Error "unknown VMODL type VirtualPCIPassthroughVmiopBackingOption" in list_server_types api call

[MiloCheung]

When I call the function "Fog::Compute::Vsphere::Real::list_server_types", there are runtimeerror here:
RuntimeError: unknown VMODL type VirtualPCIPassthroughVmiopBackingOption
from /home/milo/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.1.2@app360/gems/rbvmomi-1.8.2/lib/rbvmomi/type_loader.rb:104:in `make_type'

When I set a debugger in there, I found that the BasicTypes module has not "VirtualPCIPassthroughVmiopBackingOption" info.

-> BasicTypes::BUILTIN.member? name
this function will return false.

make_type code:
100: def make_type name
101: name = name.to_s
=> 102: require 'pry'; binding.pry if name == "VirtualPCIPassthroughVmiopBackingOption"
103: return BasicTypes.const_get(name) if BasicTypes::BUILTIN.member? name
104: desc = @db[name] or fail "unknown VMODL type #{name}"
105: case desc['kind']
106: when 'data' then make_data_type name, desc
107: when 'managed' then make_managed_type name, desc
108: when 'enum' then make_enum_type name, desc
109: else fail desc.inspect
110: end
111: end

Question: I notice that the gem "rbvmomi" did not updated since 4,5 years before, and my testing environment is vsphere 6.0. is it a problem for "rbvmomi" gem if I use a more updated vsphere version? Or environment setting problem? thanks.

[jrgarcia]

@MiloCheung Yeah, rbvmomi is significantly out of date. I'm not sure what will work and won't work with vSphere 6. Today is a national holiday for me, but let me take a look at the office tomorrow and see if this is an issue with that or not. If it is, I'll see if we can find a way to work around that for you. Thanks for the report!

[MiloCheung]

@jrgarcia thanks for your attention! I also want to ask, what is the maximum version can be supported by vsphere fog? should be vSphere version 5.5 or 5?

[plribeiro3000]

@jrgarcia Can we move away from rbvmomi and do http calls instead?

I can see this gem is giving us a lot of issue. Maybe is time to replace such and old and outdated dependency. WDYF?

[jakerobinson]

@plribeiro3000 Unfortunately there is not much in the way of Ruby vSphere APIs. The API is generated from the VMODL provided by VMware. There has been much talk about adding the vSphere 6 support to RbVmomi. I'll ask around internally. :)

[plribeiro3000]

@jakerobinson What do you mean there isn't much of an API?

How does rbvimomi interact with vsphere?

If it is just an http call we should be good to go since fog already have abstractions for it using excon.

[jakerobinson]

I mean that there are no other APIs (SDKs) for vSphere on Ruby. The vSphere API is SOAP. You can't just make http calls :)

[jakerobinson]

The path forward for now is to get vSphere 6 support in RbVmomi. I've communicated to some folks that can help us get there.

[plribeiro3000]

@jakerobinson Oh, did not know they have a SOAP api.

If RbVmomi support it is gonna be awesome, otherwise we will have to do it ourselves which is the path we should be following anyway. We should not add provider specific dependencies otherwise when someone use fog for another provider will install gems it does not need.

But for now i think we are good if support is added.

[jrgarcia]

@MiloCheung This appears to be a problem with RbVmomi that we can't work around. Hopefully, RbVmomi will be updated soon and this won't be an issue. If this continues to be a problem, we'll look into other options. Closing for now. However, feel free to report the issue at https://github.com/vmware/rbvmomi/issues.

[MiloCheung]

@plribeiro3000 @jrgarcia @jakerobinson I will wait for the new version of RbVmomi.Thanks you all

[plribeiro3000]

@MiloCheung 👍

[jrgarcia]

@MiloCheung It appears they have updated RbVmomi; unfortunately, there has not been a new release since October 1, 2014. You might be able to build a new Gem from source if you really need this. Otherwise, it might be a while before the latest version with the needed changes gets released.