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VGC

VGC

Version: 1.1.0 • File Size: 22.9 MB • 3/3/2010 • Technical Preview License
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Summary

VMware Guest Console (VGC) has the following features :

  1. Task Manager
    • List processes running in the Guest
    • Start new programs in the Guest
    • End running processes in the Guest
  2. Mass Deployment
    • Copy programs or scripts to multiple guests and execute them
    • Useful for things such as antivirus installation, agent deployment, test deployment etc.

    All of the above operations can be performed on:

    • a single VM, or
    • all the VMs on a host, or
    • all the VMs on all connected hosts
  3. File Explorer
    1. Provides an interface to access and manage the Guest file system
    2. Copies files from host to guest and vice-versa
    3. Copies files between guests running on any machine
    4. Also supports other basic file system operations like delete, rename, etc.
  4. Snapshot Manager
    1. Displays a comprehensive TREE and LIST view of snapshots on all VMs on all connected hosts
    2. Supports snapshot operations like Create, Delete and Revert with a single user action
    • on a single VM
    • or all the VMs on a host
    • or on all the VMs on all connected hosts

    Mass operations like “delete” can be performed on dynamically selected group of snapshots based on criteria like snapshot names, creation time, power state etc.

  5. VM Manager
    • Displays vital statistics of GuestOS like OS type/version, IP address, tools build number, guest uptime, logged-in user, etc.
    • Displays vital statistics of VM like power state, CPU count, memory, hardware version, storage path, etc.
    • Dynamic teaming allows mass power operations, deployment and snapshot operations on VMs from different hosts/products
  6. Inventory
    • All the information displayed in the VM Manager, Snapshot Manager and Task Manager can be saved for inventory purposes.

System Requirements

VGC can be installed on 32-bit Windows machines with operating systems Windows XP, Windows 2003, and Windows Vista with .NET framework 2.0 or later

VGC can connect to the following:

  • Licensed ESX/ESXi versions 3.5 U2 or later
  • vCenter versions 4.0 or later
  • Server 2.0
  • Workstation 6.5.2 or later

VMware tools must be running in the VMs/GuestOS for Task Manager, Mass Deployment and File Explorer.

Instructions

Download the zip file. Unzip, run the installer, and follow the on-screen instructions.

Video

Change Log

Updates in VGC version 1.1.0

  1. Performance and Scalability
    • VM retrieval is enhanced to discover VMs in much less time.
    • VGC can manage up to 315 Powered On VMs on all connected servers. Number of VMs retrieved from a server will be limited once this limit is reached.
  2. Support for 64-bit Windows has been added.
  3. The Remote Console feature has been extended to work with VMs hosted on vCenter.
  4. Workspace files created with this version of VGC will be encrypted. However, workspace files created using earlier versions are not compatible with this release.
  5. VM templates are differentiated from regular VMs.
  6. Workspace files can now be loaded in VGC by double clicking the .vgc files.

Updates in VGC-R1.0.1:

  1. Fixes problem where VGC was not able to retrieve VMs from vCenter folders.
  2. vmrc to open the console of any VM.
  3. Putty to get access to the command window of an ESX server or a Linux VM.
  4. RDP to get access to the console of VC server.

Engineers


Ravi Cherukupalli

Works in the VM Infrastructure QE group.


Rahul Chandrasekaran

Works in the VM Infrastructure QE group.

Uttam Gupta

Works in the VM Infrastructure QE group.

Add Comment

250 thoughts on “VGC”

  4. Subramanian Kesavan

    I am getting an error ” unabel to connect MKS: internal error” . When i try to oepn colse of VM guest runnign in ESXi5.1 . I request tofix this issue so that we make use of this wonderful ltool.

    Thanks.
    Subramanian Kesavan

    Reply ↓
  6. john

    This application is an excellent tool for the end (power) users. They want to copy files to and from their VMs, they might want to check and manage the processes and they definitely do want to connect to the console of their VMs. Thank you VMware developers for this.

    However the only problem with this application is that it is over 3 years old, especially its vmware-vmrc part, and thus the console access doesn’t work with newer ESXi, namely 5.1. The error message is “Unable to connect to the MKS: Internal error.”.

    It actually can connect to ESXi 5.1 but only if we disable “Config.Defaults.security.host.ruissl” in the Advanced Settings of ESXi, but then in turn the console access in the vSphere Client doesn’t work anymore (the tool we, the admins, use), let alone the security implications of disabling SSL. We would be no doubt thrilled if both tools were working so that we admins could use ours (vSphere Client) and our users can use theirs (VMware Guest Console).

    Therefore, I am asking you, VMware engineers Ravi Cherukupalli, Rahul Chandrasekaran and Uttam Gupta, in fact I am begging you in the name of all us the admins, please please update this tool, especially its vmware-vmrc component. For you it surely will be rather a simple task and you will help really a lot of people. Thank you in advance.

    I encourage everyone to join me in this petition.

    Reply ↓
    1. Frederick W. Roller

      VGC inspired us to create vmProcessStrobe, which is updated regularly and runs natively on Windows, OS X and a wide variety of Linux distributions. There is even a cross-platform Web based derivative, vmProcessStrobeWeb, for mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. vmProcessStrobe and vmProcessStrobeWeb were designed to compliment VGC without the limitation of running only on Windows.

      If you and other VGC users are looking for functionality similar to what is in VGC, please visit fwRoller dot com, download our products for VMware, try them out and provide some feedback. We listen to our users, so those suggestions will lead to new features.

      The ability to run executables on hosts is already in vmProcessStrobe and vmProcessStrobeWeb. Some of our users asked for the ability to copy and run executables in one easy step, similar to what you mentioned as an important feature in VGC, so we are adding that functionality to vmProcessStrobe. Other exciting features are also in the works so visit fwRoller dot com regularly to see what is new.

      Reply ↓
  7. Frederick W. Roller

    vmProcessStrobe enables VMware power users and administrators to view, stop and run processes in virtual machines with an easy to use GUI (Graphical User Interface) that runs natively on Windows, OS X and Linux. In addition to the list of running processes, a strobe of each selected virtual machine’s GUI, or Command Line Interface for Linux servers, is also presented in regular intervals for easy visual monitoring of virtual machine activity.

    Visit fwRoller dot com to download the free version of vmProcessStrobe. There is also a licensed version with even more features. Both will compliment the functionality in VGC.

    Reply ↓
  8. DanM

    Unable to connect to the MKS: Internal error.

    getting this error when I try to remote console into VM’s. I can remote console in using vSphere client but cannot using this tool.

    Love the ability to copy files from VM to VM.

    Reply ↓
  9. ELdad

    Hi,

    Great tool !!!!.
    I was wondering how did you managed to get a list of VM very fast via VIX API, when I’m trying to do it in my in-house code it takes several minutes.
    Any suggestions ?

