To monitor .vmdk files during snapshot deletion (commit) on ESX only (ESXi doesn't have the watch command): 1. Navigate to the VM directory containing .vmdk files. # watch "ls -tough --full-time *.vmdk" where: -t sorts by modification time -o do not list group information (to narrow the output) -u sorts by access time -g only here for the purpose to easily remember the created mnemonic word 'tough' -h prints sizes in human readable format (e.g., 1K 234M 2G) --full-time sets the time style to full-iso and does not list user information (to narrow the output) optionally useful parameters to the watch command: -d highlight changes between updates -n seconds to wait between updates (default is 2) -t turn off printing the header

Replace VM directory and file prefix with new prefix Once the the file names are updated the config files will need to be updated using command similar to the following: sed -i -- 's/original_/new_/g' *.vmx sed -i -- 's/original_/new_/g' *.vmxf sed -i -- 's/original_/new_/g' *.file.vmdk sed -i -- 's/original_/new_/g' *_file_1.vmdk

This command will shutdown all VMs on an VMWare ESX host. First it tries to gracefully shutdown the VM. If that fails it will hard shutdown and the power off.