Details
You can run vSphere Command-Line Interface (vSphere CLI) 4.0 commands against vSphere 4.0 and ESX/ESXi 3.5 systems. A parity table in the vSphere Command-Line Interface Installation and Reference Guide gives detailed information about platform support for each command.
Because the architecture of vSphere 4.0 differs significantly from the architecture of VMware Infrastructure 3, vSphere CLI 4.0 does not support all options of each command when you run it against VMware Infrastructure 3 systems. vSphere CLI 4.0 supports those options on VMware Infrastructure 3.0 systems that were supported by the Remote Command-Line Interface (RCLI) version 3.5 Update 2. See the Remote Command-Line Interface Installation and Reference Guide for VMware Infrastructure 3.5 Update 2. You can also run each vSphere CLI 4.0 command with --help on the command line for information.
This Knowledge Base article lists command options that are exceptions. The command options are supported in Remote CLI 3.5 Update 2 but are not supported when you run the vSphere CLI 4.0 command against VMware Infrastructure 3 systems.
| Command | Issue |
| vicfg-route | Cannot run the command with the following options against an ESX/ESXi 3.5 system. -d --del -a --add -l --list |
| vmkfstools | Cannot create VMFS3 file system using VML prefix LUN name. Cannot run vmkfstools with the --clonevirtualdisk against ESX/ESXi 3.5 systems. Cannot create a virtual disk with IDE as the adapter type. |
| vicfg-vswitch | Running vicfg-vswitch with the -U option and either--del-pg-uplink or --add-pg-uplinkleaves a VMkernel NIC in an invalid state. |
| vicfg-vmknic | Cannot add a VMkernel NIC when specifying DHCP as the IP address (-i DHCP). --ip --portgroup reports success with IPv6 address, though IPv6 is not supported and the operation actually fails. Cannot add VMkernel NIC. Cannot add VMkernel NIC to a port group using -p | --portgroup. When using --list, the MTU value is sometimes missing in the output even if MTU is defined. If you attempt to set the MTU or TSO setting for a VMkernel NIC by using vmknic -a, the command fails silently. |
| vifs | Cannot create directories inside the /tmp directory on ESX/ESXi 3.5 systems. |
| vicfg-dumppart | --set and --activate are not supported against ESX/ESXi 3.5 systems. |
| vicfg-dns | Cannot run this command to retrieve DNS servers that run DHCP. |
Solution
In many cases, you can use the vSphere Client interface to perform the action not supported by the command-line interface. Otherwise, upgrading to vSphere 4.0 is recommended.
Based on VMware KB 1008940
