Questions on ESX + UPS Graceful Shutdown Solutions

[citlali]

Hello everyone. I am very new to VMWare, so please pardon my newbie questions, and hopefully I have posted this in the correct location.

I am currently working as a software developer for Tripp Lite. Our SNMP-based Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) companion software product is the PowerAlert suite, and I have been given a couple of days worth of time to do more research on the possibility of supporting ESX/ESXi VMWare and server shutdown. I did some investigation of this last month, where I found the scripts by William Lam and another SSH solution ().

I understand there are a couple of scripted methods for doing shutdown, one of which is found here: . A second solution involves installing APC PowerChute via command line interface (available only on ESXi?).

The main questions I have at the moment are:

1. Can everyone install VIMA? Is a shutdown solution which installs on VIMA and runs from that platform a viable option, or is the command-line interface support a must-have for the general user-base? The VIMA Administrator's and Developer's Guide () leads me to believe that everyone can install VIMA, and that it just does not come preinstalled on the servers which ship with the console interface.

2. Can someone confirm that there is now a license issue with using lamw shutdown scripts? Any guesses as to whether or not this issue affects most users? I originally found the related comment here: . The comment was that a new revision of ESXi "may disallow write operations and require that the user purchase ESXi license(s) to make full use of the VI API (read/write)". William Lam also stated in another forum thread, "If you're using at least Foundation license or classic ESX, then this script will work. Please take a look at the documentation for further details." Which documentation specifically is meant and where could I review it?

3. The VIMA Administrator's and Developer's Guide also indicates that you get a 64-bit Enterprise Linux when you install VIMA. Does anyone know what version of the Kernel this is? ( I am not any kind of experts on Linux Kernels. ) The APC Linux software appears to be installable on the console interface; what kernel and kernel version would that be based on?

This is kind of an crazy thought, but in the cases where the shutdown scripts will not work because of licensing problem, would anyone even consider installing the SNMP shutdown agent software on all VMs and configuring the UPS to initiate shutdown on all VMs? ( as an alternative to buying the ESX license ... ) Or do all VMs share the same IP address?

Thanks in advance for reading and considering. Any answers, suggestions, links, etc. are much appreciated.

Xochitl Citlali

Tripp Lite Software Engineer

[lamw · Accepted solution]

1) Yes, VMware VIMA is a free vApp (Virtual Appliance) It's currently runs a stripped down RHEL 5.2 x86-64 It comes pre-install with the VI Perl Toolkit & RCLI (re-dubbed to become vSphere SDK for Perl & vCLI) both of which utilizes the VMware SDK/API to communicate with vCenter/ESX(i) host(s)

2) The licensing situation is further explained here http://vmetc.com/2009/03/31/esxi-u4-ends-free-version-read-and-write-access-from-the-rcli/ this is a VMware licensing thing vs. something with my scripts, you also have some alternatives including VMware VIX http://communities.vmware.com/thread/205815

3)

[vi-admin@vima ~]$ cat /etc/vima-release
VIMA 1.0.0 BUILD-124829


Copyright @ 1998-2008
VMware, Inc. All rights reserved. Protected by one or more of U.S. Patent Nos.
6,397,242, 6,496,847, 6,704,925, 6,711,672 , 6,725,289 ,6,735,601 ,6,785,886
,6,789,156 ,6,795,966 ,6,880,022 ,6,944,699 ,6,961,806 ,6,961,941 ,7,069,413
,7,082,598 ,7,089,377 , 7,111,086, 7,111,145, 7,117,481, 7,149,843, 7,155,558,
7,222,221, 7,260,815, 7,260,820, 7,269,683, 7,275,136, 7,277,998, 7,277,999,
7,278,030 , 7,281,102, 7,290,253, 7,356,679 ; patents pending.

VMware, the VMware "boxes" logo and design, Virtual SMP and VMotion are
registered trademarks or trademarks of VMware, Inc. in the United States and/or
other jurisdictions. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be
trademarks of their respective companies.

[vi-admin@vima ~]$ uname -a
Linux vima.primp-industries.com 2.6.18-92.el5 #1 SMP Tue Apr 29 13:16:15 EDT 2008 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

[vi-admin@vima ~]$ cat /etc/redhat-release
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 5.2 (Tikanga)

with the release of vSphere, a new version of vMA will also be out that has some changes, but the underlying RHEL system is exactly the same.

Currently, ideal situation is to be able to install some type of management agent on VMware VIMA/vMA to monitor your UPS device, whatever that may be and then utilize the VMware API to properly shutdown the VM(s) and host. To be able to do this, you'll need your ESX/ESXi product to be licensed with at least the Foundation license, else the VI API is only read-only meaning you won't be able to perform any useful operations against the VM(s) or host(s). If you're looking to develop a management agent that will install on VMware which is probably a nice feature to have from 3rd party, I would consider contacting VMware and get more information as a partner. You could also develop your product on say ubuntu or any open UNIX/LINUX OS and distribute as a vApp that can run out of the box after download.

The real gotcha is how you'll be powering down the VM(s)/host(s) and again, ideally we would like to use the VI API but you'll be govered by VMware's licensing policy and that is how you'll have to sale your product to ensure that your customers are using at least the Foundation license and can not just use the FREE version of ESXi and use your UPS utility and expect it to work.

Hopefully this puts you in the right direction 😃

=========================================================================

William Lam

VMware vExpert 2009

VMware ESX/ESXi scripts and resources at:

If you find this information useful, please award points for "correct" or "helpful".

[mcowger]

1) Yes, everyone can install it

2) ESXi (the free version) does not enable read write API access. previous to U4, it was available, but that was a bug that has now been fixed.

3) $ uname -a

Linux vir1-vima1-1-sfm.ops.sfdc.net 2.6.18-92.el5 #1 SMP Tue Apr 29 13:16:15 EDT 2008 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Its based on RHEL5.2

the service console for ESX3.5 is based on RHEL3u8

--Matt

VCP, vExpert, Unix Geek

[mpippin]

citlali

did you ever get this going?

I just purchased a considerable amount of Tripp-Lite product and would like to use the snmp card to shut down my ESX.

[citlali]

Yes, this is functional in some configurations with the released PoweAlert 12.04.0045 Local product when using serial connection to the ESX server. However, the configuration is kind of annoying because you have to install PowerAlert Local on VIMA and then again on another VM or computer so you can use the GUI remotely because PowerAlert Local doesn't install with a configuration file.

We are in the process of doing final fixes and testing on PowerAlert 12.04.0048 Suite products, and hopefully today or tomorrow PowerAlert Local RPM will install with a sample configuration file to make it easier to setup on VIMA. We also added script execution capability to PowerAlert Shutdown Agent, so the next software release will add the capability to shutdown VMWare servers based on SNMPWEBCARD events as well. The release date of the new software will depend on how testing goes.

If anyone is interested in testing configurations prior to our software release of PowerAlert 12.04.0048 please let me know. I can't make any guarantees given the schedule now, but there was interest here from the higher-ups to see if anyone proficient with VMWare was interested in testing pre-release software and VMWare shutdown documentation. That interest was about 5 months ago, but if someone is genuinely interested I can see where the managers stand on the idea now.

[LucasAlbers]

I am very happy to hear apc is putting resources into interfacing with vsphere.