Reference to Replacements for Service Console Commands
Replacements for Service Console Commands lists common ESX/ESXi 4.x service console commands and corresponding ESXi 5 shell commands.
The links in the Command column of the table point to more detailed information for each command, with corresponding ESXCLI commands for each option where available. Click the link in the More Information column for a table with detailed information about that command.
In ESX 4.x, protects the service console. In ESXi 5.x, esxcfg-firewall is not necessary because no service console exists.
The esxcli network firewall command is available for ESXi firewall management.
vSphere Security documentation.
Use esxcli storage core and esxcli storage core filesystem commands.
esxcli network ip interface covers most options and includes a number of options not available in the esxcfg-vmknic command.
esxcli network vswitch standard for standard switches.
esxcli network vswitch dvs for distributed switches.
Supported in the ESXi 5.x ESXi Shell. If you do not have access to the ESXi Shell, use the resxtop remote vCLI command from a supported Linux system or from vMA.
esxcli software vib
Note: Both esxupdate and vihostupdate are not supported against ESXi 5.0 and ESXi 5.1 hosts.
The vmkfstools command is available in the ESXi 5.x ESXi Shell. The vmkfstools vCLI command options differ slightly from the shell command options.
Use vmkping --help for information.
Use vmware-cmd --help for information.
Use vm-support --help for more information.
ESXCLI Command Syntax
In ESXi 4.x, all ESXCLI commands must follow the same syntax.
esxcli <conn_options> <namespace> <app> <cmd> [cmd_options]
In ESXi 5.0 and ESXi 5.1, the ESXCLI command syntax is more flexible. Each command can use an arbitrary number of namespaces. Different commands have a different number of elements.
esxcli <conn_options> <namespace> [namespace, ...] <cmd> [cmd_options]
Updates to ESXCLI 4.x Commands
The following table lists equivalent commands for esxcli corestorage commands.
Table 5. esxcli 4.x corestorage namespace 
Several new options for this command are available. See the vSphere Command-Line Interface Reference, or run the command with --help.
The following table lists equivalent commands for esxcli storage nmp commands.
Table 6. esxcli nmp namespace 
The esxcli network commands included in ESXCLI 4.1 have been renamed. Many additional networking commands are available in ESXCLI 5.x
The esxcli swiscsi namespace supports a few management commands for software iSCSI in ESXi 4.1. The commands have been renamed. ESXCLI equivalents have also been added for the esxcfg-swiscsi and esxcfg-hwiscsi commands.
Note: The add and remove commands are intended only for use by VMware partners.
Use the iscsi session connection namespace to perform operations on the iSCSI connection.
The 4.1 esxcli vms namespace allows you to list virtual machines and forcibly stop them. The namespace has been renamed.
esxcfg-advcfg
Instead of esxcfc-advcfg, use esxcli system settings advanced. The following commands are supported.
Get the value of the VMkernel advanced configuration option. Us --option to retrieve information for a single option, or --tree to limit the list to a specific subtree.
Use esxcli system settings advanced list to list all options instead.
esxcfg-dumppart
When using the ESXi Shell, you can configure your system to save core dumps to a local partition or to use the ESXi Dump Collector and save core dumps to a prespecified local or remote partition.
Use esxcli coredump partition commands to configure a local dump partition.
Install ESXi Dump Collector to support sending core dumps to a remote host and run esxcli coredump network commands to configure the remote dump partition.
Important You can no longer use esxcfg-dumppart to enable core dumps. Use ESXCLI instead.
The following table lists the esxcfg-dumppart command options and corresponding ESXCLI commands.
Table 10. esxcfg-dumppart Replacement Commands 
Important: Execution might take several minutes and slow down your ESXi host because the command scans all LUNs on the system.
CAUTION: If you run this command, your system cannot write errors to a file until another partition is activated. You lose any error record if errors occur.
No corresponding ESXCLI command.
No corresponding ESXCLI command.
esxcfg-info
No comprehensive set of equivalent ESXCLI commands corresponding to esxcfg-info is available yet. The following commands are offering some of the esxcfg-info capability.
esxcfg-ipsec
In vSphere 5.1, you can use commands in the esxcli network ip ipsec namespace in place of the esxcfg-ipsec command.
esxcfg-swiscsi and esxcfg-hwiscsi
The ESX 4.x service console includes two commands for iSCSI management.
The esxcfg-swiscsi command manages software iSCSI. Equivalent ESXCLI commands are available in vSphere 5.
Table 13. esxcfg-swiscsi Replacement Commands
The esxcfg-hwiscsi command managed hardware iSCSI.
Table 14. esxcfg-hwiscsi Replacement Commands 
esxcfg-route
The esxcfg-route command has equivalent ESXCLI commands. The new command set has enhanced functionality.
Table 15. esxcfg-rout Replacement Commands 
esxcfg-scsidevs
The esxcfg-scsidevs command has equivalent ESXCLI commands for some of the options.
