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Quick Tip - Requirements for using Guest Operation APIs (Invoke-VMScript & Copy-VMGuestFile) in VMC

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Since this question came up again today, I figure it was worth sharing in case others also had trouble using the vSphere Guest Operations API in VMware Cloud on AWS (VMC), which includes PowerCLI's Invoke-VMScript and Copy-VMGuestFile cmdlet. There are a couple of requirements that you must satisfy both in the GuestOS as well as between your on-prem vSphere environment and VMC.

  1. VMware Tools installed and running, it may seem obvious, but I have had customers trying to use various scripts without realizing this was a requirement. You should also ensure that you are running the latest version of VMware Tools, especially as there bugfixes that may impact Guest Operations APIs.
  2. VPN or Direct Connect (DX) configured between your on-prem vSphere environment and VMC, this is required as you will need access to ESXi hosts which is only available through a VPN or DX
  3. Create a VMC firewall rule to allow access from your on-prem network to VMC's ESXi hosts on port 443 which is used for Guest Operations access including transferring files to and from the GuestOS


The VMC firewall rule is usually the thing that most folks forget about and this simply because for most on-prem environment, access to ESXi over 443 is just sort of a default.

Once you have configured the VMC firewall to allow 443 to ESXi hosts, you will be able to use the Guest Operations API including Invoke-VMScript and Copy-VMGuestFile to a VM running in VMC

Resource Pools, Folders & VMC now supported with Cross vCenter vMotion Utility Fling

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Many of you are already familiar with the Cross vCenter vMotion Utility, which was released as a Fling last year. In fact, a number of you have even shared your VM migration numbers, many of which are quite impressive (e.g. 5-10K VMs). Not only are the number of production VMs significant, but I also learned the duration of customer migration projects, such as datacenter evacuation, was able to complete significantly faster with the help of this tool.

Although v2.1 was just recently released, Vishal, the lead developer is constantly looking for ways to improve the tool. Most recently, we had a few customers ask for supporting additional placement targets such as vSphere VM Folders and Resource Pools. Customers often use VM Folders for organization purposes but also as a way to manage permissions and of course resource management with the use of Resource Pools (not for organization purposes ;)). These two stand alone feature are quite useful on their own, but they are also a building block to allow us to support migrating workloads to and from VMware Cloud on AWS (VMC) which we have received requests for as well. VMC has a restrictive permission model and customer workloads must be placed in a specific VM Folder and Resource Pool, both of which was not initially supported with the Cross vCenter vMotion Utility.

With the latest v2.2. release, customers will now have the ability to optionally specify a target Resource Pool and/or VM Folder by enabling an Advanced settings option at the upper right hand corner of the tool as shown in the screenshot below.


Below is a screenshot of vMotion'ing 3 running PhotonOS VMs from onPrem environment to my VMC's SDDC. The Fling supports both hot and cold relocate, however for vMotion to work you will need to ensure that your source vCenter Server (including ESXi hosts) are running vSphere 6.7 and the VM is configured with the new Per-VM EVC (requires vHW 14) which can be configured in the vSphere H5 Client.

Give the latest Fling a try and let us know what you think, if you have any feedback or request, feel free to leave a comment on the Fling page.

Automating VM Template management using Content Library in VMC

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Today, the vSphere Content Library only supports a single deployable VM type using the Open Virtualization Format (OVF) standard. Although customers are familiar with both OVF and OVA (archive of OVF and VMDKs), support for vCenter VM Template is still one of the most highly requested feature for Content Library. This should come as no surprise since many of our customers have built operational procedures and automation workflows for managing VM deployments over the years and simply switching to another format has a significant impact to their existing workflows.

UPDATE (10/18/18) - The VMTX feature is now available in vSphere 6.7 Update 1

I know the Content Library team has been heads down working on a number of enhancements to Content Library and it looks like one of these improvements has recently made its way out onto VMware Cloud on AWS (VMC) which I had just noticed while working in my SDDC.


In VMC, when you right click on a VM and select "Clone as Template to Library", there will be a new option to capture a VM as a VM Template (VMTX) within a Content Library!

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