VM is a folder on the host and what does the vmx file represent? Follow this passage to learn how to use vmx file to manage VM.
Updated by Nick Zhao on 2022/12/15
Virtual machines can help companies fully utilize the hardware resources of physical server, reduce IT cost, and increase work mobility so it becomes more and more popular.
Among the virtualization solution, VMware is the most popular one. It has released many products to meet the needs of different groups. For companies, the choice might be VMware vSphere whose hypervisor is ESXi.
After VM is created on the hypervisor, there will be a folder generated on datastore to store all of its data. If you view the files in the folder, you will find there were files like vmdk, log, and vmx files. Vmdk file is the virtual disk of the VM and is often used for data backup and migration so what are the other files?
Vmx file is the configuration file of VM. When the VM is open in vCenter, it is the vmx file that is open. It is editable so IT administrator can use it to modify VM configuration. When it is needed to manually modify VM hardware, IT administrators can edit the file with text editor.
You can find the location of vmx file in vCenter to export it to local machine. Just open datastore tab > select the datastore of the target VM > open the folder of the VM > select the vmx file > click Download to get it.
If you open the vmx file, you can find that it consists of many lines of text. You can add, delete, or modify the lines in vmx file to modify the configuration of VM. For example, you can directly change the number of CPU, memory, or MAC address and save it. The modification will take effect after you reboot the VM.
Except for editing it with text editor, vmx file can be also directly opened by VMware client like VMware workstation. You can select Open a VM in the client, browse the vmx file, and then open it. A new virtual machine will be opened then.
Sometimes VM might fail because of vmx file issues. If so, you can recreate a vmx file to fix the issue. You need to remove the problematic VM from inventory in vCenter temporarily and then use New Virtual Machine Wizard to create a VM with the same configuration. There is one important thing is that you should select the existing virtual hard disk during the process. After that, use the new vmx file to replace the problematic vmx file. Log into vCenter, find the folder of the removed VM in datastore, check the vmx file, click Register VM to add the VM to inventory again.
Vmx also contains part of VM information but is often neglected by IT administrators when backing up virtual machine. To save all the information of VM and safely recover VM, it is suggested to backup vmx file, too.
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Virtual machine is a folder on the host. The folder contains a lot of files and the vmx file in it is the virtual machine configuration file. IT administrators can use it to directly modify VM configuration or repair damaged VM configuration file by recreating a VM.
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