Quickly grabbing all available REST api url’s for your Horizon version

One of the challenges with the Horizon REST API’s is that they are not feature complete yet and if you ain’t on the latest version you need to scroll trough the api explorer or Swagger UI to find if the URL you need is available. I have created a short script for both python and powershell that will show all the available urls.

If you’ve taken a good look at the Swagger page you’ll see there’s a link to the api docs almost at the top

If you open this you get something that looks like a json but it’s not readable (yet!)

Let’s grab the url’s with powershell first

$data = Invoke-WebRequest https://pod2cbr1.loft.lab/rest/v1/api-docs?group=Default
$json = $data |ConvertFrom-Json
$json.paths

this will give you all the available url’s from the docs and the methods they support

Now if you want to drill down deeper you can do a select -expandproperty on the url’s and with a get-member you get the available calls

$json.paths | select -expandproperty "/inventory/v1/rds-servers/{id}" | Get-Member

and with another select -expandproperty you see all the details

$json.paths | select -expandproperty "/inventory/v1/rds-servers/{id}" | select -ExpandProperty get

With Python you can start with something similar

import json,requests,urllib 
requests.packages.urllib3.disable_warnings() 
response = requests.get("https://pod2cbr1.loft.lab/rest/v1/api-docs?group=Default" , verify=False) 
data = response.json() 
for i in data["paths"]: 
    print(i)

but this will just give the url’s

To be able to drill down I decided to bring the url, method and the description into a list and print that if needed. This example is just with the method and url but you can add the description as well. The list is to make it easier to filter on.

import json,requests,urllib
requests.packages.urllib3.disable_warnings()
response = requests.get("https://pod2cbr1.loft.lab/rest/v1/api-docs?group=Default" , verify=False)

data = response.json()

list=[]
paths=data["paths"]

for i in paths:
    for method in paths[i]:
        obj = {}
        obj["method"] = method
        obj["url"] = i
        obj["description"] = paths[i][method]
        list.append(obj)

for i in list:
    print(i["method"], i["url"])

Managing application pools using the VMware Horizon Python Module

Earlier this week I added several methods to the VMware Horizon Python Module that are centered about application pools and I promised a blog post so here it is 🙂 In the module we have the following methods in the Inventory about Application Pools:

Preparation

In order to use the methods I am using this as standard configuration in my script

import requests, getpass, urllib, json, operator
import vmware_horizon
requests.packages.urllib3.disable_warnings()

url="https://loftcbr01.loft.lab"
username = "m_wouter"
domain = "loft.lab"
pw = getpass.getpass()


hvconnectionobj = vmware_horizon.Connection(username = username,domain = domain,password = pw,url = url)
hvconnectionobj.hv_connect()
print("connected")
monitor = obj=vmware_horizon.Monitor(url=hvconnectionobj.url, access_token=hvconnectionobj.access_token)
external=vmware_horizon.External(url=hvconnectionobj.url, access_token=hvconnectionobj.access_token)
inventory=vmware_horizon.Inventory(url=hvconnectionobj.url, access_token=hvconnectionobj.access_token)
entitlements=vmware_horizon.Entitlements(url=hvconnectionobj.url, access_token=hvconnectionobj.access_token)

All of the connects at the bottom is so I don’t need to think to do those if I need them when testing.

I end with

end=hvconnectionobj.hv_disconnect()
print(end)

Both the connected and end prints aren’t required at all but give me feedback about the status of the connection.

[sta_anchor id=”get_application_pools” /]

get_application_pools

This is the easiest method to use as it doesn’t require anything. It does allow for setting page sizes and filtering if needed. See this article if you want to know more about filtering: https://retouw.eu/2021/02/14/filtering-searching-and-pagination-with-the-python-module-for-vmware-horizon/ The method will return a list of dicts, for the first example I will show only the names of the items.

ap = inventory.get_application_pools(maxpagesize=100)
for i in ap:
    print(i["name"])

Or just with the entire list returned

ap = inventory.get_application_pools(maxpagesize=100)
print(ap)

[sta_anchor id=”get_application_pool” /]

get_application_pool

To get a single application pool you can use get_application_pool and it requires an application_pool_id, I will use the first one of the list of application to show it.

ap = inventory.get_application_pools(maxpagesize=100)
firstap=ap[0]
print(inventory.get_application_pool(application_pool_id=firstap["id"]))

[sta_anchor id=”delete_application_pool” /]

delete_application_pool

To delete an application pool we again only need the application_pool_id I will combine both the get methods to show all application pools before and after the deletion. (with some prints not relevant for the code so I won’t show them below)

ap = inventory.get_application_pools(maxpagesize=100)
for i in ap:
    print(i["name"])
firstap=ap[0]

print(inventory.get_application_pool(application_pool_id=firstap["id"]))

inventory.delete_application_pool(application_pool_id=firstap["id"])

ap = inventory.get_application_pools(maxpagesize=100)
for i in ap:
    print(i["name"])

[sta_anchor id=”new_application_pool” /]

new_application_pool

Since I just deleted my firefox pool I will need to recreate it. The new_application_pool method requires a dict with quite a lof of values. This is the standard list that the swagger-ui gives you

{
  "anti_affinity_data": {
    "anti_affinity_count": 10,
    "anti_affinity_patterns": [
      "*pad.exe",
      "*notepad.???"
    ]
  },
  "category_folder_name": "dir1\\dir2\\dir3\\dir4",
  "cs_restriction_tags": [
    "Internal",
    "External"
  ],
  "description": "string",
  "desktop_pool_id": "0103796c-102b-4ed3-953f-3dfe3d23e0fe",
  "display_name": "Firefox",
  "enable_client_restrictions": false,
  "enable_pre_launch": false,
  "enabled": true,
  "executable_path": "C:\\ProgramData\\Microsoft\\Windows\\Start Menu\\Programs\\Firefox.lnk",
  "farm_id": "855ea6c5-720a-41e1-96f4-958c90e6e424",
  "max_multi_sessions": 5,
  "multi_session_mode": "DISABLED",
  "name": "Firefox",
  "parameters": "-p myprofile",
  "publisher": "Mozilla Corporation",
  "shortcut_locations": [
    "START_MENU"
  ],
  "start_folder": "string",
  "supported_file_types_data": {
    "enable_auto_update_file_types": true,
    "enable_auto_update_other_file_types": true,
    "file_types": [
      {
        "description": "Firefox Document",
        "type": ".html"
      }
    ],
    "other_file_types": [
      {
        "description": "Firefox URL",
        "name": "https",
        "type": "URL"
      }
    ]
  },
  "version": "72.0.2"
}

