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What's new in the vSphere 4.1 MOB

07.13.2010 by William Lam // 17 Comments

The vSphere MOB (Managed Object Browser) is not a well known tool and unless you are a developer, you probably do not know of its existence. The simplest way to describe the vSphere MOB is that it is a debugging tool to graphical visualize all entities within the vSphere API through a web browser. It is often used to better understand the vSphere API/inventory and aide in developing your own vSphere application or script. For a detailed deep dive of the vSphere inventory, check out Steve Jin's post here.

The vSphere MOB can be reached by pointing your web browser to either an ESX(i) or vCenter host followed by the path "/mob". You will be prompted for credentials as you normally would prior to gaining access to the MOB.

The vSphere MOB may not always be the easiest to navigate. Understanding the vSphere inventory structure is definitely helpful, otherwise it can be very confusing to users. With the release of vSphere 4.1, there are two major changes in the MOB that can help make the navigation easier for developers.

Previous to vSphere 4.1, the MOB would display managed entities using their Managed Object IDs (MoRef ID) as a way to uniquely identify these objects. This made it very difficult for developers to identify the specific object you are viewing without having to dig further.

In vSphere 4.1, the MOB provides both the MoRef ID and the translated the names of the managed entities.

The vSphere MOB not only displays information about the managed entities but also provides a way to interact with the system. It does this by listing the available API methods for each managed entity at the bottom of the page and can be executed by providing the correct input parameters. The issue arises when trying to execute methods which requires complex input that require more than a simple string or integer value. The format of the input is XML-based and it can be challenging to generate the correct format, especially without any examples.

In the new version of the MOB, you are now presented with an XML template of the required parameters which can then be filled out to execute the method.

The following example will demonstrate the change of an ESXi advanced configuration value for configuring a syslog server:

Once you have filled in the required parameters, you will need to click on the "Invoke Method" to execute the specific method.

Here we verify the advanced configuration key "Syslog.Remote.Hostname" has been changed and is set to our new syslog server.

I think these two changes will make it easier for developers to navigate the vSphere MOB and assist with understanding the vSphere API and it's managed entities.

Categories // Automation Tags // api, Managed Object Browser, mob, sdk, vSphere, vSphere MOB

Script - Configure VM Disk Shares (vmDiskSharesMgmt.pl)

07.07.2010 by William Lam // 3 Comments

I recently received an email about automating the configuration of VM disk shares. I thought it was an interesting request since I do not know how many people actually make use of this feature. By default, the shares on a virtual disk is set to "normal" or 1000 shares. You can change the value between low (500), normal (1000), high (2000) or a custom value. The following script helps a user to perform a bulk update across multiple VMs and supports multiple virtual disks.

Download: vmDiskSharesMgmt.pl

The script requires that you connect to your vCenter server and provide the following input parameters:

--diskshares_file = Is the name of the diskshares input file that contains the names of the VMs, the hard disks and their corresponding shares value which can be (low, normal, high or custom)

Here is an example of the diskshares input file:

[vi-admin@scofield ~]$ cat diskshares.txt
# [VMNAME];[HDX,SHARES_VALUE]=[HDY,SHARES_VALUE]=[HDZ,SHARES_VALUES]
#
# SHARES_VALUE = low, normal, high, XXXX (custom)
#
# e.g.
# myvm;hd1,low=hd2,high=hd3=2001
#
Synapse;hd1,high
Imager;hd1,low=hd2,1500=hd3,2500=hd4,high
William-XP;hd1,3000

In the above example, we have the following VMs and configurations to be set:

Synapse
Hard Disk1 = high (2000)

Imager
Hard Disk1 = low (500)
Hard Disk2 = 1500
Hard Disk3 = 2500
Hard Disk4 = high (2000)

William-XP
Hard Disk1 = 3000

Here is an example execution:

Here we verify one of the VMs "Imager" and it's configured disk shares:

Hopefully you will find this script to be useful

Categories // Automation Tags // perl, sdk, shares

Script - ipmiConfig.pl

06.03.2010 by William Lam // 1 Comment

There was a question on the VMTN community asking about automating the configuration of IPMI/iLO Settings for Power Management via kickstart. Unfortunately, this cannot be configured directly on an ESX/ESXi host, it requires vCenter server. This configuration is a prerequisite to VMware's DPM (Distributed Power Management) which is only available with vCenter and DRS enabled cluster.

Although this configuration can't be added to kickstart, you can create a script that is executed as part of the "post configurations". Before starting, make sure that you have IPMI enabled over LAN which is generally found within your iDRAC/iLO or other out-of-band management console.

Here are two posts on popular hardware (Dell/HP) for configuring IPMI/iLO settings:

Dell configuration
HP configuration

In general, the actual configuration for the host is the same but will differ based on the server vendor and out-of-band management console.

Here is a vSphere SDK for Perl script that allows you to configure IPMI/iLO settings for an ESX or ESXi host:

Download: ipmiConfig.pl

You'll need to provide the following variables:

  • vihost = ESX or ESXi host
  • ipaddress = IP Address of your iDRAC/iLO/etc.
  • macaddress = MAC Address of your iDRAC/iLO/etc. interface
  • bmcusername = Username to login to your iDRAC/iLO/etc.
  • bmcpassword = You'll be prompted to provide the password

Here is an example run:

[vi-admin@scofield ~]$ ./ipmiSettings.pl --server reflex.primp-industries.com --username primp --vihost dev-esxi1.primp-industries.com --ipaddress 172.50.0.45 --macaddress 00:22:E8:71:C5:47 --bmcusername admin
Please enter your BMC Password:

Trying to configure IPMI/iLO Settings for Power Management on dev-esxi1.primp-industries.com ...

If you've entered everything correctly, the prompt should return right away. If it sits there for more than 20 seconds, then something went wrong and you may have entered something incorrectly. Due to the limitation of this API method, no tasks are returned back to properly handle these errors. You may want to manually configure this via the vSphere Client to double check your settings before re-using the script.


Here is an example of a bad run (entered wrong username + password):

[vi-admin@scofield ~]$ ./ipmiSettings.pl --server reflex.primp-industries.com --username primp --vihost dev-esxi1.primp-industries.com --ipaddress 172.50.0.45 --macaddress 00:22:E8:71:C5:47 --bmcusername root
Please enter your BMC Password:

Trying to configure IPMI/iLO Settings for Power Management on dev-esxi1.primp-industries.com ...

Error: Unable to configure IPMI/iLO Settings: SOAP request error - possibly a protocol issue: 500 SSL read timeout:

Categories // Uncategorized Tags // dpm, ESX 4.0, ipmi, perl, sdk

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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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