VMware Communities : Thread List - vSphere Client Plug-ins

Plugin name and description do not show correctly within Plug-in Manager Window

xsigo — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 19:28:54 GMT

sucessfully registered my plug in to vsphere; however, plugin name, vender and description do not show correctly.

name become app, vender is empty and desciption is app

here is my scriptConfig

<scriptConfiguration version="4.0">
<key>com.xsigo.xmsweb.app</key>
<description>Xsigo Virtual I/O Management System Plug-in</description>
<name>Xsigo Virtual I/O Management Plug-in</name>
<vendor>Xsigo, Inc.</vendor>
<view parent="Inventory.Global">
<url>https://null/xms/jsf/config/overview.jsf</url>
<icon>https://null/xms/img/xgicon.png</icon>
<title locale="en">Virtual I/O</title>
</view>
<view parent="Inventory.Datacenter">
<url>https://null/xms/jsf/config/AllServers.jsf</url>
<title locale="en">Virtual I/O</title>
</view>
<view parent="Inventory.HostSystem">
<url>https://null/xms/jsf/config/AllServerProfiles.jsf</url>
<title locale="en">Virtual I/O</title>
</view>
</scriptConfiguration>

Please help.

Proper XML for config and extension...

mikes113 — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:13:21 GMT

Going through all of the documentation the one thing that seems incredibly lacking is configuration of the necessary XML files. I have a test plugin that I have done in C#, when I copy the DLL's to the plugins path it shows up in vSphere and works as expected. Now what I want to do is make it so that I can have a "Download and Install" link inside the download manager through vCenter.

I have managed to get an extension added to vCenter and it will show up in the plugins list, but how do I get the required files (I already have created an installer for them) down to the client from vCenter? This would be the same kind of behavior as the enterprise converter, which I have tried to dig into, but I can't find the appropriate files.

Sorry if this is a bit of a newb type question, but I am not seeing much documentation on this anywhere, and wherever it does exist, it's not very good to explain the different options.

Extend VM Creation

mikes113 — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:16:38 GMT

Basically I would like to create a plugin that hides the "New Virtual Machine" wizard and implements a custom wizard for VM creation that is stripped down and modified so that we can create new VM's and automatically allocate resources and choose storage locations, among other things, based on a few basic inputs in the wizard. This plugin would be a .Net plugin.

Based on the document here however http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-10859 it appears adding to the inventory is not allowed so creating this kind of plugin would not be possible. If someone could let me know if my suspicions are correct or not it would be greatly appreciated. If it is not the case and this plugin would in fact be possible, how would you actually create the VM from the plugin? I have been searching through the API documentation and have not bee able to find anything.

Thanks in advance!

Coffee Talk Webinar - Creating vSphere Client Plugins - Wed December 2rd, 2009 9:00 AM PST

heyitspablo — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 01:04:46 GMT

Folks,

We are happy to have Nimish from the R&D team present this very popular session on creating vSphere Client Plugins. Please join us.
PDF, MP3 and Web Ex will be posted here right after webinar.

Title: Creating vSphere Client Plug-ins
Abstract: VMware vSphere Client Plug-ins allows VMware partners/ customers to extend vSphere client by integrating with 3rd party applications. In this session you will understand capabilities of vSphere client's extensibility framework, best practices in development of plug-ins.
Level Advanced
Date: Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Time: 9:00 am, Pacific Standard Time (GMT -08:00, San Francisco)
Meeting Number: 921 448 054
Meeting Password: (This meeting does not require a password.)
Dial In: Toll free: 1-888-373-5705
Toll: 1-719-457-3840
Tie: 650-3310
Join Meeting: https://vmware.webex.com/vmware/j.php?ED=124086677&UID=0
Intl Toll Free: http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-11189

Message was edited by: heyitspablo Corrected date in subject line

Technology Exchange - Developer Day Session: Creating vSphere Client Plugins

heyitspablo — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 21:52:58 GMT

Folks - Happy to let you know that we will be having a session dedicated to creating vSphere Client Plugins - Dont miss out, we will also have opportunity for hands on labs and meet Nimish and Manas. Look forward to seeing you there.

Title: Creating vSphere Client Plug-ins
Session ID: TBD
Abstract
VMware vSphere Client Plug-ins allows VMware partners/ customers to extend vSphere client by integrating with 3rd party applications. In this session you will understand capabilities of vSphere client's extensibility framework, best practices in development of plug-ins and participate in hands-on demos.
Level Advanced

{youtube}http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Joc3ZFQyoCo{youtube}

Nimish Sheth
I have been at VMware for more than 2 years and am part of the vSphere client team. I have worked on vSphere client's plug-in framework in 2.5 and 4.0 releases. Apart from plug-ins, in 4.0 release I worked on UI design & development of Storage VMotion, Fault Tolerance and vNetwork Distributed Switch. I completed my Master's in Management Informations Systems (MIS) from Texas A & M in December 2005. When not working, I like playing cricket, tennis and listening to music.

Manas Kelshikar
I have been at VMware for 2 years and am part of the vSphere client team. I have worked on vSphere client's plug-in framework in the 4.0 release. I completed my Master's in Computer Engineering from Syracuse.

How to delete privileges registered by extensions?

Andulla — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:26:53 GMT

Hi,

we registered our plugin with a list of privileges as ExtensionPrivilegeInfo.

After deregistration the list of privilieges are not deleteted and i can find them in the AuthorizationManager inside the privilegeList

Inside the vSphere Client they are shown as XXX.privilege.XXX because of no longer registered Resource Infos.

How can i delete these custom privileges inside the privilegeList of the AuthorizationManager?

Get Context Menue Icons for Plugin?

Rossignol — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:18:35 GMT

Hi all,

just writing an plugin based on perl toolkit to do some scripting in virtual center directly.

Now it is possible to define an Icon for the Plugin in form of Icon small or icon extension.

But this works not for Context Menue entries. Would be so nice if you can define your own plugin icon,

first to differ from virtual center commands and second because there's place for icons as the're used by Vmware for Open Console, Edit Settings or migrate command for example in the VM Context Menue.

Does anybody knew a way to get this work... or is it not possible yet?

Any help would be appreciated...

Plugins wont load in vSphere client

Partridge — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 18:47:36 GMT

I'm having a difficult time getting plugins to load in the vSphere client on my workstation. I've cleaned out all installations of VMware software, and then reinstalled vSphere client to be sure that I am working in a clean environment. Connections at this point work fine, however if I attempt to load the plugin from SamplePlugin_40.zip none of it's extenions appear in the GUI, and it is not listed in the plugin manager.

Also, we've ported our VIClient plugin from 3.5 to vSphere, but when I load that on my workstation the tabs for inventory items do not appear. Instead I get a white panel saying "Required vSphere Client support files are missing. Restart vSphere Client to download and install missing files.". This works fine on other hosts, but fails on mine so I'm trying to isolate the location of the failure, such as a PATH conflict. Checking the vSphere Client output with Visual Studio doesn't indicate much though, it doesn't even look like the plugin is being loaded.

I am running vSphere Client 4.0.0 Build 162856. Has anyone else experienced either of these issues or can provide some insight. Thanks.