This does not say that all of these are required, what I have found to be an easy way to find what the minimums are is to  create an application pool with a single key value pair. display_name is always required so I will use that one. Experience has learned that this might require several tries so let’s go.

new_app_pool = {}
new_app_pool["display_name"] = "Firefox"

inventory.new_application_pool(application_pool_data=new_app_pool)

So the first hard requirements are display_name, executable_path and name, let’s add these and see what happens

new_app_pool = {}
new_app_pool["display_name"] = "Firefox"
new_app_pool["name"] = "Firefox"
new_app_pool["executable_path"] = "C:\\ProgramData\\Microsoft\\Windows\\Start Menu\\Programs\\Firefox.lnk"

inventory.new_application_pool(application_pool_data=new_app_pool)

It looks like we actually need some more: at least desktop_pool_id or farm_id since I am doing this against a connection server with no farms I’ll use a desktop pool.

desktop_pools = inventory.get_desktop_pools()
firstpool = desktop_pools[0]

new_app_pool = {}
new_app_pool["display_name"] = "Firefox"
new_app_pool["name"] = "Firefox"
new_app_pool["executable_path"] = "C:\\ProgramData\\Microsoft\\Windows\\Start Menu\\Programs\\Firefox.lnk"
new_app_pool["desktop_pool_id"] = firstpool["id"]

inventory.new_application_pool(application_pool_data=new_app_pool)

No errors and a peak in the admin console shows me that I again have a firefox application

[sta_anchor id=”update_application_pool” /]

update_application_pool

To update the pools we need the application_pool_id and again a dict, this time the dict needs things we want to update. Experience again learned me there are a few required key value pairs while the example in the swagger-ui shows lots, so let’s find those. I am going to use my new firefox app as the source for this. What I actually am going to try to change is the display_name so I will use that as the first key value pair.

filter = {}
filter["type"] = "And"
filter["filters"] = []
filter1={}

filter1["type"] = "Equals"
filter1["name"] = "name"
filter1["value"] = "Firefox"
filter["filters"].append(filter1)
ap = (inventory.get_application_pools(filter=filter))[0]
appid = ap["id"]
update_app = {}
update_app["display_name"] = "FF2"
inventory.update_application_pool(application_pool_id=appid, application_pool_data=update_app)

So here different key value pairs are required than when creating a new application pool, strange but there is nothing I can do about it! I will add these from the ap object I retrieve earlier in the script.

aps = inventory.get_application_pools(maxpagesize=100)
for i in aps:
    print(i["display_name"])
filter = {}
filter["type"] = "And"
filter["filters"] = []
filter1={}

filter1["type"] = "Equals"
filter1["name"] = "name"
filter1["value"] = "Firefox"
filter["filters"].append(filter1)
ap = (inventory.get_application_pools(filter=filter))[0]
appid = ap["id"]
update_app = {}
update_app["display_name"] = "FF2"
update_app["executable_path"] = ap["executable_path"]
update_app["multi_session_mode"] = ap["multi_session_mode"]
update_app["enable_pre_launch"] = ap["enable_pre_launch"]

inventory.update_application_pool(application_pool_id=appid, application_pool_data=update_app)

aps = inventory.get_application_pools(maxpagesize=100)
for i in aps:
    print(i["display_name"])

So with that you have the basics to retrieve, create, update and delete application pools using python

Filtering/Searching and pagination with the Python module for VMware Horizon

Yesterday I added the first method to the VMware Horizon Python module that makes use of filtering while the day before that I added pagination. VMware{Code} has a document describing available options for both but let me give some explanation.

Pagination

Pagination is where you perform a query but only get an x amount of objects returned by default. The rest of the objects are available on the next page or pages. This is exactly what I ran into with the vmware.hv.helper Powershell module a long time ago. With the REST api’s this is rather easy to add since if there are more pages/objects left the headers will contain a key named HAS_MORE_RECORDS. For all the methods that I add where pagination is supported you don’t need to handle this though as I have added it to the method itself. What I did add was the option the change the maximum page size. I default to 100 and the maximum is 1000, if you supply an interrupt higher than 1000 this will be corrected to 1000.

Filtering

Filtering needs some more work from the user of the module to be able to use it.

What options are there for filtering?

For the type we have: And, Or and Not

For the filters themselves there are: Equals, NotEquals, Contains, StartsWith and Between.

The formula is you pick one from the first row and combine that with one or more from the second row.

To apply these the document describes the base schema like this:

{
    “type”: ”And”,
    “filter”: <filter object>
}

and a filter object looks like this:

{
    "type":"Equals",
    "name":"domain",
    "value":"ad-example0"
}

or this for a range:

{
    "type":"Between",
    "name":"assignedUsers",
    "fromValue":"10",
    "toValue":"20"
}

Combining both into a single object looks like this:

{
    "type":"Not",
    "filter": {
        "type":"Equals",
        "name":"domain",
        "value":"ad-example0"
    }
}

This all looks like a dictionary with a nested dictionary when translating it to Python but when you have multiple filters it suddenly looks like this:

{
    "type":"And",
  "filters": [
        {
            "type":"Equals", 
            "name":"domain",
            "value":"ad-example0"
        },
        {
            "type":"StartsWith", 
            "name":"name",
            "value":"test"
        }
    ]
}

otherwise know as a dictionary with a list of dictionaries in it and since the latter also works with a single dict inside the list I have taken that route. The document also describes encoding and minifying the code to it works for a REST api call but I have done all of that for you so no need to worry about it, just build the dictionary and you are good!

