I am writing a shell script that must shutdown a virtual machine server as a part of an automated backup strategy. The server runs several proprietary services that rely on file and database integrity, so a graceful shutdown is important. The system is designed to withstand power failures, but obviously it is much better to perform a graceful shutdown, the same as if I had gone into the menu and clicked on Shutdown.
Question 1 is simple:
Is the terminal (shell) command "vmrun stop VirtualMachineName soft" the same as performing an ordinary shutdown from the Guest OS's menu?
If not, what are the differences?
Question 2:
Does the answer apply for all types of Guest OS (Windows, Linux, Mac, other)?
Question 3:
Are there any other requirements or dependencies? (For example, must VMware Tools be running in the Guest OS? Anything else?)
VMware's documentation on the vmrun command talks about calling "shutdown scripts" when you add the "soft" argument, but it does not state whether the shutdown scripts are equivalent to an ordinary shutdown performed by a human operator using the GUI.
In this particular case, the virtual machine runs Windows Server 2012 R2 under VMware Fusion 6 in an OS X 10.9.5 Mac mini host. I may want to script other guest OSs in the future, which is why I was careful to word this post in a general way. Feel free to clarify if some guest OSs perform differently than others.