Mass editing vmx files to include uuid.action

jibbajabba

It seems that uuid.action cannot be added using setconfig and vmware-cmd

Now using a single command I can add this line into a VMX, for example

echo 'uuid.action = "move"' >> EQL1-Vol1/VM-02/VM-02.vmx 

I am trying to find a way to mass do this using 'find' and 'exec'.

Something like

find . -name '*.vmx' -exec vmware-cmd -s register {} \;

or

find . -name '*.vmx' -exec vmware-cmd '{}' stop hard \;

But I can't seem to find a way to use the echo command and find / exec.

Anyone got an idea ...

tiersten

Write a small shell script that does it and then make find execute that.

MentholMoose

Do you just want to append that line to the VMX files? Do you need to do anything with vmware-cmd? To just append that line to VMX files found by a find you can use a loop.

# for i in `find . -iname '*.vmx'` ; do echo 'uuid.action = "move"' >> $i ; done

astorrs

Shouldn't uuid.action = "move" really be uuid.action = "keep" ?

jibbajabba

astorrs wrote: »

Shouldn't uuid.action = "move" really be uuid.action = "keep" ?

Yes and no .. it is fine if you never touch the VM anymore but it might cause issues when cloning at a later date ...

jibbajabba

MentholMoose wrote: »

Do you just want to append that line to the VMX files? Do you need to do anything with vmware-cmd? To just append that line to VMX files found by a find you can use a loop.

# for i in `find . -iname '*.vmx'` ; do echo 'uuid.action = "move"' >> $i ; done

Score - works like a charm - cheers

MentholMoose

Gomjaba wrote: »

Score - works like a charm - cheers

Great!!

astorrs

Gomjaba wrote: »

Yes and no .. it is fine if you never touch the VM anymore but it might cause issues when cloning at a later date ...

I think you misunderstood. I meant "move" isn't a valid parameter for uuid.action. The correct parameter (which equals choosing move in the vSphere Client GUI) is "keep".

VMX File Parameters

jibbajabba

astorrs wrote: »

I think you misunderstood. I meant "move" isn't a valid parameter for uuid.action. The correct parameter (which equals choosing move in the vSphere Client GUI) is "keep".

VMX File Parameters

lol - feel kinda stupid now ... you are of course right .. now I need a mass "sed" script *snigger* ....

MentholMoose

Gomjaba wrote: »

lol - feel kinda stupid now ... you are of course right .. now I need a mass "sed" script *snigger* ....

That is more dangerous, but I think the command below will do it. It will backup the original VMX file to *.backup, but make sure the sed installed on the COS supports -i (I don't have a test ESX server available right now, so I'm testing on Fedora 12 with some test files). Also maybe backup the VMX files yourself before continuing. With sed I matched on the entire line so there's less chance of the wrong line being changed.

# for i in `find . -iname '*.vmx'` ; do sed -e 's/^uuid.action\ =\ \"move\"$/uuid.action\ =\ \"keep\"/g' -i.backup $i; done

To delete the backup files:

# for i in `find . -iname '*.backup'` ; do rm $i ; done

jibbajabba

MentholMoose wrote: »

That is more dangerous, but I think the command below will do it. It will backup the original VMX file to *.backup, but make sure the sed installed on the COS supports -i (I don't have a test ESX server available right now, so I'm testing on Fedora 12 with some test files). Also maybe backup the VMX files yourself before continuing. With sed I matched on the entire line so there's less chance of the wrong line being changed.

# for i in `find . -iname '*.vmx'` ; do sed -e 's/^uuid.action\ =\ \"move\"$/uuid.action\ =\ \"keep\"/g' -i.backup $i; done

To delete the backup files:

# for i in `find . -iname '*.backup'` ; do rm $i ; done

Ah bless you lol .. I wasn't that serious when I said I have to use sed :P

I haven't used this in production and I knew I have to reinstall the test cluster anyway which is why I didn't bother

Thanks anyway for your continues help - much appreciated ...