Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
execute the same scripts that were previously used by setting the fastpass target to trans-
parently pass the commands to the host.
Use vCenter in combination with vMA to manage all your hosts.
The new version of
vMA can use vCenter as a target. This means that you can manage all of your hosts using
vCLI without having to manually add each host to the fastpass target list.
Master It
Use a combination of shell scripting with vCLI commands to execute com-
mands against a number of hosts.
Solution
Bash, the default shell for the vi-admin user, has a full-featured scripting en-
vironment capable of using functions, arrays, loops, and other control logic structures.
Using these capabilities, in combination with the vCLI command set and fastpass, hosts
in clusters can be efi ciently coni gured to match.
Employ the Perl toolkit and VMware SDK for virtual server operations from the
command line.
The vCLI is designed for host management and consequently lacks tools for
manipulating virtual servers. With the Perl toolkit, leveraged against the VMware SDK, any
task that can be accomplished in the Virtual Infrastructure client can be done from the com-
mand line.
Master It
Browse the sample scripts and SDK documentation to discover the world of
possibilities that are unlocked by using Perl, or any of the other supported languages, to
accomplish management tasks.
Solution
Sample scripts are provided with the Perl toolkit on vMA at /usr/share/
doc/vmware-viperl/samples. Additional utility scripts for assisting development of
Perl applications can be found at /usr/lib/vmware-viperl/apps in the vMA's i le struc-
ture. Refer to the documentation for their location when you install the Perl toolkit on a
Windows server or desktop. SDK documentation can be found at
www.vmware.com/sdk.
Coni gure vCenter Orchestrator
vCenter Orchestrator is designed to allow vSphere
administrators to run workl ows against the vSphere environment and much more. To
orchestrate against things like Active Directory and UCS or to run PowerShell scripts, you
need the appropriate plug-ins installed and coni gured.
Master It
How can you tell which plug-ins are installed and available for your use?
Solution
The Plug-Ins tab of the vCenter Orchestrator Coni guration page will list
all of the plug-ins installed for vCenter Server. This requires the vCenter Orchestrator
Coni guration Service to be running and accessing it through your web browser at
https://<computer IP address> or the DNS name 8283.
Use a vCenter Orchestrator workl ow
After vCenter Orchestrator is coni gured and run-
ning, you can use the vCenter Orchestrator client to run a vCenter Orchestrator workl ow.
vCenter Orchestrator comes with a number of preinstalled workl ows to help automate tasks.
Master It
An administrator in your environment coni gured vCenter Orchestrator and
has now asked you to run a couple of workl ows. However, when you log into the vCenter
Server instance where vCenter Orchestrator is also installed, you don't see the icons for
vCenter Orchestrator. Why?
Solution
The vCenter Server installer creates the vCenter Orchestrator Start menu icons
in the user-specii c side of the Start menu, so they are visible only to the user who was
logged on when vCenter Server was installed. Other users will not see the icons on the
Start menu unless they are moved to the All Users portion of the Start menu.
