vma

Cool Docker Container for VMware Utilities

02.17.2015 by William Lam // 11 Comments

Last week during lunch I learned about a cool little project that my colleague Alan Renouf was working on in his spare time at night. He was interested in learning more about Docker and thought the best way to learn about something new was by using it, which is normally how I learn as well. He came up with a nifty idea to create a Docker Image that would house a bunch of useful VMware tools which included several VMware open source projects as well.

UPDATE (11/23/16) - The Docker Container has now been updated with all the latest vSphere 6.5 SDK/CLI/Tools. We also plan to make this new version of the Docker Image available on Docker Hub, so stay tuned for those details shortly.

Some customers in the past have built similar offerings by using a free VMware Appliance called vMA (vSphere Management Assistance). vMA is nothing more than a stripped down version of SLES that has the vSphere CLI (vCLI) pre-installed. In my opinion, vMA is pretty limited and you can not install additional packages without voiding official support. Even if you decide to ignore support and install custom packages, I have often seen this break existing dependencies. When I talk to customers about their use of vMA, most used it because it was just there, but the majority prefer to use their own harden distribution of Linux and install their own admin utilities and packages which may also include non-VMware tools.

I personally have no problem building my own VM appliance that contains the various VMware packages, utilities and scripts that I use on a daily basis. However, not everyone is comfortable with this idea. Wow could this be further simplified and automated? Well, enter vmware-utils a Docker Image that allows you to automatically build a new image that contains some of the most popular and widely used VMware Utilities.

I wanted to enhance the awesome work that Alan had done with couple more VMware open source tools that I thought might be useful to VMware Administrators, which I actually wrote about here in my List of VMware CLIs, SDKS and DevOps Tools article. I have already submitted a pull request for my changes here. If there are other tools or packages you think that are useful and wish to contribute back, feel free to clone the repository and submit a pull request!

The latest vmware-utils now contains the following:

vSphere CLI 6.5
PowerCLI Core 1.0
vSphere Management SDK 6.5
vSphere SDK for Perl 6.5
vSphere SDK for Ruby (rbvmomi)
vSphere SDK for Python (pyvmomi)
vSphere Automation SDK for Ruby 6.5
vSphere Automation SDK for Python 6.5
vSphere Automation SDK for Perl 6.5
vSphere Automation SDK for Java 6.5
VSAN Management SDK for Ruby 6.5
VSAN Management SDK for Python 6.5
VSAN Management SDK for Java 6.5
VSAN Management SDK for Perl 6.5
Virtual Disk Development Kit (VDDK) 6.5
OVFTool 4.2
PowerCLI Community Repository
PowerCLI Core Docker Container Samples
William Lam's vGhetto Script Repository
Pyvmomi Community Samples
Docker Client v1.12.3
Docker Compose v1.8.1

For those of you who are new to Docker, a great way to quickly get started is by using an awesome tool called boot2docker which allows you to run Docker Containers on either a Windows or Mac OS X system. This also helps remove any barriers if you do not want to setup a Linux machine to get Docker of if you are like me, running on Mac OS X and rather not have to spin up a VM just to use Docker. Below are the steps on getting boot2docker working and building your own vmware-utils Docker Image.

Step 1 - Download the Docker Client for your specific OS (Windows, Linux or Mac OS X)

Step 2 - Take a look at the vmware-utils README, I spent some time updating it to make it more consumable for new users of Docker and follow the "How" section which will have you download the 4 VMware utilities as well as the vmware-utils DockerFile which we will need to build the Docker Container.

Step 3 - Create a directory and place all files into that directory. In this example, I have called the directory "vmware-utils".

Step 3 - We are now ready to build our vmware-utils Docker Image. Change into the "vmware-utils" directory that contains the files you downloaded earlier we will need to specify a "tag" for our image as part of the build command. In this example, I have called my image "lamw/vmware-utils" and to start the build process run the following command:

docker build -t lamw/vmware-utils .

Step 4 - The build itself may take some time depending on the speed of your internet connection. You will know when it has successfully completed when it states "Successfully built X" where X will be some unique ID as seen in the screenshot below.

