$ gem install vixen

Currently, the vixen executable only lists the currently running virtual machines. Much work on the executable remains.

[~]$ vixen
[00:00:00] Connecting to local host
[00:00:00] centos-5.8-pe-2.5.3-vmware.vmx
[00:00:01] CentOS 5.6 64-bit.vmx
[00:00:01] Found 2 running virtual machines

• View running VMs
• Control power state (on, off, suspend, reset) of VMs
• Viewing the current snapshot
• Creating snapshots

Vixen currently only supports running on Mac OS X or Linux.

Windows support will require two libraries; one each from the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the Windows VMware VIX SDK. These will need to be placed into ext/windows/i386 and ext/windows/x86_64 respectively, and Vixen::Bridge will use Facter to determine which operating system and architecture version of the library to load.

If using Vixen on the same machine as the virtual machine host, you can simply use Vixen.local_connect

require 'vixen'

host = Vixen.local_connect

If using Vixen to connect to a remote host (VMware Server, ESXi, vSphere, etc), use Vixen.connect

require 'vixen'

server_type = Vixen::Constants::VixServiceProvider[:vmware_vi_server]
host = Vixen.connect server_type, <hostname>, <port>, <username>, <password>

Both of these will return a Vixen::Model::Host object.

Host currently supports the following actions:

• open_vm
• running_vms
• paths_of_running_vms

require 'vixen'

host = Vixen.local_connect
machines = host.running_vms

machines.each do |vm|
  puts "Current Snapshot: #{vm.current_snapshot}"
end

Opening a virtual machine does not start the virtual machine, but creates an object that you can use to interrogate properties of the virtual machine. The virtual machine could be started by using this object, (see Vixen::Model::VM#power_on).

Vixen can also be used on virtual machines that are not currently active:

require 'vixen'

host = Vixen.local_connect

path = '/Users/jeff/Documents/Virtual Machines/win2003sat.vmwarevm/Windows Server 2003 Enterprise x64 Edition.vmx'

vm = host.open_vm path

puts vm.current_snapshot

If all you are interested is the path (of the .vmx file) of the running virtual machines, you may use paths_of_running_vms, which is much lighter weight than running_vms.

require 'vixen'

host = Vixen.local_connect

paths = host.paths_of_running_vms

paths.each do |path|
  puts "Currently running: #{path}"
end

VM currently supports the following actions:

• current_snapshot
• create_snapshot
• revert_to_snapshot
• remove_snapshot
• Power Operations
  • power_on
  • power_off
  • suspend
  • resume
  • reset
• Querying current power state
  • powered_off?
  • suspended?
  • powered_on?
  • current_power_states - a VM may be concurrently have multiple power states

Snapshot currently supports the following actions:

• display_name - the short text title given to a snapshot
• description - the lengthy text, if any, given to a snapshot
• parent - the parent snapshot, if any
• full_name - the full name of the snapshot (traverses parent hierarchy)

The VIX API allows for progress callbacks which Vixen exposes through the use of blocks passed to the method.

require 'rubygems'
require 'vixen'

#Vixen.logger.level = Logger::DEBUG
start = Time.now

def elapsed_time(start)
  "[%s]" % (Time.at(Time.now - start).utc.strftime '%T')
end

host = Vixen.local_connect

vm = host.open_vm '/Users/jeff/Desktop/centos-5.8-pe-2.5.3-vmware/centos-5.8-pe-2.5.3-vmware.vmx' do |*args|
  print "\r#{elapsed_time(start)} waiting for my vm to open"
  $stdout.flush
end

vm.resume do |*args|
  print "\r#{elapsed_time(start)} resuming..."
  $stdout.flush
end
puts

previous_snapshot = vm.current_snapshot

puts "#{elapsed_time(start)} previous_snapshot: #{previous_snapshot}"

snapshot_name = "vixen-created #{Time.now}"
new_snapshot = vm.create_snapshot snapshot_name do |*args|
  print "\r#{elapsed_time(start)} creating snapshot: #{snapshot_name}"
  $stdout.flush
end
puts

vm.revert_to_snapshot previous_snapshot do |*args|
  print "\r#{elapsed_time(start)} reverting to #{previous_snapshot}..."
  $stdout.flush
end
puts

vm.suspend do |*args|
  print "\r#{elapsed_time(start)} suspending..."
  $stdout.flush
end
puts

produces output like

$ ruby vixen-example.rb          
[00:00:00] waiting for my vm to open
[00:00:02] resuming...
[00:00:02] previous_snapshot: vixen-created
[00:02:18] creating snapshot: vixen-created Tue Nov 20 02:18:04 -0800 2012
[00:02:33] reverting to vixen-created...
[00:02:36] reverting to vixen-created...
[00:02:38] suspending...

• Official VMware VIX 1.12 documentation