State of vmware integration

Hey,

Was just curious what the state of vmware integration was. I know the survey revealed that most people use vmware instead of other solutions. Who is working on the vmware integration? How can I help since I tend to work with clients that have vmware.

Also some things I noticed the last time I used the vmware integration.

— windows doesn’t really work due to reliance of ssh (may need to implement a WinRM proxy or something)
— foreman doesn’t apply customization spec which assigns IP and other things.
— foreman gets a list of all the vms available to the user which could be thousands and slows down everything
— foreman doesn’t cache the list of vms so subsequent calls to vcenter pulls down the same list again (makes it very hard/annoying to use)
— foreman doesn’t allow you to adjust the “view” so in cases where you might only want to have vmware return a subset of machines from a folder in vcenter it actually returns all vms.

Additionally,

The vRealize and vAutomation products from vCloud suite now overlap with foreman in a few areas so I think we would need to figure out how to either leverage these features or reproduce them. There are bad examples below as I only spent an hour getting to know vCloud 6.

— vRealize content libraries are much like Pulp but nowhere near as good
    — vRealize provisioning is now self service and includes making a blueprint/customication spec very much like the workflow in foreman

I just ordered another DL380 G6 Server for my home lab and will be setting up a dual datacenter architecture with many 2 esxi hosts each datacenter and 24 virtual machines for each datacenter. Hopefully I won’t run out of memory.

Also vsphere and ESXi 6.0 was just released along with an official Ruby API https://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vapi/vcs_ruby_6_0_releasenotes.html <https://developercenter.vmware.com/web/sdk/60/vcloudsuite-ruby>. I am not sure if this API stems from https://github.com/rlane/rbvmomi.

I am also wondering if some of the work done here: https://github.com/nsidc/vagrant-vsphere <https://github.com/nsidc/vagrant-vsphere> can be duplicated in foreman since it would be very similar.

Corey Osman

VMWare, as many enterprise-ish companies, is our primary CR. I would love
to see datastore cluster support. As I understand it, Foreman VMWare
support is primarily based on what fog [1] supports. "Editing" VMWare
hosts in Foreman is also slow, although I haven't tried 1.8 yet.

[1] http://fog.io/

··· On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 9:17 PM, Corey Osman wrote:

Hey,

Was just curious what the state of vmware integration was. I know the
survey revealed that most people use vmware instead of other solutions.
Who is working on the vmware integration? How can I help since I tend to
work with clients that have vmware.

Also some things I noticed the last time I used the vmware integration.

— windows doesn’t really work due to reliance of ssh (may need to
implement a WinRM proxy or something)
— foreman doesn’t apply customization spec which assigns IP and other
things.
— foreman gets a list of all the vms available to the user which could be
thousands and slows down everything
— foreman doesn’t cache the list of vms so subsequent calls to vcenter
pulls down the same list again (makes it very hard/annoying to use)
— foreman doesn’t allow you to adjust the “view” so in cases where you
might only want to have vmware return a subset of machines from a folder in
vcenter it actually returns all vms.

Additionally,

The vRealize and vAutomation products from vCloud suite now overlap with
foreman in a few areas so I think we would need to figure out how to either
leverage these features or reproduce them. There are bad examples below as
I only spent an hour getting to know vCloud 6.

— vRealize content libraries are much like Pulp but nowhere near as good
— vRealize provisioning is now self service and includes making a
blueprint/customication spec very much like the workflow in foreman

I just ordered another DL380 G6 Server for my home lab and will be setting
up a dual datacenter architecture with many 2 esxi hosts each datacenter
and 24 virtual machines for each datacenter. Hopefully I won’t run out of
memory.

Also vsphere and ESXi 6.0 was just released along with an official Ruby
API
https://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vapi/vcs_ruby_6_0_releasenotes.html
https://developercenter.vmware.com/web/sdk/60/vcloudsuite-ruby. I am
not sure if this API stems from https://github.com/rlane/rbvmomi.

I am also wondering if some of the work done here:
https://github.com/nsidc/vagrant-vsphere can be duplicated in foreman
since it would be very similar.

Corey Osman


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> Hey,
>
> Was just curious what the state of vmware integration was. I know the
> survey revealed that most people use vmware instead of other solutions.
> Who is working on the vmware integration? How can I help since I tend
> to work with clients that have vmware.

Mostly it's not actively maintained and bugs have lingered for years.
Shlomi Zadok fixed a couple recently, but the bulk are untouched. It's
a big release risk as far as I'm concerned, as it easily regresses but
it's hard then to get fixed.

http://bit.ly/1P95uPB is the full VMware-related bug list.

> Also some things I noticed the last time I used the vmware integration.
>
> — foreman doesn’t apply customization spec which assigns IP and other
> things.

See #8601 in 1.8.0 and the followup #10305, just filed.

