This week I found out a way of sorting the list of VM’s as it appears in the ESX MUI. By default the list of VM’s in the MUI is sorted by the order of the VM’s created Or by the order they are registered (which can be the same thing). We can sort the VM’s alphabetically or re-order them based on your own preference by using the Service Console

1. Logon to the Service Console as ROOT
2. Sort the vmlist – by using the sort command piped to a new file, and then copy over sorted vmlist over the original vmlist with:

   sort /etc/vmware/vm-list > /etc/vmware/vm-listsorted

   and

   cp /etc/vmware/vm-listsorted /etc/vmware/vm-list
   

3. Press [ENTER] to over-write the original file
4. Restart the vmware-serverd and vmware httpd daemons with

   service vmware-serverd restart
   service httpd.vwmare restart

   Note:
   If you are using vCenter restart the ccagent service instead from the vCenter client using

   Right-click the ESX Host
   Properties
   Click the Advanced Tab, and click the Restart button

   Alternatively, kill the ccagent process from the Service Console (ESX will automatically restart it…) with:

   ps -ef | grep ccagent

   and then

   kill pidno, in my case kill 27023

   Note:
   If you have the vCenter client open this should force a “reconnecting…” event
    
   If you log on to the ESX MUI you should find the VM list is sorted alphabetically…

   Note:
   If this fails to generate the list you require – simply edit the vmlist with nano – and reorder… be sure to backup the file before you do this. 

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 15th, 2005 at 6:03 pm and is filed under ESX. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.