New Feature: resxtop integration

I've found some hidden API calls while sniffing the resxtop protocol with wireshark. And wouldn't it be nice to have this userful utility integrated into the vSphere Client.

That's what I've build as new feature. There is a tab on the hosts inventory view called 'paap live'.

The table contains the netport informations of an ESX host. It's a convinient way to identify the physical NIC a virtual machines sends its traffic with.

Dropped Rx and Tx packages can be seen, too.

Trigger paap tasks remotely. E.g. by VMware Orchestrator

It's quite easy to startup a paap task through the integrated remote interface.
Every function can be accessed by a URI scheme.

Let's take an example:
VMware Orchestrator should initiate the paap Lifecycle Management after deploying a virtual machine into vSphere. We'll build a vCO action that can start any paap task which works on a virtual machine.

This action prepares the url and its parameters for the task and uses these input parameters:

Input parameters

• object - a reference to the virtual machine object
• paap_cfg_url - the base url of the virtual appliance e.g. https://paap.dom.local/paap/a2c
• paaptask -  the name of the task. In our case: lcm/cfgvm This initiates the lifecycle management

The script part of the action:

execute url script

  The URL requesting a task if of this schema:
  <base_url>+'/plugin/'+<task_name>+'/'+<function>
Example:
 https://paap.dom.local/paap/a2c/plugin/lcm/cfgvm/run

These parameters are added to the URL object:

• moref - the managed object reference on which the task should work.
• cloneTicket - is used by paap to duplicate the current session. The task will run with the same username and permissions as the vCO workflow.
• serviceUrl - is the sdk url of the virtual Center server

Calling .post on the URL object executes the task.
That's all.
You can watch the progress in the vCenter task list.

cfgvm progress

My favorite helpers #1

Let's get our feets wet and dive into it.
I would like to show you the paap function edit vmx file from the Daily Administration group.

It's a very convenient way for the advanced VMware administrator to change the configuration of a virtual machine.

Consider this situation:
You want to change the virtual machine's ethernet adapter type but have to keep the current MAC address.

The vSphere Clients does not offer a way to change the type of an ethernet adapter as it does with the SCSI devices. You'll have to add an other one and remove the old adapter. After that the VM will use a newly generated MAC address. Thats the culprit and the moment when "edit vmx file" comes handy.

• Select VM in the vSphere Client 
• Go through the context menu: paap toolkit -> Daily Administration for Virtual Machines -> Edit VMX File 
• A new window with text editor will pop up:

• Find the entry ethernet0.virtualDev = "e1000"  in the editor.
• and change it to ethernet0.virtualDev = "vmxnet3"
• Look for further help on ethernet card types and their vmx entries with the "Help on NICs" button
  

• Save your changes
• Don't worry about malformed vmx files. The appliance will make a backup of the previous vmx file and revert to it if the hypervisor can't load the new configuration.

That's it. Power on the VM and enjoy the performance boost with vmxnet3.

Let's introduce this blog

Welcome to the blog about task automation in virtual environments.
We will introduce the pretty cool functionality of the paap.
A Profession Automation Appliance for VMware vSphere.
Let's begin with some facts about the appliance:

• Easily deployed due to the .OVF format.
• Build with VMware Studio
• Based on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS
• Contains tftpd for PXE boot and unattended installation
• Syncs system clock with ntp service
• Exclusively written in Perl
• Connects VMware vCenter Server with Perl SDK
• Configuration is stored in integrated mySQL Database
• Uses SSL Certificates, optional signed by your root authority

After setting it up, the appliance will work silently in the background. Each function can be used within the vSphere Client.

• Seamless integration into vSphere Client
• Plugin registration in the vCenter Server
• No setup on the machine running the vSphere Client
• Default menues and views in the vSphere Clients get extended by additional functionality.

Come back frequently and enjoy tutorials and showcases of the enormous functionality.
Learn how the paap can help making your administrative pain with vSphere a lot easier.