Now let’s actually perform a search

First I create my base object with the type AND and a list for the filters key

filter_dict = {}
filter_dict["type"] = "And"
filter_dict["filters"] = []

Next I create the filters object where the type is contains and I filter on the field name with the value LP-00

filter1={}
filter1["type"] = "Contains"
filter1["name"] = "name"
filter1["value"] = "LP-00"

And now I add the filters1 object to the filter_dict filters list

filter["filters"].append(filter1)

and I get the machines with a pagesize of 1 to show the pagination (the pool with these machines only has 2 😉 )

machines = obj.get_machines(maxpagesize=1, filter = filter_dict)

And this would be the entire python script

import requests, getpass, urllib, json
import vmware_horizon

requests.packages.urllib3.disable_warnings()

url="https://loftcbr01.loft.lab"
username = "m_wouter"
domain = "loft.lab"
pw = getpass.getpass()

hvconnectionobj = vmware_horizon.Connection(username = username,domain = domain,password = pw,url = url)
hvconnectionobj.hv_connect()

obj = vmware_horizon.Inventory(url=hvconnectionobj.url, access_token=hvconnectionobj.access_token)

filter_dict = {}
filter_dict["type"] = "And"
filter_dict["filters"] = []
filter1={}
filter1["type"] = "Contains"
filter1["name"] = "name"
filter1["value"] = "LP-00"

filter["filters"].append(filter1)

machines = obj.get_machines(maxpagesize=1, filter = filter_dict)

for i in machines:
    print(i["name"])

hvconnectionobj.hv_disconnect()

And it shows this in python:

My #100DaysOfCode #Python Challenge == VMware_Horizon Module

So after 5 weeks of following the #Python training for my 100DaysOfCode challenge I have decided that my main goal for the challenge itself will be to work on the Horizon Python Module. With the course some things I find really boring and I need a real target to really learn things instead of just repeating someone else is doing as well.

I will still do some of the fun parts of it in time like databases and such when I need it but for now I will focus on the module. This weekend I added handling of the Instant Clone domain accounts to the module and also added documentation both in the module and the github repository. I know I will still learn heaps because almost all of it is still rather new and repetition works best for me.

Added Methods to the module

  • External Class
    • get_ad_domains
  • Settings class
    • get_ic_domain_accounts
    • get_ic_domain_account
    • new_ic_domain_account
    • update_ic_domain_account
    • delete_ic_domain_account

Updates to the VMware Horizon Python Module

I have just pushed some changes to the Horizon Python module. With these changes I am more complying with the Python coding standards by initiating an object before being able to use the functions inside a class. Also I added a bunch of the api calls available in the monitor parts.

To connect you now start like this:

import requests, getpass
import vmware_horizon

requests.packages.urllib3.disable_warnings()
url = input("URL\n")
username = input("Username\n")
domain = input("Domain\n")
pw = getpass.getpass()

hvconnectionobj = vmware_horizon.Connection(username = username,domain = domain,password = pw,url = url)
hvconnectionobj.hv_connect()

so technically you first initiate a Connection class object and than you use the hv_connect function inside that class after which the access token is stored inside the object itself.

Now to use the monitors for example you create an object for this.

monitor = vmware_horizon.Monitor(url=hvconnectionobj.url, access_token=hvconnectionobj.access_token)

To see what functions are available you can combine print with dir.

print(dir(monitor))

and the full list, the ones with (id) require an id:

  • ad_domain
  • connection_servers
  • connection_server(id)
  • event_database
  • farms
  • farm(id)
  • gateways
  • gateway(id)
  • rds_servers
  • rds_server(id)
  • saml_authenticators
  • saml_authenticator(id)
  • view_composers
  • view_composer(vcId)
  • virtual_centers
  • virtual_center(id)
  • remote_pods
  • remote_pod(id)
  • true_sso

As you can see I had to work with underscores instead of hyphens as python doesn’t like those in the names of functions

As said some of these might require an id but connection_servers works without one for example
print(monitor.connection_servers())

Todo: Error handling for wrong passwords, documentation

Using the Horizon REST API’s with Python

As you probably have seen from my tweets the last three weeks I have been doing the 100DaysOfCode challenge specifically for Python. Today I was actually a bit bored with the task we got (sorry, I hate creating games) so I decided on checking if I was actually able to consume the Horizon api’s from Python. This was something entirely new for me so it was a boatload of trial & error until I got it working with this script:

import requests,json, getpass

requests.packages.urllib3.disable_warnings()

pw = getpass.getpass()
domain = input("Domain")
username = input("Username")
url = input("URL")



headers = {
    'accept': '*/*',
    'Content-Type': 'application/json',
}

data = {"domain": domain, "password": pw, "username": username}
json_data = json.dumps(data)

response = requests.post(f'{url}/rest/login', verify=False, headers=headers, data=json_data)
data = response.json()

access_token = {
    'accept': '*/*',
    'Authorization': 'Bearer ' + data['access_token']
}

response = requests.get(f'{url}/rest/inventory/v1/desktop-pools', verify=False,  headers=access_token)
data = response.json()
for i in data:
    print(i['name'])

First I import the requests json and getpass modules. The requests module does the webrequests, the json is used to transform the data to be usable and getpass is used to get my password without showing it. After this I add a line to get rid of the warnings that my certificates aren’t to be trusted (it’s a homelab, duh!).

The most important part is that for the authentication I send username,password and domain as json data in the data while the headers contain the content type. The response gets converted to json data and I use that json data to build the access token. For future requests I only need to pass the access token for authentication.