Flex Applications and Client Plug-ins

dcap — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 18:02:13 GMT

I sat in the ConfigControl presentation at VMworld and they mentioned the UI will be built in Flex. Will applications built in Flex be supported as part of the client plug-in framework?

error trying to retreive extensionlist

rickyelqasem — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 12:35:46 GMT

I'm try to retreive in c# the extsionlist where the plugins reside and failing. Can you help me? Here is s copy of my code:

_service = new VimService();
_service.Url = url;
_svcRef = new ManagedObjectReference();
_svcRef.type = "ServiceInstance";
_svcRef.Value = "ServiceInstance";
_service.CookieContainer = new System.Net.CookieContainer();
CreateServiceRef("ServiceInstance");
_sic = _service.RetrieveServiceContent(_svcRef);
_propCol = _sic.propertyCollector;
_rootFolder = _sic.rootFolder;

String userName = userTextBox.Text;
String password = passTextBox.Text;

if (_sic.sessionManager != null)
{
_service.Login(_sic.sessionManager, userName, password, null);
ManagedObjectReference extMOREF = _sic.extensionManager;

PropertySpec pSpec = new PropertySpec();
pSpec.type = "extensionList";
pSpec.all = true;
// pSpec.all = false;
//pSpec.pathSet = new string[] { "extensionList" };
ObjectSpec oSpec = new ObjectSpec();
oSpec.obj = _sic.extensionManager;

PropertyFilterSpec pfSpec = new PropertyFilterSpec();
pfSpec.propSet = new PropertySpec[] { pSpec };
pfSpec.objectSet = new ObjectSpec[] { oSpec };

ObjectContenthttp:// ocary = _service.RetrieveProperties(_propCol, new PropertyFilterSpechttp://] ocary = _service.RetrieveProperties(_propCol, new PropertyFilterSpec[ { pfSpec });

Ricky El-Qasem

VCI/VCP - MCSE - RHCT

CACHE.XML

LeeTheMC — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:04:13 GMT

I recently ran into a problem on two identical hosts where a plug-in that I am developing appeared as "Disabled" in the plug-in manager. Prior to this day, the plug-in has been working without any issues. When the user attempted to "Enable" the plug-in, it had no effect. The plug-in just stayed as "disabled."

I tried a number of different tweaks to get this working and I eventually found the file, C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Application Data\VMware\vpx\PluginCache\cache.xml. Once I deleted this file and re-loaded vSphere Client, the plug-in was enabled again. Upon exit of vSphere Client, this file was recreated again.

Can anyone describe the use of this file? Any insight into why it might force my plug-in to be disabled?

Create vm privileges

idanmnr — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 21:50:06 GMT

using the SDK, how can I find out if a user has priveleges to create a vm?

thanks

idan

Regarding C# client plugins

klotsky88 — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 15:35:07 GMT

The VMware site for client plugins states the following as a note under C# client plugins:

"Note: This plug-in style is deprecated. In the future, the C# API will not be used by VMware products. If you plan to build a vSphere Client plug-in, please see our community for information on which style of plug-in is right for you."

However, I havent found anything on the communities which directs me to the correct resource to develop a plugin which will be used by VMware products in the future.
Could anyone, tell or point me to the correct resource regarding plugin development ?

c# code needed to list plugins in extension manager!

rickyelqasem — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 20:59:07 GMT

Can you help me? I need code to list and unregister plugins in the extension manager.

Ricky El-Qasem

VCI/VCP - MCSE - RHCT

Plugin Wizard for vSphere

c_shanklin — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 17:01:24 GMT

Plugin Wizard for vSphere is a nice looking tool to help you plug web pages into vSphere.

Check it out at:

http://virtualizeplanet.com/blog/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=70&Itemid=40

=====
Carter Shanklin
Read the PowerCLI Blog
Follow me on Twitter

registering the nexus 1000v pllug-ing via MOB

c@v3m@n — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 00:06:12 GMT

Anyone know why we can register the Nexus 1000v plug-in properly via the vSphere client, but not via the MOB? I keep getting "InvalidRequest" when I try. Anyone who wants to take a crack at it can use the attached file.

Client Plugin Error

harkamal — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 15:03:38 GMT

Refering to Client Plugin SDK and Sample, I built a simple homeview plugin, it is loaded, and events fire as intended. But it also throws a strange error --"Error" :bject reference not set to an instance of an object.". Can someone help why ?

public class Plugin2 : Plugin {

public VIApp _viApp;

public void Load(VIApp app) {

// Test Loading

if (app == null) { throw new Exception("Plugin.Load() viApp is null.\nPlugin load failed"); }

_viApp = app;

// Test Menu

Extension ext = _viApp.NewExtension();

ext.Name = "PowerCLI";

ext.Activated += new ExtensionEvent(ext_Activated);

ext.Image = Properties.Resources.PowerCLI1;

_viApp.AddExtension("HomeView.Applications", ext);

}

void ext_Activated(Extension sender) {

try {

System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show("hi");

} catch { }

}

public void Unload() {

//_viApp = null;

}

Change multiple vmx files

Rob Pijpers — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 20:24:36 GMT

We have a lot of VMs that have disks on multiple LUNs.
Due to some storage migration activities I have to change in multiple vmx file the disk paths of the disks that are on other LUNs than the VMX file.
I was trying to get thing going with powershell, but hell this isn't easy despite the sample scripts from Hugo Peeters and others.
My powershell capabilities are limited yet, I need to change my vbscript knowledge to powershell.

Is there another easy way to get these paths changed, of course not by hand.

Regards,

Rob

Technology Exchange Developer Day - vSphere Client Plug-Ins Demo

navadavuluri — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 01:20:23 GMT

Hello,

We are happy to announce about our hands-on demo at Technology Exchange Developer Day 2009, vSphere Client Plug-Ins Demo

Presenters: Nimish Sheth and Manas Kelshikar

Demo ID: DS-01

Time: 5:45 - 6:45 PM

Abstract:
The vSphere Client Plug-in technology allows applications to extend the vSphere Client, displaying GUI objects
in tabs, responding to inventory actions and creating new drop-down menu items. In this demo we will show how
to create, deploy and run a script as well as .Net vSphere Client Plug-ins. We will also describe the various extension
points of the vSphere Client and demonstrate various features of the plug-in API.

VMware Server Plugin Registration

stryker23 — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 13:53:50 GMT

I have created a plugin according to the VMware Infrastructure 3.5 Plugin guide. I'm using virtual center 2.5. The plugin is written in C# and executes a powershell script to shutdown the VM's and then the esx servers. I can successfully register the plugin in individual VMs. Is it possible to register my plugin with Virtual Center and then be able to see it from all of the clients? The infrastructure guide is older and I can't find the sample code it references. The official vmware tech note says that the plugin must have a web interface. Is there anyway I can make my simple plugin available automatically? Does the plugin need to be written by some other means?

How to set the text in a window title bar

daz007 — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 18:33:15 GMT

I have a plugin command that uses the "window" attribute.

The window opens correctly, but it has a title of "Browser". Is there any way to set this? Setting the HTML title doesn't work?

