Using APIs to run scripts inside VMs

TheVMinator · ‎10-13-2010

I have a batch file and some vbscript that I would like to run inside the operating system of a number of VMs. Can I use the VMware APIs to access a virtual machine, and make this code run inside the VM?

For example, say I want to run two simple commands from an MSDOS batch file command inside a Windows VM like:

echo Setting Password...

net user testUser passw0rd

Can I use VMware APIs to access this VM and run these MSDOS batch file commands? I have a number of batch file commands and VBScripts as well that I would like to run.

Thanks for your input

lamw · ‎10-13-2010

Yep! You can use VMware VIX which is an API for guest management which also allows you to execute a specific command or script within the guest. Check out the documentation and further details here - http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vix-api/

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TheVMinator · ‎10-15-2010

OK thanks. Am I correct in understanding that you can't run MSDOS batch files or Java with it though - only C, Perl, and visualbasic.net/vbscript. Is that correct? Is there a way to run just basic MSDOS commands or Java?

lamw · ‎10-15-2010

It can run whatever script you can run within the guestOS, so if you have a Java interpreter, then you just need to specify the path and the .java file.

I would recommend creating a script that does the actual execution, test it out manually and then once you have that done. You can either store the script from where ever you're running the VIX call OR have it on the guestOS and just have VIX execute the script. I would recommend taking a look at the documentation for some examples.