Stopping, starting, or restarting services in vCenter Server Appliance 6.5 and beyond

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

This article provides information on how to manage vCenter server appliance using the service-control command.

 

The service-control command can be accessed through the Appliance Shell or BASH Shell.

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 6.5
VMware vCenter Server 6.7
VMware vCenter Server 7.X
VMware vCenter Server 8.X

Resolution

Service-control

 

To view the available commands, run service-control --help

$ service-control --help
usage: service-control [-h] [--start] [--stop] [--status] [--list] [--list-services] [--vmon-profile VMON_PROFILE] [--all] [--ignore] ...

The service-control command performs operation on VMware services. By default, the services selected are based on current startup profile. This can be overridden by using --all and --vmon-profile options.

 

Arguments	Description
-h	Show help message
--start	Start operation on VMware service(s)
--stop	Stop operation VMware service(s)
--status	List and get status of VMware service(s)
--vmon-profile	Specific profile: VMON_PROFILE
--all	Services associated with given profile name. Start/Stop all VMware services.
--ignore	Ignore errors. Continue with given operation even if errors occur.

 

To query an individual service run service-control --status <service_name>
$ service-control --status vmware-cm
Running: vmware-cm

 

To stop an individual VMware service, run service-control --stop <service_name>
$ service-control --stop vmware-cm

 

To start an individual VMware service, run the service-control --start <service_name>
$ service-control --start vmware-cm

 

To stop all VMware services, run service-control --stop --all
$ service-control --stop --all

 

To start all VMware services, run service-control --start --all
$ service-control --start --all

 

Note: There is no service-control --restart command.

 

Photon OS

For Photon OS service manipulation, use the following commands instead of their SLES counterparts. These commands must be used from the BASH Shell.
 

Photon OS Commands	SLES Commands
systemctl start <service>	service <service> start
systemctl stop <service>	service <service> stop
systemctl restart <service>	service <service> restart
systemctl reload <service>	service <service> reload
systemctl condrestart <service>	service <service> condrestart
systemctl status <service>	service <service> status
systemctl enable <service>	chkconfig <service> on
systemctl disable <service>	chkconfig <service> off
systemctl daemon-reload	chkconfig <service> --add
systemctl list-units --type service --all	chkconfig --list <service name>
systemctl is-enabled <service>	chkconfig --list vmware-tools-services