Overview of ESXCLI

You can use ESXCLI to manage many aspects of an
ESXi
host by running ESXCLI commands remotely or in the
ESXi Shell
.
You can run ESXCLI commands against a
vCenter Server
system and target the host indirectly. Running against
vCenter Server
systems by using the
--vihost
option is required if the host is in lockdown mode. You can also run ESXCLI commands in the local
ESXi Shell
to manage that host.