VMware Communities: Message List - why do ip address of virtual machine is null?

Re: why do ip address of virtual machine is null?

Chandrashekhar — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 12:29:22 GMT

Thank you After installing vmware tools, I am able to get IP address of VM's also.

Re: why do ip address of virtual machine is null?

lamw — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 05:58:46 GMT

I'm sure there is a document somewhere stating this information, but its a known fact that information such as this will not be available w/o VMware Tools.

The only thing I can find with a quick search on the net is: http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/virtualization-pro/vmware-tools-faq/

Do I lose out on any other functionality if I don’t install VMware Tools?
When using the VMware Infrastructure Client without VMware Tools some of the information such as IP address will not be available.

VMware Tools allows for it to access some guest attributes, so without tools it will not be able to extract some of this information and will not be accessible through the API's.

=========================================================================
William Lam
VMware vExpert 2009
VMware ESX/ESXi scripts and resources at: http://engineering.ucsb.edu/~duonglt/vmware/
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Re: why do ip address of virtual machine is null?

stumpr — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 05:57:47 GMT

Without the VMware Tools, VMware has no information on the Operating System configuration. Once you install the VMware Tools, you can get information regarding the network, disks, etc.

Re: why do ip address of virtual machine is null?

Chandrashekhar — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 05:50:57 GMT

thanks for quick reply. But may I know the reason behind it? Why we cannot get ip address through sdk? Is there any paper or article which explains this thing?

Re: why do ip address of virtual machine is null?

lamw — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 05:07:26 GMT

This information is only available if the VM has VMware Tools installed, make sure you have the latest tools installed else this information will not be available.

why do ip address of virtual machine is null?

Chandrashekhar — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 05:06:27 GMT

Hi,

I want to know IP address of virtual machine. I am able to get the ip address, but its null for all the virtual machines. How come its null ?

I am getting VM's IP address using following hierarchy :

VirtualMachine -> VirtualMachineSummary -> virtualMachineGuestSummary.getIpAddress()

I tried following hierarchy also :

VirtualMachine -> GuestInfo -> IpAddress.

With both the methods, I am getting IP address as NULL.

Does anyone knows what is the problem?