Enable copy/paste on the console of a VMware ESXI virtual machine

If you use virtual machines hosted on a VMware ESXI hypervisor , here is a little tip that should make your life easier.

Indeed, it is not originally possible to use copy / paste between your computer and the console of your virtual machine , but it can be rather useful (to copy a strong password for example ).
To activate this feature, there are two solutions: either activate it only within a virtual machine in its settings, or within the host ESXI, thus activating this feature for all virtual machines hosted.

Within a virtual machine

Connect to the ESXI (or the VSphere managing your hypervisor) via the web interface, then:

• Shut down the virtual machine
• Click on “Edit settings”
• Go to the “VM Options” tab
• Then in the “Advanced” section, click on “Change configuration”
• Then add 3 lines of configuration parameters:

isolation.tools.copy.disable                        false

isolation.tools.paste.disable                       false

isolation.tools.setGUIOptions.enable                true

• Commit changes
• Start the virtual machine

You can now copy content from your desktop to your virtual machine console!

Within ESXI – Applied to all VMs

Connect in SSH to the hypervisor (using Putty for example), as root

• In the /etc/vmware folder, make a backup of the config file
  • cp config config_old
• Edit the config file
  • vi config
• Add the following lines:

vmx.fullpath = « /bin/vmx »

isolation.tools.copy.disable="FALSE"

isolation.tools.paste.disable="FALSE"

Save the file: Esc then:wq!

When restarting each of your virtual machines, the copy paste will finally be available on these machines hosted on your ESXI!

Note that there may be a delay before this modification is taken into account (sometimes 24 hours)