    Thanks

    Reply ↓
  11. Vince

    Great tool! The ability to search the VM’s data tree structure and also mount the Task Manager without having to be on the actual desktop is awesome. However, I installed this on a Terminal Server (VM) (actually, a Citrix XenApp hosted share server on top of the VMware VM)and the app crashes, frequently on startup. Is this instability due to the fact it is trying to load all of the ESX hosts (7 of them) and the associated data or that one of the hosts this very server is running on is also one getting monitored by vGC. The tool works great when installed on a stand-alone hard machine. No crashing. Any pointers or suggestions would be appreciated.

    Reply ↓

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  13. Michael Nauen

    Is ther e a new version about for 2000 vm’s ? Why is it not directly integrated in Vcenter or vsphere webclient ?

    Reply ↓

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  15. Mark Dean

    Is this still being actively developed? I don’t see any updates since 2010 and not responses…

    Regarding the inability to resize the VGC window, I was surprised with this response:

    “3. We restricted the minimum windows size to a limit where the tool is still reasonably usable. So the behavior that you are seeing is expected. ”

    Isn’t this something for the end user to decide? Why do developers make arbitrary decisions like this? I’m often hitting my hosts remotely from smaller laptops or under an RDP session on site on a small laptop and the inability to resize to where I, the user, can make the best use is really hampering the usability.

    I often need to run one application on the top part of the screen with a Putty session or another command prompt on the bottom, maybe running a tail -f on some log file or whatever, and the inability to resize VGC means I have to needlessly task switch on smaller screens or move the VGC console to one side, out of view and then back when I need it.

    If this is still being developed, can you please consider making it like ANY user application should be, and let the end user decide how small or large to make the app screen?

    Other than that, an absolutely great tool!

    thanks.

    Reply ↓
  16. Ed

    Hi, I installed VGC and I’m trying to execute a PowerShell on one of the VMs script using VGC.
    I log into the VM.
    Then from the VGC console I select “Applications -> New Task” and enter in the power shell script path on the VM:

    C:\TMP\WindowsDirForLinux\commission.ps1

    The VGC console reports at the bottom “VIX – A program could not run on the guest operating system”.
    I know it is “finding” the executable because if I change the name to something like “C:\TMP\WindowsDirForLinux\XXcommission.ps1″ then I get the errir “VIX – A file was not found”. But why won’t the VGC console run the script?

    Thanks.

    Reply ↓
    1. Uttam

      Thanks for using VGC.
      Please run this powershell script as ” e.g. C:\WINDOWS\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe c:\temp\a1.ps1 . I hope it should help,

      Thanks
      Uttam

      Reply ↓

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  18. vmrookie

    I think this is the a great tool. Specially the way we have our VM in diff. domains. Its easy copy files back and forth

    Reply ↓
  20. Christian Hoffmann

    Hello!

    Our Company uses the VM Guest Console. About 40 users work on our Remote Management System with this tool.

    We have about 150 Maschines running and it ist very difficult to find the right one.

    Ist it possible to sort the VM’s in the navigation area on the left by name?

    Thanks for your answer.

    Mit freundlichen Grüßen

    Reply ↓
  21. Tony Schaffran

    This program was working like a charm, then the next day when I connect to the host all my VM’s are showing datastore in the name and they are all showing status UNKNOWN. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

    Reply ↓
  22. SchulieBug

    Hi, first i have to tell you it’s a great tool! Nevertheless, i’ve got some wishes which would make this tool even better:
    - sort the VM list on specific fields (name, os, status, vm tools)
    - search specific VM (wildcards)
    - commandline option or setting to start with specific config file

    Reply ↓
    2. Ravi

      Thanks for your feedback.

      - The Virtual Machines tab does allow sorting the VMs by name, State, OS, Tools version and other vm configuration params. Are you referring to something else ?

      - To search VMs by name, you can use the Virtual Machines tab to sort VMs by name and search the VMs (by typing the names after you click on any VM). Pl. note that Virtual Machines tab lists VMs depending on the host/node selected in the tree view in left panel. To list VMs from all connected hosts, pl. select “My Virtual Console” node in the left tree.

      - Command line option is not available but double clicking a .vgc file does open up VGC and load that file.

      Reply ↓
  23. assets

    Hi everybody, here every person is sharing these kinds of experience,
    so it’s nice to read this website, and I used to pay a quick visit this web site daily.

    Reply ↓
    1. Jorge

      Guys – First I want to thank you for developing this really usefull Tool. But I must echo everyone elses request – When can we expect a new version of this product, to support vSphere 5?

      Sorry if I missed any previous repsonse to my question.

      Thanks again! Jorge

      Reply ↓
  25. Alex Groening

    Hello,

    vRD2012 does not work correct with with vSphere 5.
    If I try to connect to the console follwing Error appears.

    Un unhandled exeption has occurred.Please Check you settings.
    Class not registered (Exception from HRESULT: 0×80040154 (REGDB-E-CLASSNOTREG)
    See the error log of application or the application event log of the client for additional information.

    Can me help me someone?

    Reply ↓
  29. Anthony Larson

    I am wanting VGC to only show the VM name.
    For my administrator account it shows just the VM name in VGC
    But in my users account it shows the Datastore Name plus the actual file name of the VM in VGC.
    Using VI Client via vcenter v4.1, I’ve put the user account permissions on the datastores as “no access”, however the VM names in VGC still display as the datastore name plus the VM file name.

    Any help is appreciated!

    Thanks,
    Anthony

    Reply ↓
  32. Ravi

    Hi GUys

    Great job on the tool, one of the best tool i ahve seen so far in my 6+ years of VM administration.
    Now i like it so much that I am hitting a limitation of 315 vms. when will it manage more than that . is there a esx 5 version which can manage like 1000 vms?

    thanks

    –Ravi

    Reply ↓
  33. singh

    hi
    while trying to login to guest from VGC, i am getting VIX-authentication failure or insufficient permissions in guest operating system. VGC is installed on Windows 2008. Host:VM Server 2.0, GuestOS: Ubunut 10. Thanks

    Reply ↓
  34. John the patio furniture guy

    It’s good that vmware is constantly getting updated and new versions are being released. But is vmware doing enough to ward off competitors like OpenStack? Cloud computing does seem to be getting more and more popular by the day.

    Reply ↓
  35. Roey Azroel

    Hi,
    First, Cool App! and very useful!

    I have one question – I want my developer to use this application for the same reason as you… less application are open in the same time.

    but if i give two different developers to use Boomerang, and they both have different permissions, Boomerang will know how to show them the VMs that they have permission to control in the vCenter?

    Thanks!

    Reply ↓
  38. Sabarudin

    I tried installing VMWare Guest Console vers. 1.1.0 but when I click on “add host” I always get the error “VIX – Failed to connect to host or proxy”, I tried both using “localhost”, my PC computer’s name and its IP address without success.

