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VMware Workstation: Using the REST api with powershell

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Hi,

the most did not know that VMware Workstation has a API interface to dealing with it.

The rest api is not enabled by default. The vmrest process must start manually. Start vmrest with the parameter -C to ask for a user and password which must be used to access the api.

Set credentials

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D:\> "C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation\vmrest.exe" -C

Start Rest Api

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D:\> "C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation\vmrest.exe"
VMware Workstation R01 REST API
Copyright (C) 2018-2022 VMware Inc.
All Rights Reserved
 
vmrest 1.2.1 build-20089737
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Using the VMware Workstation R01 UI while API calls are in progress is not recommended and may yield unexpected results.
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Serving HTTP on 127.0.0.1:8697
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Here you find the documentation

Enter the credentials as defined in the last step and define a HTTP authorization header

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$sUser=myUser
$sPassword=mySecretPassword
$oHeader = @{ "Authorization" = ("Basic {0}" -f ([System.Convert]::ToBase64String([System.Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetBytes(("{0}:{1}" -f $sUser,$sPassword))))) }

Set the content type and passes the header and content type to Invoke-RestMethod. Test it and get a list of all VMs:

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$sRequestType = "application/json"
PS D:\> Invoke-RestMethod -Uri http://localhost:8697/api/vms -Method GET -ContentType $sRequestType -Header $oHeader
 
id                               path
--                               ----
8EOQMINAG9CUDK2A7IVJLL15CS819MFJ C:\Users\Public\Documents\Shared Virtual Machines\Win\Windows 10 x64\Windows 10 x64.vmx
6KEU6BTJQ8KTG91LATPTF81T7BDU40UK C:\Users\Public\Documents\Shared Virtual Machines\Kali\Kali -  OpenVAS.vmx

And get the details of a VM

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PS D:\> Invoke-RestMethod -Uri http://localhost:8697/api/vms/8EOQMINAG9CUDK2A7IVJLL15CS819MFJ -Method GET -ContentType $sRequestType -Header $oHeader

or LAN interface

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PS D:\> Invoke-RestMethod -Uri http://localhost:8697/api/vms/8EOQMINAG9CUDK2A7IVJLL15CS819MFJ/nic -Method GET -ContentType $sRequestType -Header $oHeader

or the IP Address

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PS D:\> Invoke-RestMethod -Uri http://localhost:8697/api/vms/8EOQMINAG9CUDK2A7IVJLL15CS819MFJ/ip -Method GET -ContentType $sRequestType -Header $oHeader
 
ip
--
192.168.254.1

Michael

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