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RLsh
Contributor
Contributor

Edit ESXi fules with vMA

hey all

Can i edit ESXi files from vMA server?

For example: I want to edit the /etc/vmware/config file (for the copy/paste issue 4.1)

How can i do it on several hosts?

thanks

Harel Shavit.

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lamw
Community Manager
Community Manager

vMA is not meant to edit specific configuration files on the ESX or ESXi directly. It's usecase is to use either the vCLI a set of remote management scripts esxcfg-/vicfg- commands, simliiar to those that exists in the classic ESX Service Console or custom vSphere SDK for Perl scripts to configure and manage your VMwre infrastructure.

Howerver, WRT to this particular configuration and few others, you can access a subset of the configuration files and you can view them by opening a browser and entering the following: http:///host, you will be prompted for your credentials which you should be using root to login. Once authenticated, you'll notice some configuration files, these are the same that reside under /etc/vmware and only subset are available. One interesting one is vmware_config which is actually the same configuration file under /etc/vmware/config and is the same file that needs to be updated to resolve the vSphere 4.1 copy/paste issue as identified by this VMware KB - http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1026437

You can use a vCLI command called vifs which is basically a simple http get/put utility to actually download the configuration file, make the appropriate changes and upload to your ESXi hosts.

Here is the vCLI online documentation - http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vcli/vcli41/doc/reference/index.html

Here is some examples of using vifs on Dave Mischenko's website - http://www.vm-help.com/esx/esx3i/esx_3i_rcli/vifs.php

This should allow you to make the change once and upload to all your ESXi hosts w/o having to login to the unsupported Busybox (Tech Support Mode)

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

William Lam

VMware vExpert 2009,2010

VMware VCP3,4

VMware VCAP4-DCA

VMware scripts and resources at:

Twitter: @lamw

Getting Started with the vMA (tips/tricks)

Getting Started with the vSphere SDK for Perl

VMware Code Central - Scripts/Sample code for Developers and Administrators

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

RLsh
Contributor
Contributor

Hi, William

Thanks for your reply,

the command that i used:

vifs --server /host)

thanks allot!

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RLsh
Contributor
Contributor

ok finally i got it..

vifs --server /host/vmware_config /home........

any suggestion how to use vifs put on 70 ESXi's?? Smiley Happy

thanks again!

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lamw
Community Manager
Community Manager

Write a simple bash for loop to go through all hosts and update their vmware_ config file Smiley Wink

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

William Lam

VMware vExpert 2009,2010

VMware VCP3,4

VMware VCAP4-DCA

VMware scripts and resources at:

Twitter: @lamw

Getting Started with the vMA (tips/tricks)

Getting Started with the vSphere SDK for Perl

VMware Code Central - Scripts/Sample code for Developers and Administrators

VMware Developer Community

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

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RLsh
Contributor
Contributor

how can i deal with the username and password situation, for all the ESXi's?

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lamw
Community Manager
Community Manager

Either use a session file, store the username/password in a configuration file using --config or use vMA's vi-fastpass authentication.

I recommend you take a look at the vMA documentation to get more details on the various methods of connecting to a host - http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vima/

Here are a few articles that may also be useful:

http://www.virtuallyghetto.com/2010/07/vma-41-authentication-policy-fpauth-vs.html

http://www.virtuallyghetto.com/2010/05/getting-started-with-vma.html

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

William Lam

VMware vExpert 2009,2010

VMware VCP3,4

VMware VCAP4-DCA

VMware scripts and resources at:

Twitter: @lamw

Getting Started with the vMA (tips/tricks)

Getting Started with the vSphere SDK for Perl

VMware Code Central - Scripts/Sample code for Developers and Administrators

VMware Developer Community

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

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RLsh
Contributor
Contributor

hey William,

I used vMA AD integration, and ESXi AD integration and by that i didnt need to use username and password.

just run in all ESXi servers just from server list file or vifp listservers

for i in $(cat /tmp/servers); do

vifptarget -s $i

vifs -p /host/vmware_config /tmp/vmware_config

done

thanks alot william!

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