ESXi free edition and VI Toolkit

[Bartmosss]

Would I be able to connect to my ESXi free edition server with the VI Toolkit. I would like to automate the shutdown and startup of VM to make some backup.

Is there a limitation in the free edition?

[halr9000]

Not only does it work great with no reservations, it's the only (easy) way to automate multiple ESXi hosts for free, as it would cost you to add them to a VirtualCenter instance.

$esxi = connect-viserver host1, host2, host3, host4 -cred (get-credential)

get-vmhost -server $esxi

Author of the upcoming book: Managing VMware Infrastructure with PowerShell

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[halr9000]

I really should blog about this.

Author of the upcoming book: Managing VMware Infrastructure with PowerShell

Co-Host, PowerScripting Podcast (http://powerscripting.net)

[admin]

Would I be able to connect to my ESXi free edition server with the VI Toolkit. I would like to automate the shutdown and startup of VM to make some backup.

Is there a limitation in the free edition?

Hi,

As it turns out there are certain limitations on the free version of ESXi as detailed in the product FAQ. The statement written for RCLI also applies to the VI Toolkit, in short you can read objects but not change them. One potential source of confusion, if you have ESXi in evaluation mode, all features work, but if you switch from evaluation mode to a free license the system will be read-only.

[halr9000]

Ok, so I got the no reservations part wrong. Carter, can you elaborate on a write-object scenario? The only caveats I see that seem to be related in the FAQ is this part:

>Are there any VMware ESX features that are not compatible with ESXi?

Some specific networking features are not available in VMware ESXi, primarily those requiring configuration through the Service Console. See the Knowledge Base article for more information.

Author of the upcoming book: Managing VMware Infrastructure with PowerShell

Co-Host, PowerScripting Podcast (http://powerscripting.net)

[admin]

Ok, so I got the no reservations part wrong. Carter, can you elaborate on a write-object scenario? The only caveats I see that seem to be related in the FAQ is this part:

Generally speaking only the Get-* cmdlets will work against free ESXi. There may be an exception or two among the other cmdlets but I don't know any off the top of my head.

[Bartmosss]

So... I should not be able to make this:

1) shutdown VM

2) Copy from one datastore(local) to another datastore (remote NFS)

3) Power on VM

Does this count as read-only access?

[halr9000]

On Tue, Sep 23, 2008 at 9:05 PM, Bartmosss

[Dave_Mishchenko]

Would you have a list of items that should be read only? With the RCLI (update 2) and ESXi build 110271 I have added a serial number, rebooted the host and can then

1) create users

2) set the NTP server

3) start the NTP service

4) create a new vswitch

5) set the MTU for the vswitch

My understanding was the same as spelled out in the FAQ and thus I would have thought I would have been getting errors on the above items.

[admin]

Hi Dave,

From the information I have, with the free ESXi you should be able to configure NTP from RCLI, but you shouldn't be able to configure virtual switches. Either my information is wrong or perhaps your ESXi is in evaluation mode, which is unrestricted, or licensed at starter or above. It's not based on the build number but rather the licensing applied to the system. Are you able to power VMs on from the RCLI? I'm quite sure that remote power on is disabled in free ESXi and that would be a good data point about whether virtual switch configuration is allowed remotely or not.

[Dave_Mishchenko]

I'll check that later tonight. I was doing this on an ESXi VM, but it was licensed with a serial number that I generated from the free ESXi download site and I did reboot just to make sure the serial number took affect.

[Dave_Mishchenko]

I tried the below on another host and used a new license key just to make sure (the server is displayed as being is ESX Server Standalone mode). I had no problems with any of the below commands. I've also seen posts (haven't tried it myself) that VCB also works fine, even though it is not included with ESXi Free.

vicfg-vswitch.pl - create vswitch / link to nic

vicfg-dns - set DNS host

vicfg-dumppart - set / deactivate / activate

vmware-cmd - start / stop VM

[admin]

Well I'm stumped then. Maybe the timebomb fix inadvertently enabled all these features in ESXi free version?

[fixitchris]

Any update on this read-only issue?

[admin]

Once upon a time ESXi had what was called a starter license. If you bought ESXi with this starter license you could only fully manage it via the VI Client, 2nd party tools like RCLI, VI Toolkit, and any other 3rd party tools could not manage it.

When ESXi was made free, they did away with the starter license and the idea was to shift that exact product down to a free product.

Somewhere along the line, the API became read-write to all 2nd and 3rd party tools. The exact time is unclear, it seems to have happened sometime after 3.5 U2 and also applied to 3.5 U3. There was a certain measure of wailing and some teeth were also gnashed. It was decided that 3.5 U4 would be returned to the old ways of ESXi starter, with the API read-only to 2nd and 3rd party tools.

[halr9000]

You can add it to vCenter and manage it that way, I presume.

[vExpert|http://www.vmware.com/communities/vexpert/], PowerShell MVP, VI Toolkit forum moderator

Author of the upcoming book: Managing VMware Infrastructure with PowerShell

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[admin]

You can, you will need licenses for that.

[fixitchris]

I ran into this issue with VDDK SDK. It only works with Foundation and above. I am assuming that Foundation will be the base license for all SDK, 3rd party apps usage?

[lamw]

Just came across this thread, it looks like VI Foundation is required at a minimum to get full R/W access to the VI API (or any other API) even if you're not planning on using vCenter.

ESX vs ESXi comparison

Take a look at the Remote CLI section:

RCLI is limited to read-only access for the free version of VMware ESXi. To enable full functionality of RCLI on a VMware ESXi host, the host must be licensed with VI Foundation, VI Standard, or VI Enterprise.

The VMware Infrastructure toolkit for Windows and the Perl toolkit access ESXi through the same API as RCLI. Similarly, these toolkits are limited to read-only access for the free version of VMware ESXi. When the host is upgraded to VI Foundation, VI Standard, or VI Enterprise, these toolkits have write-access and provide a scriptable method for managing ESXi hosts.

I was hoping there might be just an API license that can be purchased with the use of the free license version of ESXi, but I can see why they would want you to get one of the basic licenses for advanced API access.

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

William Lam

VMware vExpert 2009

VMware ESX/ESXi scripts and resources at: