vmware console command to suspend all VMs that are not yet suspended and waits until they all are suspended

esxi-suspend-all-VMs.sh

#!/bin/sh
# https://wiert.me/2021/04/30/vmware-esxi-console-viewing-all-vms-suspending-and-waking-them-up-part-5/
RUNNING=0
vmids=`vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms | sed -n -E -e "s/^([[:digit:]]+)\s+((\S.+\S)?)\s+(\[\S+\])\s+(.+\.vmx)\s+(\S+)\s+(vmx-[[:digit:]]+)\s*?((\S.+)?)$/\1/p"`
for vmid in ${vmids} ; do
    # echo "Probing VM with id: $vmid."
    powerState=`vim-cmd vmsvc/power.getstate ${vmid} | sed '1d'`
    name=`vim-cmd vmsvc/get.config ${vmid} | sed -n -E -e '/\(vim.vm.ConfigInfo\) \{/,/files = \(vim.vm.FileInfo\) \{/ s/^ +name = "(.*)",.*?/\1/p'`
    vmPathName=`vim-cmd vmsvc/get.config ${vmid} | sed -n -E -e '/files = \(vim.vm.FileInfo\) \{/,/tools = \(vim.vm.ToolsConfigInfo\) \{/ s/^ +vmPathName = "(.*)",.*?/\1/p'`                                                           
    # echo "VM with id ${vmid} has power state ${powerState} (name = ${name}; vmPathName = ${vmPathName})."                                                 
    if [ "${powerState}" == "Powered on" ] ; then                                                          
        RUNNING=1                                
        echo "Powered on VM with id ${vmid} and name: $name"
        echo "Suspending VM with id ${vmid} and name: $name"
        vim-cmd vmsvc/power.suspend ${vmid} > /dev/null &   
    fi                                                   
done  
    
while true ; do
     if [ $RUNNING -eq 0 ] ; then
          echo "Gone..."         
          break         
     fi        
     RUNNING=0
     for vmid in ${vmids} ; do
          # echo "Probing VM with id: $vmid."
          powerState=`vim-cmd vmsvc/power.getstate ${vmid} | sed '1d'`
          name=`vim-cmd vmsvc/get.config ${vmid} | sed -n -E -e '/\(vim.vm.ConfigInfo\) \{/,/files = \(vim.vm.FileInfo\) \{/ s/^ +name = "(.*)",.*?/\1/p'`
          vmPathName=`vim-cmd vmsvc/get.config ${vmid} | sed -n -E -e '/files = \(vim.vm.FileInfo\) \{/,/tools = \(vim.vm.ToolsConfigInfo\) \{/ s/^ +vmPathName = "(.*)",.*?/\1/p'`                                                     
          # echo "VM with id ${vmid} has power state ${powerState} (name = ${name}; vmPathName = ${vmPathName})."                                                                  
          if [ "${powerState}" == "Powered on" ] ; then                                                          
              RUNNING=1                                
              echo "Waiting for id ${vmid} and name: $name..."   
          fi                                                  
     done   
     sleep 1
done        
    
exit 0

Via: https://thisiscasperslife.wordpress.com/2011/12/04/wmware-esxi-suspend-all-guests/
Fixed some typos and added some extra logging.

Nice script; however in ESXi 6.5 I have a little trouble with line 3. I get empty lines, as well as the line "Default" so it gets a little messy later on when the $VM variable sometimes is not a valid VM id. I found it works better to set VMS to the output of this:

vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms | awk '{print $1}' | grep '[0-9]'

(I just understood why "Default" is printed - it is from a long VM comment text that wraps over several lines, so could be different in other circumstances).

Thanks! It reminds me that I forgot to update this gist after writing https://wiert.me/2021/04/30/vmware-esxi-console-viewing-all-vms-suspending-and-waking-them-up-part-5/ which now uses this to get all the VM IDs:

vmids=`vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms | sed -n -E -e "s/^([[:digit:]]+)\s+((\S.+\S)?)\s+(\[\S+\])\s+(.+\.vmx)\s+(\S+)\s+(vmx-[[:digit:]]+)\s*?((\S.+)?)$/\1/p"`

It still has the drawback that you can get an invalid VM ID if the wrapped VM comment contains a number as the first word on a line.

There seems to be nothing that can prevent that.

I will commit a new version here shortly.

Great, this works fine too!

Great, this works fine too!

Glad it does. Always happy when things are also useful to others (:

@jpluimers Thanks for making this. I couldn't get it to work however, and tracked it to that the initial sed on getallvms didn't match anything.

It turns out that I have spaces in all my volume names, which this doesn't expect. I replaced (\[\S+\]) with (\[[^]]+\]) and now it works fine also when there's spaces in the volume names.