Specifications

www.vmware.com
112
VMware GSX Server Administration Guide
Default Permissions
When you create a virtual machine with GSX Server on a Linux host, its configuration
file is assigned the following default permissions, based on the user accessing it:
• Read, execute and write (7) — for the user who created the configuration file
(the owner)
• Read and execute (5) — for the primary group to which the owner belongs
• Read (4) — for users other than the owner or a member of the owner's group
When you first install the GSX Server software and run the configuration program
vmware-config.pl, you can set these permissions for any existing virtual
machine configuration files. If you plan to use a virtual machine and its configuration
file you created in other VMware products with GSX Server, you must open the
configuration file (choose File > Open Virtual Machine) in order to connect to the
virtual machine from the VMware Virtual Machine Console or the VMware
Management Interface, then set the default permissions as above.
Creating Virtual Machines on NFS Shares
If the virtual machine is located on an NFS share, make sure the root user has access to
the location of the virtual machine files. Otherwise, you may encounter problems
configuring the virtual machine.
If you create a virtual machine on an NFS share to which the root user has no access,
certain operations do not work when the virtual machine is not running. For example,
you cannot revert to a snapshot, add or remove devices to or from the virtual
machine, or otherwise change the virtual machine’s configuration.
Checking Permissions in the VMware Management Interface
The VMware Management Interface lists the permissions you have for each
configuration file on the host machine to which you are connected. The permissions
appear on the Users and Events page for each virtual machine. For more information,
see Viewing a List of Connected Users on page 139.
Only virtual machines for which you have read access are visible to you in the VMware
Management Interface.
Securing Your Remote Sessions
The username, password and network packets sent to the GSX Server host over a
network connection when using the VMware Virtual Machine Console or the VMware
Management Interface are encrypted in GSX Server by default. As the Administrator
user (Windows hosts) or root user (Linux hosts), you can disable Secure Sockets Layer
(SSL) if you do not want to encrypt these sessions.