Restricting a Virtual Machine Configuration with a Custom Password

Parallels Desktop Business Edition provides you with the ability to protect the configuration of a virtual machine with a custom password. When a password is set, even a local Mac administrator will be required to enter it in order to modify virtual machine settings.

Using the Parallels Desktop graphical user interface to set the password

To set a password in the Parallels Desktop graphical user interface:

1. Open Parallels Desktop and select a virtual machine.
2. On the Parallels Desktop menu bar, select Actions > Configure to open the virtual machine configuration dialog.
3. Select Security.
4. Click the Custom password: Turn On... button.
5. Enter a password, then enter it again to verify and click OK.

To change or remove the password:

• To change the password, click the Change Password button and follow the instructions on the screen.
• To remove the password, click Custom password: Turn Off and follow the instructions on the screen.

If the password is set and the user tries to view or modify the virtual machine configuration, they will be required to enter this custom password.

Using the command line utility to set the password

In addition to the graphical user interface, you can use the prlctl command-line utility to set a custom password for editing the virtual machine configuration.

Note: The command option described below is available since Parallels Desktop 15. Older versions of Parallels Desktop used the --password-to-edit option, which is no longer supported.

To set the password, type the following command in Terminal:

prlctl set "vm_name" --custom-pwd

where vm_name is the virtual machine name in quotes. You'll be asked to enter a password and then confirm it.

To change or remove the password, type the same command as above:

prlctl set "vm_name" --custom-pwd

You'll be asked to enter the current password and then a new password.

To view the current protection status for a virtual machine, type the following command:

prlctl list "vm_name" -i

In the output, search for the Security section and look at the Custom password protection property. It will be either set to "on" or "off".

Using the mass deployment process to set the password

If you are mass deploying Parallels Desktop and one or more virtual machines, you can simply set the custom password in the source virtual machine. When a virtual machine is deployed on Mac computers, the password will be retained.

Note: Prior to Parallels Desktop 15, the custom password needed to be set in the deploy.cfg file (a part of the Parallels Desktop deployment package) using the password-to-edit parameter. The parameter is no longer supported.

Notes

You can only set or remove the password in Parallels Desktop Business Edition. However, if the password is set and the virtual machine is opened in the Parallels Desktop Home Edition, the password will continue to work (i.e the virtual machine configuration will remain locked).