Examples of vmrun Commands

The command-line examples that follow work on VMware Fusion. Ubuntu16 is the virtual machine example for Linux and Win10 is the virtual machine example for Windows.

Reboot Commands

Reboot a virtual machine.

vmrun reset Win10.vmwarevm/Win10.vmx soft

Snapshot Commands

Create a snapshot of a virtual machine

vmrun snapshot Ubuntu16.vmwarevm/Ubuntu16.vmx mySnapshot

List snapshots on the virtual machine, showing the snapshot created in the previous command.
```
vmrun listSnapshots Ubuntu16.vmwarevm/Ubuntu16.vmx
```

Revert to the snapshot you made, which suspends the virtual machine, and restart to resume operation.

vmrun revertToSnapshot Ubuntu16.vmwarevm/Ubuntu16.vmx mySnapshot

vmrun start Ubuntu16.vmwarevm/Ubuntu16.vmx

Delete the snapshot by specifying its name.

vmrun deleteSnapshot Ubuntu16.vmwarevm/Ubuntu16.vmx mySnapshot

Network Adapter Commands

List all network adapters on a virtual machine.

vmrun listNetworkAdapters Win10.vmwarevm/Win10.vmx

Add a NAT network adapter to a virtual machine.

vmrun addNetworkAdapter Win10.vmwarevm/Win10.vmx nat

Host Network Commands

List all networks on the host.
```
vmrun listHostNetworks 
			 
```
Add a port forwarding on a host network with examples provided of the host network name, protocol, host port, guest IP address, guest port, and description.
```
sudo vmrun setPortForwarding vmnet2 tcp 8082 1.1.1.2 88 portforwarding-descriptioin
```

Running Guest Applications

Most vmrun guest operations require VMware Tools to be installed on the guest operating system.

Start the command tool, minimized, on a Windows guest.

vmrun -gu guestUser -gp guestPassword runProgramInGuest Win10.vmwarevm/Win10.vmx -interactive cmd.exe

Start the command tool on a Windows guest as an active window on the desktop,

vmrun -gu guestUser -gp guestPassword runProgramInGuest Win10.vmwarevm/Win10.vmx -activeWindow -interactive cmd.exe

Run a script on a Windows guest, with Perl as the script interpreter. Two separate examples follow.

vmrun -gu guestUser -gp guestPassword runScriptInGuest Win10.vmwarevm/Win10.vmx -interactive "C:\perl\bin\perl.exe" "system('notepad.exe');"

vmrun -gu guestUser -gp guestPassword runScriptInGuest Win10.vmwarevm/Win10.vmx -interactive "" "C:\perl\perl.exe C:\script.pl"

Run a batch script and keep running afterwards. To use cmd.exe on Windows, you must specify the script interpreter as null.

vmrun -gu guestUser -gp guestPassword runScriptInGuest Win10.vmwarevm/Win10.vmx ""
"cmd.exe /k \"C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Visual Studio\\VC\\vcvarsall.bat\" x86"

Run a Bash shell script file or Perl script on a Linux guest.

vmrun -gu guestUser -gp guestPassword runScriptInGuest Ubuntu16.vmwarevm/Ubuntu16.vmx -interactive "" "/bin/bash myscript"

vmrun -gu guestUser -gp guestPassword runScriptInGuest Ubuntu16.vmwarevm/Ubuntu16.vmx -interactive "/usr/bin/perl" "system('firefox');"

Start an X clock on a Linux guest, which requires the -display option to appear on the console.

vmrun -gu guestUser -gp guestPassword runProgramInGuest Ubuntu16.vmwarevm/Ubuntu16.vmx /usr/bin/xclock -display :0

Run the same X clock command, but return control back to the console immediately.

vmrun -gu guestUser -gp guestPassword runProgramInGuest Ubuntu16.vmwarevm/Ubuntu16.vmx -noWait /usr/bin/xclock -display :0

Run Firefox.

vmrun -gu guestUser -gp guestPassword runProgramInGuest Ubuntu16.vmwarevm/Ubuntu16.vmx /usr/bin/firefox --display=:0

Setting the guest environment with the guestEnv parameter requires root permission on Linux because the change affects subsequent commands issued by other users.
```
vmrun -gu guestUser -gp guestPassword writeVariable Ubuntu16.vmwarevm/Ubuntu16.vmx guestEnv SRC tmp.example.com:1666
```

List processes in a Linux guest and end the process numbered 8192.