Step 5 - Once the Docker Image has finished building, you can then run and connect to the Container by running the following command:

docker run --rm -it lamw/vmware-utils

At this point, you are now logged into the vmware-utils Docker Container that you have just built! It contains all the VMware Utilities that I have listed earlier and for more details on what has been installed and the location of the utilities, take a look at the vmware-utils Github documentation. If there are other tools you would like to see, feel free to contribute back by cloning the repository and submitting a pull request. I am definitely looking forward to seeing how this project evolves and providing a more dynamic way of creating a vMA-like experience without the current limitations. Keep up the awesome work Alan!

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.

How to install Ruby vSphere Console on vMA

04.06.2011 by William Lam // 5 Comments

If you are a Ruby and VMware fan (heck, even if you are not a Ruby fan), you should check out the "unofficial" VMware Lab Fling - Ruby vSphere Console (RVC) created by Rich Lane of VMware. RVC is described as a Linux console UI for vSphere, built on the RbVmomi (another VMware Fling) bindings to the vSphere API. RVC is platform agnostic, as long as you can get Ruby/Gem installed, you can run RVC on Windows (I believe), UNIX/Linux and even OSX!

Rich just released another update today supporting Linked Clones functionality for virtual machines and maintenance mode for ESX(i) host. I wanted to check out the latest update and I thought give it a try on vMA, here are the instructions for installing Ruby, Gem (Ruby package manager) and RVC on vMA 4.1. If you do not want to manually go through this manual process, jump towards the bottom for an automated script that does all this for you 🙂

Step 1 - You will need to download a few dependencies for both Ruby and Gems, the easiest way to do so is to setup a YUM repo pointing to CentOS mirrors. You will need to create a .repo file under /etc/yum.repos.d and in this example, we'll just call it /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-Base.repo

Copy the following into this file, make sure you create the file using sudo:

Step 2 - Install the following packages:

yum -y install gcc gcc-c++ zlib-devel openssl-devel readline-devel libxml2 libxml2-devel libxslt libxslt-devel

Step 3 - Download Ruby and Gems using wget:

wget ftp://ftp.ruby-lang.org/pub/ruby/1.8/ruby-1.8.7.tar.gz
wget http://rubyforge.org/frs/download.php/74619/rubygems-1.7.2.tgz

Step 4 - Install Ruby

tar -zxvf ruby-1.8.7.tar.gz
cd ruby-1.8.7
./configure
make
sudo make install
cd ..

You can verify that Ruby was installed correctly by running the following:

[[email protected] rubygems-1.7.2]$ ruby --version
ruby 1.8.7 (2008-05-31 patchlevel 0) [x86_64-linux]

Step 5 - Install Gem

tar -zxvf rubygems-1.7.2.tgz
cd rubygems-1.7.2
sudo ruby setup.rb

You can verify that Gem was installed correctly by running the following:

[[email protected] rubygems-1.7.2]$ gem --version
1.7.2

Step 6 - Update Gem (not necessary if you downloaded the latest version which is 1.7.2)

sudo gem update --system

Step 7 - Install ffi gem, this is used for faster tab competition

sudo gem install ffi

Step 8 - Install Ruby vSphere Console (RVC) gem

sudo gem install rvc

You can verify that RVC was installed correctly by running the following command:

[[email protected] ~]$ rvc -h
Ruby vSphere Console.

I also wrote a quick RVC installation script which does exactly the above without the manual labor.

Step 1 - Download installRVC.sh script to vMA:

wget http://vghetto.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/vghetto/other/installRVC.sh

Step 2 - Set the script to be executable:

chmod +x installRVC.sh

Step 3 - Run the installation script

sudo ./installRVC.sh

Once completed, you should get a successful message that RVC is installed on your vMA host.

Now you are ready to start playing with RVC!

Here is an example of the two latest features added by Rich

Linked Clone:

Maintenance Mode:

As you can see it is very easy to use and intuitive, what would be even cooler is to have the various objects be colorized so you can easily distinguish between them, perhaps feature enhancement Rich?

If there are other vSphere operations that you would like to see get implemented, drop your feedback on this VMTN thread which is being monitored by Rich. You can also follow Rich on twitter for the latest updates about RVC.

Hopefully VMware will make this into an official fling and put it on their VMware Lab's website to get the word out!