    OS: Windows server 2003, and VMware Server 2.0.2

    Reply ↓
  39. Robert Kloosterhuis

    It doesnt seem to deal well with permissions. For example, I have a user group that only has read-only permissions on several VM’s. While VGC allows the user to login to vcenter, it cannot read any of the vm data like its state, so it reports the vm’s offline.

    Reply ↓
  43. AgentDuke

    If you guys added a hook into the explorer shell, to allow copying to and from the workstation from the guests, I think you would have a hot ticket item.

    The fact you can download and upload to guests (as well as execute and all that) is great – but that is single file operations….programs like WinSCP exist just for file transfers and your application does much more. So, just a suggestion, but adding the explorer pane for multiple copy/paste/transfer operations would be a big improvement.

    Nice work – definitely the most useful WIP in the lab as your votes show.

    Reply ↓
  44. Jim

    Do you plan to support ESXi? I tried installing VGC because it said it supports ESX and VMWare Server (free), therefore I assumed it would also support ESXi. I was very disappointed when I received the Licensing error :(

    Thank you for your response.
    Jim Mohr

    Reply ↓

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  46. Phil Dalton

    OK, just had a try of this.
    Any plans to be able to list the VM’s in alphabetical order ? I know you can type the full names to select them, but it makes it a bit of a hassle to use.
    What about Datacentre grouping etc. ?

    Thanks

    Reply ↓
    1. Rahul

      Phil, We are currently working on the datacenter grouping, filters, … which should be out in a month. The VMs can be sorted in the alphabetical order in the VM manager tab. You can click on the column headers to sort it accordingly. Did u want an alphabetic listing in the left (tree view) panel?

      Reply ↓
  47. Patrick Silva

    Could you guide me in the related issue Esxi4 version because I’m trying to add the host and gives the error message “This operation is not supported with current license. ” I’m with VSphere Client – Version 4.1.0. How should I proceed in this case?

    Cordially

    Patrick

    Reply ↓
  48. Ben

    I can connect both a vCenter server and a vSphere 4.1 server. I can see the VM inventory however this app seems to think that all the VMs are powered off, they are on.

    Also, some VMs have a friendly name like ‘myServer’ and others have a name like [DATASTORE] /path/to/vm.vmx

    Reply ↓
      1. George

        I have the same effect when connecting to VC 2.5 latest version.
        The bad thing is I am not able to see the Snapshots for those VM listed with their vmx-path.

        Any Ideas

        George

        Reply ↓
  50. Marisol Perry

    To authenticate in the Guest OS (VM), you need to have vmware tools running in the Guest. In case, the tools are not running you would get this warning – Waiting for Guest Tools to Initialize. Unfortunately, at this time Solaris Guest OS is not supported. However, we do plan to support it near future.

    Reply ↓
    1. Ravi

      You can login to multiple guests at a time in one of the following ways –

      1. selecting the parent node (ESX/VC/My Virtual Console) in the left side tree and then authenticating which will essentially perform a mass login to all the guests under that node.

      2. In the Virtual Machines tab, select multiples VMs and do M3->Guest Operations -> LoginInGuest which will login to all the selected vms.

      Reply ↓
  52. Herbert Knavs

    Hi

    VGC is a really almost perfect tool and is really great and I appreciate the work you have done to make this tool available for us.

    But… there is always “but” :)…
    Is there any possibility to add sorting for guest machines and to add a search field.
    It is really time consuming to find the virtual machine in a list with a random order.

    Thank you again for your good work and best regards

    Reply ↓

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  55. shawn harry

    Any plans to port this to UNIX/Linux distributions? Tried running in WINE but the executable fails to launch. Slightly ironic that VMware leverages UNIX for their API’s but has little to no support for management from Unix/Linux systems.

    Reply ↓
  56. lior

    Hello,
    Can you please tell me how can I copy files from one of the machine to all the machines?, also I would like to know if there is a user manual to VGC and if so where I can download it?
    Thanks

    Reply ↓
  57. Sajal

    Ravi/Rahul/Uttam,
    An excellent tool. I have just tried it and it surely is a great tool to minimize administration workload off the System Admins of Virtual environment. Great going. waiting for more functionalities of this tool.

    I wish I could cancell the already progressing tasks. Sometimes you commit a task and then want to cancell it. There is no such option for this. Can you please add this?

    Sajal

    Reply ↓
  58. CHAHWAN Youssef

    I downloaded the VMware Guest console, to connect to an ESXI server it works great and the interface is so easy, but when I click the Task Manager tab I get the following message “Waiting for Guest Tools to Initialize”, am I missing something is there any additional files to install in the VM. The VM I have is a Solaris 10 10/08 s10x_u6wos_07b X86

    Reply ↓
    1. Ravi

      To authenticate in the Guest OS (VM), you need to have vmware tools running in the Guest. In case, the tools are not running you would get this warning – Waiting for Guest Tools to Initialize.
      Unfortunately, at this time Solaris Guest OS is not supported. However, we do plan to support it near future.

      Reply ↓

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  61. Florian

    Hello,

    It’s indicated
    VGC can connect to –
    Licensed ESX/ESXi versions 3.5 U2 or later

    But i’m trying to connect with an ESXi 4.1 and have this message :
    VIX – This operation is not supported with this current licence.

    is it normal?

    Reply ↓
  64. Jay

    On the Host Connect operation I get a status of “Invalid Job Handle” I get this for my vSphere servers and vCenter server. Tried installing on both Vista and XP.

    Reply ↓
    1. Uttam

      Hi Jay,
      Could you pl. give us more information about error message. Is it “VIX – Invalid Job Handle” or “VT – Invalid Job Handle” and which version of VC server/ESX Server you are using. You can try to reconnect host after restarting VGC.

      Reply ↓
        1. Uttam

          Thanks for this info, can you pl. give me more information about the particular set of operations you were performing.

          Reply ↓
  65. Ravi

    If I understand the use case correctly, what you are trying to do is mass copy a text file or document and open it with the default editor set on the machine. The deploy is not built to open the default editor but this functionality can be achieved by doing the following steps –

    1. Mass deploy a file – copy will succeed but the execution will fail. You can ignore the error because the text file is not an executable.

    2. Start a new task in all the vms with “cmd.exe /C textfile.txt” which will open the file in default editor.

    Reply ↓
  66. Alan

    Great program! I was wondering, is it possible to do a mass copy of a non-executable, i.e text or pdf file and have it executed?

    Reply ↓
    1. Ravi

      If I understand the use case correctly, what you are trying to do is mass copy a text file or document and open it with the default editor set on the machine. The deploy is not built to open the default editor but this functionality can be achieved by doing the following steps –
      1. Mass deploy a file – copy will succeed but the execution will fail. You can ignore the error because the text file is not an executable.
      2. Start a new task in all the vms with “cmd.exe /C textfile.txt” which will open the file in default editor.

