VMware Communities : Thread List - vSphere SDK for Perl

HowTo: Installing vSphere SDK for Perl on OS X 10.6.2 (Snow Leopard)

akutz — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 00:37:42 GMT

I thought some of you may find this useful. I document how to install the vSphere SDK for Perl on a OS X 10.6.2 (Snow Leopard) system at http://akutz.wordpress.com/2009/11/20/installing-vsphere-sdk-for-perl-on-os-x-10-6-2-snow-leopard/

Authentication timed out?

LarsOeschey — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:25:30 GMT

Hi,

I'm trying to snapshot some VM's via vcbmounter.exe from a perl script. The first backup works fine, but on the second I got a authentication failure. I use this code in the beginning of the script for authentication (how do code tags work here?):

eval {Vim::login(
service_url => $service_url,
user_name => $username,
password => $password);
};
if ($@) {
# error
print LOG $@ . "\n";
}

This seems to work, since the first VM gets backup'ed. It takes about 1:15h, since in the first run I got an error about it not being able two write back the backup date to a custom field, I added exactly the same authentication into the loop after the backup. So the login should be valid when the next one starts. However I do get a

SOAP Fault:

Fault string: Die Sitzung wurde nicht authentifiziert.
Fault detail: NotAuthenticatedFault

(the first one translates into "session not authenticated")

Before I had added the additional authenication into the loop, I just would get a "Unable to find VM name" from this within the loop:

my $vm = Vim::find_entity_view(view_type => 'VirtualMachine',
filter => {"config.name" => $_});
unless ($vm) {
print "Unable to find VM: \"$_\"!\n";
exit 1
}

So it seems the authentication works fine for the first backup, and then times out. But why does the same authentication code from the start of the script not work again? How would I reauthenticate?

I've attached the script if anyone wants to take a look...

Lars

Create VM instance on Cluster

schue — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 08:53:47 GMT

Hi,

I want to create virtual machines on Cluster, not on a specified host.

My Problem is that the function VMCreate need an type "resourcePool" and I don't know how to create a resourcePool from a ClusterComputeResource.

Can anyone help me?

Thanks in advance

Henning

Retrieving vNIC packetsRx and packetsTx possible on VSphere 4.0?

JonoT — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:35:40 GMT

Hi,

I'm trying to write a simple utility which can retrieve the packetsRx and packetsTx of each VM running in a Datacenter.

Looking at the sample performance.pl script, it seems that it only returns a single metric called "Usage", which is not reliable.

Essentially, I'd like to retrieve a counter that shows the number of bytes transmitted and the number of bytes received rather than a current snapshot of what the utilisation is.

Thoughts anyone?

MOB equivalent to Vim::find_entity_views?

skayser — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:57:48 GMT

Greetings,

i have started using the Managed Object Browser on a vCenter 4 installation to explore the object structure of the API, but i haven't been able to find VM objects so far. Could someone kindly point me to where i can find / query VM instances in the MOB. Similar to what i would do via Vim::find_entity_views.

Thanks

Sebastian

SessionIsActive() is not implemented in vSphere ESX 4.0

luger_lee — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 06:18:06 GMT

Hi,

I'm using the vSphere™ SDK for Perl to make a script for monitoring performance of an ESX 4.0 host.

First, I use Vim::login() to login and save the session by Vim::save_session().

From second executing, instead of Vim::login(), I use Vim::load_session() to connect to the ESX 4.0 host and SessionIsActive() to check whether or not the session is expired. But when calling SessionIsActive(), I got 'Throw vmodl.fault.NotImplemented' form hostd.log.

What's wrong with my idea ?

Thanks in advance.

Error: Server version unavailable at 'https://1.1.1.1/sdk/vimService.wsdl' when connecting to virtual center with connect.pl

likid000 — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:12:05 GMT

Hi,

I have a strange problem, I have 3 RHEL 5.4 servers that are clones of each other, I have install the SDK on all 3 of them, version:

I have installed VMware-vSphere-SDK-for-Perl-4.0.0-161974

and on 2 servers whith connect.pl it works great:

/usr/lib/vmware-vcli/apps/general/connect.pl --server 1.1.1.1 --username XXX --password XX

Connection Successful
Server Time : 2009-11-04T11:53:30.449415Z

On the third server it doesn't work:

/usr/lib/vmware-vcli/apps/general/connect.pl --server 1.1.1.1 --username XXX --password XX

Error: Server version unavailable at 'https://1.1.1.1/sdk/vimService.wsdl'

I am connecting to a VC with esx 3.5, on the third server I can access the url 'https://1.1.1.1/sdk/vimService.wsdl' with no problems

Any idea what can be the problem ?

Thnx

find_entity_view from MOID

crashdummymch — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:08:19 GMT

Given a Managed Object ID I need to retrieve the managed object reference so that I can call various properties on it.

For example:

Managed Object Type: ManagedObjectReference:VirtualMachine
Managed Object ID: vm-20722

name = "vmtest1"

I can get this via the "name":

$vm_view = Vim::find_entity_view(view_type => 'VirtualMachine', filter => {'name' => $vm_name});

However, I need to get the entity view via the MOID

Something like:

$vm_view = Vim::find_entity_view(view_type => 'VirtualMachine', filter => {'moid' => 'vm-20722'});

Thanks

Problem with undefined value when running vidiscovery.pl

mjglenney — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 22:40:57 GMT

I am trying to run the following:

./vidiscovery.pl --url https://<hidden>/sdk --username <hidden> --managedentity datacenter --entityname <hidden>

I am prompted for my password and it seems to connect fine. It begins to list items:

 ***************Datacenter <hidden>***************
DataCenter : <hidden>
   Folder : Content Block
      Host : <hidden>
         VM : <hidden>
         VM : <hidden>
         VM : <hidden>
         VM : <hidden>
         VM : <hidden>
         VM : <hidden>
         VM : <hidden>
      Host : <hidden>
         VM : <hidden>

and then fails with:

Can't call method "type" on an undefined value at /usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/VMware/VICommon.pm line 1244, <STDIN> line 1.

Here's the part of that code that is being referenced:

    1215 # ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   1216 # Description: Retrieve the properties of a single managed object.
   1217 # Input: subroutine style:  Vim::get_view(%{mo_ref, view_type})
   1218 #        method call style: vim->get_view(%{mo_ref, view_type})
   1219 #        where
   1220 #           mo_ref     - a managed object reference
   1221 #           view_type  - the type of view to construct from the managed object
   1222 # Output: a managed object view instance
   1223 # ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   1224 sub get_view {
   1225    my %args;
   1226    my $self = undef;
   1227    my $service;
   1228    my ($first_arg) = @_;
   1229    if ($first_arg && ref $first_arg eq 'Vim') {
   1230       ($self, %args) = @_;
   1231    } else {
   1232       %args = @_;
   1233       $self = $vim_global;
   1234       unless (defined $vim_global) {
   1235          Carp::croak("No global session in existence - perhaps need to login first\n");
   1236       }
   1237    }
   1238    $service = $self->{vim_service};
   1239
   1240    if (! exists($args{mo_ref})) {
   1241       Carp::confess("mo_ref argument is required");
   1242    }
   1243    my $mo_ref = $args{mo_ref};
   1244    my $view_type = $mo_ref->type;
   1245    if (exists ($args{view_type})) {
   1246       $view_type = $args{view_type};
   1247    }
   1248    my $properties = "";
   1249    if (exists($args{properties}) &&
   1250        defined($args{properties}) &&
   1251        $args{properties} ne "") {
   1252       $properties = $args{properties};
   1253    }
   1254    my $view = $view_type->new($mo_ref, $self);
   1255    $view->update_view_data($properties);
   1256    return $view;
   1257 }
   1258

So it's calling 'type' with $mo_ref which is apparantly undefined though I don't see why. Any ideas on what I can look at?