Current version of the Plugin UI Guidelines

ejohannes — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 19:50:51 GMT

I have a copy of the "Virtual Infrastructure Client Plugin UI Guidelines" document. It is a draft version 0.3 dated July 2008.

I tired to search around for a more recent copy of this document but have not been able to find one.

Is there a more recent version of this document? If so where can I find it (it might be good to post a link or copy of it in this forum).

Thanks,

-Erik

Style Sheet meeting UI Guidelines for use with GWT

ejohannes — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 19:34:10 GMT

I am working on a plugin for the vCenter/vSphere client. I would like to make sure I comply with the UI Guidelines.

I am wondering if there is a style sheet (.css file) somewhere that complies with the VMWare Plugin UI Guidelines?

I am plannig on using GWT, so one that is perhaps specific to GWT and VMWare would be even better.

Thanks,

-Erik

p.s. I also posted this question to another vSphere forum. It was suggested that I post to this forum.

Session passing across popup windows

mkolcun — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 18:18:33 GMT

Is there any information on session passing between windows?

When I view my website from within vSphere I log in for the first time and everything works correctly.

When I click a link that pops up a window, I'm forced to login again, each time. It seems the session is not being passed to this new window.

Is there a way to fix this?

Thanks

/mike

Connection to Virtual Center lost

Partridge — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 15:01:42 GMT

I'm working on a plugin that communicates with a separate non-VMware webservice for some content. To do this I am using the typical System.Net.HttpWebRequest. However, occasionally when this plugin is in use I will get empty square error dialogs with no message and no explaination.

While debugging other operations I caught a few of these error and they are of type SSLSecurityException, with message: "The underlying connection was closed: Could not establish trust relationship for the SSL/TLS secure channel.", and on occasion I'll get the message that the connection to the VC is lost and the client must close. This error comes from operations on VMware Entities such as VirtualMachine.GetRuntime(). I understand that I should be catching this exception, but that's not my main concern which is that I need to know why this happens.

It seems like the connection to the VC is timing out or lost and I'm wondering if it is because of my other network operations. I run these web requests in a separate thread (actually a BackgroundWorker) so that the main thread keeps the GUI responsive, but I'm wondering if I am blocking the main VC connection somehow. Is there a different best practice for performing lengthy operations in a plugin?

Does anyone have experience with such a problem? Thanks.

-Partridge

Modal window does not work

vSphereFan — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 23:24:29 GMT

When attempting to create an extension that uses a modal window, vSphere opens a browser to display the url specified rather than displaying a window.

<title>Nested
menu-item</title>

<url>http://www.google.com/</url>

<title>Level 1 -
a</title>

<extension>
<title>Level 2 - a</title><url
display="window">http://www.google.com/</url>
</extension>

<extension>
<title>Level 2 - b</title><*url
display="modalwindow"*>http://www.google.com/</url>
</extension>

</extension>

<extension>
<title>Level 1 - b</title> <url
display="window">http://www.google.com/</url>
</extension>

<extension>
<title>Level 1 - c</title> <*url
display="modalwindow"*>http://www.google.com/</url>
</extension>

</extension>

Session/Cookie issue with VI Client Plug-ins

jx — Mon, 11 May 2009 00:09:02 GMT

All,

We developed a VI Client Plug-in for a web server for ours. The idea -apparently- is to let the VI admin to use the VI client application to manage our web site (the web server runs on a different machine). We install the plugin and the installation works fine. The new tab appears on the client view and the we can access the site - all looks OK.

Now here is the problem: Our web site has session management - the user has to login to the site first. When working from the VI plugin, if there is a popup window, the session becomes invalid for that popup!! When we looked a bit closer, it looks like the VI client is not sending the session cookie (*ASP.NET_SessionId*). So when the popup happens the webserver cannot recognize the session. However if we stay on base pages, everything works fine!

Have you guys faced this problem ?

How can I make the VI client to send cookies as part of popup request ?

Thanks

~jx

Package: com.vmware.vim25.mo

acnsys — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 15:28:59 GMT

Hi,

I follow the tutorial from Steve Jin (http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-5881) and when i try to edit the given code in Eclipse:

import com.vmware.vim25.mo.ManagedEntity;

import com.vmware.vim25.mo.ServiceInstance;

import com.vmware.vim25.mo.util.MorUtil;

i have an error:

The import com.vmware.vim25.mo cannot be resolved

As metionned in the tutorial i have added external libraries: Add External JARs... button on the right side pane, a JAR selection dialog box shows up. Just navigate to the WEB-INFO/lib directory and include all the jar files there. But still... See screenshot for all the details.

What am i missing?

Thanks

Invalid URI: The URI is empty

arun15thmay — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 06:18:01 GMT

Hello Ppl,

I'm getting this error when i was trying to Download and Install a plugin from the Available plugins list. This is the config xml file for my plugin

<scriptConfiguration version="1.0">

<key>com.abc.ipaddresslist</key>
<description>Plug-in Displays IP Address of all VM</description>
<name>IP Address List Plug-in</name>
<vendor>ABC</vendor>
<multiVCsupported>false</multiVCsupported>
<extension parent=InventoryView.HostSystem>
<title locale="en">IP Address List</title>
<url display="window">http://10.31.245.28:8080/IPAddressList/index.jsp</url>
</extension>
</scriptConfiguration>

Can anyone tell what is the issue with this?

Actually I'm trying to add a tab to the InventoryView.HostSystem that would display all the IPAddresses used in the ESX Server. I think there are errors in this config file. Please help me in this.

Refresh Issue with the plugin

ssbangal — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 06:14:50 GMT

Hi,

I have developed a plugin (ASP.NET application), which i have successfully registered and everything is working fine. The plug-in is registered to show at the "Cluster" level.

Let's say I open up the vSphere client, go to the new plug-in tab for "Cluster 1" and do some operations in the plug-in. Then let's say I click on the second cluster "Cluster 2" and come back to "Cluster 1". In this case the data that is being shown for the Plug-in is the old one, which was retrieved when the plug-in was initially loaded. The data that was changed after the operations is not at all reflected. The only time it reflects is when I do a complete refresh of the plug-in using F5. But if I go to some other tab on the same cluster and come back to my Plug-in tab, i do not see this issue. It happens only when i move to another cluster and come back to the original cluster. It is as if vSphere is remembering my first viewstate (when it was initially loaded) and displaying it back.

Any clue on how to fix this issue?

Regards,
Sudhir

using the moref information received in the url

idanmnr — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 05:28:37 GMT

part of the url includes moref information, moref type and the object value.

How can I get a reference to the moref using the value from the url.

I am using the VI SDK in .NET

In the samples they show how to get a ref to an object given the object name, but how do I get an object using the value?

I am not using the Java API Toolkit

I am not using the .NET API Toolkit

Thank you

Idan

VimAPI works but Vim25Api doesn't

idanmnr — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 00:34:25 GMT

I am using the std VI SDK .NET.

built the stubs and dlls for both VimAPI and the Vim25Api.

using the VimAPI - everything works.

using the Vim25API - connection fails becasue of SSL error.

"A certificate chain processed correctly, but terminated in a root certificate which isn't trusted by the trust provider"

My VC server is version 4.

is ther any settings i need to check for? on the client side ? on the server side?