      Reply ↓

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  68. jb

    Hi,
    I can connect to the vcenter server fine, but when I try to run a task just keep getting errormessage: “VIX – A file was not found”.
    What am I doing wrong?

    Reply ↓
    1. jb

      figured it out. When choosing to “Deploy host program in Guest”, I had to check “Save Program File” to make it work. Now it works like a charm!

      Reply ↓
  69. j2

    Hey great work and thanks for this useful tool, one little suggestion, if you guys can add password repository for vm log in on your next release, that will save us great amount of time when logging in thousands of vms with common administrator credential.

    Reply ↓
    1. Ravi

      All the information about connected hosts, Host & VM authentication information, Active tool/tab etc can be saved in the VGC workspace files. Using the .vgc workspace files you can restore tool into same state as when you saved the workspace, including the VM authentication.

      Reply ↓

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  71. Richard Powers

    Thanks to David Davis for pointing me to this site. Didn’t know it existed before VMworld 2010. RDP authentication with pass thur creds…. Very Cool might make me think of giving up my visionapo tool :)

    Reply ↓
  72. -jeff

    Very nice tool. I Like other posts, id like to be able to sort, by name or cluster and possibly by OS type. Also, if I can restart services from here too would be great! Keep up the good work!

    Reply ↓
    1. Rahul

      Hi Jeff,
      Thanks for your feedback. We have received numerous requests for search/sort, categorizing the VMs. We have added it to our P0 list & will work on it as time permits.
      For restart services, You can use the “Applications->New Task” option once you login to the VM. This is the command I executed the stop one of the services – ”
      c:\windows\system32\net.exe stop server”. You can perform the same across multiple VMs as well.

      Reply ↓
  73. peter

    Hi,

    I’ve tried the VGC, but for File Explorer, and Task Manager I received “VIX-This operation is not supported with current license”

    What’s the problem?

    Thanks.

    Reply ↓
    1. Ravi

      VGC works similarly for both Windows and Linux VMs. So if you login into a Linux VM you should be able to manage the processes just like you did for Windows.

      Reply ↓
  75. hedak

    It’s a really great tool! But i have one problem:

    Up- and downloading takes extremely long using VGC. 1 mb needs more then 10 seconds. Uploading files to ESXi host’s datastore using vSphereClient is much faster (2 mins for an XP iso file).

    Im using the latest VGC on Windows Server 2008 R2 64 bit and ESXi 3.5U3 with XP 32bit VM. Both have Intel/1000 Pro GT and are directly connected via crossover (for testing). Drivers are correctly installed and working fine.

    Can you help me? Thanks in advance

    Reply ↓
  76. KOM

    Nice app. I had it running for awhile in the background and it crashed out. Not much detail but here is what I have:

    Faulting application vgc.exe, version 1.0.0.0, stamp 4bfddfc3, faulting module gvmomi.dll, version 7.0.0.12556, stamp 4bf051b7, debug? 0, fault address 0×00003909.

    Bucket 2009739714, bucket table 1, faulting application vgc.exe, version 1.0.0.0, stamp 4bfddfc3, faulting module gvmomi.dll, version 7.0.0.12556, stamp 4bf051b7, debug? 0, fault address 0×00003909.

    Reply ↓
    1. Ravi

      Can you provide some more information about your setup and the state of VGC where it was left running i.e. the active tab (task manager, file explorer etc), # of powered on and logged in vms etc ?

      Reply ↓
  77. hedak

    It’s a really great tool! But i have one problem:

    Up- and downloading takes extremely long using VGC. 1 mb needs more then 10 seconds. Uploading files to ESXi host’s datastore using vSphereClient is much faster (2 mins for an XP iso file).

    Im using the latest VGC on Windows Server 2008 R2 64 bit and ESXi 3.5U3 with XP 32bit VM. Both have Intel/1000 Pro GT and are directly connected via crossover (for testing). Drivers are correctly installed and working fine.

    Can you help me? Thanks in advance

    Reply ↓
  78. Gavin Warner

    Hi, came across this utility while searching for a solution to deploy a batch file to my VM’s. I think that the program is superb, looking forward to the sort / filter functionality so we can identify VM’s easier.

    Reply ↓
  79. witjojo

    Hello,

    i have a vmware server 2.0.2 on opensuse 11.2 installed. An i get no connection to the server. Port 902 ist available (testet with telnet). Port 902 ist also open on port 902. When i try to connect i get the message: VIX: A problem occurred during the ssl/tls handshake!
    Can anyone help me please!

    thanks
    witjojo

    Reply ↓
    1. Tony felice

      Had the same problem. Noticed that the client was trying to connect to TCP port 443, which is in use by Apache in my case, and in any even I don’t thing VMware Server ever uses it. Try ‘lsof -i tcp -nn” to see if vmware-hostd is listening on port 8333. If so, add :8333 to the end of the hostname or IP address you’re entering in VGC. That worked for me.

      Reply ↓
  81. Sebastian Kayser

    The file explorer feature is sooo handy, thanks alot!

    Is there any filter feature for the VM list so that it is easier to select a particular VM in the left hand pane? We have about 150 VMs in our environment (left hand pane displays them in a random order) and when I want to use the file explorer, I have to look through the whole list, identify the specific VM, and then use the file explorer tab. A filter feature (or a sort feature at least) would make that a lot more straight-forward.

    Reply ↓
    1. Ravi

      Currently there is no feature to filter vms in the left pane but we plan to add it for the next release. Thanks for your feedback.

      Reply ↓
      1. witjojo

        I have a VMware Server Version 2.0.2 Build 203138 on opensuse 11.2.
        When i try to connect i get the message:
        VIX – A problem occurred during the ssl/tls handshake
        What is the problem with ssl/tls?
        Maybe this problem in this context: http://planetvm.net/blog/?p=1087

        “Proxysvc SSL Handshake on client connection failed: SSL Exception”

        Can anyone help please!

        Thanks
        witjojo

        Reply ↓
  82. Clive

    The main reason I downloaded this software was the promised ability to
    Copy files from host to guest and vice-versa.

    I have VMware 7 with Enterprise Linux installed on Windows Vista O/S host. I installed the software but it is not possible to copy files as promised because I could not launch the terminal. It gave an error that it was not allowed on an hosted environment. Is there a better way of doing this?

    Reply ↓
    1. Ravi

      The terminal is actually a putty to the guestOS and does not provide any special functionality to copy files between host and guest. Pl use the “File Explorer” tab which will allow you to perform the file system management.

      Reply ↓
  83. Kulbinder

    Unfortunately, this utility will not connect to a free ESXi 4.0 server.

    Allowing a “READ-ONLY” mode would be a great enhancement, just like vCMA.

