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Quickly getting started with VMware AppCatalyst & AppCatalyst Vagrant Plugin

06.24.2015 by William Lam // 5 Comments

At Dockercon this week, the Cloud-Native Apps team at VMware introduced two new Tech Previews: VMware AppCatalyst and Project Bonneville. In addition, I also found out today that Fabio Rapposelli who works over in the CNA team has also released a Vagrant Plugin for VMware Catalyst as well. Having spent a couple of days playing with AppCatalyst before it was released, I thought this would be a good opportunity to show how to quickly get started with AppCatalyst but also to try out the new Vagrant Plugin that had just been released.

Before jumping in, What exactly is VMware AppCatalyst? It is a slimmed down desktop Hypervisor based on VMware Fusion that has been optimized for Developers who want to be able to quickly spin up Virtual Machines to run Docker Containers. Included with AppCatalyst is also VMware Photon, an open-source lightweight Linux container host that is used to quickly instantiate new VMs that are ready for running and building Docker Containers. Instead of a traditional GUI like VMware Fusion, AppCatalyst's is consumed completely via a REST API or CLI, which is also ideal for integrating with other 3rd Party Automation tools like Vagrant. Best of all, both VMware AppCatalyst & AppCatalyst Vagrant Plugin is completely Free!

Requirements:

  • Mac OS X 10.9.4 or 10.10
  • VMware Fusion must not be running

Quick INFO:

  • The AppCatalyst configuration file is located in ~/.appcatalyst.conf (if you wish to change system defaults)
  • The CLI to AppCatalyst is located at /opt/vmware/appcatalyst/bin/appcatalyst
  • The daemon for the AppCatalyst REST API is located at /opt/vmware/appcatalyst/bin/appcatalyst-daemon
  • SSH keys to the Photon VM is located in /opt/vmware/appcatalyst/etc/appcatalyst_insecure_ssh_key
  • Additional AppCatalyst Documentation can be found here

Exploring Appcatalyst CLI:

Step 1 - Download and install VMware AppCatalyst from here

Step 2 - Once AppCatalyst has been installed, you can explore the CLI and view the list of operations by running the following command:

/opt/vmware/appcatalyst/bin/appcatalyst

vmware-appcatalyst-vagrant-plugin-1
Step 3 - To create our first VM using AppCatalyst, run the following command:

/opt/vmware/appcatalyst/bin/appcatalyst vm create vGhetto1

vmware-appcatalyst-vagrant-plugin-2
Note: You will see that all VMs created by AppCatalyst will be stored in /Users/[USER]/Documents/AppCatalyst and you can change this by editing DEFAULT_VM_PATH in AppCatalyst configuration file

Step 4 - To power on our VM, run the following command:

/opt/vmware/appcatalyst/bin/appcatalyst vmpower on vGhetto1

vmware-appcatalyst-vagrant-plugin-3
Note: If you run into problems powering on your VM, there is a good chance that you may still have a VM that is running in VMware Fusion (also check docker-machine in case you are using that to power off any VMs provisioned using that tool)

Step 5 - Once the VM is powered on, we will probably want to retrieve the IP Address which could take a few seconds to be displayed by running the following command:

/opt/vmware/appcatalyst/bin/appcatalyst guest getip vGhetto1

Step 6 - Once we have the IP Address of our VM, we can then SSH to it using the SSH keys included with AppCatalyst by running the following command:

ssh -i /opt/vmware/appcatalyst/etc/appcatalyst_insecure_ssh_key [email protected]

vmware-appcatalyst-vagrant-plugin-5
At this point, you have successfully deployed a VM based on VMware Photon image using the AppCatalyst's CLI. You can now login and start running and building Docker Containers as Docker is already pre-installed on Photon. Next we will take look at using the AppCatalyst API.

Exploring Appcatalyst API:

UPDATE (01/22/16) - For the complete cheatsheet of using AppCatalyst API using cURL, check out this article here for more examples.

Step 1 - To use the AppCatalyst REST API, you will need to run the AppCatalyst Daemon by running the following command:

/opt/vmware/appcatalyst/bin/appcatalyst-daemon

vmware-appcatalyst-vagrant-plugin-6
Note: You can also run the AppCatalyst daemon in the background by adding '&' to the command

Step 2 - You can easily view the AppCatalyst API by opening a browser to http://localhost:8080 (assuming you did not change the port) which is built using Swagger. You can explore and even test the API using this interface if you have not worked with a Swagger interface before.

vmware-appcatalyst-vagrant-plugin-7
Step 3 - Lets quickly test the GET /vms operation which will list the VMs that are being managed by AppCatalyst. We will be using cURL by running the following command:

curl http://localhost:8080/api/vms

vmware-appcatalyst-vagrant-plugin-8
As long as the AppCatalyst daemon is running, you will be able to interact with the REST API using a variety of methods including the examples I have shown above.

Note: A known issue is that VMs powered on using the AppCatalyst API can not be managed by the CLI until they have been powered down using the API. Hopefully this issue will be resolved in a future update.

Exploring Appcatalyst Vagrant Plugin:

Step 1 - Ensure you have Vagrant already installed on your system, if not you can download it here.