Now this looks fun but wouldn’t it be better if I create a module for it? Yes it does and that’s what I have done and I have even added a simple function to list desktop pools.

import json, requests, ssl

class Connection:
    def hv_connect(username, password, domain, url):
        headers = {
            'accept': '*/*',
            'Content-Type': 'application/json',
        }

        data = {"domain": domain, "password": password, "username": username}
        json_data = json.dumps(data)

        response = requests.post(f'{url}/rest/login', verify=False, headers=headers, data=json_data)
        data = response.json()

        access_token = {
            'accept': '*/*',
            'Authorization': 'Bearer ' + data['access_token']
        }
        return access_token

    def hv_disconnect(url, access_token):
        requests.post(f'{url}/rest/logout', verify=False, headers=access_token)

class Pools:
    def list_hvpools(url,access_token):
        response = requests.get(f'{url}/rest/inventory/v1/desktop-pools', verify=False,  headers=access_token)
        return response.json()



And with a simple script I consume this module to show the display name of the first pool.

import requests, getpass
import vmware_horizon

requests.packages.urllib3.disable_warnings()
url = input("URL\n")
username = input("Username\n")
domain = input("Domain\n")
pw = getpass.getpass()


at = vmware_horizon.Connection.hv_connect(username=username,password=pw,url=url,domain=domain)


pools = vmware_horizon.Pools.list_hvpools(url=url, access_token=at)
print(f'The first Desktop pool is {pools[0]["display_name"]}')

vmware_horizon.Connection.hv_disconnect(url=url, access_token=at)

The module is from from ready and I need to find a better way to make it optional to ignore the certificate erros but if you want to follow the progress of the module it can be found on my Github.

 

 

The VMware Labs flings monthly for November 2020: time for a new OSOT

In November only one new fling was released while seven other received update. One that received an update was the Horizon Session Recording fling that I blogged about at the time of release. Also it looks like the VSAN team is letting all its tools loose on the community because yet another tool for VSAN has been released (Storage Simulator Using Cellular Automata). The OS Optimization tool received some nice command-line features to improve your automated Golden images builds.

New Release

Storage Simulator Using Cellular Automata

Updates

VMware OS Optimization Tool

Supernova – Accelerating Machine Learning Inference

vRealize Build Tools

Horizon Session Recording

Sample Data Platform on VMware Cloud Foundation with VMware Tanzu for Kubernetes Provisioning

VMware Appliance for Folding@Home

ESXi Arm Edition

New Release

[sta_anchor id=”ssuca” /]

Storage Simulator Using Cellular Automata

Storage Simulator Using Cellular Automata is loosely based on the principles of cellular automata (CA) to model the performance characteristics of data path in a vSAN cluster. In general, CA can used to model and study any complex system with number of elements operating in parallel having short range relationships that as whole exhibit emergent behavior. When simulating a storage stack, we are modelling transmission of data blocks across a network of hardware resources communicating with each other through various interconnects. These includes processors, caches, DRAM, SSDs HDDs, PCIe links, ethernet links etc.

When modelling an IO request such as read/write, vSAN software stack applies various functions as the data block moves through this network. These functions include, data replication, parity calculation, checksum, encryption, compression etc. Some of these can lead to IO amplification.

This Fling implements a standalone vSAN simulation utility to aid developers in getting ideal speed-of-light (SOL) performance of a given cluster. This can be used as a starting point to rapidly iterate various ideas/features by making small changes to simulator and quantifying its potential performance impact. It can also be used by customers/partners to identify potential bottlenecks of their deployment under various type of workloads.

Updates

[sta_anchor id=”osot” /]

VMware OS Optimization Tool

Always good to see the OSOT getting some new features, bug fixes but laso some nice new command line features and also very important extra knobs to use for Office.

Changelog

November, 2020, b2000

Bug Fixes

  • Resolved the issue that stopped automatic logon in Server and WVD edition after Sysprep process.
  • Resolved a reboot prompt problem which displayed in process of generalizing on Win10 1607 LTSB.
  • Resolved the issue of failing to disable anti-virus feature on Windows 10 2004.
  • Fixed issue where re-enabling Windows Update would pull down feature updates by default.

Common Options

  • Common options selections are now remembered between different runs of the OSOT.
  • For all tabs, user now can apply different Common Options settings multiple times on optimized system.
  • Under Update tab, introduce a new option to switch on/off update feature of Office 365, 2016, 2019
  • Under Store Apps tab, disable checkbox for removed built-in apps

Update

  • New option to defer or directly trigger feature updates
  • New option to defer or directly trigger quality updates
  • New option to skip Office Click-to-Run updates
  • Added commands to stop and disable the App Volumes services when re-enabling Windows Update. These are then set back to automatic when Windows Update is disabled again.

Optimizations

  • Added the ability to export and import selected optimization items on the Optimize page (Export Selections and Import Selections).

Changes:

  • Default for “Touch Keyboard and Handwriting Panel Service” is now unselected by default to resolve missed language bar issue.
  • Default for “Connected Devices Platform Service” is now unselected by default.

New:

  • Turn off account privacy notifications in Office 365 and Office 2019

[sta_anchor id=”samli” /]

Supernova – Accelerating Machine Learning Inference

Project Supernova is to build a common machine learning inference service framework by enabling machine learning inference accelerators across edge endpoint devices, edge systems and cloud, with or without hardware accelerators.

Changelog

Version 1.1 Update

Support Bitfusion
K8S and docker-compose deployment

[sta_anchor id=”vbt” /]

vRealize Build Tools

vRealize Build Tools provides tools to development and release teams implementing solutions based on vRealize Automation (vRA) and vRealize Orchestrator (vRO). The solution targets Virtual Infrastructure Administrators and Solution Developers working in parallel on multiple vRealize-based projects who want to use standard DevOps practices.