    Reply ↓
  84. Robert Goto

    Very nice utility! Are there any plans to enable one to clone a VM to template or convert a VM to template and convert a template back to a VM? How about deploying a VM from template or clone? They would be useful additions.

    Reply ↓
  85. David Nixon

    Nice utility. Due to our need to retain data for an extended period but unable to leave a server on the network due to lack of security patches, we migrated a physical box to a VM. I had hoped that the file explorer view would allow us to browse into the VM through the vmware tools (I’m assuming that this is where the process information hooks are going through since this machine isn’t on the network and this piece worked) and copy archived data out of the server.

    Is this outside of the scope of this tool or can I look forward to this functionality being added? Thanks

    Reply ↓
    1. Rahul

      Hi David,
      Once you have logged-in to the VM, the file explorer should allow you to browse through the guest file system, upload, download file/folder from guest to client & also copy across guests irrespective of the network connectivity. Refer video clip – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poNd_SHmOxY#t=05m34s . I’m not able to comprehend ur specific problem. Do you face any issue while you are downloading a file from the VM?

      Reply ↓
  86. Markus

    Would be cool if I could use a Domain User for all hosts so I don’ t have to login to each vm.
    But anything else on this tool is great

    Reply ↓
    1. Uttam

      There is one option called mass login. If all VMs have the same user name and password then you can do mass login on all VMs by clicking the hostname or “My Virtual Console”. If user name is different then you can save current state of VGC as .vgc file, which stores user name and pwd of each connected host and VM. When you open .vgc file from this tool next time then you will get the same state of VGC as it was saved last time.

      Reply ↓
  87. Dennis

    Looks like this does everything except what I really need – the ability to show all of the desktops for all of the virtual PC’s running on one physical box simultaneously. I have a PC with VMware workstation running on Windows 7 x64, and I have as many as 10 XP virtuals running simultaneously (it is a strong processor and the computer has a lot of RAM. Performance is fine.). Each virtual is running a single application, and I must respond to each virtual when it finishes it’s task, then start another task. The easiest way to accomplish this would be to crank the resolution of each virtual down very low, and display all of the desktops at the same time. Then it would be easy to see when one of them needs attention. As it is now, I must constantly cycle through the different desktops to keep checking them. The host has dual 24″ monitors. The guest desktop displays can overlap, I just need to be able to see what is running on all of them at the same time. Does anyone know of a way to accomplish this? Many thanks!

    Reply ↓
    1. Rahul

      Dennis,
      If you’re looking for a tool to monitor a particular task across a group of VMs, start another task (eg: silent install) in case this process is currently not running, it can be easily accomplish by the Task Manager Tab in VGC.
      In case you want to monitor the screen of your VMs continuously to identify if any of you application requires immediate user action, one option is to write a program using VixVM_CaptureScreenImage to capture each VM’s screen at frequent intervals & display their thumbnails in your program. This way you might be able to accommodate about 20 VMs in a single 24″ physical screen.

      Reply ↓
  88. Derek

    I love this tool! I would however like to be able to employ as a productivity tool for individual projects in our organisation e.g. they could use to administer only VMs to which they have access on their project or sitting on a specfic VLAN.

    Is there any way in which to impose role based administration to limit the scope of VMs accessible from VGC.

    Apologies if I am missing the obvious. Thank you.

    Reply ↓
    1. Rahul

      Derek,
      VGC complies to the roles & access privileges imposed through VC. As an Administrator you can grant permissions for a particular user/s (say XYZ) to only view & perform power operations on a set of VMs. This way when XYZ connects to the server using VGC, he would be able to view & work only on those set of VMs. Since VGC monitors for updates only on VM objects, this can be used as a lite-weight vShpere client. Shoot us an email in case you need further details.
      Thanks

      Reply ↓
  90. Gerard

    Still have a problem retrieving VM’s from Virtual Center. Its stuck at the “Retrieving VMs” message.

    Reply ↓
    1. Uttam

      Did you update VGC1.0.1 to VGC1.1.0? If you have more than 300 poweredON VMs then it might take 2-3 minutes to retrieve VMs

      Reply ↓
        1. Rahul

          Gerard,
          The issue could be specify to your setup. If you can send us the logs we can debug through this issue further.

          –Procedure to collect logs–

          a.) Set the environment variable VT_DEBUG_LEVEL to 9
          b.) Launch VGC and repeat the operations
          c.) From the location “C:\Documents and Settings\\Local Settings\Temp\vmware-\”, collect the following logs
          – vmware-vix–.log
          – vmware-vgc—*.log

          Reply ↓
            2. Uttam

              It might be possible that any one of VM is in different state, it means that it needs some attention from user. If you connect server from VI client then pl. make sure that any of the VM should not associated with red icon (error condition). If you still have problem then pl. provide a logs to us.
              pl. mail to ugupta@vmware.com

              Reply ↓

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    1. Rahul

      Hi Sarwar,
      VGC is supported only in windows platform currently. Support for other platforms is not planned for in the immediate future. It shall be added based on demand.

      Reply ↓
  95. Gerard

    I am trying to connect to my Vcenter server using my AD credentials when I put in the machine name it does not connect gives an error of “VIX – Unable to connect to host”. When I use the FQDN I am able to connect but it does not get pass the “retrieving vms” message. Any ideas?

    Thanks..

    Reply ↓
      1. Gerard

        We have 4 Cluster 2-4 host in each cluster running a mix of ESX 3.5 and 4.0. Were running Vcenter 4 and have about 300 VM’s in our environment.

        Reply ↓
        1. Ravi

          In the current version of VGC, we have found some problems while retrieving VMs in large infrastructures. The issue will be resolved in next version of VGC which we will be rolling out very soon. In the mean time, I would recommend you to try connecting to the ESX server directly.

          Reply ↓
  96. mq

    Does it support VMplayer?
    When I add host type as workstation, user name and password greyed out. How do you connect then?

    Reply ↓
    1. Ravi

      VGC has not been tested against Player but you should be able to connect to it using the host type – Workstation. However, note that snapshot operations are not supported on Player. Username and password are not required when connecting to Workstation of a local machine, hence they are grayed out.

      Reply ↓
      1. mq

        Thank you.
        Are you planning to support connecting to multiple remote workstations so that VGC has a single view for all workstations?

        Reply ↓
  97. Robin

    It would be cool if you included an interface into Computer Management (compmgmt.msc).
    Then I could add users to admin group, create/change local shares, etc on multiple vms without logging it.

    Really like the idea of this client though!

    Reply ↓
  98. fred

    I have installed this on Win7 x64 and on WinXP, but when I doubleclick the icon, nothing happens at all… .Net is installed. What could be wrong?