Step 2 - Install the Vagrant Plugin by running the following command:

vagrant plugin install vagrant-vmware-appcatalyst

vmware-appcatalyst-vagrant-plugin-9
Step 3 -  You can either run "vagrant init" or manually create a file name Vagrant file that contains the following:

# Set our default provider for this Vagrantfile to 'vmware_appcatalyst'
ENV['VAGRANT_DEFAULT_PROVIDER'] = 'vmware_appcatalyst'

nodes = [
  { hostname: 'gantry-test-1', box: 'vmware/photon' },
  { hostname: 'gantry-test-2', box: 'vmware/photon' }
]

Vagrant.configure('2') do |config|

  # Configure our boxes with 1 CPU and 384MB of RAM
  config.vm.provider 'vmware_appcatalyst' do |v|
    v.vmx['numvcpus'] = '1'
    v.vmx['memsize'] = '384'
  end

  # Go through nodes and configure each of them.j
  nodes.each do |node|
    config.vm.define node[:hostname] do |node_config|
      node_config.vm.box = node[:box]
      node_config.vm.hostname = node[:hostname]
    end
  end
end

The above Vagrant file will create two VMs called gantry-test-{1,2} using the VMware Photon Box hosted on Atlas by HashiCorp.

Step 4 (Optional) - If you decide to use the example above with VMware Photon Box, you will need to install an additional Vagrant Plugin for managing Photon Guest by running the following command:

vagrant plugin install vagrant-guests-photon

Step 5 - Ensure that the AppCatalyst daemon is running before proceeding with the next step as the Vagrant Plugin uses the AppCatalyst REST API.

Step 6 - To start the deployment, run the following command:

vagrant up --provider=vmware_appcatalyst

Screen Shot 2015-06-24 at 2.11.20 PM
Step 7 - To login to one of the VMs that have been created by Vagrant, simply run the following command and specify the name of the VM to SSH to:

vagrant ssh gantry-test-1

vmware-appcatalyst-vagrant-plugin-11
Step 8 - Finally, we can also confirm that the VMs created by the AppCatalyst Vagrant Plugin is also visible using just the AppCatalyst REST API and we can perform another "GET" operation to verify the two VMs that we had just created.

vmware-appcatalyst-vagrant-plugin-12
Hopefully this quick primer has been useful in getting you introduced and started with VMware AppCatalyst as well as the new AppCatalyst Vagrant Plugin. If you have any feedback or questions, feel free to leave a comment in the VMware AppCatalyst Forum and for feedback/questions on AppCatalyst Vagrant Plugin, you can file issues here.

Categories // Apple, Automation, Cloud Native, Docker Tags // appcatalyst, cloud native apps, DevOps, Docker, Photon, Vagrant

List of VMware CLIs, SDKs & DevOps Tools

01.05.2015 by William Lam // 1 Comment

A frequent question that I get asked from customers and new developers that are looking to get started with VMware Automation is what CLIs (command-line interfaces) or SDKs (programing/scripting specific languages) are available for them to use? I know it is not always easy to find out what is available on the VMware.com website and some times I even have trouble browsing for all the right information as it is located in many different places. I figure it would be helpful not only for myself but also for others if I put together a list of the various VMware CLIs, SDKs and even some of the new DevOps Tools that VMware has been working on that are available to our customers/developers and partners. I have also included a couple of community tools that I think are pretty interesting. If there are others that you think I should add to the list, feel free and leave a comment.

Note: This is by no means a comprehensive list of every single VMware product/toolkit as there are many many more, including gated SDKs specifically for our partner eco-system. For more details on those API/SDKs, be sure to check out the VMware Developer Center.

UPDATE (4/20) - VMware now has an Open Source page on Github http://vmware.github.io/

VMware Cloud Native Apps:

  • VMware Photon
  • VMware Lightwave

VMware DevOps Tools:

  • VMware Docker Machine
  • VMware boot2docker
  • Packer vmware-ovf post processor
  • open-vmdk
  • Vagrant plugin for Photon

vCloud Air:

  • CLIs
    • RaaS (Recovery as a Service) CLI
    • vCloud Air CLI
  • SDKs
    • vCloud Air SDK for Go
    • vCloud Air SDK for Python
  • DevOps Tools
    • Vagrant vCloud Air Provider

vCloud Director:

  • CLIs
    • vCloud Director Tenant and Provider PowerCLI
  • SDKs
    • vCloud Director SDK for .NET
    • vCloud Director SDK for Java
    • vCloud Director SDK for PHP
  • DevOps Tools
    • Vagrant vCloud Director Provider

vSphere:

  • CLIs
    • govc CLI
    • vSphere CLI
    • vSphere PowerCLI
    • vSphere RVC CLI
    • vSphere ovftool CLI
    • vSphere PVC CLI
  • SDKs
    • vSphere SDK for .NET
    • vSphere SDK for Go (govmomi)
    • vSphere SDK for Java
    • vSphere SDK for Perl
    • vSphere SDK for Python (pyvmomi)
    • vSphere SDK for Ruby (rbvmomi)
    • vSphere SDK for JavaScript
    • VSAN Management SDK for .NET
    • VSAN Management SDK for Java
    • VSAN Management SDK for Python
    • VSAN Management SDK for Ruby
  • DevOps Tools
    • VMware Library Puppet Module
    • VMware vCNS Puppet Module
    • VMware vCenter Server Appliance Puppet Module
    • VMware vCenter Server Puppet Module
    • Vagrant Rbvmomi Provider
    • Vagrant vCenter Server Provider

vRealize Management Suite:

  • CLIs
    • vRealize Cloud Client CLI
    • vRealize Automation Center CLI
  • SDKs
    • vRealize Automation SDK for Java
    • vReazlie Orchestrator Plug-In SDK

VMware Community Tools:

  • Vagrant vCenter Simulator Provider
  • Docker Plugin for VMware vRealize Orchestrator
  • VMware VIX API in Go
  • vcloud-tools

Categories // Automation, Cloud Native, vCloud Air, vRealize Suite, vSphere Tags // api, cli, DevOps, Docker, Packer, sdk, Vagrant

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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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