Download of VM files starting with a period is not possible

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• Virtual machine files starting with a period (.) character are not be visible in the Datastore Browser, as a result you are not able to download the files using the Datastore Browser.
• The same issue may be observed if you use the vSphere SDK GetVMFiles.java example to download virtual machine files of a virtual machine starting with a period (.) character.

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 6.5.x
VMware vCenter Server 6.7.x
VMware vCenter Server 7.0.x
VMware vCenter Server 6.0.x

Cause

Files starting with a period (.) character are considered hidden.

Resolution

• Do not use a virtual machine naming convention where the virtual machine names begin with a period (.) character.
• If you know the exact URL to the virtual machine file, you can use a GET HTTP request to download it.
• You can use vSphere API VirtualMachineFileLayoutEx to collect all virtual machine files, then generate their URLs and download the files the same way as in the vSphere SDK GetVMFiles.java example, using GET HTTP requests.

Additional Information

For guidance on how to run the GetVMFiles code, see code.vmware.com - getvmfiles.