Stopping Virtual Machines

To stop a virtual machine, select ToolsStop Virtual Machine. This action allows you to stop the virtual hardware for a virtual machine.

You can specify either a forced stop or a graceful stop. A graceful stop of a virtual machine notifies the virtual machine operating system of an impending power shutdown. This notification allows the operating system to perform cleanup operations before its virtual machine is powered off. A forced stop allows you to immediately stop the virtual hardware for a virtual machine.

A forced stop is the equivalent of a power failure and gives no warning to the virtual machine operating system. Because the virtual machine operating system receives no notice of the power-off operation, the operating system has no opportunity to perform a crash dump or any system cleanup tasks.

	NOTE: A graceful stop typically takes 30 to 60 seconds but can take as long as 5 minutes, as the Integrity VM system waits for the operating system to complete its cleanup.For both methods, the resources defined for the virtual machine are released and can be used by other virtual machines, but you can restart the virtual machine only if its resources are not being used by another virtual machine.