Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Reset
This command will reset the VM, which is not the same as rebooting the guest OS.
This is the virtual equivalent of pressing the Reset button on the front of the computer.
Shut Down Guest OS
This command works only if VMware Tools is installed, and it
works through VMware Tools to invoke an orderly shutdown of the guest OS. To avoid i le
system or data corruption in the guest OS instance, you should use this command whenever
possible.
Restart Guest OS
Like the Shut Down Guest command, this command requires VMware
Tools and initiates a reboot of the guest OS in an orderly fashion.
Removing VMs
If you have a VM that you need to keep but doesn't need to be listed in the VM inventory, you
can remove the VM from the inventory. This keeps the VM i les intact, and the VM can be re-
added to inventory (i.e., registered) at any time later on using the procedure described earlier in
the section titled “Adding or Registering Existing VMs.”
To remove a VM, simply right-click a powered-off VM and from the context menu, select All
vCenter Actions
➢
Remove From Inventory. Select Yes in the Coni rm Remove dialog box and
the VM will be removed from the inventory. You can use the vSphere Web Client i le browser to
verify that the i les for the VM are still intact in the same location on the datastore.
Deleting VMs
In the event you have a VM that you no longer need at all—meaning you don't need it listed in
the inventory and you don't need the i les maintained on the datastore—you can completely
remove the VM. Be careful, though; this is not something that you can undo!
To delete a VM entirely, you only need to right-click a powered-off VM and select All vCen-
ter Actions
➢
Delete From Disk from the context menu. The vSphere Web Client will prompt
you for coni rmation, reminding you that you are deleting the VM and its associated base disks
(VMDK i les). Click Yes to continue removing the i les from both inventory and the datastore.
Once the process is done, you can once again use the vSphere Web Client i le browser to verify
that the VM's i les are gone.
Adding existing VMs, removing VMs from inventory, and deleting VMs are all relatively
simple tasks. The task of modifying VMs, though, is signii cant enough to warrant its own
section.
Modifying Virtual Machines
Just as physical machines require hardware upgrades or changes, a VM might require virtual
hardware upgrades or changes to meet changing performance demands. Perhaps a new
memory-intensive client-server application requires an increase in memory, or a new data-
mining application requires a second processor or additional network adapters for bandwidth-
heavy FTP trafi c. In each of these cases, the VM requires a modii cation of the virtual hardware
coni gured for the guest OS to use. Of course, this is only one task that an administrator charged
with managing VMs could be responsible for completing. Other tasks might include leveraging
vSphere's snapshot functionality to protect against a potential issue with the guest OS inside a
VM. We describe both of these tasks in the following sections, starting with how to change the
hardware of a VM.
