PowerCLI: Copy-VMGuestFile

In VMware PowerCLI Update 1, a new cmdlet has been added to copy files to/from guest OS’s using the VMTools. Under normal circumstances this wouldn’t be all that useful, but if a machine is not accessible on the network – either a DMZ or a test-lab environment for example – there is now a method to easily copy files to and from the guest machines.

For example:

copy-vmguestfile -source c:\windows\system32\imageres.dll -destination c:\temp\ -vm vm01 -guesttolocal -hostuser root -hostpassword * -guestuser administrator -guestpassword *

Note that you need to specify the passwords, or not specify credentials at all for a prompt, or you can use a pscredential object.

Unfortunately wildcards are currently unsupported, but it would be easy to loop through local files within PowerShell to upload based on wildcards.

I ran this with the measure-command cmdlet to see how fast it was – about 0.5MB/sec– not too quick, but a lot better than nothing.

measure-command -expression {copy-vmguestfile -source c:\windows\system32\imageres.dll -destination c:\temp\ -vm vm01 -guesttolocal -hostuser root -hostpassword * -guestuser administrator -guestpassword *}

Seconds : 26
Milliseconds : 539
Ticks : 265390633
TotalDays : 0.000307165084490741
TotalHours : 0.00737196202777778
TotalMinutes : 0.442317721666667
TotalSeconds : 26.5390633
TotalMilliseconds : 26539.0633

Wayne's World of IT (WWoIT), Copyright 2010 Wayne Martin.