Content of a .vmdk desriptor file

[zsoltesz]

Hi,

is it possible to get the content of a .VMDK descriptor  file with PowerCLI?

Thanks!

[LucD · Accepted solution]

If you allow the VMDK to be stored in your local %TEMP% folder, you can do something like this

$vmName = "MyVM"
 $hdName = "Hard disk 1"

$hd = Get-VM -Name $vmName | Get-HardDisk | where {$_.Name -eq $hdName}

$ds = Get-Datastore -Name $hd.Filename.Split(']')[0].TrimStart('[')
$vmdkPath = $hd.Filename.Split(']')[1].TrimStart(' ')

New-PSDrive -Location $ds -Name ds -PSProvider VimDatastore -Root '\'
 
$temp = (Get-ChildItem Env:TEMP).Value

$source = ("ds:\" + $vmdkPath).Replace('/','\')
$destination = $temp + '\' + $vmdkPath.Split('/')[-1]

Copy-DatastoreItem -Item $source -Destination $destination
Remove-PSDrive -Name ds -Confirm:$false
Get-Content -Path $destination

This sample script will just display the content on the console, but depending on why you need the VMDK file, you could read the file line by line and interprete the content.

[zsoltesz]

Thanks Lucd!  It works well!

Zoli