Today I had to query virtual center.
I tried the old vmware-vix utility and it just did not work.
Then I found a utility called govc, the binary can be downloaded from here
https://github.com/vmware/govmomi/releases/download/v0.16.0/govc_linux_amd64.gz
It’s a simple gunzip of the file and chmod +x
I renamed it to govc and moved it to /usr/local/bin
It needed some enviromental variables to work, so I created a file
parameters.env
export GOVC_URL='https://vc.example.local/sdk' export GOVC_INSECURE=true export GOVC_USERNAME='example\larry' export GOVC_PASSWORD=someRANDOMPASSWORD
Then sourced the file
source paramaters.env
First thing I did was list
govc list
But then I wanted more, find was pretty cool
govc find /STIA/vm -type m
No screwey gui
I got details for a paticular vm using the vm.info command but it did not give me annotations
I was able to get it using json
govc vm.info -json VMNAME
But it wasn’t formatted right, I downloaded jq and a dependancy
wget http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/7/x86_64/Packages/j/jq-1.5-1.el7.x86_64.rpm wget http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/7/x86_64/Packages/o/oniguruma-5.9.5-3.el7.x86_64.rpm
And was able to read more complex information
govc vm.info -json VMNAME | jq .VirtualMachines[].Config govc vm.info -json VMNAME | jq .VirtualMachines[].Guest.Net
And I got formatted readable stuff.