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VMCI Sockets Documentation

The Virtual Machine Communication Interface (VMCI) supports fast and efficient communication between a guest virtual machine and its host server, or between multiple virtual machines on the same host.

VMCI Sockets 1.0

Released 21 May 2009
First released 23 Sept 2008

The VMCI sockets library provides a communications API similar to Berkeley UNIX sockets and Windows sockets. It is available with ESX/ESXi 4, VMware Workstation 6.5, and VMware Server 2. You can program VMCI sockets using C or C++.

The VMCI Sockets header file is installed with VMware Tools on guest virtual machines, or under the VMware directory on Windows hosts.

Documentation

Release Notes
Describes new features and known problems.

VMCI Sockets Programming Guide
Shows how to write or port applications for VMCI sockets.

Legacy VMCI API

Released 26 May 2008

VMCI was included as an experimental feature with VMware Tools in Workstation 6.0.x, but deprecated with the release of VMCI Sockets. Bindings were provided for C and C++. VMware Tools installed a README and two sample applications.

Documentation

VMCI API Reference
Overview and reference for the functions, types, and error codes.

Last updated 29 April 2009 5:00 pm