How to determine the ESX host version from inside guest VM?

[shaka]

Is it possible to determine the ESX host version from insdie the guest virtual machine? How can it be done?

[admin]

You would not be directly able to find out the esx host version from the guest os. The alternative would be to use VI SDK, and connect to

VC to find this information.

Connect to VC to determine the host and it's version in config.product or alternatively you may use about -> version property of the service content

The build # of VMTools is always the same as the build # of the product its running on e.g. ESX 3.0.1 installs VMTools 32039. You could use this static information for building a table with all of these mappings.[t-106527]

[Texiwill]

Hello,

This is a very very common question in the ESX forums. There is no way to get the exact version number. You could get a footprint by looking at VMware Tools versions but not everyone keeps those up to date and if they are not in use then you have nothing. I have VMs that have a different build number than the standard ESX tools as I use a hybrid of open and VMware provided tools as the VMware TOols do not quite support my OS yet. Or sometimes I have no tools at all depending on my security stance.

You will need to use some form of the SDK which requires the VM to have the password recorded somewhere. Not something I would have on a VM. This also only works if there is no network isolation between VMs and hosts, which most assuredly there should be.

Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky

VMware Communities User Moderator

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Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education.

CIO Virtualization Blog: http://www.cio.com/blog/index/topic/168354

As well as the Virtualization Wiki at http://www.astroarch.com/wiki/index.php/Virtualization