You will find below some basic and useful commands to operate a ESXi hypervisor from the command line.
Put the host in maintenance mode (or leave maintenance mode) :
esxcli --server localhost system maintenancemode set --enable <true | false>
List all VMs registered on the host :
vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms
Verify the power state of a specific VM :
vim-cmd vmsvc/power.getstate <vmid>
Power on a specific VM :
vim-cmd vmsvc/power.on <vmid>
Backup the host configuration :
vicfg-cfgbackup --server localhost -s /tmp/ESXi-cfgbackup.txt
Restore backup configuration to the host (have to be in maintenance mode) :
vicfg-cfgbackup --server localhost -l /tmp/ESXi-cfgbackup.txt
Show the VMkernel networks on the host :
esxcli --server localhost network ip interface list
EXTRA : For any “esxcli” commands, you can run the following to run the command to a remote host (such as from vCenter/PowerCLI) :
esxcli --server <server_ip> - -username “username” - -password “password” <COMMAND>