Customizing the Guest
Operating System
You install the guest operating system on
the virtual machine just as you would install it on a physical machine.
Afterwards, you can use the Web Services API to retrieve information and
perform some customization if VMware Tools is installed on top of the guest
operating system.
VirtualMachine
includes the following methods
for managing the guest operating system:
- ShutdownGuestandRebootGuestshut down and reboot the guest OS, andStandbyGuestputs the guest in hybernate mode. In each case, you perform the action on the guest OS. For example, you might shut down Windows but leave the virtual machine running.
- ResetGuestInformationclears cached guest information. Guest information can be cleared only if the virtual machine is powered off. Use this method if stale information is cached, preventing reuse of an IP address or MAC address.
- SetScreenResolutionsets the console screen size of the guest operating system. When you call this method, the change is reflected immediately the virtual machine console you can access in the vSphere Client.
You can customize the identity and network
settings of the guest OS with the
CustomizationSpec
data object
that is a parameter to
VirtualMachine.CustomizeVM_Task
. The
CustomizationSpec
is also a
property of the
VirtualMachineCloneSpec
you
pass in when cloning a virtual machine.
The settings you customize with this method are
primarily virtual machine settings, but because the virtual machine and the
guest OS share the information, you are also customizing the guest OS with this
method.
The
CustomizationSpec
allows you
to set the following properties:
- encryptionKey– Array of bytes that can be used as the public key for encrypting passwords of administrators.
- globalIPSettings– Contains aCustomizationGlobalIPSettingsdata object which specifies a list of DNS servers and a list of name resolution suffixes for the virtual network adapter.
- identity– Allows you to specify the network identity and settings, similar to the Microsoft Sysprep tool.
- nicSettingMap– Custom IP settings that are specific to a particular virtual network adapter.
- options– Optional operations (either LinuxOptions or WinOptions).