I've noticed that almost all RCLI scripts (ESX 4 or 3.5) take anywhere between 5-30 seconds to complete on the vMA. But when running directly on the console, the output is returned instantaneously. Has anyone had this problem? 5 seconds seems like its not such a big deal, but in reality, it can add hours to an automated test suite that uses the vMA to communicate to all ESX hosts.

root@vma1 ~ibm3550-10# time esxcfg-scsidevs -a
Adapter_ID Driver UID PCI Vendor & Model
vmhba0 aacraid pscsi.vmhba0 (2:0.0) ServeRAID 8k/8k-l8
vmhba1 qla2xxx fc.2000001b3200d037:2100001b3200d037 (7:0.0) ISP2432-based 4Gb Fibre Channel to PCI Express HBA
vmhba2 qla2xxx fc.2001001b3220d037:2101001b3220d037 (7:0.1) ISP2432-based 4Gb Fibre Channel to PCI Express HBA
vmhba3 ata_piix ide.vmhba3 (0:31.1) 631xESB/632xESB IDE Controller
vmhba32 ata_piix unknown.vmhba32 (0:31.1) 631xESB/632xESB IDE Controller
vmhba33 iscsi_vmk iqn.1998-01.com.vmware:ibm3550-10-39acade4 () iSCSI Software Adapter

real 0m7.522s
user 0m3.760s
sys 0m0.208s

Same command on the console:

root@ibm3550-10 ~# time esxcfg-scsidevs -a
vmhba0 aacraid link-n/a pscsi.vmhba0 (2:0.0) Adaptec ServeRAID 8k/8k-l8
vmhba1 qla2xxx link-up fc.2000001b3200d037:2100001b3200d037 (7:0.0) QLogic Corp ISP2432-based 4Gb Fibre Channel to PCI Express HBA
vmhba2 qla2xxx link-up fc.2001001b3220d037:2101001b3220d037 (7:0.1) QLogic Corp ISP2432-based 4Gb Fibre Channel to PCI Express HBA
vmhba3 ata_piix link-n/a ide.vmhba3 (0:31.1) Intel Corporation 631xESB/632xESB IDE Controller
vmhba32 ata_piix link-n/a ide.vmhba32 (0:31.1) Intel Corporation 631xESB/632xESB IDE Controller
vmhba33 iscsi_vmk link-n/a iqn.1998-01.com.vmware:ibm3550-10-39acade4() Software iSCSI

real 0m0.024s
user 0m0.000s
sys 0m0.020s

The protocol used is https@443. I've tried changing it to http@80 but this caused the following cryptic syntax error in one of the RCLI perl libs.

root@vma1 ~ibm3550-rtp10# time esxcfg-scsidevs -a --protocol http --portnumber 80
Can't call method "getChildrenByTagName" on an undefined value at /usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/VMware/VICommon.pm line 1884.

real 0m1.685s
user 0m1.517s
sys 0m0.161s

i suspect the slowness is due to the authentication piece, has anyone figured out why?

Rob