What is a helper VM? It is a VM that helps you the VMware admin perform certain tasks to you production VM’s. The helper VM is a Windows 2003 R2 Server VM that for the most part is turned off until you need it. It is not on the network so it doesn’t need to be updated or virus scanned. What this VM allows you to do is simple tasks such as growing a system disk of another VM. I have another BLOG that goes into further detail of how to extend a system disk using a Helper VM.
The spec’s for a help VM is of course a VM with a 10-20 GB hard drive and 256 MB RAM. Once the server is built, you can apply the latest updates and then remove the NIC. It does not need to be on the domain or even have a password. I always leave it powered off until I need it.
Another good use of this machine is to aid in recovering a failed VM; you can connect the failed machines vmdk file and manipulate the file system like you would back in the NT4 days. I have used this machine several times to recover machines that have failed during the convert process, due to driver issues or incorrect entries in the boot.ini files.
All in all this a great tool to have in your admin tool belt. It has been very useful to me in the past and I will continue to use it in the future.
Will Turbeville, eGroup
