Installing the VDDK Package

The VDDK is packaged as an executable installer for Windows, including 64-bit libraries, or a compressed archive for Linux, with separate 32-bit and 64-bit packages. It includes the following components:

■	Header files vixDiskLib.h and vm_basic_types.h in the include directory.

■	Function library vixDiskLib.lib (Windows) or libvixDiskLib.so (Linux) in the lib directory.

■	HTML reference documentation and sample program in the doc directory.

To install the package on Windows

1	On the Download page, choose the binary .exe for Windows and download it to your desktop.

2	Run or double-click the downloaded .exe installer.

3	Follow the on-screen instructions.

To unpack Windows 64-bit Libraries

1	Install VDDK on Windows as above.

2	Find vddk64.zip in the install directory, which by default is: C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Virtual Disk Development Kit\bin

3	Unzip this into a location of your choice, taking care not to overwrite any existing files. Do not select the above bin directory as the extraction target!

4	You should see bin and lib directories. You can build your VixDiskLib and VixMntapi code against these. Be sure to add the bin directory to the Path when you run your binary.

To Install the package on Linux

1	On the Download page, choose the binary tar.gz for either 32-bit Linux or 64-bit Linux.

2	Unpack the archive, which creates the vmware-vix-disklib-distrib subdirectory.

tar xvzf VMware-vix-disklib.*.tar.gz

3	Change to that directory and run the installation script as the superuser:

cd vmware-vix-disklib-distrib

sudo ./vmware-install.pl

4	Read the license terms and type yes to accept them. Software components install in /usr unless you specify otherwise.

You might need to edit your LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment to include the library installation path, /usr/lib/vmware-vix-disklib/lib32 (or lib64) for instance. Alternatively, you can add the library location to the list in /etc/ld.so.conf and run ldconfig as the superuser.

Repackaging VDDK Libraries

After you develop an application based on VDDK, you might need the VDDK binaries to run your application.

As described in Redistributing VDDK Components, partners can sign a license agreement to redistribute VDDK binaries that support VADP applications.

To enable VDDK binaries on Windows virtual machines without VDDK installed

Install the Microsoft Visual C++ (MSVC) redistributable, possibly as a merge module. The latest MSVC runtime works as side-by-side component, so manually copying it might not work on Vista. See details on the Microsoft Web site for the redistributable package, x86 processors or x64 processors. Side-by-side is also explained on the Microsoft Web site.

2	Install VMware executables and DLLs from the \bin and \lib folders of the installed VDDK, and the vstor2-mntapi10.sys driver into the Windows\system32\drivers folder or equivalent.

3	Create and install your application, compiled in a manner similar to the vixDiskLibSample.exe code, discussed in Virtual Disk API Sample Code.

How to Find VADP Components

ESX/ESXi hosts and vCenter Server similarly implement managed objects that support inventory traversal and task requests. Before you write VADP software in Java, you need to download the vSphere Web Services SDK. You can find documentation and ZIP file for download on the VMware Web site.