VMware vRA Gem

Client gem for interacting with VMware's vRealize Automation application.

Not all vRA functionality is included in this gem; only API calls necessary to interact with the catalog, requests, and existing items is included.

The primary goal of this gem is to provide a reusable set of methods in order to create Chef plugins for knife, test-kitchen, and provisioning.

Versions

1.7.0 version can and will support vRA 6 and below.

2.0.0 version and forward will support vRA 7+.

3.0.0 version and forward will support vRA 8+.

Installation

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'vmware-vra'

And then execute:

bundle

Or install it yourself as:

gem install vmware-vra

Usage

First, load in the gem.

require 'vra'
=> true

Then, set up your client object. You will need to know your domain from your vRA administrator.

client = Vra::Client.new(username: 'devmgr@corp.local', password: 'mypassword', domain: 'domain.corp.local', base_url: 'https://vra.corp.local', verify_ssl: true)
=> #<Vra::Client:0x000000034c0df8 ... >

Catalog Types

To list all the catalog types:

client.catalog.all_types
 => [#<Vra::CatalogType:0x00007fcde6855370 @id="com.vmw.vro.workflow", @data={"id"=>"com.vmw.vro.workflow", ... ]

Catalog Sources

To list all the catalog sources:

client.catalog.all_sources
[#<Vra::CatalogSource:0x00007fcde3948c30 @id="2f5b2d5c-6dc2-4ea7-b304-cd8fea5ede0f", @data= ...]

And to list the sources that are entitled only:

client.catalog.entitled_sources(project_id)
=> [#<Vra::CatalogSource:0x00007fcde2a28c00 @id="18102dc2-9e48-487a-93a8-aafab2ecc05 ...]

Creating a new source can be done as follows:

source = Vra::CatalogSource.create(client, name: 'New source', catalog_type_id: 'com.vmw.vro.workflow', project_id: project_id)
 => #<Vra::CatalogSource:0x00007fad651f63b8 ... >

Catalog Items

To list all items in the catalog:

client.catalog.all_items
 => [#<Vra::CatalogItem:0x00007fe583863b28>, #<Vra::CatalogItem:0x00007fe583863ad8 ... ]

To only list the items in the catalog for which you are entitled to request:

client.catalog.entitled_items(project_id)
=> [#<Vra::CatalogItem:0x00007fe583863b28>, #<Vra::CatalogItem:0x00007fe583863ad8 ... ]

To retrive catalog id from catalog name:

client.catalog.fetch_catalog_items('centos')
 =>
[#<Vra::CatalogItem:0x00007fb734110f60
  @id="f2e8c6ee-dd00-32c4-94c7-0a50046cb2f3",
  @data={
    "name"=>"oe-centos-1633598756_bp",
  ...>
]

Requesting Deployments

When you are ready to request a deployment using a catalog, create a new deployment object:

request = client.catalog.request(
  catalog_id, 
  image_mapping: 'VRA-nc-lnx-ce8.4-Docker',
  flavor_mapping: 'Small',
  name: 'CentOS VRA8 Test',
  project_id: project_id,
  version: '1'
)
 =>
#<Vra::DeploymentRequest:0x00007fb7340b7438
...

To request a deployment from a catalog item, you can use the above method with a project ID that has a cloud template version released to the project.

The ID of the catalog item from which you are requesting the deployment should be also included, and the version of the released cloud template. If the user doesn't specify a version explicitly, the latest version will be fetched automatically and will be used for the request.

Additionally, the name of the deployment should be specified and it should be unique. The image mapping specifies the OS image for a VM and the flavor mapping specifies the CPU count and RAM of a VM.

If your catalog blueprint item requires additional parameters to successfully submit your request, you may add them:

request.set_parameter('my_parameter', 'string', 'my value')

Managing the deployment

Now, submit your request! The client will return a new "Deployment" object you can use to query for status.

deployment = catalog_request.submit
=> #<Vra::Deployment:0x000000027caea0 ... >

deployment.status
=> "IN_PROGRESS"

You can refresh your deployment object to get the latest status:

deployment.refresh && deployment.status
=> "SUCCESSFUL"

You can also save the deployment ID for later, and create a new deployment object at your leisure to follow-up on your deployment request:

deployment.id
=> "aed22465-02db-481d-b55a-cefe216096a2"

new_deployment = client.deployments.by_id('aed22465-02db-481d-b55a-cefe216096a2')
=> #<Vra::Deployment:0x0000000564ac30 ... >

new_deployment.status
=> "CREATE_SUCCESSFUL"

Deployment Resources

When the deployment request is successful, you can query the resources created as the result of your request. Assuming that the catalog item blueprint we requested only creates a single VM, we can get that resource and learn more information about it:

resource = deployment.resources.first
=> #<Vra::Resource:0x00000006772e68 ... >

resource.network_interfaces
=> [{"NETWORK_ADDRESS"=>"192.168.110.203", "NETWORK_MAC_ADDRESS"=>"00:50:56:ae:1d:c7", "NETWORK_NAME"=>"vxw-dvs-35-virtualwire-2-sid-5000-Edge_Transport"}]

resource.ip_addresses
=> ["192.168.110.203"]

resource.name
=> "hol-dev-32"

If you have the resource_id and the deployment object, you can fetch the resources details as follows

resource.id
=> "331fd10b-f2a2-40ae-86bc-1255c1ee9a6d"

new_resource = deployment.resource_by_id('331fd10b-f2a2-40ae-86bc-1255c1ee9a6d')
=> #<Vra::Resource:0x000000067c13b0 ... >

new_resource.name
=> "hol-dev-32"

Deleting a deployment from vRA

When you no longer need the VM, you can destroy the deployment which will delete all the associated resources as well. The method will return a request object you can query for status:

destroy_req = deployment.destroy
=> #<Vra::Request:0x00000006ea90d8 ... >

destroy_req.status
=> "SUCCESSFUL"

You can also list all resources and requests you have permission to see with these methods:

deployment.resources
deployment.requests

Pagination

vRA paginates API requests where lists of items are returned. By default, this gem will ask vRA to provide items in groups of 20. However, as reported in Issue 10, it appears vRA may have a pagination bug. You can change the default page size from 20 to a value of your choice by passing in a page_size option when setting up the client:

vra = Vra::Client.new(username: 'devmgr@corp.local', password: 'mypassword', domain: 'domain.corp.local', base_url: 'https://vra.corp.local', verify_ssl: true, page_size: 100)

... or setting page_size on the client object after you've created it:

client.page_size = 100

Debugging

To aid diagnosis of deep API issues, set the following environment variable to enable logging of all API requests. Note that this will include requests to retrieve the bearer token.

MacOS/Linux:

export VRA_HTTP_TRACE=1

Windows:

$env:VRA_HTTP_TRACE=1

License and Authors

Author:: Chef Partner Engineering (partnereng@chef.io)

Copyright:: Copyright (c) 2022 Chef Software, Inc.

License:: Apache License, Version 2.0

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.

Contributing

1. Fork it ( https://github.com/[my-github-username]/vmware-vra-gem/fork )
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b my-new-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Add some feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin my-new-feature)
5. Create a new Pull Request