Jan 7, 2022

Managing VMware Player Like Pro

After I have setup my headless VMware Player, I want to be able to manage my virtual machines like sysadm. 

Next I need to get the command line to manage (start/stop/restart) my VM.

 

Here are part of the batch file script for me to manage my VMware Player.

set vmrun="C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Player\vmrun.exe"
set vmjt="c:\users\sysadm\Documents\Virtual Machines\zf\zf.vmx" 

 

To start my VM without GUI (headless mode):

%vmrun% -T player start %vmx% nogui


To reboot my VM without GUI:

%vmrun% -T player reset %vmx% soft


To power off my VM without GUI:

%vmrun% -T player stop %vmx% soft


For Vmware Workstation Pro or Vmware Fusion, you can take snapshot without GUI:

$ vmrun -T ws (or fusion) snapshot /path/to/vm/my.vmx my_snapshot 


Links:

  •  https://www.xmodulo.com/how-to-launch-vmware-player-vms-without-gui.html