WilliamLam.com

Google Chat space notification for failed vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) backups using VEBA

by // Leave a Comment

It is always good idea to verify that your vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) backups are occurring and if there are any failures, you are notified about them immediately!

As alluded to at the end of that blog post, you can easily build event-driven automation using the popular VMware Event Broker Appliance (VEBA) solution, triggering notifications based on several types of VCSA backup events:

  • com.vmware.applmgmt.backup.job.failed.event
  • com.vmware.applmgmt.backup.job.finished.event
  • com.vmware.applmgmt.backup.job.start.event

I recently built a PowerShell function that would send a notification to a Google Chat space by enabling their incoming webhook integration as you can seen from the screenshot below:


While the message customization is not as extensive as using Slack (e.g. supporting advanced layouts and emoji), it does get the job done and you will know immediately when a backup has failed or when it has started or has completed.

Note: For existing VEBA users (pre-v0.8 release), the function.yaml needs to be updated to trigger off of the subject keyword rather than the type, which is due to replacing the event router with Tanzu Sources for vSphere. You also need to ensure the prefix of "com.vmware.vsphere" is removed along with trailing "v0" as this is the next syntax for vCenter Events once VEBA v0.8 is released.

spec:
  broker: default
  filter:
    attributes:
      subject: com.vmware.applmgmt.backup.job.failed.event

Introducing Alexa to a few more VMware APIs

by // 3 Comments

Over the weekend, while taking a break from putting together some furniture as it was my time for my daughters nap, I got that the chance to explore and create a new Alexa Skill which integrates with a few of VMware's APIs. This has been something I wanted to try out for some time but have not had any spare time. I had even purchased an Amazon Echo Dot but its just currently being used as a music player for the family. A couple of weeks back I saw an awesome blog post from Cody De Arkland where he demonstrates how to easily integrate the new vCenter Server 6.5 REST APIs into an Alexa Skill which can then be consumed using an Amazon Echo device.

Cody's write-up was fantastic and I was able to get everything up and running in about 20-25minutes with a few minor trial/error. It was great to see how easy it was for a non-developer like Cody to easily consume the new vCenter Server REST APIs which includes basic VM Management as well access to the VMware Management Appliance Interface or VAMI for short. Given Cody already did the hard work to create the initial Alexa integration, I figure it might be cool to extend his work and introduce Alexa to a few more VMware's APIs including the traditional vSphere API (SOAP) and the new vSAN Management API.

UPDATE (06/15/17) - Just added support for PowerCLI, it was a little tricky as Flask app is written in Python and so poor man workaround was to call Powershell/PowerCLI using subprocess.

Since Cody's integration module was written using Python, it was pretty simple to add support for both pyvmomi (vSphere SDK for Python) and vSAN Management SDK. To install pyvmomi, you can simply run

pip3 install pyvmomi

and for installing vSAN Management SDK, have a look at this blog post here.

Here is a quick video that I had recorded which demonstrates the use of both the vSphere API and vSAN Management API using my Amazon Echo.

You can find all my changes in this forked repo lamw/alexavsphereskill and make sure to follow Cody's blog post here for instructions on how to get setup. For those wondering if Cody will be publishing an Alexa Skill for general consumption, I know he is working on some awesome updates to make it even easier to consume. Here is a sneak peak at just some of the recent updates that Cody is working on ...

Stay tuned on this blog and Github repo for future updates!

One thing to note which I was not aware of until Cody mentioned it, is that once your Alexa Skill is built, you can directly access it from your own personal Amazon Echo without needing to publish it. You need to activate the Alexa Skill by saying "Alexa Start [APP-NAME]" where name is the name used in the "Invocation Name" field as shown in the screenshot below when setting up your Alexa Skill. I should also mention that if you decide to change the Alexa Skill name itself, which I had initially done and called it "vGhetto Control", make sure you update the Flask App name in __init__.py to the same name (spaces are converted to underscores) or you will run into issues.

Automating post-configurations for both PSC & VCSA 6.0u1 using appliancesh

by // 4 Comments

In vSphere 6.0, we introduced a new command-line option to allow you to automate both the deployment and upgrade of a vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) and Platform Services Controller (PSC) using a simple JSON configuration file. This has been a very popular request from customers and one that I have been asking for some time now and was glad to see it was finally made available with the VCSA. One thing that was still missing from an Automation standpoint was being able to some basic post-configurations after the initial deployment. Common operations such as adding additional user accounts, configuring SNMP for monitoring or adding proxy server were available but had to be done interactively and manually.

In vSphere 6.0 Update 1, an enhancement was made to the appliancesh interface which will now allow customers to automate the post-configurations of either a VCSA or PSC by simply re-directing a series of appliancesh commands within a file using SSH. Although SSH may not be ideal for all customers and having a programmatic interface via an API is ultimately where we want to get to; This at least allows customers to automate the end-to-end deployment of both the VCSA and PSC as well as covering any additional post-configurations that might be required to stand up a vSphere environment.

To make use of this feature, you simply create a file that contains the list of appliancesh commands that you wish to run on either the VCSA and/or PSC. Here is an example configuration called psc.config (you can name it anything you want):

access.shell.set --enabled false
access.ssh.set --enabled false
ntp.server.add --servers "0.pool.ntp.org,1.pool.ntp.org"
timesync.set --mode NTP
services.restart --name ntp
proxy.set --protocol https --server proxy.primp-industries.com
localaccounts.user.add --email *protected email* --role operator --fullname 'William Lam' --username lamw --password 'VMware1!'
snmp.set --communities public --targets 192.168.1.160@161/public
snmp.enable

Once you have saved the configuration file, you simply SSH to either your VCSA or PSC and re-direct the configuration file by running the following command:

ssh *protected email* < psc.config

Once authenticated, the series of appliancesh commands will be executed and then you will be automatically logged off as seen in the screenshot below.
automating-post-configurations-for-psc-and-vcsa-using-appliancesh-0
If you have any feedback in this particular area, please leave a comment as I know both PM/Engineering are interested in hearing your thoughts and what you might want to see in the future in terms of post-configuration of the VCSA and PSC.