virtualizationvmware-esxwindowswindows 7windows-server-2008
I have a group of isolated virtual machines running on VMWare ESX server and connected to "host-only" vSwitch (it's not connected to any physical adapter).
All machines are running Windows Server 2008 R2 /Windows 7.
These machines are not network accessible, and I'm controlling them via vSphere Client Console (I need UI control).
Question is how to copy files from and to these machines from my local machine? (VMWare Tools and Drag&Drop doesn't work)
As long as you're only allowed one MAC address you are looking at some kind of NAT solution. Instead of using VMWare's builtin network config, I would add a 4th VM, and set it up with a light firewall applicance (The vmware appliance download page has several of these). Set up this VM as your single outside mac address and configure rules accordingly. This will give you more options than the builtin vmware networking options.
Still, the easy way is just do have them enable more mac addresses for you. Even if there's an added cost to this, i bet it beats a quirky network setup, especially in the long run.
Best Answer
Make the files you need to make available into a ISO file(s) then mount to the VM(s). Of course, once you have them on one machine, you can also just copy them around - you really only need to mount them once.
If you are using ESXi (cannot get directly to command line/file system by default), then you do need to use the management client to put the ISOs on the file system of the VM host (they can go anywhere - don't need to be in the default vmware-images directory), then mount to the guest(s).
FWIW: I don't recommend installing/configuring Shared Folders (vmware term of art) between guest and host as many security vulnerabilities have worked from that in the past. However, if the ISO method is not possible, that might be another way to solve this problem.