I am running vSphere SDK for Perl 4.0.0

how to assign a mac-address manually via the SDK

schue — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:43:54 GMT

Hi all,

I want to add a NIC to an instance of a VM via the vSphere API for Perl with a MAC Address choosen from "me".

I do not want, that the vCenter assign the MAC automatically, what is the default.

I'm frustrated because I did not find anything in the internet.

Can anyone help me?

Thanks in advance,

Henning

Can't get disk.totalLatency.average performance counter

luger_lee — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 08:51:43 GMT

Hi

I have a task to make a command used for collecting many of performance data.

The command failed for lack of disk.totalLatency.average performance counter in all of virtual machines. The target is a ESX 4.0 server host, and vSphare SDK for perl has been used.

Any hint is precious to me.

Thanks in advance.

Get mac address without VMware tools running

kilo666 — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:43:36 GMT

I've been looking around to see if there was a way to get the mac address for a VM without VMware tools running. I know you can see this information from the vSphere gui when editing the hardware, so I would think it would be accessible without VMware tools, but maybe not.
Does anyone know if/how this can be accomplished?

Thanks,
Michael

vimService.wsdl - connect.pl

varaway — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:39:34 GMT

hello,

i have installed vSphere ESX 4 and vCenter 4. On the ESX, I installed the vim Perl vdk Toolkit.
/usr/lib/vmware-vcli/apps/general ....
perl connect.pl --url https://server_name/sdk/vimService --username xxxxx --password xxxxxxx

I get this error:
Error: Server version unavailable at 'https://server_name:443/sdk/vimService.wsdl'

Have anywhere an idea?
best regards
Andi

iops

fadedsoul — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 06:24:54 GMT

I'm trying to find a way to automate the collection of disk metrices from our VC server so we can start reporting iops at the disk level on each esx host and guest os in a csv file. Does anyone have any suggestions on how I could accomplish that task? I'm rather new to vmware, so forgive me if this seems

Thanks

Get size of file in datastore

Dexxt0r — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 09:31:58 GMT

Hi,

I have a question regarding VMware Remote CLI scripts. The script vifs.pl allows us to manage files on a particular datastore.

With it, we can list files, upload, download, delete files...

And my question is if there's a way to retrieve size of file by using VMware SDK for Perl

Thanks in advance,

AnhTu

ipAddress array in GuestNicInfo is incomplete

jdaily — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:20:32 GMT

We're running ESX 3.5.0; the VM in question is running 64 bit Windows Server 2003 with current VMware tools.

I noticed today that the ipAddress array is reporting only 7 of the 11 IP aliases on this VM.

Is this a known issue? Anything I can do?

This behavior is mirrored in VIC, so let me know if I need to move this question (and if so, to where).

Update Virtual Hardware using SDK?

piuhapofuhpaosf — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:17:03 GMT

We're converting from VC 2.5 to vSphere 4.0, and I'm curious to know if it's possible to automate the process of updating the virtual hardware of our Virtual Machines from version 4 to version 7 so that we can start using them in a vSphere environment with all the bells and whistles. To be clear, I'm trying to find out if there is a way to use the Perl API to duplicate the results I would get by right-clicking on a VM in the VC and selecting "Update Virtual Hardware".

interface with update manager

andyhsia — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 18:15:31 GMT

Hi,

I need to retrieve compliant updates for particular baseline in each ESX server under update manager tab.

I am able to retrieve HostPatchManager reference but not sure how to go from there.

Can someone provide a guideline on this? Thanks

Regards,

Andrew

vmclone.pl SoapFault

jimbo667 — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 02:42:21 GMT

Hi,

I was wondering if anyone can help. I am using vmclone.pl and I am getting a SOAP Fault when ussing the --customize_guest option. The output and error is,

Cloning virtual machine 'Win XP Pro2' ...

Fault

SOAP Fault:

Fault string: Not initialized: string orgName

Fault detail: InvalidRequestFault

The xml & xsd files that I am using are the ones provide in the sampledata of the perltookit with the fields all set in the xml file.

Any help would be greatly appreciated

errorhandling? (Vim::login)

LarsOeschey — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 12:32:52 GMT

Hi,

I'm trying to establish some errorhandling in my script to output to a logfile. Somehow I can't get this to work:

print LOG "login failed\n" if !(Vim::login(
service_url => $service_url,
user_name => $username,
password => $password));

in an error case I get the output on the console, but not in the logfile... How could that be done?

Lars

Determining snapshot file size

piuhapofuhpaosf — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 12:36:54 GMT

We're running into storage issues within our VC, and one of the reasons for this is excessive use of snapshots. I have a script that lists all of the snapshots for all of our VMs, but I haven't found a way to be able to programmatically determine file size of the snapshots (we have over 1000 VMs in 4 different VC's, so doing it manually isn't really an option). I attempted to get this information using a datastore file search (HostDatastoreBrowserSearchSpec, SearchDatastore, then total up the file size), but this method was unsuccessful. I'd very much like to be able to do this to be able to get a good understanding of how much space is being used on disk by snapshots. So, has anyone done this before? If so, how did you manage it? By the way, we're using ESX 3.5 with the 1.6 Perl Toolkit.

Shutting down VMs on a host in some type of order

caffine4lovers — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 21:41:18 GMT

I am trying to write a shutdown script in perl (new to perl
programming) my modifying the ghettoshudown script. What it does so far
is shutdown or suspend all virtual machines
on a host, but it does not shut them
down in a specific order (which is the end goal). Is there anyway to do
this in perl, possibly using an external file. Any help would be
greatly appreciated.
I have attached what I have thus far.

getting custom variables

LarsOeschey — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 08:36:34 GMT

Hi,

we are trying to set up a backup environment, where I can set variables in vSphere if a VM should be backed up, and write back the date of the last backup. I've set up those variables invSphere (they show up as "remarks", translated from german), and my guess was that with the script VMware\VMware vSphere CLI\Perl\samples\vm\guestvars.pl I could get those variables. However, I don't get anything back... Is that script example intended to do that, or am I on a wrong path?

Lars

Set permission on a particular datastore on ESXi

Dexxt0r — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 15:08:12 GMT

Hi all,

I'm developping an application using vSphere SDK for Perl. But i'm struggling with the following problem:

Let's say we have 2 users: A and B. Both have accounts on ESXi. Each user is assigned his own datastore.

When A connects to ESXi by VI Client to upload files to his datastore, he can browse B's datastore and even delete B's files.

What i want is that A can browse only his own datastore.

Anyone have ideas how to do it by using vSphere SDK? Please help!

Best regards,

Anh-Tu

Problem with rdmCreate.pl

ii00907 — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 13:42:57 GMT

Hi,

i have a problem with Perl Script rdmCreate.pl.