I tried to register the VC server certificate, but that did bnot solve the proplem

please help.

Thanks

Invalid URI: the URI is empty

daniel_uk — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 09:48:26 GMT

Hi,

Strange I get the attached error...this is for the Nexus 1000v Plugin.

Any ideas why this is and how i can download the client?

new vm advanced options - virtual device node

idanmnr — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 13:03:12 GMT

when creating a new vm, in the advanced options, the virtual device node has 2 options:

SCSI and IDE.

for some guest OSs, the default is IDE and for some its SCSI.

where in the SDK is it defined?

How can I find out for which guest OS the default setting is ISE and for which the default setting is SCSI?

is it in the GuestOSDescriptor? which property?

Thanks

idanmnr

How to conditionally display a menu or view for a distributed virtual switch (DVS)

Jalaja — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 05:11:56 GMT

Hello,

I have used the customAttribute to conditionally display views for Virtual Machines and hosts , but it does not work for Distributed Virtual Switch (unable to add custom attributes). Could you please let me know if there is any other way to achieve the same.

Regards,
Jalaja.

Need some help getting started

daz007 — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 16:06:10 GMT

I have VMware Infrastructure Client 2.5.0 installed, and want to create a simple plugin.

I have a Tomcat server running which contains my configuration xml, and my content.

I registered my plugin successfully, and see the plugin installed and enabled in the Plugin Manager.

In the trace log, I see the xml file being pulled successfully from my app server, but that is the last reference to my plugin.

The XML file defines an extension with parent="InventoryView.Datastore".

The problem is, I don't see any difference in the GUI? I was expecting to see an extra tab when I select a DataStore, but it looks exactly the same.

Has anyone managed to get this working, or have any other ideas?

How to obtain valid ManagedObject and\or HostSystem objects?

LeeTheMC — Tue, 19 May 2009 16:58:49 GMT

During the port of a plug-in from VI Client to vSphere Client I have run into one blocking issue that greatly affects us. We create a new extension (tab) in the context of ESX hosts. Appropriately, we implement the HostView_ContextChanged(Extension sender) method to respond to the ContextChanged event. The problem is that I can't seem to obtain a proper HostSystem object so that I can call GetDatastore() to obtain a list of the datastores for that host. From the 'Extension sender' parameter I am able to get the ManagedObjectReference and then I use it in the same fashion as your sample code to obtain the actual ManagedObject.

string guid = VirtualInfrastructure.ManagedObject.ToGuid(mMOR.ServerUuid, mMOR.WsdlTypeName, mMOR.Id);

VirtualInfrastructure.ManagedObject mo = mService.ManagedObjectsguid;

Vmomi.HostSystem host = mo as Vmomi.HostSystem;

Unfortunately, although the HostSystem appears to be valid, I get an access violation when I attempt to call GetDatastore() on the object. I believe this is because internally the objects 'Inventory' pointer is NULL (but that is just conjecture). Is there a better, valid way to obtain this HostSystem object for us to use?

I noticed another line of code in your sample plug-in that is commented out.

Utils.ToManagedObject(mor, ((InventoryImpl)mVIApp.Inventory).Service);

Unfortunately, that method appears to be protected and I can't access it. I've tried numerous ways that worked with VI Client and some new ways that I had hoped would work with vSphere Client, but unfortunately I can't get by this problem. Can someone please provide me with some guidance on this? Thank you.

How do I use the sessionId parameter?

daz007 — Sun, 31 May 2009 06:40:27 GMT

I want to call the vSphere webservices API from within my plugin web application, and was hoping that this session ID would allow me to call into it without having to supply the username/password.

Is there a way to do this? Can someone point me in the right direction?

Realign

fletch00 — Fri, 29 May 2009 00:00:51 GMT

Hi,
I have a whole bunch of misaligned VMs and the Netapp tool requires shutting then all down to align them.
Could VMWare make a SVMotion plugin with the option to properly align on the destination volume?

thanks!

VCP

RDP Plug IN

stationjj — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 04:58:48 GMT

Hello,

Can anyone please give point me to a current link to download the RDP Plugin?

I can't find it on H9labs.com and it seems that Juxtaposition Tech is out of business.

Google searchs turned up nothing current.

I feel I am missing something here, as I am a Vmware ESX newbie?

Thank You,

John

How to debug vi-plugin using visual studio

harkamal — Mon, 11 May 2009 12:01:05 GMT

How can I debug vi-plug ins (which are .dll project) and are loaded into vpxclient.exe process ???

Using visual studio 2008, anyone ?

C# ExtensionManager returning null

fionafishner — Mon, 11 May 2009 12:05:44 GMT

I am trying to register a server extension manager and it returns null ? why

ff

An error occured during conversion of soap object to C# stub

abhinagar — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 04:19:02 GMT

Hello,

I have created a plugin which basically runs a wizard.In the wizard when I click next( to view host information - retrieved from backend) it shows as error message -
An error occured during conversion of soap object to C# stub

I am attaching a snapshot of the same.

If anyone knows the reason for this error and the solution,please do post.

Thanks

Plugin - first code

fionafishner — Wed, 06 May 2009 15:29:15 GMT

hi,

having my first steps with viplugins, can someone help with getting rid of SSL errors while connecting to https://viserver/sdk:443

fiona

Source of plugin invocation

vifan — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 13:36:22 GMT

Hi,

I want to have a plugin which can be invoked either from a right-click pop-up menu from the inventory tree or from a tab. The content of the plugin will be different based on how the plugin was invoked (i.e. from the inventory tree or a tab). How can this be achieved?

Thanks,

vifan

Convert a Script to a pluggin

gboskin — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 10:07:10 GMT

I have recently written a modified a reporting script ( PowerShell @ VI tool kit ) and thanks to other most the code have been added to HealthCheck version 2.0

My question is can i convert my reporting script to be a VI Client pluggin ????

Error 502 Bad Gateway - after U4 perfCharts Install

luzula — Tue, 05 May 2009 07:45:53 GMT

Hello Community,

after installing 3.5 U4 and running install.bat for "post-install install" of perfCharts the plugin is visible as installed "com.vmware.vim.stats.report". The german tab "Leistungsübersicht" just shows an "502 Bad Gareway The requested URL could not be retrieved" error message. We are using remote MS SQL 2005 cluster services. Is there anything else to configure or implement on Virtual Center Server or on the remote cluster hosts ?

Any ideas at all?

THX in Advance

Greets Holger

Web-based VI plugins problem

chjerome — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 09:34:09 GMT

Hello,

I'm currently trying to create plugin for the VC with the official guide published vy VMWare.

So I created the XML config file (the sample : MapIt) and registered it with the perl tools provided in this forum.

After that, I rebooted my VI Client, and the plugin appeared available for download and instal. But I still have the error message : URI is empty when I try to install it.

Some people said on that forum that these plugins are not installable, and they will appears "automatically", but I don't have any MapIt tab in the Datacenter view.