vmrun -gu guestUser -gp guestPassword listProcessesInGuest Ubuntu16.vmwarevm/Ubuntu16.vmx

vmrun -gu guestUser -gp guestPassword killProcessInGuest UUbuntu16.vmwarevm/Ubuntu16.vmx 8192

Run a Perl script on a Linux guest to remove DOS-style carriage returns from a file.

vmrun -gu guestUser -gp guestPassword runProgramInGuest Ubuntu16.vmwarevm/Ubuntu16.vmx /usr/bin/perl -e
"open(FILE, '>/tmp/unix.txt'); while (<>) { s/\r\n/\n/ ; print FILE}" /tmp/dos.txt

Run a Perl script on a Windows guest to insert DOS-style carriage returns in a file.

vmrun -gu guestUser -gp guestPassword runProgramInGuest Win10.vmwarevm/Win10.vmx C:\cygwin\bin\perl.exe -e
"open(FILE, ‘>C:\Users\user\dos.txt’); while (<>) { s/\n/\r\n/ ; print FILE}" C:\Users\guestUser\unix.txt

Guest to Host File Operations

To copy a file from the host to a guest, the user must have write permission on the destination.

vmrun -gu guestUser -gp guestPassword copyFileFromHostToGuest Ubuntu16.vmwarevm/Ubuntu16.vmx ~/img.db /tmp/img.db

To copy a file from a guest to the host, the user must have read permission on the source file.

vmrun -gu guestUser -gp guestPassword copyFileFromGuestToHost Ubuntu16.vmwarevm/Ubuntu16.vmx /home/username/addr addr.txt

To enable shared folders.

vmrun enableSharedFolders Ubuntu16.vmwarevm/Ubuntu16.vmx

To share a folder on a Mac host with a particular Linux guest.

Note:
Before sharing folders, you must enable them with the enabledSharedFolders option, or by selecting Enable Shared Folders in the Sharing Settings panel of the virtual machine. On Linux guests, the /mnt/hgfs directory is available for sharing, but you can use a different directory for shared folders.
```
vmrun addSharedFolder Ubuntu16.vmwarevm/Ubuntu16.vmx sharedFolderName ~/Share
```
To make a shared folder read‐only or to delete the shared folder.

Note:
Shared folders are writable by default.
```
vmrun setSharedFolderState Ubuntu16.vmwarevm/Ubuntu16.vmx sharedFolderName ~/Share readonly
```
```
vmrun removeSharedFolder Ubuntu16.vmwarevm/Ubuntu16.vmx sharedFolderName
```
Note:
On Windows Vista and Windows 7 or later guests, only the Administrator account can use copyFileFromHostToGuest and deleteFileInGuest options to write and delete files in the C:\ and system folders, or use the createDirectoryInGuest and deleteDirectoryInGuest options to modify system directories. Regular users, even those with administrator privilege, cannot perform these operations.

Guest Variables and Environment

From the host, set a guest variable on the virtual machines.

vmrun writeVariable Win10.vmwarevm/Win10.vmx guestVar vmstartdate 21April2017

On the guest operating systems, read the guest variable that you just set.

> rpctool.exe "info-get guestinfo.vmstartdate"

$ vmware-rpctool "info-get guestinfo.vmstartdate"

From the host, set a guest environment variable on a Linux virtual machine and verify by writing the environment variables into a temporary file.
```
vmrun writeVariable Ubuntu16.vmwarevm/Ubuntu16.vmx guestEnv LD_LIBRARY_PATH /usr/local/lib
Guest user: root
Guest password:
```
```
vmrun runScriptInGuest Ubuntu16.vmwarevm/Ubuntu16.vmx /bin/bash "/usr/bin/env > /tmp/env.out"
Guest user: root
Guest password:
```
Note:
No output is sent to the host when you use the runScriptInGuest option with the vmrun command. Find the output of the command in the /tmp/env.out file on the guest.

On a Linux guest, determine the IP address and set it in a guest variable.

$ ipaddr=`ifconfig eth0 | grep inet.addr`
$ vmware-rpctool "info-set guestinfo.theip $ipaddr"

From the host, retrieve the IP address that was just set to the guest.
```
vmrun readVariable Ubuntu10/Ubuntu10.vmx guestVar theip
```

General Commands

List running virtual machines.

vmrun list
Total running VMs: 2
Absolute-path-to-virtual-machine.vmx

Absolute-path-to-virtual-machine.vmx

Prepare to install VMware Tools.

vmrun installTools Ubuntu16.vmwarevm/Ubuntu16.vmx

The Template Virtual Machine Commands

Download a VMware Project Photon operating system virtual machine.

vmrun downloadPhotonVM ~