Changelog

Version 2.10.0 Update

  • [MVN] Improvements in package installer
  • [vROps] Regex support in YAML definitions for vROps content
  • [vRLI] Regex support in YAML definitions for vRLI content
  • [POL] Added Polyglot and ABX support:
    • NodeJS, Python and PowerShell code support
  • new archetype: com.vmware.pscoe.polyglot.archetypes:package-polyglot-archetype
    • two new project types: com.vmware.pscoe.polyglot:polyglot-project; com.vmware.pscoe.serverless:serverless-project
    • tooling for compiling, bundling and packaging: polyglotpkg
  • [TS] Added support for description field for workflow inputs and outputs in the Workflow decorator
  • [vRA-NG] Fixed NPE error during custom resources import

[sta_anchor id=”hsr” /]

Horizon Session Recording

No need to explain the Horizon Session Recording anymore, just hit the link that I have posted at the beginning of this post.

Changelog

Version 2.2.0

Server Changes:

  • Added the ability to import server settings easily from another running server.
  • Added the ability to filter searches based on farm / pool.
  • Added the ability to lock and unlock sessions from the session view page.

Agent Changes:

1: Misc bugfixes.
2: PowerShell API to interact with the Recording agent, to perform such tasks as:

  • Start a session recording.
  • Stop a session recording.
  • Troubleshoot connectivity issues.
  • View machine configuration
  • Add a trusted certificate.

[sta_anchor id=”sdpvcfvtk” /]

Sample Data Platform on VMware Cloud Foundation with VMware Tanzu for Kubernetes Provisioning

With this Fling, you will leverage your VMware Cloud Foundation 4.0 deployment and stand a sample data platform on a Tanzu Kubernetes Grid guest cluster in less than 20-minutes comprising of Kafka, Spark, Solr, and ELK.

Changelog

Version Update 1.1

  • Bug fix for storage class for bitnami kafka

[sta_anchor id=”vaffh” /]

VMware Appliance for Folding@Home

This Fling is a vSphere Appliance that contains the Folding@Home client software. Upon deploying the VMware Appliance for Folding@Home, the user will be prompted to enter information to configure the Folding@Home software. Once the appliance is deployed, the Folding@Home client is running and ready for Working Units. The Fling is also pre-configured to allow remote management of the Folding@Home client. For more information on the Folding@Home Project and how we can be a Force for Good against diseases like the Coronavirus, visit the website www.foldingathome.org.

Nov 18, 2020 – v1.0.5

  • F@H software has been updated to latest 7.6.21

VMware-Appliance-FaH_1.0.5.ova
MD5: 31d1a0c3dd4c308694f24cae77baee95

[sta_anchor id=”esxiae” /]

ESXi Arm Edition

Hello ESXi-Arm Fling participants!

Over the past several years, you’ve seen us demonstrate our virtualization technology on the Arm platform across several use cases, everything from running mission critical workloads on a windmill, to running on the SmartNIC, to running on AWS Graviton in the cloud. We realized that the resilient platform created for the datacenter can be equally valuable in non-traditional environments. We’ve learned a lot from exploratory discussions with customers and Arm Silicon Partners.

Changelog

November 30, 2020 – v1.2

Note: Upgrade is NOT possible, only fresh installation is supported. If you select “Preserve VMFS” option, you can re-register your existing Virtual Machines.

  • UI: Disable datastore browsing when no datastores are present
  • PSCI: Fix missing context_id argument for CPU_ON calls
  • GICv2: Always enable SGIs, as GIC-500
  • arm64: Support for big-endian guests
  • Remove requirements/restrictions on initrd for UEFI-less VMs

Build 17230755
VMware-VMvisor-Installer-7.0.0-17230755.aarch64.iso

[HorizonAPI] Disabling Provisioning and/or disabling entire Desktop Pools and RDS Farms

Today I saw the question on the VMware{Code} Slack Channel if anyone ever managed to disabled Desktop Pools using PowerCLI. I was like yeah I have done that and you might need to user the helperservice for that. I offered to create q fast and quick blog post about it so here we go.

First as always I connect to my Connection Server and use a query to retrieve the Pool that I am going to disable.

$creds=import-clixml creds.xml
$hvserver=connect-hvserver pod1cbr1.loft.lab -Credential $creds
$hvservice=$hvserver.ExtensionData
$poolqueryservice=new-object vmware.hv.queryserviceservice
$pooldefn = New-Object VMware.Hv.QueryDefinition
$filter = New-Object VMware.Hv.QueryFilterEquals -Property @{ 'memberName' = 'desktopSummaryData.name'; 'value' = "Pod01_Pool01" }
$pooldefn.filter=$filter
$pooldefn.queryentitytype='DesktopSummaryView'
$pool = ($poolqueryService.QueryService_Create($hvservice, $pooldefn)).results

With this object I can show you the details of the desktop pool

($hvservice.Desktop.Desktop_Get($pool.id)).base
($hvservice.Desktop.Desktop_Get($pool.id)).desktopsettings

Like I said to actually change things I need the helper service so this is what you do to initialize that.

$desktopservice=new-object vmware.hv.DesktopService
$desktophelper=$desktopservice.read($HVservice, $pool.id)
$desktophelper.getdesktopsettingshelper() | gm

As we saw in the second screenshot I need the desktopsettings and than Enabled

$desktophelper.getdesktopsettingshelper().getenabled()

To change the setting in the helper I need to use sethelper($False)

$desktophelper.getdesktopsettingshelper().setEnabled($False)

Now this has not been changed yet on the desktop pool itself, to do that we need to use desktopservice.update and I also show the result of the change.

$desktopservice.update($hvservice, $desktophelper)
($hvservice.Desktop.Desktop_Get($pool.id)).desktopsettings

And to reverse this

$desktophelper.getdesktopsettingshelper().setEnabled($True)
$desktopservice.update($hvservice, $desktophelper)
($hvservice.Desktop.Desktop_Get($pool.id)).desktopsettings

Disabling provisioning uses the same methodology just in another spot.

