Powering on a VM from the esxi command line

ESXi 5.x

My virtual machines where not automatically starting up in the free ESXi 5.0.0 update 1

I put a command into /etc/rc.local  to start them and it worked fine

However, this behaviour was fixed in ESXi 5.1.0 update 2 and it now includes a rc.local.d directory 

To power on a virtual machine from the command line:

1. List the inventory ID of the virtual machine with the command:
   
   vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms |grep <vm name>Note: The first column of the output shows the vmid.
2. Check the power state of the virtual machine with the command:
   
   vim-cmd vmsvc/power.getstate <vmid>
3. Power-on the virtual machine with the command:vim-cmd vmsvc/power.on <vmid>