If I create a new disk rdm puntanto all 'esx4, the disc that I am going to add it correctly deal. This is the command;

~~root@ITRMVSC1 vm~~# perl rdmCreate.pl --url https://172.33.22.111/sdk/vimService --username MYUSER --password MYPSW --vmname VM1 --filename Test.vmdk --backingtype rdm

Adding Virtual Disk on Virtual machine VM1 in the host esxhost.it.domain.com with file name Test.vmdk

env browser

*****
ARRAY(0x1fe9eb90)
*****

*****
number of present disks is 2
*****
ITRMVSC Disk[0]: Capacity /vmfs/devices/disks/naa.6006016055351f00516decc0459cde11
cannonical_name: /vmfs/devices/disks/naa.6006016055351f00516decc0459cde11VM1 Disk[1]: Capacity /vmfs/devices/disks/naa.6006016055351f00506decc0459cde11
cannonical_name: /vmfs/devices/disks/naa.6006016055351f00516decc0459cde11
calling the reconfigure VM

returned from reconfigure VM
Virtual Disk created.

but when I try to point the Virtual Center back to me the following error;

perl rdmCreate.pl --url https://172.55.22.444/sdk/webService --username administrator --password MYPSW --vmname VM1 --filename Test.vmdk --backingtype rdm

Adding Virtual Disk on Virtual machine ITRMVSC in the host 172.33.22.111 with file name Test.vmdk
env browser

*****
ARRAY(0xb5a20d0)
*****

*****
number of present disks is 2
*****
ITRMVSC Disk[0]: Capacity /vmfs/devices/disks/naa.6006016055351f00516decc0459cde11
cannonical_name: /vmfs/devices/disks/naa.6006016055351f00516decc0459cde11ITRMVSC Disk[1]: Capacity /vmfs/devices/disks/naa.6006016055351f00506decc0459cde11
cannonical_name: /vmfs/devices/disks/naa.6006016055351f00516decc0459cde11
calling the reconfigure VM
Error trapped
SOAP Fault:

Fault string: Invalid datastore path 'Test.vmdk'.
Fault detail: InvalidDatastorePathFalut :
SOAP Fault:

Fault string: Invalid datastore path 'Test.vmdk'.

My version ESX : VMware ESX 4.0.0 build-164009

My version Vsphere : VMware vCenter Server Version 4.0.0 Build 162856

vSpher CLI Version : VMware vSphere CLI 4.0.0-161974.x86_64

Please help me.

Attached the script I use

Updated vCenter, now perl scripts get SOAP error "500 EOF when chunk header expected"

david_drew — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 17:30:28 GMT

We've got some reporting scripts that do a number of things, generate alerts and save performance info, etc. vCenter was upgraded this weekend and all of the scripts are failing--occasionally--with this error. At least one of the scripts is pretty light, it doesn't pull that much information, though it does it for hundreds of VMs.

This is using VI Perl 1.6.

Any help would be appreciated.

-David

How to create a vmxnet3 adapter

kri-2 — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 13:34:57 GMT

Hi,

I am searching for the dataobject to create a vmxnet*3* network card, but there are only VirtualE1000, VirtualPCNet32, VirtualVmxnet for use.
http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vc-sdk/visdk2xpubs/ReferenceGuide/vim.vm.device.VirtualEthernetCard.html

Using the VirtualVmxnet dataobject creates an old card of the type vmxnet1.

$nic = VirtualVmxnet->new(backing => $nic_backing_info,
key => 0,
unitNumber => $unit_num,
addressType => 'generated',
connectable => $vd_connect_info);

Can Someone help me?

Chris

ShutDown / PowerOn VMs

EXPRESS — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 15:05:50 GMT

Hi All,

I like that. How can I apply that so it can work for me? I am not a programmer or developer so that should tell you that I don't know much about scripting, but I think I can play around with it enough to get it going. What I would like to do is a weekly ShutDown then a PowerOn afterwards. Any chance you guys can help me with this? Any help would be appreciated. The way I am doing it right now which is so time consuming is to setup a schedule task for each VM via Virtual Center for ShutDown then again for PowerOn. I just would like to simplify this as much as possible.

I just want to add that we are on an ESX 3.5.0 server and 2.5 VC.

"I posted the this to one of the forums, but I noticed that that forum had been answered already and I did not know if I should just create a new discussion. Sry if I shouldn't have.."

Again any help will be appreciated.

Thank you,
Express

toolkit 1.6 => error in hostops.pl

nik-O — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 17:00:44 GMT

Hi there,

I wanted to use some code from this script :hostops.pl, under the host folder.

But i was wondering why the host did not exit maintenance mode near line 385:

eval {
$folder->MoveIntoFolder(list=>@listArray);
if ($entity_view->runtime->inMaintenanceMode) {
exit_maintenance_mode($entity_view);
}
Util::trace(0,"\nHost $target_host moved into folder $folder_name \n");
};

In fact, the guy has forgotten to update the view :-X

so replace it by :

eval {
$folder->MoveIntoFolder(list=>@listArray);

$entity_view->update_view_data();
if ($entity_view->runtime->inMaintenanceMode) {
exit_maintenance_mode($entity_view);
}
Util::trace(0,"\nHost $target_host moved into folder $folder_name \n");
};

Then the host exits from maintenance mode.

Bye

Extract files from a VM in vsphere

arthurdent78 — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:10:26 GMT

Hi all,

Please could someone point me in the right direction. I have a VM (windows) that I want to get some files off. However this VM can not be connected to the same network as the rest of the infrastructure for security reasons. Is there a API I can use to get into the file system? What I have in mind is somthing like the shared folders option in workstation.

Any help will be much appreshiated.

Performance data not available via VI Perl 1.6 ... with VC 2.5

howardjg — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 17:34:44 GMT

Hi,

I've been prototyping bash scripts on a Linux host which use the VI Perl toolkit v1.6 utilities to extract performance data for ESX hosts from Virtual Center server v2.0.1 (build 33643) - worked fine!

When I moved exact same scripts & toolkit into a pre-production environment with VC v2.5 - scripts worked OK-ish (i.e. connected and extracted Host properties OK) , but no performance data was available.

(e.g. running viperformance.pl produced the following: "Either performance data not available for requested period or instance is invalid" )

In both cases, I confirmed that the performance data was indeed available via VC GUI

Is there some VC version-related issue here?

Ideally I would have used vSphere SDK for Perl 4.0, but am currently limited to using RHEL 4.6-7 ...

How to emulate esxcfg-vmhbadevs -m with the Perl API?

Aristizabal — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 22:35:40 GMT

I have an iSCSI target that has been formatted and partitioned to create a volume. I want to be able to map the LUN of iSCSI target to the volume UUID.

esxcfig-vmhbadev -m does this directly, for example in the bottom line LUN 207 maps to the UUID 4ac128de-d4b8f7c3-a4a5-001ec9ab7607.

vmhba0:1:0:1 /dev/sdb1 47a3995d-bf8312ea-aa8a-0019b9f36fbf
vmhba0:0:0:3 /dev/sda3 479f6ab3-636688b2-277b-0019b9f36fc1
vmhba1:4:200:1 /dev/sdc1 4ac127e9-81fb1fcf-1138-001ec9ab7607
vmhba1:15:207:1 /dev/sdd1 4ac128de-d4b8f7c3-a4a5-001ec9ab7607

How do I do this using the Perl API? I can get two halfs of the information, but I can't see how to map them.

This code snippet gives me information about the LUN, and the SCSI UUID

print " Canonical Name, UUID\n";
my $scsiLUN = $storageSystem->storageDeviceInfo->scsiLun;
foreach (@$scsiLUN) {
print " ". $_->canonicalName
. ", " . $_->uuid
. "\n";
}

Canonical Name, UUID
vmhba1:15:207, 0100cf000020202020564952545541
vmhba0:1:0, 020000000050014ee0004544c3574443205744
vmhba0:0:0, 020000000050014ee0004544d2574443205744
vmhba1:4:200, 0100c8000020202020564952545541

Then this snippet give me information about the volume:

my $mountInfo = $storageSystem->fileSystemVolumeInfo->mountInfo;
print " Volume Name, Path, Type, Capacity\n";
foreach (@$mountInfo) {
print " ". $_->volume->name
. ", " . $_->mountInfo->path
. ", " . $_->volume->type
. ", " . $_->volume->capacity
. "\n";
}

Volume Name, Path, Type, Capacity
esx7_local_storage2, /vmfs/volumes/47a3995d-bf8312ea-aa8a-0019b9f36fbf, VMFS, 79725330432
esx7_local_storage1, /vmfs/volumes/479f6ab3-636688b2-277b-0019b9f36fc1, VMFS, 71672266752
vol_2_1, /vmfs/volumes/4ac127e9-81fb1fcf-1138-001ec9ab7607, VMFS, 805306368
snap-0e22598d-vol_2_1, /vmfs/volumes/4ac128de-d4b8f7c3-a4a5-001ec9ab7607, VMFS, 805306368

But then how do I map vmhba1:15:207 to /vmfs/volumes/4ac128de-d4b8f7c3-a4a5-001ec9ab7607?

Thanks

How do I get the size of files in a datastore?

LinuxMonkey — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 14:30:58 GMT

I've been using the dsbrowse.pl file as a starting point to collect information about the data stores for various planned reports.

A new requirement is to provide the size of each file found in a datastore folder.

Does anyone have any guides, pointers, or code they can share?

Thank you.

getting started with the perl api?

k_ — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 15:18:07 GMT

Hi,

I'm after a pointer or two in the right direction to get started with the perl api for vmware - I've read around and have ended up not sure about which api I should be using. The ESX environment is v2.5.

My requirement is to collect performance data from the VM guests (cpu/mem/disk/net) and some configuration data (disk to lun map/mem & cpu allocations etc). I'm saying this only in case it affects the selection of API.

I have also seen some docs/sample scripts that mention a list of attributes that can come from the guest - are these documented completely somewhere just in case I need more later?

I've seen talk of vSphere cli for perl 4.0 (sounds odd as perl is 5.x now), also version 1.5 and 1.6 of the perl api. VIX too. I'm guessing vmware have been changing names as they develop the products, but since I'm at VC 2.5 I'm sure sure at which point in the lifecycle I should be at. If there is a readme that explains this lot just let me know.

Thanks in advance.

Cannot perform this operation in powered off state

Skyislimit — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 21:39:29 GMT

Powering on Virtual Machine test-16
SOAP Fault:

Fault string: The attempted operation cannot be performed in the current state (
Powered Off).
Fault detail: InvalidPowerState=HASH(0x405e070)
End Disconnect

Slow perl script execution

Tontonitch — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 09:24:52 GMT

Hello,

I'm currently facing a quite annoying problem.

I've installed the SDK for perl with the aim of monitoring ESX server resources. Provided pl scripts (in apps directory) are working correctly. However the scripts take an amazing long time to execute (about 40-60 seconds minimum!). After checking log files on the ESX server, it seems that there's an important delay between the initiation of the "Util::connect" and the "connected/authenticated" message in the ESX syslog.

I've tried SDK for perl 1.6 and the vSphere SDK for Perl 4, without differences.

Does someone have already faced that performance problem?

Any clue or investigation recommandations would be very appreciated.

Yannick

Environment: ESX 3.5, perl scripts launched on Debian Server (Lenny

Hereunder an exemple of script used:

/var/tmp/testsimple.pl --entity HostSystem --server 192.168.1.200 --username xxx --password xxx

Lenny$ cat /var/tmp/testsimple.pl
#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use VMware::VIRuntime;
my %opts = (
entity => {
type => "=s",
variable => "VI_ENTITY",
help => "ManagedEntity type: HostSystem, etc",
required => 1,
},
);
Opts::add_options(%opts);
Opts::parse();
Opts::validate();
Util::connect();

Obtain all inventory objects of the specified type

my $entity_type = Opts::get_option('entity');
my $entity_views = Vim::find_entity_views(
view_type => $entity_type);

Process the findings and output to the console

foreach my $entity_view (@$entity_views) {
my $entity_name = $entity_view->name;
Util::trace(0, "Found $entity_type:
$entity_name\n");
}

Disconnect from the server

Util::disconnect();

CopyDatastoreFile_Task does not work

r123 — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 10:17:34 GMT

Hello,

I need to copy virtual disks (or files) between datastores in VI. I am using VMware Infrastructure (VI) API for perl or vSphere SDK for Perl 4.0. Initialy I tried to use CopyVirtualDisk_Task, but it apeared that it works just with ESX servers not virtual center. Then I tried to use CopyDatastoreFile_Task. CopyDatastoreFile_Task works very strange. When copying vmdk files it just creates very small file in destination - I think that it is some kind of reference to original file. Why it is so? How can I copy file or disk with vSphere SDK for Perl 4.0?

Following code is used in perl script to do the copy.

my $service_content = Vim::get_service_content();
my $file_mgr = Vim::get_view(mo_ref => $service_content->fileManager);
$file_mgr->waitForTask($file_mgr->CopyDatastoreFile_Task(sourceName => $SourceName,sourceDatacenter => $SourceDatacenter,destinationName => $DestName,destinationDatacenter => $DestDatacenter));

Regards,
Roberts

Weird Problems since Virtualisation

adambird — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 13:41:38 GMT

We have just migrated 4 servers to 3 VShere servers, however since the migration we have noticed some issues:

Slow logons to Active Directory (DC is now Virtual), once logged on it is fine.
Some Users have to logon twice
Some mappped drives now show as device unknown

Once the users are logged on the network is alot faster directory listings are almost instant, rather than 1-2 mins to enumerate a 200GB directory.

Any help on the issues we are having would be appreciated.

AddDVPortgroup error

duyuyang — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 05:33:59 GMT

Hi,

When I add a VMware distributed virtual portgroup, it failed, fault string indicates that: Not initialized: boolean inherited.

Can anyone explain it to me? Any sample code?

Thanks,

Shawn

Problem using vSphere™ SDK for Perl instead of VI Perl Toolkit 1.6

martinkj — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 22:12:57 GMT

We are currently running VI Perl Toolkit 1.6 on SLES 10 SP1 64bit. When I run a test query using 1.6 I get the expected result. When I uninstall 1.6 and install vSphere SDK for Perl and run the same query I get this response:

Can't load '/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/x86_64-linux-thread-multi/auto/XML/LibXML/Common/Common.so' for module XML::LibXML::Common: /usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/x86_64-linux-thread-multi/auto/XML/LibXML/Common/Common.so: wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS32 at /usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/x86_64-linux-thread-multi/DynaLoader.pm line 230.
at /usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/x86_64-linux-thread-multi/XML/LibXML.pm line 12
Compilation failed in require at /usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/x86_64-linux-thread-multi/XML/LibXML.pm line 12.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at /usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/x86_64-linux-thread-multi/XML/LibXML.pm line 12.
Compilation failed in require at /usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/VMware/VICommon.pm line 11.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at /usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/VMware/VICommon.pm line 11.
Compilation failed in require at /usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/VMware/VIRuntime.pm line 15.
Compilation failed in require at /usr/lib/vmware-vcli/apps/performance/viperformance.pl line 11.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at /usr/lib/vmware-vcli/apps/performance/viperformance.pl line 11.

I have installed a prerequisite perl modules and rpms. Any ideas?

remove a VM and rename a VM

LuffyDLiu — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 03:06:49 GMT

Dear all,

Is it possible to provide a perl function to remove a VM through VC?

My ESX is managed by VC serve, I saw a createVM.pl, just want to know if removeVM.pl is available?

BTW, if there is some method to rename a VM name, I only saw the perl function for rename datastorage.

Is it also possible?

Thanks a lot,

Luffy

vsphere viperl image customization crashes vCenter

ultra01 — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 06:00:20 GMT

Hi. I've just setup a new vsphere host and vcenter 4 for testing the deployment of vm templates. I already have this working using esx 3.5 and the older vcenter. My problem is, after the cloning process finishes and the image customization begins, vcenter crashes and I receive this message ( on the command line ).

Fault SOAP request error - possibly a protocol issue: 500 Connect failed: connect: Connection refused; Connection refused

SOAP request error - possibly a protocol issue: 500 Connect failed: connect: Connection refused; Connection refused

Checking services I see that vcenter server has stopped. I've checked through all the customization code and it seems fine (it matches the reference guide). I'm not sure how to debug this further.

I'm currently using a slightly altered version of this script : http://communities.vmware.com/servlet/JiveServlet/download/889359-7006/CreateVM.pl

Regards,

Otto.

check tools status doesn't return the good value

gierone — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 13:04:46 GMT

Hello,

I want to check vmware tool status of my virtual machines so I use this fonction $vm_views->guest->ToolsStatus->val. When I test this function returns always "toolsOk" even when I stop the vmware tools service on the service console of windows. Why this function doesn't return "toolsNotRunning" ?

Thank you.

does hardware related events supported in vSphere SDK for Perl?

krishnaprasad — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 05:39:00 GMT

Hello,

ESXi supports SNMP traps. These hardware related traps are listed in the SNMP MIB. See the excerpt from the vmware MIB-
vmwEnvHardwareEvent NOTIFICATION-TYPE
OBJECTS { vmwSubsystemType, vmwHardwareStatus,
vmwEventDescription, vmwEnvHardwareTime }
STATUS current
DESCRIPTION
"This notification, if the agent is so configured, may be sent when the
system has detected a material change in physical condition of the
hardware"
::= { vmwNotifications 301 }

I would like to know whether similar events/alerts are available through vSphere/VI SDK?

VMWareTools version provided by the host

kri-2 — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 07:50:10 GMT

Hi,

is there a way to get the version number of the VMWare Tools (e.g. 110268, 123630,...) from a host_view that are provided by the host?

Thanks in advance!

Chris

VI RLC get() , put()

ayrus — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 06:28:53 GMT

hii

I've been using VI RLC s get , put , those are the options of vifs.pl . I use it for transferring files from datastore to my local machine and vice versa. I feel it is a bit slow and is there any other alternatives available for doing file transfer so that I can use it in my perl script ..??

Thanks,

ayrus.

vSphere SDK for perl is thread safe?

duyuyang — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 08:34:16 GMT

Hi,

I want to use multi-thread to do parallel work. The code is like following:

$session = Vim->new(service_url => 'https://****/sdk');
$session->login(user_name => "****", password => "****");

for (my $i = 0; $i < 3; $i++) {

my $t = Thread->new(\&sdk_fun, $i);
push(@threads, $t);
}

foreach (@threads) {
$_->join; ############Error Here#############

}

The join() of the threads throws segmentation fault. Please Help.

Thanks in advance,

Shawn

openSSL certificate verification

kef461 — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 22:40:40 GMT

I have seen others talk about this issue but they never stated what resolved their problem.

Problem: When you do a connect.pl from the Perl utilities and get Error: Server version unavailable at 'https://asciesx1/sdk/vimService.wsdl'. If you do a wget it returns.

~~16:02:15~~ https://asciesx1/sdk/vimService.wsdl
Resolving asciesx1... 172.29.59.25
Connecting to asciesx1|172.29.59.25|:443... connected.
ERROR: cannot verify asciesx1's certificate, issued by `/C=US/ST=California/L=Palo Alto/O=VMware, Inc./emailAddress=ssl-certificates@vmware.com/OU=VMware ESX Server Certificate/CN=asciesx1/unstructuredName=1250522187,564d7761726520496e632e':
Self-signed certificate encountered.
To connect to asciesx1 insecurely, use `--no-check-certificate'.
Unable to establish SSL connection.

I have tried to configure openssl and give the ca certificate to the client machine so that it could use it for verifying. These are self-signed certificates.

If you need any sample code to get started, make a request here!

navadavuluri — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 22:23:39 GMT

Need a sample code, then submit your request here: CodeCentral Sample Code Request Box

We assure you that all the requests will be processed promptly.

For more information on how this works: Learn about Sample Code Request Box and CodeCentral Feedback

problem with vmclone.pl

catphive — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 22:28:29 GMT

I'm doing a pretty basic clone with vmclone and running into this error:

vmclone.pl --username myuser \
--password mypassword \
--vmhost $server_dns \
--vmname 'my-clone-src' \
--vmname_destination 'my-clone-dst' \
--url "https://$server_dns/sdk/webService"

The free space available is less than the specified disksize or the host is not accessible.

I can ping the host, and the host also has about 260~ gigs available so I'm a little confused on what could be causing the error. Any idea of where to go from here diagnosing this?

My environment is on ubuntu 9.10 with perl sdk 4.0. I"m trying to connect a vmware ESX 3.5 server.

Script to update bios on Dell servers

Sterfish — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 17:15:19 GMT

Can someone help provide a script that can update bios on Dell(2950, 6850, 6950 and R900 and HP(DL360 and 580) ESX servers?

How can I provide the option inside a perl script?

duyuyang — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 03:39:15 GMT

Hi all,

Unfortunately, I have to develop a GUI for administration using SDK for perl.

I get the user's options (username, server, password) from the login dialogue, then how should I use connect() to connect to the vCenter or ESX host?

Maybe two choices:

1. Execute a perl script, say connect.pl, this is not what I want.

2. specify the options for connect(). This is what I want.

Can anyone clear me on this?

Thanks in advance,

Shawn

Problems with vihostupdate.pl

sochry — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 16:08:00 GMT

Running the command below results in the assoicated error:

C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware VI Remote CLI\bin>vihostupdate.pl -server <xxx.xxx.xx.xx> -query
Enter username: root
Enter password:
Operation not applicable : A general system error occurred: Internal error

This is with ESXi and I am running the script form Vists 64. Any ideas?

Steve

vSphere SDK on SLES 11 or Debian Lenny

davidhaase — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 11:21:36 GMT

Hi *,

I wonder if SLES 11 will become a supported platform for the SDK some time.
We already managed to get things running but the performance is very poor.
An "strace" on a script returns about 15.000 system calls with the following statement:

stat64("/usr/lib/perl/5.10/auto/Class/MethodMaker/Engine/ima_method_maker.al", 0xbfa2ca54) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)

SLES 11 uses Perl 5.10 and I found out, that the class method "ima_method_maker" is deprecated now.
Any ideas? Btw. same problems with Debian5 (Lenny).

