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New SRM 5 APIs

07.25.2011 by William Lam // 2 Comments

There was a question about in one of my previous articles HBR (Host Based Replication) CLI for SRM 5 on whether there were any new/updates to the SRM 5 APIs. There are no official VMware SRM SDK's today as far as I know that can be consumed by toolkits such as PowerCLI, vSphere SDK for Perl, VI Java, etc. There is however an SRM Web Services API that can be used and has existed since the early days of SRM 1.0 as noted here in the documentation. Users that would like to use this API would need to create their own language bindings (stubs) based on WSDL (Web Services Description Language) provided by VMware.

Here are the list of available operations in the SRM 1.0 API:

  • SrmLogin
  • SrmLogout
  • GetApiVersion
  • ListRecoveryPlans
  • RecoveryPlanSettings
  • RecoveryPlanStart
  • RecoveryPlanPause
  • RecoveryPlanResume
  • RecoveryPlanCancel
  • RecoveryPlanAnswerPrompt
  • GetFinalStatus

In the SRM 5 API, there are 33 new operations not including the existing ones from 1.0:

  • ListProtectionGroups
  • ListInventoryMappings
  • GetInfo
  • GetPeer
  • ListProtectedVms
  • ListProtectedDatastores
  • ListAssociatedVms
  • GetProtectionState
  • ProtectionGroupListRecoveryPlans
  • ProtectionGroupQueryVmProtection
  • ProtectVms
  • UnprotectVms
  • AssociateVms
  • UnassociateVms
  • GetTasks
  • IsComplete
  • GetProtectionStatus
  • ListPlans
  • GetHistory
  • RecoveryPlanGetInfo
  • RecoveryPlanGetPeer
  • Start
  • Cancel
  • ListPrompts
  • AnswerPrompt
  • GetResultCount
  • GetRecoveryResult
  • GetResultLength
  • RetrieveStatus
  • RetrieveContent
  • SrmLoginLocale
  • SrmLoginSites
  • SrmLogoutLocale

During the SRM 5 beta, I did not see an updated API documents but I suspect the details and the implementation of these new operations will be available when SRM 5 is GA (generally available).

In the meantime, if you are on the SRM 5 beta and would like to get more details, you can retrieve the WSDL in several ways.

The first option is view the WSDL from your web browser by pointing it to your SRM server using the following URL: http://[srm-hostname]:8096/srm.wsdl

 
Note: Make a note of the URL protocol, it actually does not support HTTPS, but just normal HTTP when retrieving the WSDL

The second option is to browse the filesystem of the SRM server and the WSDL file can be found under the following path: C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager\www

Categories // Uncategorized Tags // api, ESXi 5.0, hbr, srm5, vSphere 5.0

Free Linux & Windows Syslog Alternatives to depercated vi-logger in vMA 5

07.25.2011 by William Lam // 12 Comments

Those of you who currently use vi-logger in vMA 4.x as a free syslog server for your ESX(i) hosts may notice this functionality has been removed in the latest vMA 5 release. VMware decided to remove the syslog functionality in vMA in favor of combining it with the vCenter Server. If you decide to run vCenter 5 on Windows, you have the option of installing an additional syslog collector on the same or separate Windows system and registering it as a vCenter plugin. If you are using the new VCVA (vCenter Server Virtual Appliance), there is also a syslog collector that is installed by default.

Using vMA's vi-logger was an easy and free solution, but you still have some alternatives without having to use vCenter or install/build a new syslog server. The following will document a free syslog solution for both a Linux or Windows platform.

Linux Syslog server alternative using vMA 5.0
You can actually leverage the existing syslog server on the latest vMA 5 release and with a few customization, get it setup to start collecting logs from your ESX(i) hosts as before with vi-logger.

Step 1 - It is recommend that you configure an additional disk on vMA for your syslogs as the size of vMA is quite tiny for additional use. I will assume that you know how to add and configure an additional disk, if not you can do a simple search on Google. In this example, I have a second disk that is 10GB and it is mounted up under /var/log/remote which is where the ESX(i) logs will be stored in.

