Customizing virtual machine settings (VMware Desktop)

The customization options that are available through the VMware Desktop (Fusion and Workstation) are somewhat limited in comparison to VirtualBox. VMware does not publish a documented API to control virtual machines in the desktop environment (the Vagrant documentation only provides a firm example to configure the amount of RAM and CPU).

This example will demonstrate configuring RAM and CPU using the VMware Fusion provider.

Getting ready

Modifying runtime parameters of a virtual machine are dependent on the commands exposed by the hypervisor application. In the case of VMware Desktop products, this takes the form of key/value pairs that the runtime maintains in a vmx file. Vagrant essentially modifies this file prior to booting the machine, as such, it is possible to overwrite parameters that Vagrant uses to manage the machine, or even parameter settings required for the virtual machine to operate.

As we proceed through this example, also...