Access the vSphere 5 Console via SSH (Putty)

I just learned the neatest trick and I just had to share it.


I was unable to connect to a vSphere 5 server using the VMware vSphere Client.  


I needed to quickly reboot that server from remote.  I did have access to the server via SSH using Putty.


What I learned is that after you login via SSH just type the command: dcui
and viola! you have access to the console:

Sweet! This will be easy for me to remember, "David Cocke's User Interface".


To exit the above and return to the command line console, press CTRL-C.


Followup 


A couple of days later I found my self in a situation where I couldn't access the server via the vSphere Client and rebooting via the above GUI console didn't work either.


What did work was this command:


/sbin/shutdown.sh -r


The -r of course means reboot.  Without it, it will shutdown and not reboot.  You have to be patient after you issue this command.  In my case it took almost a minute before you actually started seeing a response.