VMware vCenter Server Appliance v6 Services

So I have been asked by a few people,

“James, how do I restart the [vCSA] services from the cli and what order do I need to start/stop/restart them in?”

Some people have not truly ventured into the inner workings of the vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) to troubleshoot stuff on their own yet. The biggest reason I could see this being the case is due to most people being accustomed to building a Windows-based vCenter server. On top of that, some people are just not comfortable with Linux. Either way, here is some information on how to restart the services and the order they start in just in case one needs to restart the services individually.

You will want to ssh into the VCSA as root. VMware has made it very easy to restart all of the services required to get the VCSA back up and running. The command that has all of the awesomeness built in is service-control. The sheer thought that went into naming that command is amazing! It can be used like so:

Stop all VCSA Services:

service-control --stop --all

Start all VCSA Services:

service-control --start --all

Get current status of all VCSA Services:

service-control --status

List all VCSA Services:

service-control --list

The above commands will allow you to control all of the services in one command as opposed to doing each command individually. If you need to start/stop a specific service then you can use the same command. To do this, use the command like this:

service-control --[start/stop] serviceName

Now, serviceName is derived from the service-control --list command. For your reference, here is the output of that command:

# service-control --list
applmgmt (VMware Appliance Management Service)
vmware-cis-license (VMware License Service)
vmware-cm (VMware Component Manager)
vmware-eam (VMware ESX Agent Manager)
vmware-sts-idmd (VMware Identity Management Service)
vmware-invsvc (VMware Inventory Service)
vmware-mbcs (VMware Message Bus Configuration Service)
vmware-netdumper (VMware vSphere ESXi Dump Collector)
vmware-perfcharts (VMware Performance Charts)
vmware-psc-client (VMware Platform Services Controller Client)
vmware-rbd-watchdog (VMware vSphere Auto Deploy Waiter)
vmware-rhttpproxy (VMware HTTP Reverse Proxy)
vmware-sca (VMware Service Control Agent)
vmware-sps (VMware vSphere Profile-Driven Storage Service)
vmware-stsd (VMware Security Token Service)
vmware-syslog (VMware Common Logging Service)
vmware-syslog-health (VMware Syslog Health Service)
vmware-vapi-endpoint (VMware vAPI Endpoint)
vmware-vdcs (VMware Content Library Service)
vmafdd (VMware Authentication Framework)
vmcad (VMware Certificate Service)
vmdird (VMware Directory Service)
vmware-vpostgres (VMware Postgres)
vmware-vpx-workflow (VMware vCenter Workflow Manager)
vmware-vpxd (VMware vCenter Server)
vmware-vsan-health (VMware VSAN Health Service)
vmware-vsm (VMware vService Manager)
vsphere-client ()
vmware-vws (VMware System and Hardware Health Manager)

If you need to see the startup order then you can just follow the output of the service-control --start and service-control --stop commands. Each command has a specific start and stop order. As with any time spent in the cli of the VCSA, you need to proceed with great caution on the commands you enter. So here is the disclaimer…

DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!

I know this seems like I am trying to scare you but I am just trying to make sure you pay close attention to what you are typing in the session as to not cause any issues. This is really important if you are unfamiliar with Linux and shell. Don’t be scared though, just be thorough! I hope that this helps and maybe even taught you something. Have fun!