William Lam

Automating Storage DRS & Datastore Cluster Management in vSphere 5

07.27.2011 by William Lam // 1 Comment

Storage DRS is probably one of, if not the coolest feature in vSphere 5. Storage DRS allows you to cluster your datastores into what is known as a datastore cluster (storage pod) and automatically balances both your storage I/O and capacity just like DRS does with your compute. The user interface is extremely easy to use but as always, if you need to click through several screens to get to the outcome, some automation can never hurt 🙂

I decided to create a vSphere SDK for Perl script called datastoreClusterManagement.pl which allows you to automate all aspects of creating and managing your storage pod/cluster. You will need a system that has the vCLI installed or you can use VMware vMA 5 to run the script. You will also need to connect to a vCenter Server 5 for all SDRS operations.

The script supports 8 different types of operations and are describe below:

Operation	Description
List	List all available datastore clusters
Query	Query details for a specific datastore cluster
Create	Create a datastore cluster
Delete	Delete a datastore cluster (Datastores are left intact)
Add Datastore	Add datastore(s) to an existing datastore cluster
Remove Datastore	Remove datastore(s) from an existing datastore cluster
Enter Maintenance Mode	Put a datastore into maintenance mode
Exit Maintenance Mode	Take a datastore out of maintenance mode

Here is an example of performing the "list" operation:

./datastoreClusterManagement.pl --server vcenter50-1 --username root --operation list

Here is an example of performing the "query" operation:

./datastoreClusterManagement.pl --server vcenter50-1 --username root --operation query --pod homer-NFS-pod

Here is an example of performing the "create" operation w/single datastore:

./datastoreClusterManagement.pl --server vcenter50-1 --username root --operation create --datacenter MN-physical --enable_sdrs true --enable_sdrs_iometric true --pod moe-NFS-pod --sdrs_automation automated --sdrs_evaluate_period 480 --sdrs_imbal_thres 30 --sdrs_latency 15 --sdrs_util_diff 20 --sdrs_util_space 60 --datastore himalaya-NFS-moe-primp-1

Here is an example of performing the "create" operation w/datastore file:

Here is an example of performing the "delete" operation:

./datastoreClusterManagement.pl --server vcenter50-1 --username root --operation delete --pod moe-NFS-pod

Here is an example of performing the "add_datastore" operation:

./datastoreClusterManagement.pl --server vcenter50-1 --username root --operation add_datastore --pod moe-NFS-pod --datastore himalaya-NFS-moe-primp-2

Here is an example of performing the "remove_datastore" operation:

./datastoreClusterManagement.pl --server vcenter50-1 --username root --operation remove_datastore --pod moe-NFS-pod --datastore himalaya-NFS-moe-primp-1

Note: Both "add_datastore" and "remove_datastore" operation support single datastore and/or datastore file

Here is an example of performing the "ent_maint" operation:

./datastoreClusterManagement.pl --server vcenter50-1 --username root --operation ent_maint --pod homer-NFS-pod --datastore himalaya-NFS-moe-primp-5

Here is an example of performing the "ext_maint" operation:

./datastoreClusterManagement.pl --server vcenter50-1 --username root --operation exi_maint --pod homer-NFS-pod --datastore himalaya-NFS-moe-primp-5

There is also complete perl docs for this script which can be called using the following command:

perldoc datastoreClusterManagement.pl

vi-fastpass esxcli and resxtop bug resolved in vMA 5

07.27.2011 by William Lam // 2 Comments

Awhile back I wrote about an resxtop bug found in vMA 4.1 in which it no longer functions with vMA's vi-fastpass component and still requires you to provide the username and password even though vi-fastpass has been initialized for a given target. There was also a slight quirk when using esxcli and vi-fastpass, in which you had to specify in addition the --server of your ESX(i) host which allowed you to utilize vi-fastpass.

With the latest release of vMA 5, both of these issues have now been resolved for both ESXi 5 and ESX(i) 4.x. I would highly recommend you download the latest version if you would like to make use the vi-fastpass component in vMA.

Here is an example of using vi-fastpass with resxtop:

vi-admin@vma50-1:~> vifptarget -s himalaya.primp-industries.com
vi-admin@vma50-1:~[himalaya.primp-industries.com]> resxtop

Here is an example of using vi-fastpass with esxcli:

vi-admin@vma50-1:~> vifptarget -s himalaya.primp-industries.com
vi-admin@vma50-1:~[himalaya.primp-industries.com]> esxcli

Automating the New Integrated VIX/Guest Operations API in vSphere 5

07.26.2011 by William Lam // 27 Comments

VMware hinted earlier this year that the future of the VIX API would eventually be integrated into the core vSphere API, it looks like the wait is finally over. With the latest release of vSphere 5, the VIX API is no longer a separate API but consolidated into the core vSphere API which allows users to perform guest level operations directly to a virtual machine that is running VMware Tools.