··· On 30/04/15 02:17, Corey Osman wrote:


Dominic Cleal
Red Hat Engineering

This is one of our concerns too. I know I'm on the community forum here,
but when things like Foreman & Katello get wrapped up into a corporate
offering like Satellite 6, it would really not be nice for users to have to
struggle away with vmware integration. Like it or not, ESX is the big
beast of corporate virtualization and that isn't going to change any time
soon.

Somehow, a way needs to be found to get first class support for the whole
vmware platform within Foreman. Or there will be some pretty unhappy
customers of Satellite 6. We currently use a mix of versions from ESX 5.0
through to 5.5.

We're ready to help where possible too.

D

··· On Thursday, 30 April 2015 02:17:24 UTC+1, Corey Osman wrote: > > Hey, > > Was just curious what the state of vmware integration was. I know the > survey revealed that most people use vmware instead of other solutions. > Who is working on the vmware integration? How can I help since I tend to > work with clients that have vmware. > > Also some things I noticed the last time I used the vmware integration. > > > — windows doesn’t really work due to reliance of ssh (may need to > implement a WinRM proxy or something) > — foreman doesn’t apply customization spec which assigns IP and other > things. > — foreman gets a list of all the vms available to the user which could be > thousands and slows down everything > — foreman doesn’t cache the list of vms so subsequent calls to vcenter > pulls down the same list again (makes it very hard/annoying to use) > — foreman doesn’t allow you to adjust the “view” so in cases where you > might only want to have vmware return a subset of machines from a folder in > vcenter it actually returns all vms. > > > > Additionally, > > The vRealize and vAutomation products from vCloud suite now overlap with > foreman in a few areas so I think we would need to figure out how to either > leverage these features or reproduce them. There are bad examples below as > I only spent an hour getting to know vCloud 6. > > — vRealize content libraries are much like Pulp but nowhere near as good > — vRealize provisioning is now self service and includes making a > blueprint/customication spec very much like the workflow in foreman > > > I just ordered another DL380 G6 Server for my home lab and will be setting > up a dual datacenter architecture with many 2 esxi hosts each datacenter > and 24 virtual machines for each datacenter. Hopefully I won’t run out of > memory. > > > Also vsphere and ESXi 6.0 was just released along with an official Ruby > API > https://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vapi/vcs_ruby_6_0_releasenotes.html > . I am > not sure if this API stems from https://github.com/rlane/rbvmomi. > > > I am also wondering if some of the work done here: > https://github.com/nsidc/vagrant-vsphere can be duplicated in foreman > since it would be very similar. > > > Corey Osman >

Hey,

just for the record.

> Also vsphere and ESXi 6.0 was just released along with an official Ruby API https://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vapi/vcs_ruby_6_0_releasenotes.html <https://developercenter.vmware.com/web/sdk/60/vcloudsuite-ruby>. I am not sure if this API stems from https://github.com/rlane/rbvmomi.

This looks like something different than rbvmomi (which is used by fog).

This is a new client library created from XML schema using some java
generator (included in the SDK package).

Similar technique was used by the CloudForms team to generate their
VmWare bindings (now part of the CloudForms open-source project).

··· -- Later, Lukas #lzap Zapletal

Josh, you've named it! imho "datastore cluster" and also "iso provising"
are the 2 features that prevents me (and maybe other companies) to adopt
foreman and migrate from the old-age-school 'cobbler' (for the iso
generation) + newer vmware 'salt-cloud' driver[1] (for the vm provisioning).
Sadly, for what I know, fog (and so rbvmomi) doesn't yet support datastore
cluster nor isos attach/detach …and it seems that rbvmomi is an almost
dead project (compared to the python counterpart 'pyvmomi')

[1]
http://docs.saltstack.com/en/latest/ref/clouds/all/salt.cloud.clouds.vmware.html

