For more information about the VMware Management Interface, go to www.vmware.com/support/esx2/doc/.


 

Using the VMware Management Interface File Manager
Using the VMware Management Interface File Manager

Using the VMware Management Interface, you can manage the file system of your VMware ESX Server machine remotely. Use the file manager to change the permissions of any file on the physical machine, create new directories on the physical machine or cut, copy, paste and delete files as you would if you were working directly on the file system itself. To use the file manager, click Manage Files on the Status Monitor or Options page of the management interface.

In the left pane of the file manager, click a folder to display its contents.

Note: The tree view may fail to load or may only partially load when viewed with Mozilla. To restore the proper view, right-click in the left pane, then choose Reload Frame or Refresh from the context menu.

File and folder icons change color to indicate their state when you select them and perform certain actions, such as copy and paste.

Some file and folder icons have special meanings.
Item
Description
This icon identifies a virtual machine configuration file. If you click the filename or icon for a configuration file, the Edit Configuration page for the corresponding virtual machine opens in a browser window.
This icon identifies a virtual disk file on a VMFS file system.
This icon identifies a set of files on the service console that hold a virtual disk in the format used by VMware Workstation and VMware GSX Server.
This icon identifies a VMFS volume.

To perform an action on a file or folder (directory), click the check box beside its listing, then click the appropriate yellow button at the bottom of the screen to delete, edit properties, cut or copy.

After you have cut or copied a file or folder, you may then paste it into the same or a different folder. If you copy a file or folder, then paste it into the same folder, the new file or folder is renamed, with copy_of_ before the original name. You may then select it and use Edit Properties to give it a name of your choice.

When you start a long-running operation - for example, pasting a file larger than 10MB after a copy or moving it between logical file systems - a progress bar appears so you can track the progress of the operation.

When you copy and paste or cut and paste a virtual disk file from the VMFS file system to the service console's file system, or vice versa, the file manager uses vmkfstools to import or export the file, translating the format appropriately. Among other things, this means a virtual disk larger than 2GB will be split into multiple files when it is moved from a VMFS disk or array to the service console's file system.

After selecting a file or folder and clicking Edit Properties, you can change its name and permissions. When you are finished, click OK to apply the changes.

If you select more than one file or folder, you can change permissions for all the files at once. Any changes you make, using the drop-down lists in the file manager, apply to all the files you have selected.

Use the top pane of the file manager to navigate the directory structure and create new directories.

To create a new directory, click New, enter the name for the directory, then click OK.

Setting Permissions for Owners of Virtual Machines
Setting Permissions for Owners of Virtual Machines

The VMware Management Interface uses the permissions of the virtual machine's configuration (.vmx) file to determine the privileges a user has on a particular virtual machine. The user needs read (r) access to view the virtual machine, write (w) access to modify the virtual machine's configuration parameters and execute (x) access to perform power operations on the virtual machine. In addition, the user needs read, write and execute access to register or unregister the virtual machine. See Registering and Unregistering a Virtual Machine.

Previous versions of ESX Server checked the access permissions of the virtual machine's configuration file and the access permissions of the directory in which the configuration (.vmx) file was located. In other words, the user needed execute (x) permissions on all the parent directories for a configuration file.

For example, if a configuration file is /home/foo/vms/win2k/win2k.vmx, the user needed to have execute (x) privileges on /home, /home/foo, /home/foo/ vms, /home/foo/vms/win2k and appropriate privileges on win2k.vmx.

In ESX Server 2.0, the management interface only checks that the user has access permissions on the configuration file (for example, win2k.vmx) and does not respect permissions on parent directories. Even if the user does not have access to the /home or /home/foo/vms directories, the user will still be able to perform operations on the virtual machine as dictated by the access permissions on the configuration file. However, the remote console still requires that the user has execute (x) permission on all parent directories.

Note: We highly recommend that users create virtual machines in directories to which they have full access, so that they can access the virtual machine consistently through both the remote console and the management interface.