XenServer invoke shell commands in DomU

Question

Given a XenServer instance, is there a way to use XenAPI to invoke shell commands in a Windows DomU?

My purpose is to automate some guest actions in a Win7 guest. I have a Python script that uses XenAPI to snapshot some VMs. I want to automate some guest actions before the snapshot occurs.

My fallback plan is to just configure an SSH server in the guest, but I'd rather avoid that if possible.

Answer 1

I ended up just using PsExec. It's, imo, easier and cleaner than setting up sshd with cygwin.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897553.aspx

Of course this only works for Windows-to-Windows. Otherwise SSH is probably the better option.