Automatically connect to remote VMs at program start?

[mensa84]

Hello everyone!

I prefer to use VMware Workstation to connect to my VMs runing on the ESXi server, because there I have a good view of all VMs and can see also a little "Live-Preview" of all opened VMs in the thumbnail bar at the bottom of the program.

That is running everything very fine when everything is opened. It is just a lot of work / clicks everytime I start VMware Workstation: Connect to remote server and click on about 10 VMs to be opened.

That's the reason why I am looking for a way, how to connect to a remote server automatically and open all my wanted VMs automatically.

Is this maybe possible by command line?

I did run that program and saw, that there are some command line parameters:

C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation>vmware -?

So I tried that command, but that opens only the VMware Workstation program like I can do by a double-click on the icon, nothing else:

vmware.exe -H 192.168.1.10 -U root -P test123

Then I tried some things and found out, that this command seems to do more:

vmware -H 192.168.1.10 -U root -P test123 -X -M B1

It brings up the following error:

I am surprised, that the -M parameter is working although it is not listed in the paramter list in the first screenshot.

The name of the VM is "B1" on the ESXi server. Maybe I have to enter the name in any other way in the command line?

That commands brings up also the same error:

vmware -H 192.168.1.10 -U root -P test123 -X -M "[SSD1] B1/B1.vmx"

vmware -H 192.168.1.10 -U root -P test123 -X -M "/vmfs/volumes/SSD1/B1/B1.vmx"

vmware -H 192.168.1.10 -U root -P test123 -X -M "/vmfs/volumes/588a6c8c-d45d7d18-9c84-38d5470026a5/B1/B1.vmx"


Does anyone of you have an idea how that will work and could please help me?

Or would you suggest any other program to view more VMs at the same time and have that good "Live-Preview" in the thumbnail bar?

But I did not find anything else, which includes everything in one program and provides that clear view like VMware Workstation.

[mensa84]

Nobody know anything about that?

[longhair_kev]

You need to supply the VM 'ID' for the -M parameter. 

Each VM has a vm-id 

You can find out the vm-id for a VM using PowerCLI :-

Connect-VIServer -Server <server IP or name> -Protocol https -User <username> -Password <password>
$vm=get-vm "VM name"
$vm.id.substring(15)

- the vm id property is of the form "VirtualMachine-vm-99999", but the ID needed for the -M parameter is the portion after "VirtualMachine-" ie "vm-99999"