Specifications

Procedure
1 Run the vmplayer command and specify the URL of the virtual machine.
Both HTTP and HTTPS are supported.
Option Description
Windows host
vmplayer.exe http://path_to_vm.vmx
Linux host
vmplayer http://path_to_vm.vmx
2 Select the virtual machine and select Player > Power > Power On.
Player fetches virtual disk data on demand so that you can begin using the virtual machine before it
finishes downloading. The status bar indicates the progress of the download. When you point to the
VM streaming icon on the status bar, a tooltip indicates whether streaming is active and provides the
URL of the Web server.
Make a Virtual Machine Available for Streaming
You can make a virtual machine available for streaming from a Web server.
Prerequisites
n
(Optional) To improve streaming performance, use Virtual Disk Manager (vmware-diskmanager) to
compress the virtual disk (.vmdk) files for the virtual machine. See the Virtual Disk Manager User’s Guide
for more information. This guide is available on the VMware Web site.
n
If the virtual machine has any snapshots, delete them.
Procedure
1 Configure the Web server to support HTTP keep-alive connections.
Option Description
Apache HTTP Server 1.2 and later
Turn the KeepAlive option on, set MaxKeepAliveRequest to 2000 to 5000,
and set KeepAliveTimeout to 2000 to 5000 seconds, depending on server
load.
Microsoft Internet Information
Services (IIS) 6.0 or later
Set the connection timeout to a value above 300 seconds and load HTTP
Keep-Alives.
2 If you use a proxy server, set the proxy connection to Keep-alive.
3 Upload the virtual machines directory to the Web server.
Do not compress the directory. Depending on the size of the virtual machine, downloading a virtual
machine in a .zip or .tar file from a Web server can take a considerable amount of time.
After it is uploaded to the Web server, users can use a URL to stream the virtual machine and start it in
Player.
Enable Autologon in a Windows Virtual Machine
With Autologon, you can save your login credentials and bypass the login dialog box when you power on a
Windows virtual machine. The guest operating system securely stores the password.
Use the Autologon feature if you restart the guest operating system frequently and want to avoid entering
your login credentials. You can also use the Autologon feature to grant users access to the guest operating
system without sharing your password.
Chapter 4 Using Virtual Machines
VMware, Inc. 41