VM Automation

Overview

This tool will help you to automate different operations in virtual machine
located in VMware vSphere.

Supported Features

Currently support different actions like

Create Virtual Machine
Clone Virtual Machine from a template
Delete an existing virtual machine
Power on a virtual machine
Power off a virtual machine
Reset a virtual machine

Demo

vmautomation demo

Install required packages

To start installation you need pip

wget -qO- https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py | python

To Install required python packages based on requirements.txt

python -m pip install -r requirements.txt

Documentation

Python Program

Let’s perform different operations based on .json file
>
Program will ask for password if not specified
>

Create:

Let’s create a new virtual machine in VMware vSphere using create.json.
Define virtual machine’s configuration into sample_json/create.json file then run this command

python vmautomation --host=<hostname> --username=<username> --password=<password> create --json-file sample_json/create.json

Clone:

Let’s clone a virtual machine from a template in VMware vSphere using clone.json.
Define virtual machine’s configuration into sample_json/clone.json file then run this command

python vmautomation --host=<hostname> --username=<username> --password=<password> clone --json-file sample_json/clone.json

Power on:

Let’s power on an existing virtual machine

python vmautomation --host=<hostname> --username=<username> --password=<password> power-on --vm-name=<virtual_machine_name>

Power off:

Let’s power off an existing virtual machine

python vmautomation --host=<hostname> --username=<username> --password=<password> power-off --vm-name=<virtual_machine_name>

Reset:

Let’s reset an existing virtual machine

python vmautomation --host=<hostname> --username=<username> --password=<password> reset --vm-name=<virtual_machine_name>

Delete:

Let’s delete an existing virtual machine

python vmautomation --host=<hostname> --username=<username> --password=<password> delete --vm-name=<virtual_machine_name>

Using python APIs

>
You can also add vmautomation into your python site-packages.
So that you can easily import it into your python script.
>

#!/usr/bin/env python
from vmautomation import virtual_machine
# Make sure you are passing logging object based on python logging module
########################
### Create operation ###
########################
# To create virtual machine object
virtual_machine_obj = VirtualMachine(host=<hostname>, username=<username>, 
                    password=<password>, port=<port>, 
                    logger=<logging_obj>,ssl_check=<ssl_check>, 
                    vm_name=<vm_name>)
# To set datacenter object
virtual_machine_obj.set_datacenter_obj(datacenter=<datacenter_name>)
# To set datastore object
virtual_machine_obj.set_datastore_obj(datastore=<datastore_name>)
# To set resource pool object
virtual_machine_obj.set_resource_pool_obj(resource_pool=<resource_pool_name>)
# To set folder object
virtual_machine_obj.set_folder_obj(folder=<folder_name>)
# Virtual Machine Create operation
virtual_machine_obj.create(memory_in_MB=<memory_in_megabytes>, 
                           num_of_CPUs=<num_of_cpus>, 
                           guest_OS_id=<guest_os>, 
                           version=<virtual_machine_version>)
### To add/reconfigure Virtual Machine ###
# To add a new hard drive
virtual_machine_obj.add_hard_disk(disk_label=<label_for_new_hard_drive>),
                                  capacityin_KB=<disk_capacity_in_kilobytes>)
# To add a new CDROM
# To add iso file you have to specify iso datastore and iso file name
# Otherwise put it as None, then will use client CDROM
iso_file_name = "[{0}] {1}".format(<iso_datastore_name>, <.iso_filename>)
virtual_machine_obj.add_cdrom(iso_file_name, 
                              startConnected=<is_connected_from_startup>)
# To add a new Network Card
# Here if you specify mac address then put mac_address_type as manual
virtual_machine_obj.add_network_card(mac_address=<mac_address>,
                            network_label=<network_card_label>,
                            mac_address_type=<manual_or_assigned>,
                            connected=<is_connected_from_startup>,
                            summary=<summary_of_network_card>)
##############################                        
### Clone VM from template ###
##############################
# To create virtual machine object
virtual_machine_obj = VirtualMachine(host=<hostname>, username=<username>, 
                    password=<password>, port=<port>, 
                    logger=<logging_obj>,ssl_check=<ssl_check>, 
                    vm_name=<vm_name>)
# To set datacenter object
virtual_machine_obj.set_datacenter_obj(datacenter=<datacenter_name>)
# To set datastore object
virtual_machine_obj.set_datastore_obj(datastore=<datastore_name>)
# To set resource pool object
virtual_machine_obj.set_resource_pool_obj(resource_pool=<resource_pool_name>)
# To set folder object
virtual_machine_obj.set_folder_obj(folder=<folder_name>)                          
# To set template object
virtual_machine_obj.clone_from_template(template_name=<template_name>)
# To update mac address to a specific network card
virtual_machine_obj.update_mac_address(nic_hdw_name=<network_card_name>, 
                                       new_mac_address=<new_mac_address>)
# To update network label for a specific network card 
virtual_machine_obj.update_network_label(nic_hdw_name=<network_card_name>,
                                         new_network_label=<new_network_label>)
# To update network state for a specific network card
virtual_machine_obj.update_nic_state(nic_hdw_name=<network_card_name>,
                                     is_connected=<network_card_is_connected>)
################################                        
### Power on virtual machine ###
################################
# To create virtual machine object
virtual_machine_obj = VirtualMachine(host=<hostname>, username=<username>, 
                    password=<password>, port=<port>, 
                    logger=<logging_obj>,ssl_check=<ssl_check>, 
                    vm_name=<vm_name>)
virtual_machine.power_on()
#################################                        
### Power off virtual machine ###
#################################
# To create virtual machine object
virtual_machine_obj = VirtualMachine(host=<hostname>, username=<username>, 
                    password=<password>, port=<port>, 
                    logger=<logging_obj>,ssl_check=<ssl_check>, 
                    vm_name=<vm_name>)
virtual_machine.power_off()
#############################                        
### Reset virtual machine ###
#############################
# To create virtual machine object
virtual_machine_obj = VirtualMachine(host=<hostname>, username=<username>, 
                    password=<password>, port=<port>, 
                    logger=<logging_obj>,ssl_check=<ssl_check>, 
                    vm_name=<vm_name>)
virtual_machine.reset()
##############################                        
### Delete virtual machine ###
##############################
# To create virtual machine object
virtual_machine_obj = VirtualMachine(host=<hostname>, username=<username>, 
                    password=<password>, port=<port>, 
                    logger=<logging_obj>,ssl_check=<ssl_check>, 
                    vm_name=<vm_name>)
virtual_machine.delete()

Python pyvmomi: https://github.com/vmware/pyvmomi
VMware vSphere Automation SDK for Python: https://developercenter.vmware.com/web/sdk/65/vsphere-automation-python