esx: killing a stuck VM from the command line - redux!

NOTE: The method in this post seems more accurate and effective than the one in the previous post on this blog, "killing a stuck VM from the command line."


Instructions on how to forcibly terminate a VM if it is unresponsive to the VI client


Here you will be terminating the Master World and User Worlds for the VM which in turn will terminate the VM's processes.



1. First list the running VMs to determine the VM ID for the affected VM:
#cat /proc/vmware/vm/*/names

vmid=1076 pid=-1 cfgFile="/vmfs/volumes/50823edc-d9110dd9-8994-9ee0ad055a68/vc using sql/vc using sql.vmx" uuid="50 28 4e 99 3d 2b 8d a0-a4 c0 87 c9 8a 60 d2 31" displayName="vc using sql-192.168.1.10"

vmid=1093 pid=-1 cfgFile="/vmfs/volumes/50823edc-d9110dd9-8994-9ee0ad055a68/esx_template/esx_template.vmx" uuid="50 11 7a fc bd ec 0f f4-cb 30 32 a5 c0 3a 01 09" displayName="esx_template"

For this example we will terminate the VM at vmid='1093'




2. We need to find the Master World ID, do this type:
# less -S /proc/vmware/vm/1093/cpu/status

Expand the terminal or scroll until you can see the right-most column. This is labelled 'group'. Unterneath the column you will find: vm.1092.

In this example '1092' is the ID of the Master World.




3. Run this command to terminate the Master World and the VM running in it:

/usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmkload_app -k 9 1092




4. This should kill all the VM's User Worlds and also the VM's processes.

If Successful you will see similar:

# /usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmkload_app --kill 9 1070
Warning: Jul 12 07:24:06.303: Sending signal '9' to world 1070.

If the Master World ID is wrong you may see:
# /usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmkload_app --kill 9 1071
Warning: Jul 12 07:21:05.407: Sending signal '9' to world 1071.
Warning: Jul 12 07:21:05.407: Failed to forward signal 9 to cartel 1071: 0xbad0061



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