VMware just released a new SDK specifically for virtual hard disks manipulation.
The Virtual Disk Development Kit (VDDK) includes:
- The Virtual Disk library, a set of C function calls to manipulate virtual disk (VMDK) files.
- C++ code samples that you can build with either Visual Studio or the GNU C compiler.
- Virtual Disk Manager utility to manipulate offline VMDK files on Windows or Linux (clone, create, relocate, rename, grow, shrink, or defragment).
- DiskMount utility to access files and file systems in virtual disks on Windows or Linux.
- Documentation about the Virtual Disk library and the command-line utilities.
The move seems part of an effort began with the announcement of VMsafe: VMware is opening its infrastructure to 3rd party security vendors, which can access the virtual machines without the direct interaction.
VMware itself suggests to consider the use of this VDDK to achieve goals like:
- Creation of virtual machine disk files to store backup of physical images
- Read access to virtual disk, enabling off-line centralized anti-virus scanning of virtual machines
- Write access to virtual disk, enabling off-line centralized patching of virtual machines
- Read access to virtual disk, enabling off-line software package analysis of virtual machines
Download it here.