Assumed that the esxi host cannot be managed from vCenter Server or from vSphere Client due to some reasons such as host not responding but you still can established putty session to that host. You still can power on the virtual machine using vim-cmd command. This steps has been tested on esxi 4.1 and require root access to the esxi host, either at the physical console or using SSH putty session. Follow below steps to power on a virtual machine from the command line:
1. List the inventory ID of the virtual machine :
vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms
Example :
~ # vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms Vmid Name File Guest OS Version Annotation 112 CentOS6.5 [datastore1] CentOS6.5/CentOS6.5.vmx other26xLinux64Guest vmx-07 CentOS 6.5 96 CentOS6.5-LAMP [datastore1] CentOS6.5-LAMP/CentOS6.5-LAMP.vmx other26xLinux64Guest vmx-07 CentOS 6.5
2. Check the power state of the virtual machine :
vim-cmd vmsvc/power.getstate VMID
Example :
~ # vim-cmd vmsvc/power.getstate 96 Retrieved runtime info Powered off
3. Power-on the virtual machine :
vim-cmd vmsvc/power.on VMID
Example :
~ # vim-cmd vmsvc/power.on 96 Powering on VM: