Use Veeam FastSCP For Easy ESXi File Management
February 23rd, 2010 | 
Author: ESXi doesn’t have a Service Console like ESX. Therefore, you can’t SSH to the server without entering unsupported mode. That process may be a hassle if all you need to do is modify VM configuration files. Of ourse, you could use the Datastore Browser from the VI/vSphere Client, but to make file edits you would have to download a file to your desktop, edit it, and then upload the changed version back to ESXi again. On the other hand, with Veeam’s free FastSCP editing files on ESXi datastores is easy.
To be clear, you can’t edit configuration files of the ESXi host itself with FastSCP, but there really should not be a need to do so. That’s one of the benefits of ESXi not having a Service Console!
Download FastSCP here. You will have to register with Veeam first, and the registration form will not accept a personal email. I’m guessing there is some kind of lead qualification strategy and support registration involved with this requirement for download, but I learned a work address is unavoidable. I tried to use my gmail address but received a message similar to “you must use a company email address.” The registration process ends with a confirmation email to be acknowledged before you can download, so making up a fake email is futile. Hey, it’s a small price to pay for a free, quality admin tool.
After you install FastSCP you’ll discover you have access to a trial period of Veeam Backup and Replication. I suggest exploring
Veeam backups of virtual machines too, but that is a different topic.
Once you add your ESXi host (or vCenter Server if you have one) to FastSCP you can access the datastores and edit any file via a simple right click.
In the screen shot to the right I needed to edit the .vmx file of a couple of VMs so that nested guests could be started. Yes, these VMs had ESXi installed as the OS. In this scenario I had a ESXi 4 host acting as the physical host of a nested 2 host ESXi lab. I needed to add the appropriate configuration requirements to the .vmx files of each ESXi VM to be able to run guests on virtualized ESXi.
Veeam FastSCP has several other features that make it a tool worth adding to your arsenal:
- file transfers between Windows, ESX/ESXi hosts, and Linux hosts
- the ability to schedule file copies
- automatic disk space pre allocation when copying to ESX storage to prevent fragmentation
- email reporting
As VMware eventually phases out ESX classic and the Service Console, free tools like Veeam’s FastSCP will become a necessity for virtualization admins working with ESXi.
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Posted in esxi, sqlpass, virtualization, vmetc.com, vmware | 
Tags: esxi, fastscp, veeam, virtualization, vmware
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