Cheers
David

Pedo mellon a minno --

Installed perl toolkit 1.5 on Windows and problem running the sample script.

softential — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 22:17:09 GMT

Just installed Perl API toolkit version 1.5 on my laptop running windows XP.

Below is the error I get when executing the sample script. What should I do to fix this?

c:\Program Files\VMware\VMware VI Perl Toolkit\Perl\samples\discovery>datacenterlisting.pl --help
Can't load 'C:/Program Files/VMware/VMware VI Perl Toolkit/Perl/site/lib/auto/XML/LibXML/Common/Common.dll' for module XML::LibXML::Common: load_file:The specified module could not be found at C:/Prog
ram Files/VMware/VMware VI Perl Toolkit/Perl/lib/DynaLoader.pm line 230.
at C:/Program Files/VMware/VMware VI Perl Toolkit/Perl/site/lib/XML/LibXML.pm line 12
Compilation failed in require at C:/Program Files/VMware/VMware VI Perl Toolkit/Perl/site/lib/XML/LibXML.pm line 12.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at C:/Program Files/VMware/VMware VI Perl Toolkit/Perl/site/lib/XML/LibXML.pm line 12.
Compilation failed in require at C:/Program Files/VMware/VMware VI Perl Toolkit/Perl/lib/VMware/VICommon.pm line 11.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at C:/Program Files/VMware/VMware VI Perl Toolkit/Perl/lib/VMware/VICommon.pm line 11.
Compilation failed in require at C:/Program Files/VMware/VMware VI Perl Toolkit/Perl/lib/VMware/VIRuntime.pm line 15.
Compilation failed in require at C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware VI Perl Toolkit\Perl\samples\discovery\datacenterlisting.pl line 10.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware VI Perl Toolkit\Perl\samples\discovery\datacenterlisting.pl line 10.

VMware API Perl Toolkit Install Issue

softential — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 22:07:50 GMT

I am trying to install Perl API Toolkit on one of the linux VM and below is the error I get.

Does anyone know what is the problem? Does this mean I can not install the toolkit on the virtual guests, in that case where should this be installed.

V# ./vmware-install.pl
You cannot install VMware VIPerl Toolkit on a system running a xen
kernel.Execution aborted.

Trouble validating VI Perl Toolkit 1.6

joeboren — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 21:59:23 GMT

Greetings,

I just installed the VI Perl Toolkit 1.6 on an Ubuntu 8.04 box, which is actually a Nagios Jumpbox.

Following the instructions in the VIPerl install guide, i'm trying to validate the install by running the sample scripts, however i keep getting "no such file or directory".

I checked ownership and all the directories/files in the samples directory are owned by root.

Does this mean the scripts have to be run AS root? Running with sudo gives me the same "no such file or directory".

Any idea what i'm missing?

Thanks,
Joe

Remote procedure call using SDK for Perl

duyuyang — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 01:09:08 GMT

Hi,

If a VM is installed with VMware tools, is it possible to use SDK for perl remotely call a script within that VM? I learnt that VIX api can, but I hope perl can too.

Thanks,

Shawn

Get guest vm ip address

duyuyang — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 14:46:50 GMT

Hi,

A guest VM has installed vmware tools, but the vm has two vmnics, so I can only get one of the ip addresses from VirtualMachine->summary->guest->ipAddress.

How can I get two of them and its associated network? Is it possible?

TIA,

Shawn

What does "an OVF descriptor" mean ?

luger_lee — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 04:02:27 GMT

Hi.

Could anybody tell me what is an OVF descriptor ?

I want to use ParseDescriptor method to deploy an appliance to an ESX host,
but I do not understand what means "OVF descriptor" .

Thanks in advance.

Change VLAN while Cloning

kaharris — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 13:34:35 GMT

Does any one have an example of a clone script that also changes the VLAN of the virtual nic? I want to clone ten VM's and have each new VM be in a different VLAN.

Getting ext3 file system details using vi sdk

dillu — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 13:27:11 GMT

Hi,

I am trying to get the disk used by ext3 file system (/usr , /bin , /home , /etc etc.,) .I am trying to get the disk used by each folders. I managed to get the details of the VMFS using the dsbrowse.pl script. Is there any script available to get the details of the ext3 file system.

Thanks..

Unregister a vm does not remove it from the inventory?

duyuyang — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 08:05:15 GMT

Hi,

When I unregister a vm or even destroy it with VirtualMachine.Unregister or VirtualMachine.Destroy, it does not disappear from the inventory, instead, it becomes grey and appened with (orphaned). How can I remove it completely?

Thanks,

Shawn

Changes to the ESX Service Console for ESX 4.0

navadavuluri — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 01:38:09 GMT

Please check out the attched document for information

This technical paper discusses incompatibilities between the ESX 3.5 service
console and the ESX 4.0 service console. Included are suggestions of what you might do to upgrade your
existing environments that depend on the ESX service console. This document also discusses how you might
bridge the gap to support ESXi, which does not include a service console. And finally, if you are currently
writing applications that run in the ESX service console, this document suggests some possible options you
have for transitioning away from it.

Problem with VMInfo.pl

DrewGator — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 02:15:46 GMT

I'm writing a script that needs to query for the datastore used by the disk files for a specific VM. I found that the VMInfo.pl script would accomplish this so to test I issued the following command at a command prompt:

vminfo.pl --url https://vcserver/sdk/webservice --username vcadmin --password ***** --vmname vmname --fields vmPathName

Unfortunately, the only response I get is:

Virtual Machine vmname not found.

I've verified that the VM exists and is running. I've tried it with several different VMs that I know exist and it isn't working.

The odd thing is that it worked the other day...

Browsing datastore files

theowood — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 22:29:19 GMT

Need to browse datastore files to display file list and size. Here is the code snippet:

...

my $flags = new FileQueryFlags (fileSize => 1, fileType => 1, modification => 1);
my $searchSpec = new HostDatastoreBrowserSearchSpec( details => $flags );
my $browser= Vim::get_view(mo_ref => $datastore->browser);
my $path = "";
my $results = $browser->SearchDatastoreSubFolders( datastorePath=>$path,searchSpec=>$searchSpec);
print "Results of connecting to datastore browser: " . $results . "\n";
foreach my $folder ( @{ $results } ) {
if( defined $folder->file ) {
foreach my $file( @{ $folder->file } ) {
print $folder->folderPath.$file->path."\t".$file->fileSize."\n";
}
}
}

When the Vim::get_view statement runs I get the following error. Any ideas?

SOAP Fault:

Fault string: Invalid datastore format '/'.
Fault detail: InvalidDatastoreFaultcalling search
End Disconnect

datacenter question

catphive — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 22:53:03 GMT

After doing the vsphere perl sdk install, I"m trying to validate my install. The utility /usr/share/doc/vmware-vcli/sample/datacenterlisting requires a --datacenter flag to do this.

In terms of vmware, what does datacenter exactly refer to? Where would I go to find the proper value for this? I'm trying to point it at my vcenter server.