    Reply ↓
    1. Ravi

      VGC is not natively supported on 64 bit OS. However there is a workaround to make this work –

      1 – Install Corflags so download .NET JDK from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=E6E1C3DF-A74F-4207-8586-711EBE331CDC&displaylang=en
      -> launch setup and you just need to install the .NET Development Tools subcomponent (Developer Tools -> Windows Development Tools -> .NET Development Tools) (tks rakslice)

      2 – open cmd.exe as “Administrator” and type the following commands :
      cd “\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Guest Console”
      “C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.1\Bin\CorFlags.exe” vgc.exe /32BIT+

      This has also been demonstrated in a training video – http://www.vmwarevideos.com/video-using-the-vmware-guest-console

      Reply ↓
    2. Uttam

      Current version of VGC doesn’t support 64 bit OS, but there is some workaround to run on 64 bit os:
      To do this you must run the CorFlags utility from the Windows SDK (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/242304/where-should-i-download-corflags-exe-from/493863#493863).
      The run the CorFlags /32bit+ “path to VGC.exe”. This way the .NET framework understands that this executable is 32 bit only and it start to work

      We are releasing new version of VGC very soon, which will have support of 64 bit os, fast loading of virtual machines and more…

      Reply ↓
  99. Fred

    Will this tool allow me to copy a file from a guest os to the esx console filesystem (datastore eg to folder /vmimages)?

    Reply ↓
  100. Massimo Montecchi

    Great Job!
    Anyway I’m not able to use it in my ESXi 3.5 U5 environment.
    I’m able to connect to my ESXi host, but all the VMs are stopped (even if someone are started) and if I tray to start I have an error.
    Thanks!

    Reply ↓
  101. aenagy

    Nice!

    I would like to recommend that you use vCenter for your next demo video. Giving virtual machine administrators the root password to our ESXi hosts is a non-starter.

    Reply ↓
  102. Gonzalo Parra

    Great Tool! Congratulations!

    The Save feature is very useful to save your connections and logins for all VMs but it is very unsecure, the username and passwords are saved in clear text inside the .VGC file, it would be great if this information is encrypted and also if you can configure a password on a .VGC file so you cannot open the file without it…

    Please continue the good work!

    G

    Reply ↓
  103. ideFix1505

    You want to log in different VMs, but you don’t have the time to klick on each VM to log on?
    Then klick on the ESX host, virtual machines tab and mark all VMs with the same user and password. After that press right mouse button and select ‘guest operations’ and ‘Login in guest’. Now you have to enter the login informations – Now all vms are logged in.

    When you use VGC in test environments, this could be very helpful.

    regards,

    Reply ↓
  104. huiming

    I have VC installed on my desktop, and VCG add local host using host type “VC server”.
    I found VMs listed in inventory. But I can not open console for them.
    While I can add host directly, and I can open console of VMs.
    Is it right? My VC server is branch KL.next.

    Reply ↓
    1. ideFix1505

      Which version of vgc you are using? With 1.0.1 I get a warning message if I try opening a console of VMs.
      it says: ‘Feature not supported for this Host Type’.

      So I think everything is ok.

      When I connect ESX hosts directly, it’s working.

      vCenter: 4.0U1 build 208111

      Reply ↓
      1. Ravi

        VGC 1.0.1 does not support opening the console of VC – VMs. We are currently working on it and plan to make it available in the next release.

        Ravi

        Reply ↓
  105. Abhinav

    Great job!

    One feature request: If Ctrl+c and ctrl+v would work for files and folders between VGC and windows explorer instead of me having to click upload and download that would be great!

    Thanks!

    Reply ↓
  107. ideFix1505

    First of all: You did a great job.

    I’ve VGC in test, too.
    I found the same “mistakes” as EMonjoin did and I appreciate if you would fix them. Additional to them, I like the ideas of EMonjoin – e.g. Store default credential.

    But I’v one additional:

    VGC doesn’t show that a host is in maintenance mode.
    If your ESX is in that mode, you can’t start a vm. VGC logged: “VIX- The operation failed to the current state of the system” – So I switch to my vSphere- Client to exit maintenance mode.

    Reply ↓
  108. EMonjoin

    As discused in private with Ravi, find there my wish list to improve VGC, feel free to add comment or request :) :

    - If possible improve time to discover VM
    - Store default credential that VGC can try first (after asking user agreement) to login in the VM
    - Let the possibility to set a default .vgc file that is open each time you start VGC with auto save.
    - Really open .vgc file, because even you save it and double-clic on it, you still have to open it once the console is open.
    - Don’t display Template VM as we can’t do anything with them (or let the possibility to convert them to VM and back to template) or change the Icon for them
    - Don’t display Replica-VM (specific to View) or change the icons
    - Lets the possibility to create group/folder where we can drag&drop VM inside.

    Reply ↓
    1. Ravi Post author

      Eric, Thanks for the feedback. We will definitely look at you feature requests and prioritize them for future releases.

      Reply ↓
  109. huiming

    Hi Rahul,

    I have paste the script here:
    By using ultraedit, I change file which I edit at my desktop to UNIX file type.
    #!/bin/sh
    while [[ 1 ]]; do netperf -H 10.10.20.31 -t TCP_STREAM -l 20 — -m 1024 -s 1024 -S 1024; done

    Thanks!
    Huiming

    Reply ↓
  110. Ronny

    Wouldn’t it be cool if I could also read VM Guest logfiles within the VGC? That’s something I miss within vCenter.

    Reply ↓
    1. Rahul

      Ronny,
      If your talking about VMware tools logs collected inside the guest OS, you should be able to browse & open the logs using the File Explorer.

      In case you’re referring to the vmx logs (vmware.log) collected in the ESX host
      corresponding to each VM, we don’t have an option to display these logs in the current release. The vmx logs stores information related to the VM’s interaction with other processes & is not essentially related to the guest running inside the VM.

      Reply ↓
  111. huiming

    I start to using VGC by a test.
    I start netserver in one VM, and depoly an shell script to run netperf in another VM.
    I can see the PID for the sh script, but I can not found the traffic in host console “command esxtop”.
    But I can see the script file and run by manually at its location in VM, then I found the traffic.

    what’s wrong about this ? Is the script depoly successfully ?

    Reply ↓
    1. Rahul

      huiming,
      My understanding is that “Deploy” was able to copy the script file but failed to invoke the netperf process. If the script doesn’t have any other dependency it should work just fine. However this issue could be specific to the guest OS as well.
      If you can send us the script file & other details like the arguments passed, info about the guest & the host environment you are executing in, it will be easier for us to identify the problem.

      Reply ↓

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  114. Tom Foley

    Hi, I’m running into an issue when adding ESX servers to the the VGC. After adding more than 7 to 8 Esx Servers the VGC app “hangs” connecting to the next ESX server.
    The cpu on the VGC server goes to 100% utilization.. Is there a recommeded amount memory/cpu for the VGC server? Also are their limits on the number of ESX servers concurrently connected to the VGC?

