mistio sends "Power Off" instead of "Shutdown" to vSphere hosted VMs

[jpstaub]

mistio = latest vSphere = ESXi 6.0U2

In working through GPU passthrough it was noted that mistio sends a "Power Off" message rather than a "Shutdown" message to ESXi to shutdown a VM. As the web ESXi client states:

Power off = "...Powering [the VM] off may cause loss of data in the guest."

Shut down = "Perform a graceful shutdown within the guest OS of the virtual machine."

mistio vSphere shut down messages should be adjusted to produce a normal Shut down of the VM rather an abnormal Power off.

[mgogoulos]

Thanks for reporting, will make the change!

[jpstaub]

A bump to say I'm still interested in the change.

[mario-olivarez]

Hi Jake,

I will add this request to the feature backlog. Question for you: how many clouds and machines do you manage?

Cheers,

Mario ᐧ

Mario Olivarez

Mist.io 415-596-3088 | [email protected] 620 Folsom St. San Francisco, CA 94107

On Mon, Oct 3, 2016 at 9:26 AM, jpstaub [email protected] wrote:

A bump to say I'm still interested in the change.

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[jpstaub]

This ought to help people trying to solve the shutdown problem. Of note, VMware doesn't seem all that interested in the graceful shutdown of VMs via the API either.

For those using ESXi as freeware: API functionality goes away after the initial (60 day) trial period for all but read commands. So, after the trial period, mistio will show ESXi VM status but it will not control them. Gaining access to the ESXi API after the trial period requires vSphere Essentials at a minimum. Google is your friend my friend to confirm this is no joke.

VMware Python Library - Used to interface with ESXi host via the command line

ESXi Python Command Line Tutorial - How to use Python to interact with ESXi

Note: connect.py in the VMware library contains an SSL certificate requirement which is not relevant for development work. To turn off the requirement --

Example path to connect.py /usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pyVim/connect.py

Original code

  def localSslFixup(host, sslContext):

    Connections to 'localhost' do not need SSL verification as a certificate
    will never match. The OS provides security by only allowing root to bind
    to low-numbered ports.

    if not sslContext and host in ['localhost', '127.0.0.1', '::1']:
        import ssl
        if hasattr(ssl, '_create_unverified_context'):
            sslContext = ssl._create_unverified_context()
    return sslContext

Modified code with added host of interest

  def localSslFixup(host, sslContext):

    Connections to 'localhost' do not need SSL verification as a certificate
    will never match. The OS provides security by only allowing root to bind
    to low-numbered ports.

    if not sslContext and host in ['localhost', '127.0.0.1', '::1', 'your_host_IP_address']:
        import ssl
        if hasattr(ssl, '_create_unverified_context'):
            sslContext = ssl._create_unverified_context()
    return sslContext

Shutdown VM via Guest OS - Allows the graceful shutdown of VMs

Code required modification for it to work correctly.

Original code

  except vmodl.MethodFault as error: 
    print("Caught vmodl fault : " + e.msg)
    return -1

Modified code to correct print of error

  except vmodl.MethodFault, e:
    print("Caught vmodl fault : %s" % e.msg)
    return -1

If working with ESXi outside the trial period when attempting to shutdown a VM gracefully the following will be the end result Caught vmodl fault : Current license or ESXi version prohibits execution of the requested operation.