The esxcli command can be used locally or remotely to power off a virtual machine running on ESXi 5.x. For more information, see the esxcli vm Commands section of the vSphere Command-Line Interface Reference.
Open a console session where the esxcli tool is available, either in the ESXi Shell, the vSphere Management Assistant (vMA), or the location where the vSphere Command-Line Interface (vCLI) is installed.
Get a list of running virtual machines, identified by World ID, UUID, Display Name, and path to the .vmx configuration file, using this command:
esxcli vm process list
Power off one of the virtual machines from the list using this command:
esxcli vm process kill --type=[soft,hard,force] --world-id=WorldNumber
Notes:
Three power-off methods are available. Soft is the most graceful, hard performs an immediate shutdown, and force should be used as a last resort.
Alternate power off command syntax is:
esxcli vm process kill -t [soft,hard,force] -w WorldNumber
Repeat Step 2 and validate that the virtual machine is no longer running.