I'm currently running VMWare Virtual Center 2.5.0 build 119598 with Virtual Client 2.5.0. build 119598 on Windows Vista SP1

Thank you for your help

plugin development and web server

acnsys — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 15:00:29 GMT

Hi

I am just getting started with VI SDK and i am looking to create a plugin for VIclient to get some experience. My goal is to create a new tab that would give me a putty session screen inside the VIclient.
This plugin may have already been done but i want to do it myself to learn.

There is a getting started reading on the website and it says that first of all you need a webserver to host conf files. I am surprised as i thought some plugins might not need one. I am using for instance the SVmotion plugin and i dont see where it should find files on which webserver, can someone clarifiy this to me?

Thank you

Vi Client Plug-ins List

Leafy911 — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 21:54:14 GMT

I was wondering if there is a list of Vi Client Plug-ins?

I have found a view by googling around, but I still think there must be more out there. These are some of the ones I have found:

SVmotion

Invoke

VCplus

SSH Client from Vi Client

RDP Access from Vi Client

Software Inventory of VM from Vi Client

Regards
Leafy911

(Dont forget you recieve points when you award points)

Embedding chat in VI Client

c_shanklin — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 18:41:41 GMT

One nice thing about the plug-in architecture we've released is how easy it is to do web-based mashups. This thread shows you how to insert a chat window into your VirtualCenter client that makes it possible for everyone who manages an instance of VirtualCenter to chat to each other in real-time.

This is all made really simple using Meebo Rooms. In this demo I've created a Meebo room devoted to VI Client Plug-ins, but you could just as easily create your own room specific to your team.

There are 2 parts to getting this demo up and running in your environment:

Install the plug-in to a local webserver, or to your VirtualCenter server.
Register the plug-in.

Install the plug-in.

First, let's talk about installing the plug-in. The first thing to do is download chat.zip, attached to this document. This zip file contains 2 files, an XML file that defines the plug-in, and an HTML file that contains the Meebo Room. You can install these files to a local web server or you can install them to VirtualCenter.

If you choose to install them to a local web server, make a note of the address as you'll need it later.

If you choose to install the plug-in to VirtualCenter directly, simply extract the zip file to the %PROGRAMFILES%\VMware\Infrastructure\VirtualCenter Server\tomcat\webapps\ROOT directory. If you go the VirtualCenter route, here's a screenshot of what it will look like in the installation directory:

Next you'll need to customize the chatplugin.xml file to point to your web server. In the XML file there are a number of URLs that read http://SERVERADDRESS/chat/chat.html. You will need to replace these with the actual address. If you installed the plugin to VirtualCenter, the address to use is http://<your/ VC IP>:8086/chat/chat.html. Note that this uses http, not https and make note of the port number 8086.

Registering The Plug-in.

Now it't finally time to register the plug-in. To do this, you should download a registration utility available within this community. I used the PowerShell registration utility, and this is the exact command I used to register:

get-vc 10.21.10.80
new-plugin -description "Chat" -key plugintoys.chat -version 1.0.0 -url http://10.21.10.80:8086/chat/chatplugin.xml -company VMware -adminEmail <a href="#">me@mailinator.com|mailto:me@mailinator.com</a>

Here's a picture of what it looks like when everything goes right:

Admittedly this whole process of deploying a plug-in is a bit tricky, but this basic approach works for putting any kind of HTML page into VI Client, and opens a lot of possibilities, such as integrating with Google Apps, etc. Enjoy, and as you find new and exciting uses for plug-ins we hope you'll tell us all about them.

A Perl CGI script to retrieve the DNS host name from vCenter

mikefoley — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 15:48:04 GMT

I few weeks ago many of you read my trials and tribulations with getting the DNS hostname from VirtualCenter via a plugin.

My goal was to have a tab in the client that when clicked, would get the DNS hostname via a CGI script and have it create a link
to a web page that used the hostname in it's URL.

Example: http://webserver/host.name.html

Attached is the script I developed/hacked together. Many thanks to Stumpr and Steve Jin and others with their help and patience.

Seeing as this was developed on RSA/EMC's time (so I can use it as the basis of a demo I'm working on), it carries a legalese disclaimer.
Basically, it's for "informational purposes only". Feel free to use it but batteries are not included.

Included in the code are a ton of comments. These comments include the following that are to be cut-n-pasted into separate files.

The SessionID template file - Used for creating the cookie used by load_session
The XML file to register the new tab in VI client
Example Perl command to register the XML file.

In a nutshell, you'll copy the CGI file to your web server that has the Perl VI bits configured. In my case, I did this on Windows.
Extract out the SessionID template and the XML file.
Customize the CGI, XML and SessionID template as appropriate.
I suggest the SessionID file is in a separate directory that the web server can read and write to.
Register the XML file
Open the VI Client and you'll see a new tab when you click on a VM. Click on the tab and the VI Client will run the CGI script

Any questions, feel free to post them.

Thanks and enjoy,

mike foley
VCP/vExpert
RSA, the Security Division of EMC

How to register VM using vmware-vim-cmd for VMware Server 2.0

kuiw — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 03:31:28 GMT

Hi,

I am trying to register vm to local vmware server 2.0 by vmware-vim-cmd solo/register command, but failed, here is my commands:

sles10sp1-177:/vmware/SLES10SP2-112-200 # vmware-vim-cmd solo/register "[vmware] SLES10SP2-112-200/SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP2.vmx"
(vmodl.fault.ManagedObjectNotFound) {
dynamicType = <unset>,
obj = 'vim.ResourcePool:Linux',
msg = "The request refers to an object that no longer exists or has never existed."
}

[vmware] is a datastore as below:

sles10sp1-177:/vmware/SLES10SP2-112-200 # vmware-vim-cmd hostsvc/datastore/summary vmware
(vim.Datastore.Summary) {
dynamicType = <unset>,
datastore = 'vim.Datastore:Datastore-2',
name = "vmware",
url = "/vmware",
capacity = 10737086464,
freeSpace = 4480839680,
uncommitted = <unset>,
accessible = true,
multipleHostAccess = <unset>,
type = "local",
}

SLES10SP2-112-200 is just under /vmware

/vmware/SLES10SP2-112-200

Any idea or sugguestion about this? Thanks!

Kyle

ScheduledTaskManager.Create with C#

mcampulla1 — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 22:05:10 GMT

Hi all, I'm trying to interact with the scheduler but the create method fails everytime with "Vmomi.Fault.InvalidArgument" ("A specified parameter was not correct"). I also inspecte a ScheduledTask and the object seems to be the same. Anyone can help me? Below you can see the the code

stm is aVmom.Scheduler.ScheduledTaskManager
vm is a Vmomi.VirtualMachine

Vmomi.Action.MethodAction ma = new Vmomi.Action.MethodAction();
Type t = typeof(Vmomi.VirtualMachine);
System.Reflection.MethodInfo mi = t.GetMethod("Suspend", new Type[]{});
VirtualInfrastructure.MethodName mn = VirtualInfrastructure.MethodName.From(mi);
ma.Name = mn;

Vmomi.Scheduler.DailyTaskScheduler dts = new Vmomi.Scheduler.DailyTaskScheduler();
dts.Hour = 18;
dts.Minute = 30;

Vmomi.Scheduler.ScheduledTaskSpec sts = new Vmomi.Scheduler.ScheduledTaskSpec();
sts.Action = ma;
sts.Scheduler = dts;
sts.Enabled = true;
sts.Description = "Description...";
sts.Name = "Suspend " + vm.GetName();
sts.Notification = "admin@admin.com";

stm.Create(vm, sts);

Marco

Plug-in's and recieving info from VirtualCenter

paul_xtravirt — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 20:51:35 GMT

Just getting started with plugins (and perl :S) so I was hoping someone could provide a working example piece of code to help me learn this.

