Automation for VMware vCloud Director using Chef's knife-vcloud - Part-II

Version 1.2.0

 Some right reserved by Phil Wiffen

For some reason with the previous repo I could not see the list of all vApps. Only some of it (a mixture of both chef node and non chef nodes) were seen. So I went ahead with another version of knife-vcloud plugin available which solved my problem to a large extent.

Plugin is available at https://github.com/astratto/knife-vcloud

Configuration used:

• CentOS 6.5
• Chef 11.8.2
• knife-vcloud 1.2.0

Following steps were used to complete the automation process:

Installation is fairly simple

gem install knife-vcloud
gem list | grep vcloud
- See if after entering the above command you see the gem knife-cloud. If yes the setup was successful. If no something went wrong.

cd ~./chef
vim knife.rb

Configuration is almost automated:

knife vc configure

You will be prompted for vcloud_url, login and password. After entering the details check that the details you entered are reflected in the knife.rb file.

knife[:vcloud_url] = 'https://vcloud.server.org'
knife[:vcloud_org_login] = 'vcloud_organization'
knife[:vcloud_user_login] = 'vcloud_user'
knife[:vcloud_password] =

Note: The organization was not updated for me, and it kept giving authorization failure for quite sometime. If you see that the organization is not updated automatically, please update it manually in the knife.rb file.

The subsequent commands would also change for the detailed listing. Although the documentation at many instances says that the name of VM or vApp should suffice to pull up the required details, note that at many instances you will be required to enter the ID and not just the name.

To see the list of catalog items

[root@chefworkstation ~]# knife vc catalog show All_ISOs
Description: All ISO Dumps
Name                                           ID                                          
CentOS-6.3                                          WhAtEvEr-Id-tO-bE-SeEn1       
CentOS-6.4_x64                                   WhAtEvEr-Id-tO-bE-SeEn2        
Ubuntu-copy                                           WhAtEvEr-Id-tO-bE-SeEn3        

To see details of the organization

[root@chefworkstation ~]# knife vc org show MYORG
CATALOGS                                                                 
Name                                  ID                                 
All_ISOs                                  WhAtEvEr-Id-tO-bE-SeEn4
Master Catalog                        WhAtEvEr-Id-tO-bE-SeEn5
                                                                         
VDCs                                                                     
Name                                  ID                                 
MyorgVDC-Tier1     WhAtEvEr-Id-tO-bE-SeEn6
MyorgVDC-Tier2        WhAtEvEr-Id-tO-bE-SeEn7
MyorgVDC-Tier3        WhAtEvEr-Id-tO-bE-SeEn8

NETWORKS                                                                 
Name                                  ID                                 
MyorgNet-Router                   WhAtEvEr-Id-tO-bE-SeEn9

TASKLISTS                                                                
Name                                  ID                                 
                        WhAtEvEr-Id-tO-bE-SeEn10

To create a new vApp:

[root@chefworkstation ~]# knife vc vapp create MyorgVDC-Tier1 chefnode2 "Just Created node2" WhAtEvEr-Id-tO-bE-SeEn
vApp creation...
Summary: Status: error - time elapsed: 52.012 seconds
WARNING: ATTENTION: Error code 400 - The following IP/MAC addresses have already been used by running virtual machines: MAC addresses: 10:20:30:40:50:0f IP addresses: 192.168.0.20 Use the Fence vApp option to use same MAC/IP. Fencing allows identical virtual machines in different vApps to be powered on without conflict, by isolating the MAC and IP addresses of the virtual machines.
vApp created with ID: WhAtEvEr-Id-tO-bE-SeEn

Note: that there are certain problems that were corrected later.

