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There are many different ways to kill a stuck or hung VM, but for now, I will present two alternatives.

First try to run:
vmware-cmd /vmfs/volumes/<name_of_datastorage>/<vmname>/<vmname>.vmx stop hard

If this for some reasons doesnt work (like me accidentaly deleting the .vmx file), you can try the
following:

1. Run the following command (to get a list of running VMs):
sudo vm-support -x

The output will look something like this:

VMware ESX Server Support Script 1.29

Available worlds to debug:

vmid=1126 vm-01
vmid=1151 vm-02
vmid=1272 vm-03
vmid=1291 vm-04
vmid=1150 vm-05
vmid=1420 vm-06
vmid=1433 vm-07

2. Then run the command (remember to replace the number with the “vmid” of your VM):

less -S /proc/vmware/vm/1433/cpu/status

Press the right arrow key.

In the right corner there should be som info about the “group”:
group
vm.1432

3. By running the following command, you can safely kill your VM without risking corrupting it
(remember to replace the number with your “group number”):
sudo /usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmkload_app -k 9 1432

4. If successful, you should see a message like this:
Warning: Jan 06 06:42:49.717: Sending signal ‘9′ to world 1432.

Tags: how to kill hung VM, how to kill stuck VM, vm-support, vmid, vmkload_app, VMware ESX 3.5, vmware-cmd

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 6th, 2009 at 1:04 pm and is filed under Software. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.