In the plugin guide it states that VC send information from the plugin to your app. For example:

http://dev:8000/vmAction.cgi?cmd=powerOn&moref=VirtualMachine:16&sessionId=9241E7B8-A37B-4264-A8D

1-945628F9E0D6&locale=en&serviceUrl=https://localhost/sdk

So how does my app make use of the sessionID, virtualmachine ref etc?

For example, if I added a right click context option to a VM, and when selected it point to a Perl Script on my webserver that printed to the screen the name of the VM that the context menu was selected on: how do you do this? How do you get the information from the line?

Sorry if this is really newbie, but I am to Perl!

Paul

using VMworkstation and Visual Studio to develop windows services

jrich523 — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 20:52:04 GMT

not sure this is the right place to post, but nothing else looked right either.

basically im looking for some help with developing windows services. I had once seen a website that gave a good run down of how to use VS 2005 and VMworkstation to develop windows services and for the life of me i cant find it again, or anything related to it.

i thought there was a way to easily inject the newly complied files in to the VM without having to do the typical trouble of getting it unregistered, compile and update and reregister it..

mostly just looking for an easy way to develop windows services.

links would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Justin

Need Help to Generate "Report Performance for a VM"

techguru007 — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 09:21:56 GMT

Greetings,

I need to generate performance report (excel) for a VM on weekly basis based on Maximum CPU, DISK, MEMORY,NETWORK utilization. I need to do this for 100's of VM's. Is there a simple way to automate the process(SCRIPT) with few eazy steps instead of manual process?

Thanks in Advance !

Tech_Guru_007

Determining menu item selection

vifan — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 22:14:13 GMT

I want to have a plugin which will be invoked as a result of a right click menu item selection of a VM. How do I know the name of the menu item that was selected?

VI Client - What is Object '0' ?

Muthuganesh — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 09:25:21 GMT

I am looking at
CPU realtime graph in VMWare, "VI Client". ( VI Client --> Select a
VM --> Performance tab ). please have a look at the table below or
the image given in the url

Key	Object	Measurem	Min
icon1	vmachine1	CPU in %	19
icon2	vmachine1	CPU in MHz ( Average )	215
icon3	0 ( What is this object ? )	CPU in MHz ( Average )	209

(Image url : http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/230/cpuperflegendquestlt0.png )

It
lists "CPU Utilization " corresponding to a object name. VM's CPU Usage
in %, CPU Usage in MHz. And then the a object name is shown as '0' ,
the same object is shown in various graphs.

What the Object '0' means here ? is it the overhead of esx host to run this vm ? Please explain in detail.

-Leo

Administration of my Virtual Machines made easy

Dijkgraaf — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 15:39:01 GMT

Is there a tool that enables the following thing in a nice view in VI?

I want to see in one view the Windows Update status of all my machines in a Cluster or single VMWare ESX server. (Think this is do-able since the software only needs to see the add -remove hardware tab and then see the latest windows update there)

So if there is one machine that is out of date, i can see that in my view and give that machine some attention.

Does anyone know about a utility like this?

Plugin to change VM hardware and reboot?

PSCAustralia — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 23:31:58 GMT

Has anyone tried this yet?

I started writing a Powershell script but don't have resources to work it all out. I don't even know how I would trigger the script without user intervention because of the VI toolkit.

A plugin would be a better option anyway but I am completely clueless about the method required.

Cheers!

Can I add a wizard through the import operation as a plugin to the VI Client ?

hannaz — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 14:06:47 GMT

The wizrad should change the ovf file before the import operation

Cannot get CGI script to launch

paul_xtravirt — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 13:05:31 GMT

I have written some cgi scripts that work fine via http webpages in virtualcenter as a plugin. I have written a new cgi script to work in line with a plugin which passes the MOBREF, SessionID etc to the cgi script.

I am hosting my cgi scripts on an Apache server, along with other working cgi scripts and html pages.

The problem that I have is that when I select my plugins tab, where I would expect it to run my CGI script, and then display the names of all the VM's registered with VC, I get an HTTP page error. (see attached).

The tab is registered att he datacenter level, using the XML file below.

<key>com.development.TESTPLUGIN</key>

<description>TESTPLUGIN</description>

<title locale="en">TEST PLUGIN</title>

<url>http://192.168.20.132:80/cgi-bin/testplugin.cgi</url>

</view>

</scriptConfiguration>

I have changed this line in the plugin -> <url>http://192.168.20.132:80/cgi-bin/testplugin.cgi</url> to point to www.google.com and that works fine.

On the apache server, the testplugin.cgi script is located in the cgi-bin folder, along with other scripts that work fine. It seems to be a problem, because I am not trying to show a webpage, but rather run the cgi script directly. Is this right? I got this impression from the Plugins guide on Page 3.

Any help on this would be very much appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Paul

Getting information from VC via Plugins

paul_xtravirt — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 14:45:25 GMT

All,

I have a nested menu via xml and registered as a plugin to VirtualCenter, so I can right click a VM and then select Power Off VM now. Looking at the example code below from the guide, I see that it runs a script. But how can I run a script against a specific machine?

<title locale="en">PowerOn All VMs</title>

<url>http://10.17.156.202:9000/cgi-bin/VmAction.cgi?cmd=powerOn&vmname=All</url>

</command>

You see in the code above, it states ttp://10.17.156.202:9000/cgi-bin/VmAction.cgi?cmd=powerOn&vmname=All, so how do you get this to send the name of the VM and then get interaction going?

Are there any examples for this, e.g. to launch an iLO window, I right click an HP ESX host, and select launch iLO. But how do I pass the correct servername or IP address from VirtualCenter to a new internet explorer window?

Paul Davey
Xtravirt

Can no longer register a plug-in

jkyoutsey — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 19:18:21 GMT

We wrote a C# component that calls the VISDK to register our plugin during our product install. We use this utility during development to register and re-register our plug-in as things change. However, today it stopped working, but the code hasn't changed. It will register the plug-in but I get the "download and install" option under plug-ins in the VI Client. This seems to indicate that the registration failed.

I have compared the Managed Object Browser pages for my plug-in vs. one by another developer. Other than the name and key they are virtually identical. And he registered his using the same C# exe I did.

What things should I be looking at?
My Xml is well formed. My Xml validates against the Xsd as well.
I've un-registered, re-registered, re-registered again... I've rebooted the VI Client server and the server hosting the Xml.
I haven't made any configuration changes to either box.
I've tried changing the key of my plug-in and registering it with the new key. Again, no dice.

I'm not sure where else to look.

how to creeate vm console

bharat123 — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 08:12:21 GMT

We are working on an application where we can create ,delete virtual machines but we are not able to create console to view created virtual machines.So if any one knows abut it please help us we will be very greateful to you.