To show the deatils of created vApp:

[root@chefworkstation ~]# knife vc vapp show WhAtEvEr-Id-tO-bE-SeEn1
Note: --vdc not specified, assuming VAPP is an ID
Name: chefnode2
Description: Just Created node2
Status: stopped
IP: 192.168.0.12
Networks
MyorgNet-Router
   Gateway      Netmask        Fence Mode  Parent Network       Retain Network
      192.168.0.1  255.255.255.0  bridged     MyorgNet-Router  false        
      VMs
      Name    Status   IPs           ID                                    Scoped ID                          
      centos  stopped  192.168.0.12  WhAtEvEr-Id-tO-bE-SeEn  WhAtEvEr-Id-tO-bE-SeEn

To show the vm specific details:

[root@chefworkstation ~]# knife vc vm show WhAtEvEr-Id-tO-bE-SeEn --vapp MyvApp_Chef
Note: --vapp and --vdc not specified, assuming VM is an ID
VM Name: centos
OS Name: CentOS 4/5/6 (64-bit)
Status: stopped
Cpu                                          
Number of Virtual CPUs  1 virtual CPU(s)     

Memory                                       
Memory Size             2048 MB of memory    

Disks                                        
Hard disk 1             16384 MB             
Hard disk 2             16384 MB             

Networks                                     
MyorgNet-Router                          
Index                 0                    
Ip                    192.168.0.12         
External ip                                
Is connected          true                 
Mac address           10:20:30:40:50:0f    
Ip allocation mode    MANUAL               

Guest Customizations                         
Enabled                 false                
Admin passwd enabled    true                 
Admin passwd auto       false                
Admin passwd                                 
Reset passwd required   false                
Computer name           centos

  

To set new info to the vm:

[root@chefworkstation ~]# knife vc vm set info --name ChefNewNode WhAtEvEr-Id-tO-bE-SeEn --vapp MyvApp_Chef centos
Note: --vapp and --vdc not specified, assuming VM is an ID
Renaming VM from centos to ChefNewNode
Summary: Status: success - time elapsed: 7.09 seconds

To update other info:

[root@chefworkstation ~]# knife vc vm set info --ram 512 WhAtEvEr-Id-tO-bE-SeEn --vapp MyvApp_Chef
Note: --vapp and --vdc not specified, assuming VM is an ID
VM setting RAM info...
Summary: Status: success - time elapsed: 9.843 seconds

To edit network info:

[root@chefworkstation ~]# knife vc vm network edit WhAtEvEr-Id-tO-bE-SeEn MyorgNet-Router --net-ip 192.168.0.117 --ip-allocation-mode MANUAL
Note: --vapp and --vdc not specified, assuming VM is an ID
Forcing parent network to itself
VM network configuration...
Guest customizations must be applied to a stopped VM, but it's running. Can I STOP it? (Y/N) Y
Stopping VM...
Summary: Status: success - time elapsed: 7.092 seconds
VM network configuration for MyorgNet-Router...
Summary: Status: success - time elapsed: 6.783 seconds
Forcing Guest Customization to apply changes...
Summary: Status: success - time elapsed: 22.639 seconds

To show the changes made:

[root@chefworkstation ~]# knife vc vm show WhAtEvEr-Id-tO-bE-SeEn
Note: --vapp and --vdc not specified, assuming VM is an ID
VM Name: ChefNewNode
OS Name: CentOS 4/5/6 (64-bit)
Status: running

Cpu                                          
Number of Virtual CPUs  1 virtual CPU(s)     

Memory                                       
Memory Size             512 MB of memory     

Disks                                        
Hard disk 1             16384 MB             
Hard disk 2             16384 MB             

Networks                                     
MyorgNet-Router                          

Index                 0                    
Ip                    192.168.0.117        
External ip                                
Is connected          true                 
Mac address           10:20:30:40:50:0f    
Ip allocation mode    MANUAL               

Guest Customizations                         
Enabled                 true                 
Admin passwd enabled    true                 
Admin passwd auto       false                
Admin passwd                                 
Reset passwd required   false                

Computer name           centos

Reference Links:

• https://github.com/astratto/knife-vcloud