Note: Before you begin, see KB1003490 for important information on restarting the mgmt-vmware service.
Disable Virtual Machine Startup/Shutdown for the ESX host through VirtualCenter or a VMware Infrastructure (VI) Client that is directly connected to the host.
To disable Virtual Machine Startup/Shutdown:
Log in to VirtualCenter.
Select the ESX Server host where you want restart hostd.
Select the Configuration tab.
Select Virtual Machine Startup/Shutdown.
Select Properties.
Deselect Allow Virtual machines to start and stop automatically with the system.
If the host is not reachable through VirtualCenter or the VI Client:
Log in to the ESX Server service console as root.
At the command line run vimsh.
At the [/] prompt, type:
hostsvc/autostartmanager/enable_autostart 0
Type exit. You can now safely restart mgmt-vmware (hostd).
Additional Information
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