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KRAEMS
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

vmrun command no longer working

Hi,

I am trying to help our R & D group troubleshoot/fix some automation they have historically used which seems to have 'broken' following recent vcenter/ESXi upgrades.  In particular, the following command from the VIX API fails:

vmrun -T esx -h https://<vcenter_ip_address_here>/sdk -u <username_here> -p <password_here> list

Unable to connect to host.

Error: The specified service provider was not found

Based on the timing this seemed to stop working, it is believed that this stopped working following mass upgrades to our ESXi hosts from VMware ESXi, 6.0.0, 3620759 to VMware ESXi, 6.5.0, 7388607.  This said, I have one remaining VMware ESXi, 6.0.0, 3620759 host on which this same command fails with the same error. 

I have seen some suggestion in various blogs, etc. that the VIX API has since been deprecated (Release Notes).  Can anyone tell me if that is indeed the case, or, could/should this still be made to work, somehow?  Version of vCenter is vCenter Server 6.5 Update 1e, a windows vCenter install with database and PSC on the same VM. 

I see there hasn't been much activity here in recent years.  If there is no immediate traffic, I may cross-post in the vCenter community. 

Thanks for taking a look...

KRAEMS

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daphnissov
Immortal
Immortal

VIX API is indeed gone as it was announced some time ago.

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KRAEMS
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Thanks for the input - can you suggest any alternatives there may be? 

KRAEMS

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daphnissov
Immortal
Immortal

What exactly are you trying to automate?

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KRAEMS
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

This is what we do (or so I am told - I am no developer, myself).  Here is a description of what it is we do, at a high level:

In the *.xml file, there is a target that will eventually run an executable with other existing VMs as arguments. The first thing it tries to do is connect to the ESX system. If it can, then it would try to find the other VMs that were passed in as arguments and then for each VM: open the VM, power on the VM if it's not already powered on, revert the VM to a snapshot, and then reset the VM, at which point it will automatically stage and run the tests.

Thanks for your input. 

KRAEMS

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daphnissov
Immortal
Immortal

There are existing ways to copy files to guests and invoke programs within them. You could use vRO or PowerCLI or go directly to those APIs if you wish. All the docs are here for API/SDK.

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