Introduction

The commands in the vSphere CLI package allow you to perform vSphere configuration tasks. The package consists of several command sets.

The following table lists the components of the vSphere CLI command set.

vCLI Commands	Description
ESXCLI commands	Manage many aspects of an ESXi host. You can run ESXCLI commands remotely or in the ESXi Shell. You can also run ESXCLI commands from the PowerCLI prompt by using the Get-EsxCli cmdlet.
vicfg- commands	Set of commands for many aspects of host management Eventually, these commands will be replaced by ESXCLI commands. A set of esxcfg- commands that precisely mirrors the vicfg- commands is also included in the vCLI package.
Other commands (vmware-cmd, vifs, vmkfstools)	Commands implemented in Perl that do not have a vicfg- prefix. These commands are scheduled to be deprecated or replaced by ESXCLI commands.
DCLI commands	Manage VMware SDDC services. DCLI is a CLI client to the vSphere Automation SDK interface for managing VMware SDDC services. A DCLI command talks to a vSphere Automation API endpoint to locate relevant information, and then executes the command and displays result to the user.

You can install the vSphere CLI command set on a supported Linux or Windows system. See Getting Started with vSphere Command-Line Interfaces.

After installation, run vCLI commands from the Linux or Windows system.

• Manage ESXi hosts with other vCLI commands by specifying connection options such as the target host, user, and password or a configuration file. See Connection Options for vCLI Host Management Commands.
• Manage vCenter services with DCLI commands by specifying a target vCenter Server system and authentication options. See Getting Started with vSphere Command-Line Interfaces for a list of connection options.