Reading / Writing to Network Shares using vCO

[Sirry]

I'm sorry for the question, but I have perused the this forum and am still failing to set up how to read and write files to a network share.

Can someone give me more explicit instructions? I have tried using the File object, but I'm not sure how to instantiate it in the first place, I believe my syntax is wrong.

I am using vCO Appliance. Thanks for the help in advance.

[tschoergez]

Hi,

if I remember right, you can find an example in our training package for the videos on http://www.vmwarelearning.com/orchestrator you can get from here: http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-21582

The Workflow is called "Save Datacenter Report to html file".

In short:

var myFile = new File(fullPathAndFilename);

myFile.write(something);

Cheers,

Joerg

[Sirry]

Thanks for the help. I am able to get the above working for local files, but I cannot get it working for remote files.

I understand that I need the proper permissions to get the files working, but I have opened up the remote file share to be fully controlled by everyone.

my syntax is something like:

var test = new FileReader("//192.168.10.120/Shares/test.txt");

I am getting an error: Permission denied on file '/172.16.167.33/ConfigShares/testes.txt' , read not allowed

Flipping the slashes gives me File Not Found.

I have tried to open the shares on other  (Windows) computers and all open up the path just fine without credentials.... any idea what the issue might be?

[tschoergez]

If you want to use backslashes, be aware that they are special characters in Javascript, so you have to escape them, giving something like "\\\\192.168.10.120\\Shares\\test.txt".

I don't know if the forward slashes work with network shares.

Can you try to map the share with a drive letter, as a workaround?

Cheers,

Joerg

[Sirry]

Is there a way to do this if vCenter Orchestrator is on the Linux Appliance VM? Mapping seems to require installation of some things.

[iiliev]

There is no need to map shares to drives.

First, make sure that you have given read permissions to the file you intend to read. In configuration file 'js-io-rights.conf' (located in <vco-dir>\app-server\server\vmo\conf\ directory), you need to have a line similar to

+r \\192.168.10.120\Shares\test.txt

Then, in your workflow you can use something like

var file = new FileReader("\\\\192.168.10.120\\Shares\\test.txt");
file.open();
var s = file.readAll();
System.log("file content read => " + s);
file.close();

Hope this helps.

[iiliev]

Forgot to mention, the sample permissions in my previous post is for read only mode. If you need not only read, but also write/execute permissions, you should replace '+r' with '+rwx'

[Sirry]

Thank you for the help... I seem to have made progress following your instructions verbatim, but I am having the oddest issue at the moment...

I can read and write to "a" file I specified ("\\\\172.16.167.33\\vCOShares\\simple.txt")

However, it does not seem to affect the file system at all! No file is read/written to at that location, yet I know the data is persistent since I can write in a workflow and then read it back in another....

[Sirry]

If i were to allow a full directory instead of a file, do I just type in:

1. +r \\192.168.10.120\Shares\

Update: Added some debugging lines... perhaps someone who sees this can find something I didn't.... it does alarm me that Orchestrator thinks it is a local file:

[2013-07-09 17:41:15.942] [I] Dumping File Information for: '/tmp/xFiles/test.log'

[2013-07-09 17:41:15.944] [I]   Dir: /tmp/xFiles/

[2013-07-09 17:41:15.945] [I]   Exist: true

[2013-07-09 17:41:15.946] [I]   Hostname: localhost

[2013-07-09 17:41:15.948] [I]   isDir: false

[2013-07-09 17:41:15.949] [I]   length: 117

[2013-07-09 17:41:15.951] [I]   ext: log

[2013-07-09 17:41:15.953] [I]   isLocal: true

[2013-07-09 17:41:15.954] [I]   name: test.log

[2013-07-09 17:41:15.955] [I]   path: /tmp/xFiles/test.log

[2013-07-09 17:41:15.957] [I]   canRead: true

[2013-07-09 17:41:15.959] [I]   canWrite: true

[2013-07-09 17:41:15.961] [I] Dumping File Information for: '\\172.16.167.33\vCOShares\simple.tmp'