Thanks

Simple create VM script not working

repl1cant — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 18:26:24 GMT

Howdy folks,

I'm trying to create a simple create VM script from the ground up and I can't for the life of me find out what's wrong. The error I keep on getting is:

SOAP Fault:

Fault string: A component of the virtual machine is not accessible on the host.
Fault detail: CannotAccessVmComponent

I've tried to trim it down as much as possible to try and figure out this last issue. I took out the deviceChange portion and still get the same error. I also tried changing the datastore name to verify the format of it, and that was not the issue either as it complained .. Also, in the version I pasted below I put the var's directly in the create_vm_spec function as well .. Help!!!

use strict;
use VMware::VIRuntime;

my $vc = 'x.x.x.x';
my $vc_un = 'username';
my $vc_pw = 'password';
my $host = 'hostname';

$vc = "https://$vc:443/sdk/vimService";

Util::connect($vc,$vc_un,$vc_pw);

my $host_view = get_esx_host($host);
my $dc_view = get_datacenter("datacenter");
my $folder = $dc_view->vmFolder;

my $folder_view = Vim::get_view(mo_ref =>; $dc_view->vmFolder);
my $comp_view = Vim::get_view(mo_ref => $host_view->parent);

my $spec = create_vm_spec();

eval {
$folder_view->CreateVM(
config =>$spec,
pool =>$comp_view->resourcePool
);
};

print $@;

Util::disconnect();

# creates object for a given host
sub get_esx_host {
my $host = shift;
return Vim::find_entity_view(
view_type => 'HostSystem',
filter => {
name => qr/$host/i
}
);
}

# creates an object for a given dc
sub get_datacenter {
my $dc = shift;
return Vim::find_entity_view(
view_type => 'Datacenter',
filter => {
name => qr/$dc/i
}
);
}

# create vm spec, see below for params
sub create_vm_spec {

my $name = "testMe";
my $cpus = 1;
my $mem_size = 256;
my $guest_os = "rhel4Guest";
my $ds_name = "datastore";

my $ds_path = "$ds_name";

# create a ref for the location of the vm files
my $files = VirtualMachineFileInfo->new(
logDirectory => undef,
snapshotDirectory => undef,
suspendDirectory => undef,
vmPathName => $ds_path
);

# and for the grand finalie, lets create the vm spec!!!!!!!
my $vm_spec = VirtualMachineConfigSpec->new(
name => $name,
memoryMB => $mem_size,
files => $files,
numCPUs => $cpus,
guestId => $guest_os
);

return $vm_spec;

}

how to check the status of the server added in vMA

dillu — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 13:13:56 GMT

Hi,

I have added 3 servers in vMA. vifp listservers list all the servers added to vMA. I have powered off one of the servers that was added to vMA. But still the vifp listservers shows all the server including the one which is powered off. Is there any way to find the status of the server added to vMA??

Thanks...

Shutting down multiple hosts and the vm's on the hosts

caffine4lovers — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 16:01:09 GMT

Sorry to bother the community again. Right now I have a script that will shutdown or suspends vm's on a host in order using an external file to store the shutdown order (thanks to help from lamw) . The plan is for the script to reside on a virtual center with multiple hosts. The script needs to be able to shutdown the vm's on the host, shutdown the host (in order same idea with the external file), and then jump to the next host and continue the same process. I attempted to create nested for loops to accomplish this task but, it doesn't seem to work. Any help would be appreciated. I attached the script. Thanks in advance

Can SDK for perl execute an ESX service console command: esxcfg-info?

duyuyang — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 15:37:35 GMT

Hi,
I want to get an esx/esxi host's esxcfg-info result from a vMA, can I do that from a SDK for perl script?
Regards,
Shawn

vsphere 4 perl SDK with ESX 3.5?

catphive — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 17:48:47 GMT

I'm starting a project with ESX 3.5, although we may upgrade to vsphere in the near future. Is it safe to use the vsphere perl SDK with ESX 3.5 for the time being, or am I better off using the VIPerl 1.6 sdk until I can upgrade to vsphere 4?

Thanks

Using common options

caffine4lovers — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 17:58:45 GMT

I am trying to create a script that, in the end, should run unattended (not 100% sure how to make this happen yet). I created a configuration file that holds information for the server, username, and password using common options. I tried to use VI_CONFIG in my script to point to the configuration file so the user would not be prompted while the program was running. I cannot seem to make it work. When I try to add VI_CONFIG an error always comes up: "Cant modify constant item in scalar assignment". Any help would be greatly appreciated. I attached what I have so far below.

Trouble retrieving VM objects

rsantos@qualcomm.com — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 02:05:06 GMT

I'm trying to collect all VMs in a datastore from a given datacenter, passed as a command line argument. Here's a snippet:

my %allvms = ();

my $clusters = Vim::find_entity_views(
view_type => 'ClusterComputeResource',
filter => { 'name' => "$cluster_name" },
);

foreach my $cluster ( @$clusters ){
print "Cluster: " . $cluster->name . "\n";
my $datastores = Vim::get_views (mo_ref_array => $cluster->datastore);
foreach my $datastore (sort @$datastores){
my $vms = Vim::get_views (mo_ref_array => $datastore->vm);
foreach my $vm ( @$vms ){
$allvms{$vm->name}{path} = $vm->summary->config->vmPathName;
$allvms{$vm->name}{name} = $vm->name;
}
}
}

foreach ( sort keys %allvms ){ print "$_: $allvms{$_}{path}\n"; }

But the %allvms hash is empy. What am I doing wrong?

Thanks much!
Rob

Import a Virtual Machine using Perl

MessageOne — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 20:28:03 GMT

How can I import a virtual machine programmatically using Perl?

Function RebootGuest() stop when VmWare tools service isn't started

gierone — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:36:05 GMT

Hello,

I'm using VI Perl Toolkit to reboot my virtual machines and more particulary the function rebootGuest(). If the vmware tools service isn't started or doesn't work for any reason, the fonction can't reboot the vm and stop the script. How Can I ensure that the script doesn't stop in progress if a vm doesn't have the service started ?

Thank you.

Perl vSphere SDK on OS X

stumpr — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 23:50:44 GMT

I may be an audience of one in this regard, but I recently decided to upgrade and try the vSphere Perl SDK on Mac OSX. Typically I just copy the VMware modules from the Linux install into my /System/Library/Perl/5.8.8/ path and CPAN any dependencies.

However, the new VICredStore.pm module is giving me problems. The fix is pretty simple (the error is also likely an oversight). When doing the get_os() subroutine call in the get_default_path() subroutine, OSX is actually being detected as WINDOWS.

Turns out in the get_os() subroutine the case insensitive regex /Win/i is matching 'darwin' which is the string returned by $^O.

# ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Description: Query the OS name.
# Input:  Subroutine style:  VICredStore::get_os
# Output: String containing name of OS.
# ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
sub get_os
{
   my $os = $^O;
   if    ($os =~ /Win/i)     { $os = 'WINDOWS'; }
   elsif ($os =~ /vms/i)     { $os = 'VMS'; }
   elsif ($os =~ /^MacOS$/i) { $os = 'MACINTOSH'; }
   elsif ($os =~ /os2/i)     { $os = 'OS2'; }
   else                      { $os = 'UNIX'; }
   return ($os);
}

I patched it manually to get around the issue, I included the patch file if it might benefit anyone.

cp VICredStore.pm VICresStore.pm-distrib
patch VICredStore.pm < VICredStore-OSXFix.patch

Obviously not supported by VMware. However this does seem to proceed past the new credential store feature successfully.

Now I'm looking into Error: Server version unavailable at 'https://<esx host>/sdk/vimService.wsdl' complaints when running my scripts.

I thought this might be of assistance to someone.