Cannot register a plugin to VC since applying Update 3

paul_xtravirt — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 15:20:42 GMT

Since Update 3 was applied to VC, I no longer seem able to register a plugin. I have tried to register a plugin using the same files and code that has worked in the past for me. However, now it always fails with the same problem as below:

<<
Registration failed.
New-Object : A parameter cannot be found that matches parameter name '='.
At C:\registerPlugin.ps1:71 char:26
+ $serverInfo = new-object <<<< VMware.Vim.ExtensionServerInfo $serverI
nfo.adminEmail = @($adminEmail)

I have installed VC in a VM, completely fresh, again with update 3 and tried the process again and recieved the same error. To register I am using the powershell registerplugin.ps1 script from the forums.

Here is the syntax that I am using:

new-plugin -description "test plugin" -key com.test.plugin -version 1.0.0 -url http://192.168.20.7/plugin.xml -company test -adminemail test@test.com

I can browse using IE to the xml file, so it is not a permissions issue there. It appears to relate to the -adminemail but I cannot see what is wrong.

Can anyone point me in the right direction? Am I doing something wrong here, or is this a break caused by Update 3 to VC?

Paul Davey
Xtravirt

What about security?

Gabrie — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 09:54:31 GMT

Hi

Can someone point me to the right documents where I can find more about security threats a plug-in may cause. I would like to know under what rights a plug-in is running and what rights are needed to insert a new plug-in. Are there any known other security risks specific for plug-ins?

How can I control what a plug-in is doing? Maybe it snifs passwords and sents them out to the internet.

Gabrie

http://www.GabesVirtualWorld.com

Embedding Webpage in Virtual Center - Bringing up a page depending on which host is highlighted

langonej — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 20:46:33 GMT

So I've managed to embed vCharterPro and UNNOC but I'd like the URL to be different depending on which host.

E.G. http://unnoc/hosta.html when HostA is highlighted.

http://unnoc/hostb.html when HostB is highlighted.

Right now it just goes to http://unnoc no matter what is selected.

I've read the SDK Guide. I'm confused as if I could use the COMMAND or the CUSTOMATTRIBUTE to do this. Ideas?

Modifying VI Client help?

bruce.downs — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 14:42:17 GMT

Does anyone know of a way to modify the VI Client help as part of the installation of an extension/plugin?

VI Client plug in authorization

bruce.downs — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 18:09:53 GMT

I've found that the following areas of the plug in architecture do not pass credentials to the web app. Web requests are made anonymously, so authorization is not available with the following actions:

1) XML configuration file - retrieving the XML configuration file on install or start up
2) Toolbar button icons - (Inventory.Global) - retrieving icon for button on start up
3) command's url with display=none - when executing a menu item (command) with the command's url display set to none

I should be able to get around this limitation, but it appears to be an overlook on the developer's part.

See attached test plug in configuration XML file and sample IIS log output. Note the test demonstrates the different command types and display=none not passing credentials.

Nested Commands not passing moref

bruce.downs — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 17:38:44 GMT

In developing a VI Client plugin I noticed that sub-menu items are not passing moref to my web app.

The following example defines a menu item and the same as a sub item. It is based on the official plug in documentation. The problem is that moref is only passed to the web app for the top level item, but not for nested command.

Ideas?

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<scriptConfiguration xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="D:\Dev\Virt\VIPlugin\vcplugin_config_20080328.xsd" version="0.9.0">
<key>com.configuresoft.viplugin-nesttest</key>
<description>VI Client Plug-In Nest Test</description>

<command parent="Inventory.VirtualMachine">
<title locale="en">PowerOn All VMs</title>
<url>http://vmbd-shcoll/CMRemote/CmVIPluginPortalDebug.asp?cmd=powerOn&vmname=All</url>
</command>

<command parent="Inventory.VirtualMachine">
<title locale="en">VM</title>
<command>
<title locale="en">PowerOn All VMs</title>
<url display="window">http://vmbd-shcoll/CMRemote/CmVIPluginPortalDebug.asp?cmd=powerOn&vmname=All</url>
</command>
</command>
</scriptConfiguration>

Toolbar Button (Inventory.Global)

bruce.downs — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 16:25:27 GMT

Currently the plug in schema does not allow for a toolbar button to launch into a browser. When defining a global <view>, I cannot specific the "display" for the url. I can, however, specify the URL's display when defining a <command>.

In the example below you see a global command and view, with only the command being displayed in a browser. I would like a toolbar button similar to the vmware.com button that launches in a browser rather than a 'window'.

Another issue is I cannot find out where a <command> with parent=Inventory.Global is displayed in the VI Client.

Ideas?

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<scriptConfiguration xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="D:\Dev\Virt\VIPlugin\vcplugin_config_20080328.xsd" version="0.9.0">
<key>com.configuresoft.viplugin-globaltoolbarbuttontest</key>
<description>VI Client Plug-In Global Toolbar Button Test</description>

<command parent="Inventory.Global">
<title locale="en">Configuresoft.com</title>
<url display="browser">http://www.configuresoft.com</url>
</command>

<view parent="Inventory.Global">
<title locale="en">Configuresoft.com</title>
<url>http://www.configuresoft.com</url>
<icon>http://www.configuresoft.com/favicon.ico</icon>
</view>
</scriptConfiguration>

VCPlugin shows up under "Manage Plugins..." but when selected to install, configuration xml file is opened in default xml viewer

mrydeen — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 16:17:24 GMT

Hello,

I have written a simple plugin, and I am at the successful point where I am registering the plugin with the Virtual Center. And when I manage my plugins on the Virtual Infrastructure Client, I can see the my Plugin. But when I select the "Download and install" button, the only thing that happens is that it launches the default xml editor with the downloaded config.xml file and changes to "The plugin has been downloaded and is being installed".

Then when I close the defaule xml tool, it changes its state once again to "The plugin has been installed. Please go to the installed tab to enable the plugin." Yet there is nothing in the installed window.

Does the config file have to have a specific name? Do I need to install the file somewhere manually once downloaded?

Thank you,

Michael

Java Plug-in Registration?

shars — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 21:49:31 GMT

Does anyone know step by step how to register a java plug-in?

I followed the document Complete Vi Client plug-in but I am stuck at # 4.

Can someone help me please.

Thanks!

VIC Plugins and Maps

chris.knowles — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 18:16:32 GMT

Is there any way to use the control that renders the directed maps within VIC with my own data sets? I would like to use the control that does the navigation and rendering, but provide my own relationships to the map based on my own data.

Powershell Registration Utility Problem

paul_xtravirt — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 12:02:18 GMT

http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-4521

Using the link above, I have downloaded the registerplugin.ps1 file.

I have copied it in to the location where the VI Toolkit is located

I have loaded a VI toolkit powershell session

I have run the ps1 file and everytime, I get the following error:

PS C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\VIToolkitForWindows> .\registerPlugin.

ps1

Add-PSSnapin : Cannot add Windows PowerShell snap-in vmware.vimautomation.core

because it is already added. Verify the name of the snap-in and try again.