Step 2 - You will need to edit the syslog configuration under /etc/syslog-ng/syslog-ng.conf and you will need to add three entries. The first addition is to configure the source for log messages from the network and enabling both udp/tcp on port 514, you may add the following under the default "src" entry.

source network {
udp6( port(514) );
tcp6( port(514) );
};

The next two entries will define the destination and how it'll log. You will add the following at the end of the syslog-ng.conf configuration file.

destination log_remote {
file("/var/log/remote/$HOST_FROM/$YEAR-$MONTH/messages-$YEAR-$MONTH-$DAY"
create_dirs(yes) frac-digits(3)
template("$ISODATE $PROGRAM $MSGONLY\n")
template_escape(no)
);
};
log {
source(network);
destination(log_remote);
};

The "log_remote" destination will send all logs from your ESX(i) hosts into /var/log/remote and will have the following format: $HOST_FROM/$YEAR-$MONTH/messages-$YEAR-$MONTH-$DAY

Step 3 -  Now you will need to restart the syslog server for the changes to take effect. You will need to run the following command: sudo /etc/init.d/syslog restart

If everything went successful, you should now be able to configure your ESX(i) hosts to point to your vMA 5 system and you should see logs appearing under /var/log/remote

Note: You will need to use sudo to view the directory under /var/log/remote and to view the logs

Windows Syslog server alternative using vCenter Syslog Collector
The vCenter Syslog Collector can be installed and used without the use of vCenter, you can easily turn any existing or new Windows system into a syslog server for your ESX(i) hosts for free.

Step 1 -  It is recommend that you configure a seperate disk on the Windows system that you are going to be using for your syslog server. I will assume that you know how to add and configure an additional disk, if not you can do a simple search on Google. In this example, I have a second disk that is 10GB and listed as Syslog (E: drive)

Step 2 - You will need access to the vCenter Server 5.0 installation ISO or executable to install the Syslog Collector utility. Start the installer and select and install VMware Syslog Collector

Step 3 - You have the option of using the local C:\ drive, but I would recommend setting up a separate drive if you can. If you decide to change the default log location, you need to ensure that you specify the following directory structure VMware\VMware Syslog Collector\Data else you will run into issues with the installation. In this example, I have moved my logs into E:\ drive and the path looks like the following: E:\VMware\VMware Syslog Collector\Data. You also have the ability to change the size of the log files before rotation and the number of logs before rotating.

Step 4 - If you are installing the Syslog Collector on the same host as vCenter Server, you should select the integrated installation else you should select a standalone installation.

Step 5 - The next screen will be the default ports to enable for both TCP/UDP and SSL which can be configured or left as the default as recommend.

Step 6 - The screen is how the Syslog Collector will be identified on the network and it should just be the IP Address of the host.

If everything went successful, you should now be able to configure your ESX(i) hosts to point to your Windows Syslog Collector system and you should see logs appearing under E:\VMware\VMware Syslog Collector\Data

As you can see even with vi-logger being removed in the latest version of vMA 5, you can easily still configure a free syslog server with your ESX(i) hosts on either a Linux or Windows platform.

Categories // Uncategorized Tags // ESXi 5.0, syslog, vilogger, vma, vMA5, vSphere 5.0

Raising the vExpert & Community Bar, Part JC (John Troyer)

07.24.2011 by William Lam // 1 Comment

Some may call him a medical practitioner, some may refer to him as Cloud City's VMware Architect and others may know him as the VMware Stig ...

but all we know is he is the Great John Troyer!

First off I would like to wish John a Happy Birthday today and hope you have a vAwesome day!

Christopher Kusek, who you may know him as cxi on Twitter reached out to the vExpert community about a month ago regarding a secret embargoed project. We wanted a way to show John our appreciation and all the hard work and dedication he has done for the VMware and virtualization community. What better way than a bunch of blog posts thanking John from the vExpert crew!

I have known John for about three years now and have interfaced with him on many occasions from late night twitter DMs on vSpam in the VMTN blog, access to new VMware betas and embargo briefings, VMTN community forum feedback/improvements and access to VMware engineers for variety of Q/A and bug related questions.

For those of you who do not know John Troyer, he is the social media strategist for VMware, but John really does way more than that. He takes part in supporting the popular VMware Community Forums, VMTN Blogs and PlanetV12n along with several other individuals, he runs the extremely well known VMware Community Podcast every week in which he invites guests from all over to discuss all things VMware and virtualization and he is also the guy who created and runs the VMware vExpert program just to name a few.

John is a very genuine guy and really likes to help others whether it's getting someone in touch with a VMware product manager for more details about a topic or helping a fellow blogger attend a VMworld conference through a blogger's pass because he/she could not afford to attend. I think John has definitely raised the bar not only in the changes to come for the vExpert program of 2011 (which I am personaly excited about) but the VMware community bar as well.

I can not think of a single technology company that has such a great user community with an incredible amount of sharing and collaboration than the VMware/virtualization community. I think part of the reason why our community is so successful is due to people like John who fosters an active communication with the user base.

Cheers to all of John's achievements, his hard work has not gone unnoticed or unappreciated. I would like to personally say Thank You!

Categories // Uncategorized Tags // Uncategorized

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William is Distinguished Platform Engineering Architect in the VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) Division at Broadcom. His primary focus is helping customers and partners build, run and operate a modern Private Cloud using the VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) platform.

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