/ #management #operations 

Use VMware Tools Client to Interact with a VM without Network Connectivity

edit (2021/03/19): I removed some links to Pierre’s blog as it doesn’t exist anymore.

There are people playing with VMware products, others creating scripts or helping the community;  you also have a completely different kind of people who are creating tools in their free time, such as my friend Pierre. :)

After developing a vROps notification plugin that allows to send REST request automatically when an alarm is triggered in vROps, or a VMware Certificate Toolkit, Pierre released yesterday the VMware Tools Client beta that allows you to interact with a VM without network connectivity.

Developed in Java, the VMware Tools Client is a guest operations user interface and leverages the vSphere Guest API to interact with the VMware Tools installed in your guest OSes. Regarding features, you can execute commands and scripts, transfer files, do connectivity tests (ping), and so on.

VMware Tools Client: execute script on guest without connectivity

VMware Tools Client: file transfer on guests without connectivity

Use cases are various, such as:

  • Troubleshooting a rogue VM that you disconnected from the network
  • Managing DMZ VMs
  • Quickly transfer (large) to and from VMs
  • Manage virtual appliances
  • Re-configure network settings when you fat-fingered a network configuration and ejected yourself
  • and so on…

Check out this short video to have a complete overview of the tool.

Download link: https://sourceforge.net/projects/vmware-tools-client/

Disclaimer: as this is a personal project from Pierre, it is of course not supported by VMware.

Author

Romain

Staff II Technical Product Manager, technologist with 18+ years of Networking and Security experience in Data Center, Public Cloud & Virtualization (VMs and Containers). He is a double VCDX (DCV and NV, #120), VCDX panelist, frequent VMUG/VMworld speaker and contributor to the community via this blog or social media (follow him on Twitter @woueb).