At C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\VIToolkitForWindows\registerPlugin.ps

1:14 char:13

add-pssnapin <<<< vmware.vimautomation.core+

Any idea's on what am I doing wrong?

I have written a simple xml that like the google example, just points to a webpage (in this case our intranet page)

Any and all help appreciated.

Thanks,

Paul

Add a tab to the VI Client or Virtual Center Server

listener — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 23:38:50 GMT

Is it possible to add a custom tab to the VI Client or Virtual Center Server?

Which API or SDK has that ability?

thanks

Adding new object types to VIC navigation tree

chris.knowles — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 13:53:01 GMT

Has anyone found a way to add new items to the nav pane in VIC? For example under a datacenter I want to be able to add a new object to represent a switch or a SAN array. I haven't been able to find a way to do this at this point and I am not sure if it is even possible.

Limiting Snapshots - Plug-in?

scalder — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 22:12:51 GMT

Hello,

I was wondering if anyone knew of a plug-in, or knew if the API had the capability there to develop some sort of a snapshot limiting utility.

I am on a team that manages a fairly large deployment of virtual infrastructure, and we have issues related to space which could possibly be helped with the ability to track snapshotting better. We're looking to try to limit users to 3 snapshots per VM. Any idea how this could be achieved? Not sure if this is even possible.

Thanks.

document or guidelines for converting a viperltoolkit perl file into a cgi type file

yiuyip — Thu, 22 May 2008 00:01:25 GMT

This is a general question. To use a .pl file from the viperltoolkit in the context of a vi client plug-in, according to VMware, one needs to convert it into a .cgi file.
Is there any VMware document that describes how to do so or guidelines to do so?

Thanks,

RE: accessing managed objects

yiuyip — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 00:53:55 GMT

From the manuals, it seems that there are two ways to access a managed object type/object type.

a) Use the existing methods for that managed object if such methods exist and apply.
b) use the Property Traversal methods described in Chapter 5 of the Programming guide if the methods in a) do not
exist.

Questions:

Does the overall design of the Managed Objects Methods/Traversal Methods require any ESX kernel driver to locate the
information or does it just happen in the user-mode methods/Traversal methods?

re: launching a sample viperltoolkit program from the simpledemo.xml plugin

yiuyip — Fri, 16 May 2008 22:52:56 GMT

I have been able to run the datacenterlisting.pl sample from a server with viperltoolkit installed successfully against a VC.
Web server is installed on this system.

However, when I tried to reference this datacenterlisting.pl from the simpledemo.xml associated with a VI plugin, I got page not found error.
The plugin was installed succesfully.

How does the VI plugin environment resolve the "use VMware::VIRuntime" library?

Can some one show us how to run a sample perl script with parameters from the viperltoolkit in the context of simpledemo.xml?

e.g., instead of specifying maps.goggle.com in the simpledemo.xml (p7 of the "Getting Started with VI Client Plug-ins" technote) as follows:

<scriptConfiguration version="1.0.0">
<key>com.vmware.cde.sdk.demo</key>
<description>VI Extensibility Demo</description>
<view parent="Inventory.Datacenter">
<title locale="en">MapIt</title>
<url>http://maps.google.com</url>
</view>
</scriptConfiguration>

specify a perl script from the viperltoolkit such as datacenterlisting.pl as follows:

<scriptConfiguration version="1.0.0">
<key>com.vmware.cde.sdk.demo</key>
<description>VI Extensibility Demo</description>
<view parent="Inventory.Datacenter">
<title locale="en">MapIt</title>
<url>http://15.13.183.184/cgi-bin/datacenterlisting.pl ??? </url>
</view>
</scriptConfiguration>

where ??? are the needed parameters and datacenterlisting.pl uses "VMware::VIRuntime" library.

Thanks,
YC

re: Problems in installing the viperltookkit

yiuyip — Thu, 15 May 2008 20:07:26 GMT

***Note***: this problem has been resolved by installing VMware-VIPerl-Toolkit-1.5.0-67153.exe which includes the missing .pdd files:

XML-LibXML-Common
XML-LibXML
Crypt-SSLeay
Data-Dumper
Class-MethodMaker

I got ActivePerl 5.8 build 822 installed.

Following the viperltoolkit install guide, section : Installing the Perl Toolkit on Windows,

step 3: http://theoryx5.uwinnipeg.ca/ppms/

However, when I tried to add the additonal packages specified above
from the ppm's add package GUI, I got 500 Can't connect to theoryx5.uwinnipeg.ca:80 (connect: Unknown error)
There is NO problem from running http://theoryx5.uwinnipeg.ca/ppms/ from my browser.

I also tried running :

C:\ppm install http://theoryx5.uwinnipeg.ca/ppms/Class-MethodMaker.ppd
and got:

ppm install failed: 500 Can't connect to theoryx5.uwinnipeg.ca:80 (connect: Unknown error)

As a result, the following needed packages are missing:

XML-LibXML-Common
XML-LibXML
Crypt-SSLeay
Data-Dumper
Class-MethodMaker

So, when I ran perl Makefile.pl, I got the following warnings:

C:\devprojects\viperltoolkit>perl Makefile.pl
Warning: prerequisite Class::MethodMaker 2.08 not found.
Warning: prerequisite Crypt::SSLeay 0.51 not found.
Warning: prerequisite XML::LibXML 1.58 not found.
Writing Makefile for VIPerlToolkit

Can someone point how to feed these packages to the ppm?

Thanks,

Yiu Yip

Get the example in VMware's documentation to work

bluepenguin — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 11:08:59 GMT

Hello

First post here

I want to get the example in VMware's new documentation to work, did anyone get the example to work and send me a script to register the pluginconfig.xml?

I had to re-write the code, to get it to work with java, some constructors were not correct. VMware sets the URL in the ExtensionClientInfo to "", which raises an error when i try to activate the plugin in VC.

Help is appreciated.

Frank

Download and install give error "Invalid URI: URI is empty"

Smith1234 — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 22:28:27 GMT

I am just getting started with the VI plugins and was following the example in the "Getting Started" guide. I was able to register a sample .xml file using the perl registration script. The plugin then appears in Virtual Center, but when I click the Download and Install button I get "Invalid URI: URI is empty". The configuration file and registration command I am using are below. The only gotcha is that the virtual center is running on a different port than 443, it is instead using 7130.

I have made sure I can access config.xml from the VI server.

config.xml

<scriptConfiguration version="1.0.0">
<key>com.vmware.cde.sdk.demo</key>
<description>VI Extensibility Demo</description>
<view parent="Inventory.Datacenter">
<title locale="en">MapIt</title>
<url>http://maps.google.com</url>
</view>
</scriptConfiguration>

perl registerPlugin.pl --server=<vc ip>:7130 --username user --password pass --description="Test Plugin" --key="com.vmware.cde.sdk.demo" --pluginversion="1.0.0" --pluginurl="http://<web app ip>/config.xml" --company="test" --adminMail="test@test.com" --action=install

Any help with this problem would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

How official plugins compare to unofficial plugins...

akutz — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 18:39:37 GMT

A lot of people have been asking me how VMware's plugins compare to the architecture I unearthed. I wrote a blog for TechTarget that discusses this subject.