··· Il giorno giovedì 30 aprile 2015 03:28:38 UTC+2, Josh Baird ha scritto: > > VMWare, as many enterprise-ish companies, is our primary CR. I would love > to see datastore cluster support. As I understand it, Foreman VMWare > support is primarily based on what fog [1] supports. "Editing" VMWare > hosts in Foreman is also slow, although I haven't tried 1.8 yet. > > [1] http://fog.io/ > > On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 9:17 PM, Corey Osman > wrote: > >> Hey, >> >> Was just curious what the state of vmware integration was. I know the >> survey revealed that most people use vmware instead of other solutions. >> Who is working on the vmware integration? How can I help since I tend to >> work with clients that have vmware. >> >> Also some things I noticed the last time I used the vmware integration. >> >> >> — windows doesn’t really work due to reliance of ssh (may need to >> implement a WinRM proxy or something) >> — foreman doesn’t apply customization spec which assigns IP and other >> things. >> — foreman gets a list of all the vms available to the user which could be >> thousands and slows down everything >> — foreman doesn’t cache the list of vms so subsequent calls to vcenter >> pulls down the same list again (makes it very hard/annoying to use) >> — foreman doesn’t allow you to adjust the “view” so in cases where you >> might only want to have vmware return a subset of machines from a folder in >> vcenter it actually returns all vms. >> >> >> >> Additionally, >> >> The vRealize and vAutomation products from vCloud suite now overlap with >> foreman in a few areas so I think we would need to figure out how to either >> leverage these features or reproduce them. There are bad examples below as >> I only spent an hour getting to know vCloud 6. >> >> — vRealize content libraries are much like Pulp but nowhere near as good >> — vRealize provisioning is now self service and includes making a >> blueprint/customication spec very much like the workflow in foreman >> >> >> I just ordered another DL380 G6 Server for my home lab and will be >> setting up a dual datacenter architecture with many 2 esxi hosts each >> datacenter and 24 virtual machines for each datacenter. Hopefully I won’t >> run out of memory. >> >> >> Also vsphere and ESXi 6.0 was just released along with an official Ruby >> API >> https://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vapi/vcs_ruby_6_0_releasenotes.html >> . I am >> not sure if this API stems from https://github.com/rlane/rbvmomi. >> >> >> I am also wondering if some of the work done here: >> https://github.com/nsidc/vagrant-vsphere can be duplicated in foreman >> since it would be very similar. >> >> >> Corey Osman >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "foreman-dev" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to foreman-dev...@googlegroups.com . >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >> > >

There is currently support (Bug #8601: use cloudinit like user data in vsphere compute ressource - Foreman) in
Foreman for sending the complete customization spec to machines deployed
via the vm_clone method - which we use to deploy a vmware windows machine
from template. It uses the user data template to supply the customization
spec info.

I've also submitted a patch to Fog (https://github.com/fog/fog/pull/3523)
which will support the full vmware customization spec when using the
vm_clone method. I've tested this in our ESX 5.5 environment and it works
fine, except the new vm always starts with the network adapter disconnected

  • I'm pretty sure this is a bug with vmware though.

I've done a quick write up about the process here
: http://www.herbert.org.nz/?p=245.

··· On Wednesday, May 6, 2015 at 9:15:18 PM UTC+12, Duncan Innes wrote: > > This is one of our concerns too. I know I'm on the community forum here, > but when things like Foreman & Katello get wrapped up into a corporate > offering like Satellite 6, it would really not be nice for users to have to > struggle away with vmware integration. Like it or not, ESX is the big > beast of corporate virtualization and that isn't going to change any time > soon. > > Somehow, a way needs to be found to get first class support for the whole > vmware platform within Foreman. Or there will be some pretty unhappy > customers of Satellite 6. We currently use a mix of versions from ESX 5.0 > through to 5.5. > > We're ready to help where possible too. > > D > > On Thursday, 30 April 2015 02:17:24 UTC+1, Corey Osman wrote: >> >> Hey, >> >> Was just curious what the state of vmware integration was. I know the >> survey revealed that most people use vmware instead of other solutions. >> Who is working on the vmware integration? How can I help since I tend to >> work with clients that have vmware. >> >> Also some things I noticed the last time I used the vmware integration. >> >> >> — windows doesn’t really work due to reliance of ssh (may need to >> implement a WinRM proxy or something) >> — foreman doesn’t apply customization spec which assigns IP and other >> things. >> — foreman gets a list of all the vms available to the user which could be >> thousands and slows down everything >> — foreman doesn’t cache the list of vms so subsequent calls to vcenter >> pulls down the same list again (makes it very hard/annoying to use) >> — foreman doesn’t allow you to adjust the “view” so in cases where you >> might only want to have vmware return a subset of machines from a folder in >> vcenter it actually returns all vms. >> >> >> >> Additionally, >> >> The vRealize and vAutomation products from vCloud suite now overlap with >> foreman in a few areas so I think we would need to figure out how to either >> leverage these features or reproduce them. There are bad examples below as >> I only spent an hour getting to know vCloud 6. >> >> — vRealize content libraries are much like Pulp but nowhere near as good >> — vRealize provisioning is now self service and includes making a >> blueprint/customication spec very much like the workflow in foreman >> >> >> I just ordered another DL380 G6 Server for my home lab and will be >> setting up a dual datacenter architecture with many 2 esxi hosts each >> datacenter and 24 virtual machines for each datacenter. Hopefully I won’t >> run out of memory. >> >> >> Also vsphere and ESXi 6.0 was just released along with an official Ruby >> API >> https://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vapi/vcs_ruby_6_0_releasenotes.html >> . I am >> not sure if this API stems from https://github.com/rlane/rbvmomi. >> >> >> I am also wondering if some of the work done here: >> https://github.com/nsidc/vagrant-vsphere can be duplicated in foreman >> since it would be very similar. >> >> >> Corey Osman >> >

It should start with the network disconnected one time to allow reconfiguration and then reconnect it on the subsequent boot. That is by design to avoid a conflicting clone on the network before it has been reconfigured.