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I am using PowerCLI to "PowerOff" VMs when there is a certain event detected. When this even happens, the only thing we can do is to power off the VM and power it on again.

I use Stop-VM -VM xxxx -Kill -Confirm:$false to power off the VM but I noticed that HA will restart the VM after the VM powered off.

But if I manually do "Power off" in vSphere GUI on this VM when HA is turned on, it stays "powered off"

Any idea why HA will start a VM which "powered off" by PowerCLI? or Stop-VM is not the command for "Power Off"?

Root Loop
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1 Answers1

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Have you tested this without -Kill? From the Stop-VM cmdlet reference:

Indicates that you want to stop the specified virtual machines by terminating their processes running on the ESX. You can use this parameter to stop a virtual machine that is not responding and cannot be stopped or restarted in other ways. To use the Kill parameter, you need to have a direct connection to ESX 4.1 or later.

Terminating the process directly on the host sure sounds like an event that should trigger HA. I think I would take a tiered approach to this:

# Some condition happens, ask nicely.
Shutdown-VMGuest -VM xxxx -Confirm:$false
...
# Ask less nicely.
Stop-VM -VM xxxx -Confirm:$false
...
# A last ditch effort.
Get-VM xxxx | Set-Vm -HARestartPriority Disabled -Confirm:$false
Stop-VM -VM xxxx -Kill -Confirm:$false
jscott
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  • `Shutdown-vm` is not an option because it will go through windows shutdown process, thats where the issue is - "server hangs, no responding". the only option i have is to power off vm from host. I think actually it is better for us if it can be restarted by HA itself, so I dont have to run one more command to start the vm. – Root Loop Jan 24 '18 at 14:13
  • It's helpful if you add your specific requirements, restrictions and expectations to your original question. – jscott Jan 24 '18 at 14:15