Table 16. esxcfg-scsidevs Replacement Commands 
ESXCLI does not have equivalent options for the --device, --vfat, and --hba-device-list filtering options.
The -o|--offline-cos-dev and -n|--online-cos-dev options are service console specific options and not applicable to ESXi 5.x.
esxcfg-module
The esxcfg-module command supports manipulation of the VMkernel loadable modules and device drivers.For the following esxcfg-module options, ESXCLI commands are available.
Skip module validation for all options. The get and list commands do not support --force.
esxcfg-mpath
The esxcfg-mpath command supports listing information about Fibre Channel or iSCSI LUNs and changing a path’s state. In vSphere 5, equivalent ESXCLI commands are available.
Set the state of a given LUN path to either active or off. This option requires that the --path options is set and specifies either the path UID or the path runtime name.
esxcfg-nas
The esxcfg-nas command manipulates NAS file systems associated with ESXi systems. In vSphere 5, equivalent ESXCLI commands are available.
- -add <name>
- -delete <name>
- -list
- -host <n_host>
- -readonly
- -share <share>
ESXCLI also includes commands to mount and unmount the NAS filesystem.
esxcfg-nics
The esxcfg-nics command manages physical NICs (uplink adapters) used by an ESXi host. In vSphere 5, equivalent ESXCLI commands are available.
Set the duplex value at which a given network adapter should run to either full (transmit data in both directions at the same time) or half (transmit data in one direction at a time).
List information about all the network adapters. Use network nic get <adapter> to list information about one specific adapter, for example esxcli network nic get -n vmnic0
esxcfg-rescan
The esxcfg-rescan command rescans the storage configuration. In vSphere 5, equivalent ESXCLI commands are available.
Table 21. esxcfg-rescan Replacement Commands 
In addition, ESXCLI supports several other rescan command. Run esxcli storage core adapter rescan --help.
esxcfg-vmknic
The esxcfg-vmknic command adds, deletes, and modifies VMkernel network interfaces. In vSphere 5, equivalent ESXCLI commands are available.
MTU for the interface being created. Used at the top-level ip namespace, not inside the ipv4 or ipv6 namespace.
esxcfg-volume
The esxcfg-volume command manages LVM snapshot or replica volumes. In vSphere 5, equivalent ESXCLI commands are available in the esxcli storage filesystem and in the esxcli storage vmfs namespaces.
--mount -m --persistent -M
Mount a snapshot or replica of a VMFS volume. Use the --nopersist option to mount the volume non-persistently.
esxcfg-vswitch
The esxcfg-vswitch command manages virtual switches. In vSphere 5, equivalent ESXCLI commands are available.
Check whether a virtual switch exists. Print 1 if the switch exists and print 0 otherwise. Use the virtual switch name, e.g. vSwitch0 or vSwitch1, to specify the virtual switch.
network vswitch standard list includes CDP information.
Provide the port group name for the --vlan option. Specify ALL to set VLAN IDs on all port groups of a virtual switch.
At any time, there is one port group NIC array, and a corresponding set of active uplinks. For example, assume the portgroup nic array is [vmnic1, vmnic0, vmnic3, vmnic5, vmnic6, vmnic7] and active-uplinks is set to three uplinks (vmnic1, vmnic0, vmnic3), and the rest are standby uplinks. If you set the active uplinks with new set [vmnic3, vmnic5], those uplinks override the old set. The NIC array changes to [vmnic3, vmnic5, vmnic6, vmnic7] and max-active becomes 2.
esxtop
The esxtop command is available and supported in the ESXi Shell. Search the vSphere Documentation Center, or see the vSphere Resource Management documentation.
esxupdate
The esxupdate command allows you to manage ESX 4.0 and later systems. Use the commands in the esxcli software namespace to install, update, remove, or display individual VIBs (software packages). Use commands in the esxcli software sources namespace to query depot contents for VIBs and image profiles. An image profile defines an ESXi image and consists of VIBs.
Table 25. esxupdate Replacement Commands 
The update command updates VIB packages but does not install new VIBs.
The install command installs VIB packages from a URL or depot. The command installs, upgrades, or downgrades VIBs.
Run esxcli software sources profile to query for image profiles in a depot.
Run esxcli software sources vib to display information about VIB URLs and files.
vicfg-snmp
In vSphere 5, you can use the vicfg-snmp command to manage the ESXi SNMP agent. In vSphere 5.1, the esxcli system snmp namespace has corresponding commands.
vmkfstools
vmkfstools is supported in the ESXi Shell and as a vCLI command. Some differences exist between the ESXi Shell vmkfstools command and the vmkfstools vCLI command. No equivalent ESXCLI command exists.
vmware-cmd
The vmware-cmd command is included in the vCLI package, but is not available in the ESXi Shell.
vm-support
The vm-support command is available in the ESXi Shell. The command is not included in the vCLI package.