Stopping and Rebooting Hosts with ESXCLI

You can shut down or reboot an ESXi host by using the vSphere Web Client or vCLI commands, such as ESXCLI or vicfg-hostops.

Shutting down a managed host disconnects it from the vCenter Server system, but does not remove the host from the inventory. You can shut down a single host or all hosts in a data center or cluster. Specify one of the options listed in Connection Options for vCLI Host Management Commands in place of <conn_options>.

To shut down a host, run esxcli system shutdown poweroff. You must specify the --reason option and supply a reason for the shutdown. A --delay option allows you to specify a delay interval, in seconds.

To reboot a host, run system shutdown reboot. You must specify the --reason option and supply a reason for the reboot. A --delay option allows you to specify a delay interval, in seconds.