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

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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

What is the VMware VIX API and it's future?

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Some recent twitter conversations about vSphere SDK improvements, specifically around VMware VIX API and few emails around the use cases was the motivation for this post.

I will provide a very high level of what the VMware VIX API is, since there is a awesome presentation by Matt LaMantia at TechExchange in VMworld 2010 SF that goes into more details about VIX (video below). The VIX API (Virtual Infrastructure eXtension) is an API that provides guest management operations inside of a virtual machine that maybe running on VMware vSphere, Fusion, Workstation or Player. These operations are executed on behalf of the vmware-tools service that must be running within the virtual machine and guest credentials are required prior to execution.

The current incarnation of the VIX API is a little odd because it provides guest management operations which is unique to the VIX API but it also provides virtual machine operations. These virtual machine operation overlaps with some of the functionality provided by the vSphere API which is used for managing your vSphere infrastructure. Part of this overlap was due to origins of VIX which started from Workstation on the desktop. I almost consider this VMware API sprawl 🙂

Currently if you want to automate your vSphere infrastructure and want hooks into your virtual machine and guestOSes you need to leverage both the vSphere API and VIX API. I have seen this cause some confusion in the communities. Users wanting to standardize on VIX API and realize that 80% of what they want to do is available in VIX but the portion requires the use of the vSphere APIs. Don't get me wrong, the functionality of VIX is very powerful. When I first learn in version 1.6.2 of VIX where it officially supported vSphere, a whole new set of possibilities just opened up for administrators and developers.

There are several ways of using the VIX API today. If you are using PowerCLI, there are actually a few cmdlets that directly integrate with VIX, which requires you to install the VIX client libraries local to your PowerCLI installation. One such cmdlet is the Invoke-VMScript and here are a few example use cases:

If you don't prefer the dark side 😉 and want to run something like the vSphere SDK for Perl, C or COM, the VIX client libraries also includes client side bindings to these languages. If you are a Java shop and want to leverage Steve Jin's VI Java there is also an open source project called VIX Java Toolkit that can be used. Here is an example use case with vSphere SDK for Perl:

You can also just install the VIX client libraries which also includes a pre-compiled binary called vmrun that provides majority of the VIX operations all bundled into one utility. It also supports VMware vSphere, Workstation, Fusion and Player. Here is an example use case:

There is also a very interesting application called VGC (Virtual Guest Console) created by the VMware Lab guys also known as flings. This is a graphical interface similar to VMware Remote Console, but it is 1000x better and provides integration to all the VIX operations. The application allows you to view running processes in a guest, kill a particular process, deploy application to a guest, download/upload files and browse guest filesystem and much much more. I would highly recommend taking a look at this tool!

As you can see, the possibilities are endless! but you still have to use two separate APIs. I along with others in the community have asked for a consolidation of the VIX API and merging with the vSphere API, makes the most sense. I think our feedback has finally been heard and if you watch the presentation given by Matt, you will see that future of VIX API is exactly that, consolidatation with the vSphere API. Though we will not see it anytime soon until the next major release of vSphere dubbed vSphere.next (MN) and vSphere.next^2 (OP), it is a change I am looking forward to.

One other interesting thing to point out, during the first release of the VIX API that supported vSphere which was 1.6.2, there was a tiny bug that was identified regarding licensing. As you may or may not know, VMware requires that you have a "paid" license to be able to leverage the various APIs and CLIs for automation, configuration and management of your vSphere infrastructure. This is generally not an issue when dealing with vCenter or ESX, but with ESXi, you have option of a free license.

In the VIX 1.6.2 release, you actually have full VIX read and write operations against an ESXi host using the free license. This was of course fixed in subsequent releases and the trick only works with ESXi 4.0 or older. You will notice on the VIX landing page, there is no mention of the release notes for 1.6.2 release other than 1.7.1 superseding it. You however still can download 1.6.2 release under VIX 1.6 and you can still see the release notes if you search on VMware's site or on Google.

For more details about VIX and downloads, take a look at the following:

PPC15 Guest Operations Using VMware VIX APIs and Beyond:

Guest Operations using VMware VIX APIs and Beyond from heyitspablo on Vimeo.

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