VM APIs

The DataSets service provides operations for sharing information between a virtual machine and its guest operating system. See the VMware Guest SDK Programming Guide for details on using DataSets from within a virtual machine.

Information is grouped into data sets, each of which contains key-value entries comprising the data. It’s expected that each application using the service will have at least one unique data set in which to store its data to avoid conflict with other applications. Each data set has attributes defining its access control and interoperability configuration.

It’s not recommended that sensitive data (for example, passwords or private keys) be stored in plain-text. The data will be visible to other applications, running both on the management network and within the guest. The data can also be exposed by backups or templates.

Data set support requires the virtual machine be at virtual hardware version VMX_20 or later.

Data sets should only be modified by the application that creates them. Otherwise the application may stop working.

The Hardware service provides operations for configuring the virtual hardware of a virtual machine.

The LibraryItem service provides operations to identify virtual machines managed by Content Library.

The Power service provides operations for managing the power state of a virtual machine.

The Tools service provides operations for managing VMware Tools in the guest operating system.

The Policies service provides operations to query the status of policies on virtual machines.

The Tickets service provides operations for managing the virtual machine console tickets.

The Entries service provides operations for manipulating individual entries in a data set.

The Customization service provides operations to apply a customization specification to a virtual machine in powered-off status.

The Environment service provides operations to manage environment variables in the guest operating system.

The Identity service provides operations for retrieving guest operating system identification information.

The LocalFilesystem service provides operations for retrieving information about the guest operating system local file systems.

The Networking service provides operations for retrieving guest operating system network information.

Status of operations in the guest OS.

The Power service provides operations for managing the guest operating system power state of a virtual machine.

The Processes service provides operations to manage processes in the guest operating system.

The Directories service provides operations to manage directories in the guest filesystem.

The Files service provides operations to manage the files in the guest filesystem.

The Transfers service provides operations to copy files into and out of the guest file system.

The Interfaces service provides operations for retrieving guest operating system network interface information.

The Routes service provides operations for retrieving guest operating system network routing information.

The Boot service provides operations for configuring the settings used when booting a virtual machine.

The Cdrom service provides operations for configuring the virtual CD-ROM devices of a virtual machine.

The Cpu service provides operations for configuring the CPU settings of a virtual machine.

The Disk service provides operations for configuring the virtual disks of a virtual machine. A virtual disk has a backing such as a VMDK file. The backing has an independent lifecycle from the virtual machine when it is detached from the virtual machine. The Disk.create operation provides the ability to create a new virtual disk. When creating a virtual disk, a new VMDK file may be created or an existing VMDK file may used as a backing. Once a VMDK file is associated with a virtual machine, its lifecycle will be bound to the virtual machine. In other words, it will be deleted when the virtual machine is deleted. The Disk.delete operation provides the ability to detach a VMDK file from the virtual machine. The Disk.delete operation does not delete the VMDK file that backs the virtual disk. Once detached, the VMDK file will not be destroyed when the virtual machine to which it was associated is deleted.

The Ethernet service provides operations for configuring the virtual Ethernet adapters of a virtual machine.

The Floppy service provides operations for configuring the virtual floppy drives of a virtual machine.

The Memory service provides operations for configuring the memory settings of a virtual machine.

The Parallel service provides operations for configuring the virtual parallel ports of a virtual machine.

The Serial service provides operations for configuring the virtual serial ports of a virtual machine.

The Nvme service provides operations for configuring the virtual NVMe adapters of a virtual machine.

The Sata service provides operations for configuring the virtual SATA adapters of a virtual machine.

The Scsi service provides operations for configuring the virtual SCSI adapters of a virtual machine.

The Device service provides operations for configuring the device order used when booting a virtual machine. The boot order may be specified using a mixture of device classes and device instances, chosen from among the following:

• CDROM: Boot from a virtual CD-ROM drive; the device instance(s) will be chosen by the BIOS subsystem.
• FLOPPY: Boot from a virtual floppy drive; the device instance(s) will be chosen by the BIOS subsystem.
• DISK: Boot from a virtual disk device; the device instance is specified explicitly in Device.Entry.disks list, and multiple instances may be specified in the list.
• ETHERNET: Boot from a virtual Ethernet adapter; the device instance is specified explicitly as Device.Entry.nic, and multiple adapters may be specified in the boot order list.

The Policy service provides operations to configure the storage policies associated with the virtual machine home and/or its virtual disks.

The Compliance service provides operations that return the compliance status of virtual machine entities(virtual machine home directory and virtual disks) that specify storage policy requirements.

The Installer (@term service} provides operations to install VMware Tools in the guest operating system.