Installation guide

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VMware ESX Server Administration Guide
• You can suspend a virtual machine at any desired point in its operation, then
lock in the suspended state at that chosen point. Any time you restart the virtual
machine, it resumes in the same state — the state it was in when you first
suspended it.
Note: You should not change a configuration file after you suspend a virtual
machine, since the virtual machine does not resume properly if the configuration file
is inconsistent with the suspended virtual machine. Also, you should not move any
physical disks or change the name of any VMFS file systems that the virtual machine
uses. If you do, the virtual machine will not be able to access its virtual disks when it
resumes.
You can also set the configuration of each virtual machine so the file that stores
information on the suspended state is saved in a location of your choice.
Setting the Suspend Directory
When a virtual machine is suspended, its state is written to a file with a .vmss
extension. By default, the .vmss file is written to a VMFS volume. Similarly, when a
virtual machine is being resumed, ESX Server looks for the .vmss file in the same
VMFS volume.
When you change the directory where the suspended state file for a virtual machine is
stored, the virtual machine must be powered off. Then follow these steps:
1. Log into the VMware Management Interface, then click the arrow to the right of
the terminal icon ( ) for the virtual machine you want to change and choose
Configure Options.