There is now a new managed object called GuestOperationsManager which provides functionality for Authentication (authManager), File management (fileManager) and process management (processManager). The API is actually quite easy to use as you need to first acquire a guest auth credential within the guest and then you can perform any of the various guest operations using this credential cache.

I wanted to show the power of the VIX API by creating a vSphere SDK for Perl script called guestOpsManagement.pl that implements majority of the VIX/Guest Operations for users to manage from a centralized script. You will need to have a system that has the vCLI installed or use VMware vMA and to utilize the new VIX operations, your virtual machines must have the latest VMware Tools installed.

You can download guestOpsManagement.pl script here.

The script supports 12 different VIX Operations which are described below:

Operation	Description
validate	Allows a user to validate guest credentials without performing any VIX Operation
ps	Performs a process listing within the guestOS
startprog	Starts a program within the guestOS
kill	Kills a particular process within the guestOS
ls	Perorms a listing of a particular directory within the guesOS
mkdir	Creates a directory within the guestOS
rmdir	Removes a directory within the guestOS
rm	Removes a file within the guestOS
mv	Move/Rename a file within the guestOS
mvdir	Move a directory within the guestOS
copyfromguest	Download a file from within the guestOS to local system
copytoguest	Upload a file to the guestOS from a local system

Here is an example of performing the "validate" operation:

./guestOpsManagement.pl --server vcenter50-1 --username root --vm vMA5 --operation validate --guestusername root

Here is an example of performing the "ps" operation:

./guestOpsManagement.pl --server vcenter50-1 --username root --vm vMA5 --operation ps --guestusername root

In the next example, we will kill off the "tail" process as listed above.

Here is an example of performing the "kill" operation:

./guestOpsManagement.pl --server vcenter50-1 --username root --vm vMA5 --operation kill --guestusername root --pid 13198

Here is an example of performing the "startprog" operation:

./guestOpsManagement.pl --server vcenter50-1 --username root --vm vMA5 --operation startprog --guestusername root --working_dir /root --program_path /usr/bin/touch --program_args /root/virtuallyghetto

Note: There is known vSphere SDK for Perl bug for the return value of a "long" which will be resolved in GA release of vSphere SDK for Perl 5.0. You should not see the "error" message when running this operation

Here is an example of performing the "ls" operation:

./guestOpsManagement.pl --server vcenter50-1 --username root --vm vMA5 --operation ls --guestusername root --filepath_src /var/log

Here is an example of performing the "mkdir" operation:

./guestOpsManagement.pl --server vcenter50-1 --username root --vm vMA5 --operation mkdir --guestusername root --filepath_src /tmp/virtuallyghetto

Here is an example of performing the "rmdir" operation:

./guestOpsManagement.pl --server vcenter50-1 --username root --vm vMA5 --operation rmdir --guestusername root --filepath_src /tmp/virtuallyghetto

Note: If you would like to perform a recursive directory delete, you will need to specify the --recursive, please use with caution

Here is an example of performing the "rm" operation:

./guestOpsManagement.pl --server vcenter50-1 --username root --vm vMA5 --operation rm --guestusername root --filepath_src /root/virtuallyghetto

Here is an example of performing the "mv" operation:

./guestOpsManagement.pl --server vcenter50-1 --username root --vm vMA5 --operation mv --guestusername root --filepath_src /root/steve_jablonsky --filepath_dst /root/hans_zimmer

Here is an example of performing the "mvdir" operation:

./guestOpsManagement.pl --server vcenter50-1 --username root --vm vMA5 --operation mvdir --guestusername root --filepath_src /tmp/foo --filepath_dst /tmp/bar

Here is an example of performing the "copyfromguest" operation:

./guestOpsManagement.pl --server vcenter50-1 --username root --vm vMA5 --operation copyfromguest --guestusername root --filepath_src /var/log/messages

Here is an example of performing the "copytoguest" operation:

./guestOpsManagement.pl --server vcenter50-1 --username root --vm vMA5 --operation copytoguest --guestusername root --filepath_src /home/vi-admin/test.pl --filepath_dst /root/test.pl

There is also complete perl docs for this script which can be called using the following command:

perldoc guestOpsManagement.pl