To disable provisioning ( the | gm is not needed, it’s just there to show you whats’s in there):

($hvservice.Desktop.Desktop_Get($pool.id)).automateddesktopdata.virtualcenterprovisioningsettings
$desktophelper.getAutomatedDesktopDataHelper().getVirtualCenterProvisioningSettingsHelper() | gm
$desktophelper.getAutomatedDesktopDataHelper().getVirtualCenterProvisioningSettingsHelper().getenableprovisioning()
$desktophelper.getAutomatedDesktopDataHelper().getVirtualCenterProvisioningSettingsHelper().setenableprovisioning($False)
$desktopservice.update($hvservice, $desktophelper)
($hvservice.Desktop.Desktop_Get($pool.id)).automateddesktopdata.virtualcenterprovisioningsettings

And to revert it

$desktophelper.getAutomatedDesktopDataHelper().getVirtualCenterProvisioningSettingsHelper().setenableprovisioning($True)
$desktopservice.update($hvservice, $desktophelper)
($hvservice.Desktop.Desktop_Get($pool.id)).automateddesktopdata.virtualcenterprovisioningsettings

For RDSH farms the process is similar some of the naming is just different. First to get the farm object

$farmqueryservice=new-object vmware.hv.queryserviceservice
$farmdefn = New-Object VMware.Hv.QueryDefinition
$filter = New-Object VMware.Hv.QueryFilterEquals -Property @{ 'memberName' = 'data.name'; 'value' = "Pod01-Farm01" }
$farmdefn.filter=$filter
$farmdefn.queryentitytype='FarmSummaryView'
$farm = ($farmqueryservice.QueryService_Create($hvservice, $farmdefn)).results
($hvservice.Farm.farm_get($farm.id)).data

And to create the helper and disable the farm

$farmservice=New-Object VMware.Hv.FarmService
$farmhelper=$farmservice.read($hvservice,$farm.id)
$farmhelper.getDataHelper().setenabled($False)
$farmservice.update($hvservice,$farmhelper)
($hvservice.Farm.farm_get($farm.id)).data

And in reverse 🙂

$farmhelper.getDataHelper().setenabled($True)
$farmservice.update($hvservice,$farmhelper)
($hvservice.Farm.farm_get($farm.id)).data

And now the provisioning part

($hvservice.Farm.farm_get($farm.id)).automatedfarmdata.virtualcenterprovisioningsettings
$farmhelper.getAutomatedFarmDataHelper().getvirtualcenterprovisioningsettingshelper().setenableprovisioning($False)
$farmservice.update($hvservice,$farmhelper)
($hvservice.Farm.farm_get($farm.id)).automatedfarmdata.virtualcenterprovisioningsettings

Guess what?

$farmhelper.getAutomatedFarmDataHelper().getvirtualcenterprovisioningsettingshelper().setenableprovisioning($True)
$farmservice.update($hvservice,$farmhelper)
($hvservice.Farm.farm_get($farm.id)).automatedfarmdata.virtualcenterprovisioningsettings

[HorizonAPI]Using the Datastore service (incl sizing calculation!)

I was looking on my blog for information to use the datastore information using the Horizon api’s but couldn’t find it so here’s a post on that.

This posts uses the soap api’s next time I’ll see what we can do with the REST api.

Index

First I will make a connection like I always do

Now let’s see what methods are available under the Datastore service

Let’s start with the easy 3 first aka the bottom ones

[sta_anchor id=”datastore_listdatastoresbyhostorcluster” unsan=”Datastore_ListDatastoresByHostOrCluster” /]

Datastore_ListDatastoresByHostOrCluster

The name says enough with Datastore_ListDatastoresByHostOrCluster you are able to list datastores using the HostOrClusterID.

I am cutting some corners here how to find this out but to get this HostOrClusterID we need to get the DatacenterId and to get that we’ll need the VirtualcenterId.

To get all virtualcenters in a pod you need to use virtualcenters_list() and what I do in this example is listing them first and than putting the first virtualcenter in an variable.

$hvservice.VirtualCenter.VirtualCenter_List()
$VC=$hvservice.VirtualCenter.VirtualCenter_List() | Select-Object -first 1

and the same for the datacenter using the virtualcenterID

$hvservice.Datacenter.Datacenter_List($vc.id)
$DC=$hvservice.Datacenter.Datacenter_List($vc.id) | Select-Object -first 1

With the datacenter ID I’ll retreive the info under HostOrCluster and store it in an variable.

$hvservice.HostOrCluster.HostOrCluster_GetHostOrClusterTree($dc.id)
$tree=$hvservice.HostOrCluster.HostOrCluster_GetHostOrClusterTree($dc.id)

Let’s browse this object and see what we can find

We can clearly see the name here and as I need Cluster_Pod2 I am putting that one in an object

$pod2cluster=$tree.TreeContainer.Children.info | select-object -last 1
$pod2cluster

And with this object I can get to my datastores and again I store them in an object

$hvservice.Datastore.Datastore_ListDatastoresByHostOrCluster($pod2cluster.id)
$datastores=$hvservice.Datastore.Datastore_ListDatastoresByHostOrCluster($pod2cluster.id)

Let’s see what’s in there

So we see most of the basic info in here that we might need including name, capacity and free space. Not sure why the numberofvm’s is empty as all of them have vm’s.

[sta_anchor id=”datastore_listdatastoresbydesktoporfarm” unsan=”Datastore_ListDatastoresByDesktopOrFarm” /]

Datastore_ListDatastoresByDesktopOrFarm

Let’s see what we need for this one

So an object is needed of the type VMware.Hv.DatastoreSpec let’s define the object and see what’s in it.

As I am not 100% sure if all are required or not and what might break I’ll have a look at the API explorer article of this.

So it requires either a DesktopID OR a FarmID wile you can provide the hostorclusterId but that will be populated if you don’t provide one.

I am not going to build the query here to get a desktop pool so I’ll just use get-hvpool and get-hvfarm from the vmware.hv.helper powershell module.

Next I put the $pool.id in the spec and get the details

$spec.DesktopId=$pool.id
$hvservice.Datastore.Datastore_ListDatastoresByDesktopOrFarm($spec)
$datastores=$hvservice.Datastore.Datastore_ListDatastoresByDesktopOrFarm($spec)
$datastores.datastoredata

So this lists all the datastores that I have available in this cluster. I know this 100% sure as the ISO datastore is a read-only datastore that doesn’t have any desktops.

