Mount local ISO to CD Rom as Client Device (Remote Backing) inside workflow

[svenherren]

Hi everybody

I am trying to connect an ISO Image which is located on the local filesystem on the Orchestrator appliance server to a CD Rom drive whis is configrued as Client Device (remote Backing) on a VM inside an Orchestraotr workflow. I explicitly do not want to use Host Device or Datastore ISO File mounts.

Configuring the CD Rom as Client Device works fine and is easily done with a VM reconfigure task

What I am now looking for is the same functionality as for example in vSphere Client is, to connect a local "remote" ISO file to the VM (powered on of course) inside the orchestrator workflow. The goal is NOT to put the iso file on a datastore which is connected to the esxi host. (I am able to connecting an iso this way to a vm).  The goal is to use the iso file located on the local datastore on the orchestrator appliance. Like i would connect a remote iso file from my workstation in vsphere Client. The reason for this is to have the iso file managed centrally and only once. Otherwise we would have to deploy the iso to several host datastores because there are different clusters and not every host/cluster sees the same datastores.

Has anyone done this before or is it just not possible to do so. I think it must be possible, because vSphere Client and WEB Client can do the same.

Thanks for any help in advance

Sven

[tschoergez]

Hi,

I never saw that being implemented before, but it sounds like a nice idea... Not sure if it is technically possible though.

Check via Onyx what API calls are needed to use the client device.

Worst case (if it doesnt work directly using client device) you can always automate to "distribute" your single, centrally managed iso to the different datastores that are connected to the target hosts and then mount it as datastore file.

Cheers,

Joerg

[svenherren]

Hi Jörg

thank you for your answer. I'll give it a try with Onyx. Nice hint 🙂

I'll let you know if i find a way doing it this way.

Otherwise, i will have to do it the datastore way. I just wanted to avoid this because i have to distribute multiple copies of the same iso to different "expensive" FC SAN datastores. Doing one copy on the vCO Appliance with a mounted NAS share is less expensive and there would also only be one copy of the iso to manage.

Well i'll giv it a try finding an API with Onyx

Kind Regards and thanks

Sven