VMware-cmd is a command line utility that can be run from a vMA, which allows you to perform various virtual machine operations.
There are a number of options available when running the command:
vi-admin@vma:~> vmware-cmd
Usage: vmware-cmd
vmware-cmd -s
Options:
Connection Options:
-H or --server specifies an ESX host or a vCenter Server
-h or --vihost specifies a target host if host is a virtual center
-O specifies an alternative port
-Q specifies an alternative protocol
-U or --username specifies a username
-P or --password specifies a password
--sessionfile specifies a sessionfile path
--passthroughauth specifies a login by sspi option
--credstore specifies to fetch Credential store information
--encoding specifies encoding option
General Options:
-h More detailed help.
-q Quiet. Minimal output
-v Verbose.
Server Operations:
vmware-cmd -l
vmware-cmd -s register <config_file_path>
vmware-cmd -s unregister <config_file_path>
VM Operations:
vmware-cmd getstate
vmware-cmd start <powerop_mode>
vmware-cmd stop <powerop_mode>
vmware-cmd reset <powerop_mode>
vmware-cmd suspend <powerop_mode>
vmware-cmd setguestinfo
vmware-cmd getguestinfo
vmware-cmd getproductinfo
vmware-cmd connectdevice <device_name>
vmware-cmd disconnectdevice <device_name>
vmware-cmd getconfigfile
vmware-cmd getuptime
vmware-cmd answer
vmware-cmd gettoolslastactive
vmware-cmd hassnapshot
vmware-cmd createsnapshot
vmware-cmd revertsnapshot
vmware-cmd removesnapshots
Synopsis: /usr/bin/vmware-cmd OPTIONS
Common VI options:
--config (variable VI_CONFIG)
Location of the VI Perl configuration file
--credstore (variable VI_CREDSTORE)
Name of the credential store file defaults to /.vmware/credstore/vicredentials.xml on Linux and /VMware/credstore/vicredent ials.xml on Windows
--encoding (variable VI_ENCODING, default 'utf8')
Encoding: utf8, cp936 (Simplified Chinese), iso-8859-1 (German), shiftjis (Japanese)
--help
Display usage information for the script
--passthroughauth (variable VI_PASSTHROUGHAUTH)
Attempt to use pass-through authentication
--passthroughauthpackage (variable VI_PASSTHROUGHAUTHPACKAGE, default 'Negotiate')
Pass-through authentication negotiation package
--password (variable VI_PASSWORD)
Password
--portnumber (variable VI_PORTNUMBER)
Port used to connect to server
--protocol (variable VI_PROTOCOL, default 'https')
Protocol used to connect to server
--savesessionfile (variable VI_SAVESESSIONFILE)
File to save session ID/cookie to utilize
--server (variable VI_SERVER, default 'localhost')
VI server to connect to. Required if url is not present
--servicepath (variable VI_SERVICEPATH, default '/sdk/webService')
Service path used to connect to server
--sessionfile (variable VI_SESSIONFILE)
File containing session ID/cookie to utilize
--url (variable VI_URL)
VI SDK URL to connect to. Required if server is not present
--username (variable VI_USERNAME)
Username
--verbose (variable VI_VERBOSE)
Display additional debugging information
--version
Display version information for the script
You can run the command, specifying connection and authentication details for a host each time, or you can make use of the vifptarget command on the vMA, so that you don’t need to enter credentials each time you run the command. The examples I use here will make use of vi-fastpass.
Listing Virtual Machines Registered on a Host
To list the VMs registered on a given host, we can use the VMware-cmd -l command:
vi-admin@vma:~> vifptarget --set esxi1.vmlab.loc vi-admin@vma:~[esxi1.vmlab.loc]> vmware-cmd -l /vmfs/volumes/5221687f-72547f8e-a71d-005056af71fa/XP-Temp/XP-Temp.vmx vi-admin@vma:~[esxi1.vmlab.loc]>
Registering and Unregistering Virtual Machines
If we wish to unregister a virtual machine from a host we can run the following:
vi-admin@vma:~[esxi1.vmlab.loc]> vmware-cmd -s unregister /vmfs/volumes/5221687f-72547f8e-a71d-005056af71fa/XP-Temp/XP-Temp.vmx unregister() = 1
If we list the VMs registered on the host again, it shows the following:
vi-admin@vma:~[esxi1.vmlab.loc]> vmware-cmd -l No virtual machine found.
If you are doing this on a host that is connected to vCenter you will see that the VM becomes orphaned:
To register a VM we can run the following:
vi-admin@vma:~[esxi1.vmlab.loc]> vmware-cmd -s register /vmfs/volumes/5221687f-72547f8e-a71d-005056af71fa/XP-Temp/XP-Temp.vmx register() =1 vi-admin@vma:~[esxi1.vmlab.loc]> vmware-cmd -l /vmfs/volumes/5221687f-72547f8e-a71d-005056af71fa/XP-Temp/XP-Temp.vmx
Now, as seen above, when running the list command, we can see that the virtual machine is registered once again. The virtual machine will also no longer be orphaned in VirtualCenter.
Deleting a Virtual Machine
I’ve created another VM to demonstrate deleting a virtual machine using VMware-cmd. We’ll start by running the list command:
vi-admin@vma:~[esxi1.vmlab.loc]> vmware-cmd -l /vmfs/volumes/5221687f-72547f8e-a71d-005056af71fa/XP-Temp/XP-Temp.vmx /vmfs/volumes/5221687f-72547f8e-a71d-005056af71fa/XP/XP.vmx
We will delete the VM named ‘XP’ by running the following, first to unregister the VM:
vmware-cmd -s unregister /vmfs/volumes/5221687f-72547f8e-a71d-005056af71fa/XP/XP.vmx
Then to delete the virtual machines files from the datastore, using the vifs command:
vi-admin@vma:~[esxi1.vmlab.loc]> vifs --rm "/vmfs/volumes/5221687f-72547f8e-a71d-005056af71fa/XP" Remove '/vmfs/volumes/5221687f-72547f8e-a71d-005056af71fa/XP'? (y/n) : y Deleted file '[] /vmfs/volumes/5221687f-72547f8e-a71d-005056af71fa/XP' successfully. vi-admin@vma:~[esxi1.vmlab.loc]>
Working with Snapshots using vmware-cmd
To determine whether a virtual machine has any snapshots, we can run the following:
vi-admin@vma:/tmp[192.168.88.134]> vmware-cmd /vmfs/volumes/4f27b82e-3fc1540e-bf6b-000c295da2d9/XP/XP.vmx hassnapshot hassnapshot () = 1
We can see that this VM has a snapshot. We can use vmware-cmd to delete the snapshot by running:
vi-admin@vma:/tmp[192.168.88.134]> vmware-cmd /vmfs/volumes/4f27b82e-3fc1540e-bf6b-000c295da2d9/XP/XP.vmx removesnapshots removesnapshot () = 1
To create a snapshot run:
vi-admin@vma:/tmp[192.168.88.134]> vmware-cmd /vmfs/volumes/4f27b82e-3fc1540e-bf6b-000c295da2d9/XP/XP.vmx createsnapshot snap1 For creating a snapshot you must specify . vi-admin@vma:/tmp[192.168.88.134]> vmware-cmd /vmfs/volumes/4f27b82e-3fc1540e-bf6b-000c295da2d9/XP/XP.vmx createsnapshot snap1 snapdesc 0 0 createsnapshot (snap1 snapdesc 0 0) = 1
Switching to the vSphere client, we can see the tasks that we have just been running, with the user being vi-admin:
Virtual Machine Power Operations using vmware-cmd
To power on a virtual machine you can run the following:
vi-admin@vma:~[esxi1.vmlab.loc]> vmware-cmd /vmfs/volumes/522258e8-aca71415-31a4-000c293cc34e/XP-Temp/XP-Temp.vmx start start() = 1
To shutdown a virtual machine gracefully, provided VMtools is installed, run:
vi-admin@vma:~[esxi1.vmlab.loc]> vmware-cmd /vmfs/volumes/522258e8-aca71415-31a4-000c293cc34e/XP-Temp/XP-Temp.vmx stop soft stop() = 1
You can power off, rather than shutdown by using ‘stop hard’ rather than ‘stop soft’. If you want to reboot a VM or reset it you can use ‘reset soft’ and ‘reset hard’ respectively.
To check the power state of a virtual machine using VMware-cmd you can run:
vi-admin@vma:~[esxi1.vmlab.loc]> vmware-cmd /vmfs/volumes/522258e8-aca71415-31a4-000c293cc34e/XP-Temp/XP-Temp.vmx getstate getstate() = on
And to check the uptime:
vi-admin@vma:~[esxi1.vmlab.loc]> vmware-cmd /vmfs/volumes/522258e8-aca71415-31a4-000c293cc34e/XP-Temp/XP-Temp.vmx getuptime getuptime() = 120