Let’s do the same using the farmId

$spec.DesktopId=$null
$spec.FarmId=$farm.id
$datastores=$hvservice.Datastore.Datastore_ListDatastoresByDesktopOrFarm($spec)
$datastores

Same amount of datastores so the same result.

[sta_anchor id=”datastore_listdatastoreclustersbyhostorcluster” unsan=”Datastore_ListDatastoreClustersByHostOrCluster” /]

Datastore_ListDatastoreClustersByHostOrCluster

As I don’t have any datastore clusters in my lab I cannot show it but you’ll need the same hostorclusterid as we used for Datastore_ListDatastoresByHostOrCluster

[sta_anchor id=”datastore_getusage” unsan=”Datastore_GetUsage” /]

Datastore_GetUsage

This method shows what desktop pools are using a particular datastore. When doing a dry run it shows that a DatastoreId is needed.

I will use one of the items that I still have stored in my $datastores variable

$datastore=$datastores |Select-Object -last 1
$datastore.DatastoreData
$hvservice.Datastore.Datastore_GetUsage($datastore.id)

So this ia a rather boring datastore as it only has 1 pool configured to use it (and it doesn’t even have any vm’s from this pool on it) but you’ll see that there is another datastore configured for this pool as wel. I do have a more used datastore though on a local nvme drive.

$datastore=$datastores | where {$_.datastoredata.name -like "*nvme*"}
$hvservice.Datastore.Datastore_GetUsage($datastore.id)

As you can see it shows the desktop pools and even the single farm I have that use this datastore each with their own disk usage.

[sta_anchor id=”datastore_getdatastorerequirements” unsan=”Datastore_GetDatastoreRequirements” /]

Datastore_GetDatastoreRequirements

The Datastore_GetDatastoreRequirements method does a calculation of what disk space might be needed for a desktop pool.

So let’s see what we need

$reqspec=new-object VMware.Hv.DatastoreRequirementSpec
$reqspec

That’s a lof and as a screenshot wouldn’t fit here is the link to the APi explorer page on it: here

To fill these things I will use the $pool variable that I still have stored.

$reqspec.DesktopId=$pool.id
$reqspec.Source="INSTANT_CLONE_ENGINE"
$reqspec.VmId=$pool.AutomatedDesktopData.VirtualCenterProvisioningSettings.VirtualCenterProvisioningData.parentvm
$reqspec.SnapshotId=$pool.AutomatedDesktopData.VirtualCenterProvisioningSettings.VirtualCenterProvisioningData.Snapshot
$reqspec.PoolSize=30
$hvservice.Datastore.Datastore_GetDatastoreRequirements($reqspec)

And when I change the poolsize

[HorizonAPI]Finding VDI or RDS machines based on wrong/old Golden Image

One of the first thing I did years ago when I first learned of the Horizon API’s was to start working on the vCheck for Horizon as I at that point was managing a Horizon 6.2* environment with lots of pools and lots of issues. With the vCheck I didn’t need to log into all pod’s anymore and nor did I need to check each and every pool after a recompose if all desktops had the correct image. Last week Guy Leech asked me if there was a script that could do this for RDS farms as he was working on a script that has to do with App Volumes & RDS hosts. I was like hell yeah we have that but when I looked at the vCheck and had to admit that it was a actually a hell no.

So after creating a new RDS image that could be used with Instant Clones this week it was time to create that vCheck. This morning and I even splashed a bug in the VDI wrong snapshot check when a Desktop Pool doesn’t have any machines in it. This led to this tweet that you might have seen:

SO what is actually the magic behind these checks? To be honest it is rather simple as the names of both the VM and the Snapshot in use are embedded in object both on pool/farm level and in the machine objects themselves.

First I connect to the connection server so we’ll use a credentials file and I also define 2 variables that we will use later

$hvconserver="pod2cbr1.loft.lab"
$credsfile="D:\homelab\creds.xml"

$creds=Import-Clixml $credsfile

$hvserver=connect-hvserver -Server $hvconserver -Credential $creds
$hvservice=$hvserver.ExtensionData
$wrongsnapdesktops=@()
$wrongsnaphosts=@()

After this I use 2 query’s to gather Pool and Farm information. The summaryviews don’t contain the needed information so I have to use farm.farm_get with the id to get what we need.

# --- Get Desktop pools
$poolqueryservice=new-object vmware.hv.queryserviceservice
$pooldefn = New-Object VMware.Hv.QueryDefinition
$pooldefn.queryentitytype='DesktopSummaryView'
$poolqueryResults = $poolqueryService.QueryService_Create($hvservice, $pooldefn)
$pools = foreach ($poolresult in $poolqueryResults.results){$hvservice.desktop.desktop_get($poolresult.id)}
$poolqueryservice.QueryService_DeleteAll($hvservice)
# --- Get RDS Farms

$Farmqueryservice=new-object vmware.hv.queryserviceservice
$Farmdefn = New-Object VMware.Hv.QueryDefinition
$Farmdefn.queryentitytype='FarmSummaryView'
$FarmqueryResults = $FarmqueryService.QueryService_Create($hvservice, $Farmdefn)
$farms = foreach ($farmresult in $farmqueryResults.results){$hvservice.farm.farm_get($farmresult.id)}
$Farmqueryservice.QueryService_DeleteAll($hvservice)

So how does this look?

and inside the automateddesktopdata and automatedfarmdata we find a property called virtualcenternamesdata that has what we need

Next I will create object for both the first farm and the first pool to show what where we need to look for in the vdi/machine objects

$queryservice=new-object vmware.hv.queryserviceservice
$defn = New-Object VMware.Hv.QueryDefinition
$defn.queryentitytype='MachineSummaryView'
$defn.filter = New-Object VMware.Hv.QueryFilterEquals -Property @{ 'memberName' = 'base.desktop'; 'value' = $pool.id }
$queryResults = $queryService.QueryService_Create($hvservice, $defn)
$poolmachines=$hvservice.machine.machine_getinfos($queryResults.results.id)


$queryservice=new-object vmware.hv.queryserviceservice
$defn = New-Object VMware.Hv.QueryDefinition
$defn.queryentitytype='RDSServerInfo'
$defn.filter = New-Object VMware.Hv.QueryFilterEquals -Property @{ 'memberName' = 'base.farm'; 'value' = $farm.ID }
$queryResults = $queryService.QueryService_Create($hvservice, $defn)
$farmmachines=$queryresults.results

As you can see I take an extra step for the desktops as the information that we need is not visible in the MachineSummaryView and the MachineDetailsView is a mess to run query’s for. The VDI machines have the GI and snapshot data stored in $machines.managedachinedata.viewcomposerdata (yes also for Instant Clones) while the rds hosts have it stored in RdsServerMaintenanceData.

