DNS record.
com.vmware.pgrep A plug-in that you can use to search for all named processes.
com.vmware.pgtop A plug-in that you can use to monitor the PostgreSQL database.
com.vmware.ping A plug-in that you can use to ping a remote host. Accepts the same arguments as bin/ping.
com.vmware.ping6 A plug-in that you can use to ping a remote host. Accepts the same arguments as bin/ping6.
com.vmware.portaccess A plug-in that you can use to troubleshoot the port access of a host.
com.vmware.ps A plug-in that you can use to see statistics on running processes.
com.vmware.rvc Ruby vSphere Console
com.vmware.service-control A plug-in that you can use to manage VMware services.
com.vmware.shell A plug-in that allows access to the appliance Bash shell.
com.vmware.showlog A plug-in that you can use to browse the log files.
com.vmware.shutdown A plug-in that you can use to restart or power off the appliance.
com.vmware.software-packages A plug-in that you can use to update the software packages in the appliance.
com.vmware.support-bundle A plug-in that you can use to create a bundle on the local file system and export it to a remote Linux system. If you use the plug-in with the stream command, the support bundle is not created on the local file system, but is directly exported to the remote Linux system.
com.vmware.top A plug-in that displays process information. Accepts the same arguments as /usr/bin/top/.
com.vmware.tracepath A plug-in that traces path to a network host. Accepts the same arguments as /sbin/tracepath.
com.vmware.tracepath6 A plug-in that traces path to a network host. Accepts the same arguments as /sbin/tracepath6.
com.vmware.updatemgr-util A plug-in that you can use to configure VMware Update Manager.
com.vmware.vcenter-restore A plug-in that you can use to restore vCenter Server.
com.vmware.vimtop A plug-in that you can use to view a list of vSphere services and their resource use.