    Reply ↓
    1. Ravi

      VGC has been tested with upto 15 hosts and 200 vms concurrently. We have seen this kind of issue occasionally but has been hard to reproduce. We are working on it & hope to fix in the next release. The high CPU usage that you are seeing is because of this issue only.

      Reply ↓
  115. Tom Foley

    I just installed the VGC and when it try to connect to either an ESX or VC host it gets the following error ” XIV Insufficient permissions in host operating system”
    The VGC is installed on a Windows 2003 R2 sp2 w/Net 3.5 Sp1

    Reply ↓
    1. Uttam

      This VIX error generally comes when user name or password is incorrect. Please make sure that you are typing valid user name and password of particular ESX host.

      Reply ↓
  116. Atul Mani Tripathi

    Hi,
    I tried deployment on multiple hosts and it worked great but can anyone tell me that how to deploy on selected VMs from different hosts.

    Thanks,
    Atul

    Reply ↓
    1. Rahul

      The option to perform operations on a selected set of VM across different hosts is exposed through the VM Manager. Goto Virtual Machines Tab, select preferred VM/s, Right Click & choose “Applications->Deploy Host Program”.

      Reply ↓
  117. Eric Monjoin

    For those who need to run this tools on Windows 7 64bits :

    1 – Install Corflags so download .NET JDK from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=E6E1C3DF-A74F-4207-8586-711EBE331CDC&displaylang=en
    -> launch setup and you just need to install the .NET Development Tools subcomponent (Developer Tools -> Windows Development Tools -> .NET Development Tools) (tks rakslice)

    2 – open cmd.exe as “Administrator” and type the following commands :
    cd “\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Guest Console”
    “C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.1\Bin\CorFlags.exe” vgc.exe /32BIT+

    Reply ↓
  118. Ravi Post author

    New release (Version 1.0.1) uploaded on 03/12/10 fixes the problem where VGC was not able to retrieve VMs from vCenter folders. If you plan to try VGC with vCenter, please download and use this new build.

    Reply ↓
    1. mansur

      I’m still having trouble connecting to vCenter with the current build. It still seems to stick on “retrieving vms”. Anyone else still having trouble?

      Reply ↓
      1. Ravi Post author

        I can look into it if you can send me the log files –
        a.) Create & set the environment variable VT_DEBUG_LEVEL to 9
        b.) Launch VGC and perform the operations that you did earlier.
        c.) Collect the log files (vtools_*.log) from VGC installation folder and send them over.

        Reply ↓
  119. Brian OAmek

    Hi I’m trying to use VGC, but I’m having some issues:
    I select “Add Host” and then input the information for my vCenter server (2.5 U6).
    It authenticates just fine, however, it’s been sitting at “retrieving vms” for over an hour now… any suggestions?

    Thanks
    Brian

    Reply ↓
    1. Ravi Post author

      We have identified a problem with underlying VIX API whereby VMs placed in folders are not visible. The fix is in progress and we hope to make it available very soon. Stay tuned..

      Reply ↓
      2. Ravi Post author

        New release (V 1.0.1) uploaded on 03/12/10 fixes problem where VGC was not able to retrieve VMs from vCenter folders. Pl download and use this new build.

        I also noticed that you are using VC 2.5, the minimum requirement for VGC is vCenter 4.0 or ESX/ESXi 3.5 U2 or later.

        Reply ↓

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  123. Scott

    I installed on Win 7 x64 and when running the app, nothing happens.

    I then tried on an XP client and the tool starts up OK, but when I try to add either a ESX host or my vCenter server, I get an error that reads, “VIX – Could not connect to host.” Any ideas?

    Reply ↓
      2. Scott

        Oh, one other problem, when I add my vCenter server, I don’t have any VMs listed. They only show up when I add the individual ESX hosts. Is that normal?

        Reply ↓
        1. Rahul

          That’s not normal. Which version of VC & ESX are you using ?
          It could be easier to debug this issue if you can send us the log files.

          Procedure to collect log files:
          a.) Set the environment variable VT_DEBUG_LEVEL to 9
          b.) Launch VGC and perform the operations that you did earlier.
          c.) Collect the log files (vtools_*.log) from VGC installation folder & mail it to us.

          Reply ↓
        2. Rahul

          I’m able to connect to vCenter product without any issue. I verified against vCenter server 4 build# 162902 & the recently released vCenter server 4.1 beta build# 207423.
          Which builds are you using ?

          Reply ↓
          1. Scott

            I’m using vCenter 4 U1 build 208111, and ESX 4 U1 build 208167. I’m not sure if it makes a difference, but I’m also using linked mode with 2 other vCenter servers.

            With regards to setting the environment variable, where is that? I looked in the Windows Environment variables and I don’t see an entry for VT_DEBUG_LEVEL, do I need to create that or is it somewhere else?

            Reply ↓
          2. Rahul

            Thanks for the info Scott. VT_DEBUG_LEVEL env variable doesn’t exist in windows by default, it needs to be created.

            Reply ↓
        3. MarkH

          I have noticed this, too. When connecting via vcenter, the only VMs enumerated are those at the top level of a datacenter. Sub-folders of the datacenter appear to be ignored.

          Reply ↓
        4. Ravi Post author

          New release (Version 1.0.1) uploaded on 03/12/10 fixes the problem where VGC was not able to retrieve VMs from vCenter folders. Pl download and use this new build.

          Reply ↓
  125. Carlos Beppler

    Hi, using the CorFlags.exe from Windows SDK and changed the 32BIT flat to 1 (corflags /32bit+) it started.

    Perhaps you could change the platform on your projects to x86 during the compilation, this can resolve this problem.

    Reply ↓
  126. Carlos Beppler

    Hi, I installed the VGC on a Windows 2008 x64 machine.

    The installation was ok, but when I run the VGC.exe, nothing happens. Is there any prerequisite to run the tool?

    Reply ↓

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  128. yash

    This is a great tool in the hands of administrator as it provides lot of functionality from a single window.

    I have vspehre 4 U1 hosts and my vc is also on 4 .
    1) I have few esx hosts and and each time I start VGC it will randomly not be able to retrieve data from some of those hosts and the host which shows these issue changes on each start of VGC.
    2) I strongly recommend that few of these functionality needs to be integrated in vi client like file explorer.
    3)Why doesn’t the VGC save the added hosts or vc by default.

    Reply ↓
    1. Ravi Post author

      Thanks for your feedback. It will be helpful if you can send us the VGC logfiles –
      a.) Set the environment variable VT_DEBUG_LEVEL to 9
      b.) Launch VGC and perform the operations that you did earlier.
      c.) Collect the log files (vtools_*.log) from VGC installation folder.

      VGC gives the flexibility where the user can save different hosts and VC in different configuration/workspace files and hence no default.

