VMWare Tool Check

If you have ever worked in a large VMWare environment, you know what a pain it can be to determine if the VMWare tools are up to date on a VMWare host. That is why I wrote the following Perl script. The script enumerates through the VMWare hosts and tells you if the VMWare tools are up to date or not.


The link to the script is here:

http://home.comcast.net/~schmaustech/source/vmtoolchk.zip

Perl & VMWare Snapshots & Netbackup

In VmWare, Virtual Center has the ability for you to take snapshots. These might come in handy before you install a new application, perform a OS upgrade or make any other significant change to the VM.

Netbackup also creates a snapshot when you do a VCB backup or incremental backup against a VM. Sometimes these snapshots are left behind when a backup of the VM fails. The result is that you have to go into Virtual Center, find the VM and remove the snapshot. This can be time consuming and lead me to develop a tool in Perl as a solution.

The Perl solution I came up with was inspired by the sample snapshot Perl script that comes with the VMWare Perl API SDK. This script however was not specific for my needs. So I came up with a script that would delete snapshots based on a pattern match of the name of the snapshot.

Basically the script will connect to a Virtual Center server and enumerate through the hosts associated with that Virtual Center. While enumerating through the hosts, it checks for snapshots and then compares the pattern entered to the name of the snapshot. If they match it will remove it. In the case of a Netbackup VCB backup snapshot, the names always start with "VCB_". Thus if you use "VCB_" as your pattern you can remove all snapshots on all your hosts. You can extend this to all snapshots if you use a naming convention when you create snaps.

The script is here:

#!/usr/bin/perl
#################################################################################
# Script that autodiscovers VM's and places the client name into prexisting     #
# policies based on the datastore names discovered                              #
# (C) Benjamin Schmaus May, 2009                                                #
#################################################################################
use strict;
use warnings;
use Socket;
use VMware::VIRuntime;
use VMware::VILib;
use VMware::VIM25Stub;
use Getopt::Long;
my ($help,$vcserver,$username,$password,$dc,$removesnapshot,$children,$snapshotname);
$children="0";
options();
my $url = "https://$vcserver/sdk/vimService";
Vim::login(service_url => $url, user_name => $username, password => $password);
my $datacenter_views = Vim::find_entity_views(view_type => 'Datacenter',filter => { name => $dc });
list_snapshot();
exit;

sub list_snapshot {
 my $datacenter_views = Vim::find_entity_views(view_type => 'Datacenter',filter => { name => $dc });
    foreach (@$datacenter_views) {
  my $datacenter = $_->name;
  my $host_views = Vim::find_entity_views(view_type => 'HostSystem',begin_entity => $_ );
  foreach (@$host_views) {
   my $esxhost = $_->name;
   my $vm_view = Vim::find_entity_views(view_type => 'VirtualMachine',begin_entity => $_ , filter => { 'guest.guestState' => 'running' });
   foreach (@$vm_view) {
          my $mor_host = $_->runtime->host;
          my $hostname = Vim::get_view(mo_ref => $mor_host)->name;
    my $ref = undef;
    my $nRefs = 0;
          my $count = 0;
          my $snapshots = $_->snapshot;
          if(defined $snapshots) {
             Util::trace(0,"\nSnapshots for Virtual Machine ".$_->name . " under host $hostname\n");
             printf "\n%-47s%-16s %s %s\n", "Name", "Date","State", "Quiesced";
             print_tree ($_->snapshot->currentSnapshot, " ", $_->snapshot->rootSnapshotList);
     if(defined $_->snapshot) {
                                         ($ref, $nRefs) = find_snapshot_name ($_->snapshot->rootSnapshotList, $snapshotname);
                                 }
     if ($snapshotname =~ /$removesnapshot/) {
      print "Snapshot name: $snapshotname matches for delete\n";

            if (defined $ref && $nRefs == 1) {
               my $snapshot = Vim::get_view (mo_ref =>$ref->snapshot);
               eval {
                   $snapshot->RemoveSnapshot (removeChildren => $children);
                    Util::trace(0, "\nRemove Snapshot ". $snapshotname . " For Virtual Machine ". $_->name . " under host $hostname" ." completed sucessfully\n");
       };
               if ($@) {
                   if (ref($@) eq 'SoapFault') {
                       if(ref($@->detail) eq 'InvalidState') {
                          Util::trace(0,"\nOperation cannot be performed in the current state of the virtual machine");
                       } elsif(ref($@->detail) eq 'HostNotConnected') {
                          Util::trace(0,"\nhost not connected.");
                       } else {
                          Util::trace(0, "\nFault: " . $@ . "\n\n");
                       }
                   } else {
                       Util::trace(0, "\nFault: " . $@ . "\n\n");
                   }
               }
            } else {
               if ($nRefs > 1) {
                   Util::trace(0,"\nMore than one snapshot exits with name" ." $snapshotname in Virtual Machine ". $_->name ." under host ". $hostname ."\n");
               }
               if($nRefs == 0 ) {
                   Util::trace(0,"\nSnapshot Not Found with name" ." $snapshotname in Virtual Machine ". $_->name ." under host ". $hostname ."\n");
               }
      }
     }
          #} else {
            # Util::trace(0,"\nNo Snapshot of Virtual Machine ".$_->name ." exists under host $hostname\n");
          }
   }
  }
 }
}

sub options {
        $vcserver="";$username="";$password="";$dc="";$removesnapshot="";
        GetOptions ('h|help'=>\$help,'v|vcserver=s'=>\$vcserver,'u|username=s'=>\$username,'p|password=s'=>\$password,,'d|datacenter=s'=>\$dc,'sm|snapmatch=s'=>\$removesnapshot);
        if ($help) {
                print "Usage: snapper.pl -v  -u  -p  -d  -sm \n";
                exit;
        }
        if (($vcserver eq "") || ($username eq "") || ($password eq "") || ($dc eq "") || ($removesnapshot eq "")) {
                print "Missing required parameters - Type -help for options\n";
                exit;
        }

}

sub print_tree {
 my ($ref, $str, $tree) = @_;
    my $head = " ";
    foreach my $node (@$tree) {
        $head = ($ref->value eq $node->snapshot->value) ? " " : " " if (defined $ref);
        my $quiesced = ($node->quiesced) ? "Y" : "N";
        $snapshotname = $node->name;
        printf "%s%-48.48s%16.16s %s %s\n", $head, $str.$node->name,
              $node->createTime, $node->state->val, $quiesced;
        print_tree ($ref, $str . " ", $node->childSnapshotList);
    }
    return;
}

sub find_snapshot_name {
 my ($tree, $name) = @_;
    my $ref = undef;
    my $count = 0;
    foreach my $node (@$tree) {
        if ($node->name eq $name) {
           $ref = $node;
           $count++;
        }
        my ($subRef, $subCount) = find_snapshot_name($node->childSnapshotList, $name);
        $count = $count + $subCount;
        $ref = $subRef if ($subCount);
    }
    return ($ref, $count);
}