[2013-07-09 17:41:15.962] [I]   Dir: //172.16.167.33/vCOShares/

[2013-07-09 17:41:15.963] [I]   Exist: true

[2013-07-09 17:41:15.965] [I]   Hostname: localhost

[2013-07-09 17:41:15.966] [I]   isDir: false

[2013-07-09 17:41:15.968] [I]   length: 117

[2013-07-09 17:41:15.970] [I]   ext: tmp

[2013-07-09 17:41:15.971] [I]   isLocal: true

[2013-07-09 17:41:15.972] [I]   name: simple.tmp

[2013-07-09 17:41:15.974] [I]   path: \\172.16.167.33\vCOShares\simple.tmp

[2013-07-09 17:41:15.975] [I]   canRead: true

[2013-07-09 17:41:15.977] [I]   canWrite: true

function for that (and the two lines that call it) are as follows:

function writeToFile(filename)

{

  var testFile = new File(filename);

  System.log("Dumping File Information for: '" + filename + "'");

  System.log("  Dir: " + testFile.directory);

  System.log("  Exist: " + testFile.exists);

  System.log("  Hostname: " + testFile.hostname);

  System.log("  isDir: " + testFile.isDir);

  System.log("  length: " + testFile.length);

  System.log("  ext: " + testFile.extension);

  System.log("  isLocal: " + testFile.isLocal);

  System.log("  name: " + testFile.name);

  System.log("  path: " + testFile.path);

  System.log("  canRead: " + testFile.canRead());

  System.log("  canWrite: " + testFile.canWrite());

  testFile.write("doesn't really matter");

}

writeToFile("/tmp/xFiles/test.log");

writeToFile("\\\\172.16.167.33\\vCOShares\\simple.tmp");

[iiliev]

Yes, this is the syntax for directories.

Briefly looked at the source; it seems that hostname property is not initialized automatically based on the file name and is always localhost (unless you set it explicitly using its setter method).

[Sirry]

I am displeased to announce that I am finding a file called "\\172.16.167.33\vCOShares\simple.txt" in my /opt/vmo/app-server/bin directory.

running the command "find / -name '*\\simple.txt*'" returns

/opt/vmo/app-server/bin/\\172.16.167.33\vCOShares\simple.txt

any ideas?

[Burke-]

Rather than using a Windows style UNC path for your linux appliance, create a mount point and save to the mount point. Similar applies to vCO on Windows: Don't try to write to UNC path, map a drive and write to the mapped location. Adjust js-io-rights.conf for appropriate permissions to the mount point, not the UNC path.

[Sirry]

I have been trying to do that as well Burke, but I am getting mounting issues.

mount -t cifs //172.16.167.33/vCOShares /mnt/vCOShares

gives me the error:

mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on //172.16.167.33/vCOShares, ( ... etc)

I've tried several other variations (-o, trying /sbin/mount.nfs, etc), but cannot seem to get it to work without installing anything.

Can you help me with this syntax?

[Sirry]

Any updates on how to mount network shares using vCO appliance? My only option at the moment seems to be to access files on a Windows VM with the desired network drive mounted on it.

[iiliev]

Cifs mount type (samba) is not available in the appliance. Could you try with a similar mount command with nfs or nfs4 mount type?

[Sirry]

We are committed to cifs. I think my current options are to mount a Windows VM /w the shared drive mapped or switch to Windows vCO.

Are there any other options?

[tschoergez]

Well, you can always use the SSH Plugin as alternative:

Install an SSH server on a windows system, and use the SSH workflow to either call scripts there, or transfer files via SCP (examples are in the library).

Cheers,

Joerg

[Burke- · Accepted solution]

This question came up again while I am away from my office... So I'm sitting in my hotel room after a nice long day of teaching vCO and seeing an e-mail come in about this same topic so I figure why not be productive Here is is almost 1 a.m. and I've just completed testing and documenting the necessary steps. See my article here:

How to allow the vCO Appliance to write files to a Windows CIFS share