After this it’s a matter of combining that information into a nice script that will grab it all for you.

$hvconserver="pod2cbr1.loft.lab"
$credsfile="D:\homelab\creds.xml"

$creds=Import-Clixml $credsfile

$hvserver=connect-hvserver -Server $hvconserver -Credential $creds
$hvservice=$hvserver.ExtensionData
$wrongsnapdesktops=@()
$wrongsnaphosts=@()

# --- Get Desktop pools
$poolqueryservice=new-object vmware.hv.queryserviceservice
$pooldefn = New-Object VMware.Hv.QueryDefinition
$pooldefn.queryentitytype='DesktopSummaryView'
$poolqueryResults = $poolqueryService.QueryService_Create($hvservice, $pooldefn)
$pools = foreach ($poolresult in $poolqueryResults.results){$hvservice.desktop.desktop_get($poolresult.id)}
$poolqueryservice.QueryService_DeleteAll($hvservice)
# --- Get RDS Farms

$Farmqueryservice=new-object vmware.hv.queryserviceservice
$Farmdefn = New-Object VMware.Hv.QueryDefinition
$Farmdefn.queryentitytype='FarmSummaryView'
$FarmqueryResults = $FarmqueryService.QueryService_Create($hvservice, $Farmdefn)
$farms = foreach ($farmresult in $farmqueryResults.results){$hvservice.farm.farm_get($farmresult.id)}
$Farmqueryservice.QueryService_DeleteAll($hvservice)




foreach ($pool in $pools){
  $poolname=$pool.base.name

  if ($pool.type -like "*automated*"){
    $queryservice=new-object vmware.hv.queryserviceservice
    $defn = New-Object VMware.Hv.QueryDefinition
    $defn.queryentitytype='MachineSummaryView'

    $defn.filter = New-Object VMware.Hv.QueryFilterEquals -Property @{ 'memberName' = 'base.desktop'; 'value' = $pool.id }

        $queryResults = $queryService.QueryService_Create($hvservice, $defn)

    if ($queryResults.results.count -ge 1){
      $poolmachines=$hvservice.machine.machine_getinfos($queryResults.results.id)
      $wrongsnaps=$poolmachines | where {$_.managedmachinedata.viewcomposerdata.baseimagesnapshotpath -notlike  $pool.automateddesktopdata.VirtualCenternamesdata.snapshotpath -OR $_.managedmachinedata.viewcomposerdata.baseimagepath -notlike $pool.automateddesktopdata.VirtualCenternamesdata.parentvmpath}
      if ($wrongsnaps){
        foreach ($wrongsnap in $wrongsnaps){
          $wrongsnapdesktops+= New-Object PSObject -Property @{
            "VM Name" = $wrongsnap.base.name;
            "VM Snapshot" = $wrongsnap.managedmachinedata.viewcomposerdata.baseimagesnapshotpath;
            "VM GI" = $wrongsnap.managedmachinedata.viewcomposerdata.baseimagepath;
            "Pool Snapshot" = $pool.automateddesktopdata.VirtualCenternamesdata.snapshotpath;
            "Pool GI" = $pool.automateddesktopdata.VirtualCenternamesdata.parentvmpath;
          }
        }
      }
    }
    $hvservice.QueryService.QueryService_DeleteAll()
  }
}

foreach ($farm in $farms){
  $farmname=$farm.data.name

  if ($farm.type -like "*automated*"){
    $queryservice=new-object vmware.hv.queryserviceservice
    $defn = New-Object VMware.Hv.QueryDefinition
    $defn.queryentitytype='RDSServerInfo'

    $defn.filter = New-Object VMware.Hv.QueryFilterEquals -Property @{ 'memberName' = 'base.farm'; 'value' = $farm.ID }

    $queryResults = $queryService.QueryService_Create($hvservice, $defn)
    $farmmachines=$queryResults.Results
    if ($farmmachines.count -ge 1){
      $wrongsnaps=$farmmachines | where {$_.rdsservermaintenancedata.baseimagesnapshotpath -notlike  $farm.automatedfarmdata.VirtualCenternamesdata.snapshotpath -OR $_.rdsservermaintenancedata.baseimagepath -notlike $farm.automatedfarmdata.VirtualCenternamesdata.parentvmpath}
      if ($wrongsnaps){
        foreach ($wrongsnap in $wrongsnaps){
          $wrongsnaphosts+= New-Object PSObject -Property @{
            "RDS Name" = $wrongsnap.base.name;
            "VM Snapshot" = $wrongsnap.rdsservermaintenancedata.baseimagesnapshotpath;
            "VM GI" = $wrongsnap.rdsservermaintenancedata.baseimagepath;
            "Farm Snapshot" = $farm.automatedfarmdata.VirtualCenternamesdata.snapshotpath;
            "Farm GI" = $farm.automatedfarmdata.VirtualCenternamesdata.parentvmpath;
          }
        }
      
      }
      $hvservice.QueryService.QueryService_DeleteAll()
    }
  }
}
$wrongsnaphosts
$wrongsnapdesktops

Yes this is the same idea as what I use in the vCheck and what I will be using in the ControlUp Script Based Action that I will be creating soon.