VMware Communities : Unanswered Threads - vSphere Client Plug-ins

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.

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

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...

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?

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

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

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.

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

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.

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>

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.

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

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

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?

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

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.

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

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

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

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)

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.

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

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>

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?