Compatibility: VIPerl 1.6 & vSphere SDK for Perl v4: Gotchas/Issues?

kindlund — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:37:55 GMT

Hi,
Are there any issues with STILL using VIPerl v1.6 with ESX/ESXi v4? So far, it looks like the API really didn't change, but I wanted to know if there were any issues/gotchas with this approach.

Aside from the introduction of the "Credential Store", it doesn't seem worthwhile upgrading to the newer API, unless there were significant bug fixes / issues resolved... after checking the Release Notes, I don't really see any noticeable changes.

Lastly, does VMware intend to ever encrypt the password content in the "Credential Store"? Meaning, when a perl script runs, the SDK prompts the user to "unlock" the credential store, allowing the script to access credentials until the script ends? This is similar to how Apache2 accesses protected private keys, associated with SSL certs.

Thanks,

Darien

hot migration using perl sdk

aswani521 — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 21:08:58 GMT

Using the script vmmigrate.pl I was able to perform only a cold migration (VM is off)
Is there any way in which we can perform hot migration ?

VI Perl Toolkit using a lot of CPU (hundreds of thousands of calls to libXML)

MartinWi — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 13:25:00 GMT

Hi there,

We are using the VI Perl Toolkit to run scripts for monitoring and graphing our ESX as well as our ESXi hosts, some directly and others via Virtual Center. We are doing this on a Centos 5.3 host with toolkit 1.6. For some reason the toolkit is however consuming quite a lot of CPU, which means we cannot run the scripts on as many hosts as we would like, even though the monitor host is a dual quad core machine. I am not much of a developer myself, but I have ran Dprof and dprofpp on the script we're using, check_esx3.pl by op5, and also the sample script provided by vmware, datacenterlisting.pl, to find anything similar. Both of them seem to be making hundreds of thousands of calls to libXML, which is what's consuming all that CPU time. I have also tried doing this on the new vMA platform, which is running toolkit 4.0 with the same result.

So what I would like to know is; how can we make our scripts execute faster when the toolkit itself is so slow?

Output from dprofpp running datacenterlisting.pl:

dprofpp tmon.out

Total Elapsed Time = 12.25789 Seconds
User+System Time = 6.547893 Seconds
Exclusive Times
%Time ExclSec CumulS #Calls sec/call Csec/c Name
30.0 1.969 8.716 25888 0.0001 0.0003 ComplexType::deserialize
28.0 1.838 5.688 148014 0.0000 0.0000 XML::LibXML::Element::getChildrenByTagName
27.9 1.828 1.828 111179 0.0000 0.0000 XML::LibXML::Node::nodeName
19.4 1.272 1.272 148014 0.0000 0.0000 XML::LibXML::Node::_childNodes
7.70 0.504 1.776 148014 0.0000 0.0000 XML::LibXML::Node::childNodes
6.23 0.408 0.408 121601 0.0000 0.0000 XML::LibXML::Node::textContent
5.99 0.392 0.392 112826 0.0000 0.0000 XML::LibXML::Node::DESTROY
4.87 0.319 1.041 2 0.1595 0.5205 Vim::login
4.29 0.281 0.281 69100 0.0000 0.0000 XML::LibXML::Element::getAttributeNodeNS
3.34 0.219 0.550 2625 0.0001 0.0002 Class::MethodMaker::Engine::create_methods
2.52 0.165 0.202 2625 0.0001 0.0001 Class::MethodMaker::scalar::scal0000
2.28 0.149 0.149 1161 0.0001 0.0001 Crypt::SSLeay::Conn::read
1.99 0.130 0.130 10 0.0130 0.0130 XML::LibXML::_parse_string
1.70 0.111 0.137 24388 0.0000 0.0000 DynamicData::get_property_list
0.92 0.060 0.118 22 0.0027 0.0054 main::BEGIN

Output from running dprofpp on check_esx3.pl:

# dprofpp tmon.out
Total Elapsed Time = 6.755634 Seconds
User+System Time = 2.915634 Seconds
Exclusive Times
%Time ExclSec CumulS #Calls sec/call Csec/c Name
28.6 0.834 1.881 33053 0.0000 0.0001 XML::LibXML::Element::getChildrenByTagName
21.8 0.636 0.636 247000 0.0000 0.0000 XML::LibXML::Node::nodeName
15.4 0.449 2.543 5611 0.0001 0.0005 ComplexType::deserialize
9.23 0.269 1.086 2 0.1347 0.5428 Vim::login
8.40 0.245 0.575 2625 0.0001 0.0002 Class::MethodMaker::Engine::create_methods
6.28 0.183 0.183 33053 0.0000 0.0000 XML::LibXML::Node::_childNodes
5.38 0.157 0.206 2625 0.0001 0.0001 Class::MethodMaker::scalar::scal0000
4.63 0.135 0.135 249895 0.0000 0.0000 XML::LibXML::Node::DESTROY
4.01 0.117 0.300 33053 0.0000 0.0000 XML::LibXML::Node::childNodes
2.85 0.083 0.083 14278 0.0000 0.0000 XML::LibXML::Element::getAttributeNodeNS
2.33 0.068 0.115 863 0.0001 0.0001 Net::SSL::read
2.16 0.063 0.098 2625 0.0000 0.0000 Class::MethodMaker::Engine::install_methods
1.92 0.056 0.056 27375 0.0000 0.0000 XML::LibXML::Node::textContent
1.85 0.054 0.062 5641 0.0000 0.0000 DynamicData::get_property_list
1.68 0.049 0.049 2625 0.0000 0.0000 Class::MethodMaker::Engine::check_opts

Any hints/clues much appreciated.

scripting datastore creation

jeremyinvision — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 18:04:26 GMT

Are there any tools here to create a new datastore given a newly created SAN LUN ?

Seems like none of the tools I can find online or that are in this perl sdk work around the messyness of having to manually fdisk the new LUN and then use vmkfstools to lay down a filesystem.

Is there a took available for this or am i missing something ?

vicfg-nas datastore removal

klevron — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 14:50:48 GMT

I'm getting the following error when trying to use the vicfg-nas command to remove a NFS datastore from an vSphere ESXi host.

Unable to remove datastore: fault.RestrictedVersion.summary

The command works fine for listing and adding datastores.

I know it worked when used on ESX/ESXi 3.5 hosts.

I first ran into the error when using the older Remote CLI package, but I still get the error after installing the vSphere SDK.

Anyone run into this and figured out a solution?

Problems installing vSphere SDK

bandersfdjhefjh — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 14:50:27 GMT

Hello, I have a really hard time getting the VMSphere SDK to work in Windows and I have no installation errors using the provided VMware-VIPERL-4.0.0-161974.exe from the VMWARE page but whenever I try to run any script I get a popup that refers to a XML.DLL-file and yields error messages like below:

BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at C:/Program Files/VMware/VMware vSphere CLI/
Perl/site/lib/XML/LibXML.pm line 116.

It seems like it is missing something and I have tried this on several Windows computers and I also had a go at installing it from SourceCode mentioned at page 18 (http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/viperltoolkit/viperl40/doc/vsperl_40_install.pdf) but for starters I cannot locate the required Perl modules from the Perl Package manager from ActivePerl and I also cannot find the mentioned vSphere SDK for Perl source bundle at the download page but only the embedded installer.

Clearly I am doing something wrong here but I do not know what which is quite frustrating so all help is appreciated!

Welcome vSphere SDK for Perl users !

heyitspablo — Fri, 22 May 2009 14:10:22 GMT

We welcome vSphere SDK for Perl users to participate in a community dedicated for Perl topics.