Jason Boche has a great post on updating .vmx changes.
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Virtual infrastructure administrators may edit a VM’s .vmx configuration file by hand with vi or nano (my favorite) for a variety of reasons. Efficiency through bulk changes via scripting, troubleshooting a problem, adding unsupported/undocumented .vmx parameters, or a higher comfort level with command line interfaces to name just a few.
There’s an easier way that involves a lot less risk using two vimsh commands at the service console. Here are the steps:
- Log on to the service console on the host that the VM is registered on.
- In the service console, make the configuration change in the .vmx file and save it.
- In the service console, run the command vimsh -ne “vmsvc/getallvms” |grep <vmname> to obtain the VmID of the VM. The VmID will be the first number displayed on the left. Excluding the |grep <vmname> portion of the command will display all VMs registered on the ESX host.
Example:
vimsh -ne “vmsvc/getallvms” |grep knoppix
Returns:
80 knoppix[msa1000_lun3] knoppix/knoppix.vmx otherLinuxGuest vmx-04 Veeam Backup: Time [4/30/2009 5:46:41 AM], Backup host [SKYWALKER], Backup file [V:VeeamBackupsGalleon Cluster Backup.vbk]- In the service console, run the command vimsh -ne “vmsvc/reload <VmID>” using the VmID obtained in the previous step.
Example:
vimsh -ne “vmsvc/reload 80″- After a few seconds, the configuration change will be received by the vCenter Server and will be reflected in the VIC.
vimsh is a very powerful command line tool. To check out more of its goodness, take a look at xtravirt’s vimsh documentation.
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Please read the full blog post, as I didn’t cover it all.
I will make sure to give this a shot next time I get some time. Thanks Jason.
Source Post http://www.boche.net/blog/index.php/2009/05/02/force-vcenter-server-update-to-reflect-vmx-changes/