Mastering esxcfg-advcfg

esxcfg-advcfg is a command that allows an admin to view and/or modify parameters for the esxi host. What follows is a series of examples on how to view and modify some of these parameters.

Step 1: Type the command without any arguments (or with the "h" option) to view available options.

Step 2: Use the "-l" option to view a list of the parameters. You can use the pipe (|) with the more command to view these parameters one page at a time.

Step 3: Use the "-g" option to get the value of a parameter. In this case, the output shows the hostname for this esxi host.

Step 4: Use the "-g" and "-s" option to view and modify a parameter. This example shows how to indicate which vmkernel port is to be used for vmotion.

Step 5: View and modify NFS related parameters. This example modifies the default value of NFS volumes.

Step 6: Starting in 5.5, you now see parameters for vsans (Virtual Sans). Here you can see that 60 minutes is the default timeout for reconstruction of objects when a host is down.

Step 7: This next parameter allows an admin to make the annoying "SSH is Enabled" warning to go away.

Step 8: This example shows how to view and modify the value for Normal Shares.

Step 9: This last example shows how to modify the default value of ballooning % for vms.