      Reply ↓

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  131. Marcelo Vieira

    The interface is fine and it brings an easy way to manage snapshots and other things too but I got an issue when comparing the VGC display and the VMWare Infrastructure Client.
    VGC was able to list all my VMs when pointing it to the VC on my Lab (with three ESX3.5 and some VMs) but was displaying only one as powered on while the VIC was showing four VMs as powered on (which was right).
    Let me know if you want me to send you a screenshot with this comparison.

    Regards,

    Marcelo

    Reply ↓
    1. rcheruku Post author

      I am wondering if you changed the power state of VMs from VI client after you connected the host through VGC ? In which case, we know of a power state incosistency issue and has been solved in ESX 4.1.

      Reply ↓
  133. NiTRo

    Hi,

    i’d like to add some informations over the 4th point of William since i success to add a vcenter witch handle only 2 (licensed) ESXi and 9 VM. Too bad that the “host” column was only the vcenter name instead of the ESX server.

    Unfortunately, i tried to add a bigger vcenter without success.

    Reply ↓
    1. Ravi Post author

      New release (Version 1.0.1) uploaded on 03/12/10 fixes the problem where VGC was not able to retrieve VMs from vCenter folders. Pl download and use this new build. It should fix the problem that were seeing with larger VC.

      Reply ↓
  135. Anders Gregersen

    This is a great idea, I’m really looking forward to try it out later today. From the video I’ve seen, this is one tool that are going to help a lot people in their daily work

    Reply ↓
  136. William Lam

    Hi,

    I gave VGC a try on a Windows 7 desktop, installed fine, though ran into few inconsistencies and issues:

    1) Since VGC is leveraging VMware VIX, VGC will not work with a free licensed version of ESXi. Unlike the vSphere Client where all operations are written against vSphere API and leveraging the SOAP calls which by-pass license check, VGC looks like it exclusively utilizes VIX to perform all VM operations, which cause the operations to fail with free ESXi due to licensing. This may be something that should be documented if it is an expected behavior

    2) If you add an ESXi host that is using the free license and you have a VM that is powered on, it will not properly retrieve the VM’s displayName as it’s shown on the vSphere Client, instead, it’ll use the following format: “[dc/datastore] vm/vm.vmx”. Here is a screenshot:

    http://img198.imageshack.us/img198/5817/vgcvmx.png

    3) An interesting UI issue I came into was the inability to resize the VGC, it’ll allow you to maximize to fullscreen but it’ll only allow you to resize up to a certain point. I’m not sure if this is expected or there is a hardcoded size for the window in the code

    4) I also found an inconsistency when trying to add vCenter host, it only displayed 1 of few dozen VMs that were being managed by an ESX host within that vCenter. I removed the vCenter host and added the ESX host directly and in a few minutes it displayed all VMs. I then removed the ESX host and tried to re-add the vCenter host and the results were still the same. Here is a screenshot:

    http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/5220/vgcvcenter.png

    5) While trying re-add an ESX or ESXi host that was previously added and then removed, is that it now just sits there trying to connect OR it’ll connect successfully but sit trying to load the inventory. The ESX host that I had added took ~2-3min to load it’s inventory and upon re-adding it, it’s been 15+min and the inventory still has not been loaded. I decided to just close the VGC application and try to re-add the host, only 1 of 2 hosts added successfully, without sitting there waiting for it’s inventory to be populated.

    6) If a VM is powered on from vSphere Client after a host has been added to VGC, the changes don’t seem to be reflected. Is VGC suppose to refresh this data from the host every so often? I found this “staleness” to be true on both licensed and free version of ESXi
    Here is a screenshot with both vSphere Client and VGC:

    http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/8915/vgcpower.png

    I do like the idea of displaying the processes running within a VM, tried it on a vMA VM that I had. I also gave File Explorer a try and that’s pretty convenient to be able to browser the guest filesystem, is this being done purely with VIX or is VDDK being utilized?

    I also notice that VM operations tend to take much longer to complete through VGC than on vSphere Client. I have an ESXi host with a dummy VM that was already powered on, I created a snapshot w/o capturing the memory which was pretty snappy. When I tried to remove the snapshot, it’s taking awhile and I don’t even see a task in vSphere Client issuing the snapshot removal. It’s basically sitting there and spinning with the same progress bar % and the snapshot still exists on the host.

    I would probably do some more testing but would not recommend using this on production hosts or VMs, since it’s not quite stable and there’s quite a bit of unknown since there’s not much logging of what’s going on, just a green bar w/o movement. Good to test in your test/dev environment

    Definitely an interesting product and would love to see this eventually integrated into vSphere Client! VIX is definitely awesome!

    –William Lam

    Reply ↓
    1. rcheruku Post author

      Thanks for your feedback. Here are answers to some of your comments/questions –

      1,2. Yes you are right, VGC is completely based on VIX API and does not currently support free ESXi.

      3. We restricted the minimum windows size to a limit where the tool is still reasonably usable. So the behavior that you are seeing is expected.

      4,5 We can definitely look into the problem if you can tell us the version of vCenter and ESX used in your setup. It will be helpful if you can also send us the VGC logfiles –
      a.) Set the environment variable VT_DEBUG_LEVEL to 9
      b.) Launch VGC and perform the operations that you did earlier.
      c.) Collect the log files (vtools_*.log) from VGC installation folder.

      6. VGC refreshes the data based on the refresh rate set in the tool, which is set to 5 sec by default. The power state inconsistency that you are seeing is a VIX bug which has been addressed in ESX 4.1. So you should not see this issue when connecting to the newer ESX builds.

      7. Snapshot operations can be time consuming specially if you are working with Snapshots which include the vm memory. It will be helpful if you can provide log files for the remove snapshot case also.

      Reply ↓
      1. William Lam

        This was tested on vCenter 4.0 Build 162902 and ESX 4.0 164009 and ESXi 4.0u1 208156

        VIX error messages with the free version of ESXi are pretty poor, hopefully proper messages will be in a future release so that it’s clear to users and maybe it won’t even allow them to login/etc.

        I’ll go ahead and enable debugging the next time I try, but because these are the only hosts I have hosting variety of things, I dont’ want any unexpected issue which may crash vCenter or hosts themselves, especially if they get stuck trying to grab the inventory.

        Regarding the snapshot, as mentioned, this was on a dummy VM (fake DOS VM) and it was in a powered off state when I took the snapshot and during the commit it took much longer than expected. I’ll go ahead and reproduce and link to the logs/etc.

        Thanks for response

        Reply ↓
        1. Ravi Post author

          The issue related to proper error messaging against ESXi is being tracked internally and hope to have it in the next release.

          We have not seen any issue such as host/vc crash etc but would caution using this in a production environment. Also be aware that working with huge number of snapshots concurrently can slow down the server.

          Reply ↓

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