Quick tip: How to kill a VM with esxtop

Ivo Beerens
Date : February 29, 2012
Categories : esxi ,esxtop
Tags : esxi-2 ,esxtop

There are different ways to kill an unresponsable VM by using the vCLI or the console. In VMware ESXi, it is possible to kill a running VM process by using esxtop or resxtop. For VMware ESXi you need to enter Tech Support Mode (TSM) first to run esxtop.

The following procedure can be used to kill a VM (The bold text are the commands to enter):

esxtop

Press c for the CPU resource screen
Press shift + V to display VMs only
Press f to change the display fields

Press c to select the LWID (Leader World Id) and press enter
Identify the VM by it’s LWID
Press k
Enter the LWID of the VM to kill and press enter
Wait for 30 seconds and validate that the VM is no longer listed