You can use data sets to share information between a virtual machine and its guest operating system.

Data sets provide a communication infrastructure that you can use to share information between the host and guest. This information can then be used by guest agents or applications to configure the guest itself or guest applications. The information is grouped into data sets, each of which contains key-value entries comprising the data. Each application that uses the service should have at least one unique data set in which to store its data to avoid conflict with other applications. Each data set has attributes that define its access control and interoperability configuration.

Note: You should not store sensitive data, such as passwords or private keys, in plain text.

To perform data set operations, the virtual machine must be running virtual hardware version 20 or later.

You should modify each data set by using the application that originally created that data set. If your application modifies a data set owned by another application, the other application might stop working.

For more information about data sets, see vSphere Virtual Machine Administration and the VMware Guest SDK Programming Guide.