VIX License, vCenter and vmrun.exe

[jfmorales]

Hi, I saw a previous thread about VIX license issues at http://communities.vmware.com/message/1681440#1681440, but it didn't directly address a couple of questions that I have.

1. Do all vCenter 4.0 and 4.1 licenses include VIX? That is, if a vCenter server is running 4.0 or 4.1, can I assume that a VIX client will be able to attach to it without any licensing problem?

2. Is the vmrun.exe portion of VIX redistributable? It's not listed among the redistributable components of the VIX SDK in the VIX API Reference at http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vix-api/vix110_reference/.

3. If vmrun.exe is redistributable, can it be installed and used by itself, or does it require the presence of other components of the SDK? My initial impression, from looking at vmrun.exe in the Dependency Walker, is that vmrun.exe does not require any of the various dlls that are included in the SDK.

Thanks for your assistance!

Joseph

[admin]

1. Yes, if you have any license to use vCenter, that license is sufficent to allow remote management APIs (including VIX). There is no equivalent to the free ESXi license with regards to vCenter.

2. I will have to get back to you.

3. vmrun depends on the VIX SDK being installed. The dependencies do not appear in Dependency Walker since vmrun links implicitly using the libvixAllProducts.lib (which opens libraries at runtime using LoadLibrary()).

[jfmorales]

Thanks mattrich for the info on questions 1 & 3.  I look forward to hearing about whether vmrun.exe is redistributable when you get a chance. I know  several people (myself included) who are planning to use vmrun.exe and whose plans will have to change if it cannot be redistributed.

Joseph

[admin]

It would helpful if you could give me more information about the application you are developing, so we can better understand the use case. It is always helpful to have something specific when discussing this kind of thing with product management.

Also, it would interesting to know why the existing scripting language binding do not meet your needs (Perl and VBScript); or at least why you prefer to use vmrun.

If you do not want to discuss it publicly, please feel free to send me a private message.