VCSA API and plugin commands

When I first logged in to the appliance I noticed there is a complete list of API’s and plugins.

The complete list and description can be found here:

Plug-Ins in the vCenter Server Appliance Shell
API Commands in the vCenter Server Appliance Shell

So let’s play a bit :

Command> help pi com.vmware.vimtop
top
Display vSphere processes information.

Wonder if that will display a top view, let’s hit it !

Command> pi com.vmware.vimtop

Nice, but it also possible just to hit “vimtop” from command.

What more do we have :

Looks that besides the root account there will be a user

Command> com.vmware.appliance.version1.localaccounts.user.list
Config:
Configuration:
Username: root
Status: enabled
Role: superAdmin
Passwordstatus: valid
Fullname: root
Email:
Configuration:
Username: postgres
Status: disabled
Role:
Passwordstatus: notset
Fullname:
Email:

Mm strange, this doesn’t look like the complete list, when I look to the users from a shell environment I see the users below:

localhost:~ # cut -d: -f1 /etc/passwd
bin
daemon
dhcpd
haldaemon
ldap
mail
man
messagebus
nobody
ntp
polkituser
postfix
root
sshd
stunnel
uuidd
wwwrun
nginx
tcserver
cm
netdumper
vapiEndpoint
postgres
mbcs
eam
deploy
vdcs
vpx-workflow
vsm
vsphere-client
perfcharts
vpostgres

 

Like you probably noticed in the normal mode you only can do some API and plugin calls. But you can switch to shell.

Switching to shell

Connected to service
* List APIs: "help api list"
* List Plugins: "help pi list"
* Enable BASH access: "shell.set --enabled True"
* Launch BASH: "shell"

Standard shell access is disabled, this can be seen by using shell.get

Command> shell.get
Config:
Enabled: False
Timeout: 0

Now let’s enable the access :

Command> shell.set --enabled True
Command> shell.get
Config:
Enabled: True
Timeout: 3597

Once we entered shell, we can use some basic linux commands

localhost:/ # df -h
Filesystem                            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda3                              11G  3.7G  6.6G  36% /
udev                                  4.0G  164K  4.0G   1% /dev
tmpfs                                 4.0G   32K  4.0G   1% /dev/shm
/dev/sda1                             128M   38M   84M  31% /boot
/dev/mapper/core_vg-core               25G  173M   24G   1% /storage/core
/dev/mapper/log_vg-log                9.9G  1.1G  8.3G  12% /storage/log
/dev/mapper/db_vg-db                  9.9G  199M  9.2G   3% /storage/db
/dev/mapper/dblog_vg-dblog            5.0G  171M  4.5G   4% /storage/dblog
/dev/mapper/seat_vg-seat              9.9G  188M  9.2G   2% /storage/seat
/dev/mapper/netdump_vg-netdump       1001M   18M  932M   2% /storage/netdump
/dev/mapper/autodeploy_vg-autodeploy  9.9G  151M  9.2G   2% /storage/autodeploy
/dev/mapper/invsvc_vg-invsvc          5.0G  157M  4.6G   4% /storage/invsvc
localhost:/ # mount
/dev/sda3 on / type ext3 (rw)
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw)
udev on /dev type tmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,mode=1777)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,mode=0620,gid=5)
/dev/sda1 on /boot type ext3 (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,noacl)
/dev/mapper/core_vg-core on /storage/core type ext3 (rw)
/dev/mapper/log_vg-log on /storage/log type ext3 (rw)
/dev/mapper/db_vg-db on /storage/db type ext3 (rw,noatime,nodiratime)
/dev/mapper/dblog_vg-dblog on /storage/dblog type ext3 (rw,noatime,nodiratime)
/dev/mapper/seat_vg-seat on /storage/seat type ext3 (rw,noatime,nodiratime)
/dev/mapper/netdump_vg-netdump on /storage/netdump type ext3 (rw)
/dev/mapper/autodeploy_vg-autodeploy on /storage/autodeploy type ext3 (rw)
/dev/mapper/invsvc_vg-invsvc on /storage/invsvc type ext3 (rw,noatime,nodiratime)
none on /var/lib/ntp/proc type proc (ro,nosuid,nodev)

localhost:/var/log # tail -f messages.log
2015-04-28T12:51:30.980333+00:00 localhost kernel: [1652125.714038] IPfilter Dropped: IN=eth0 OUT= MAC=01:00:5e:00:00:01:00:22:bd:37:fc:00:08:00 SRC=145.70.12.252 DST=224.0.0.1 LEN=36 TOS=0x00 PREC=0xC0 TTL=1 ID=61046 PROTO=2
2015-04-28T12:51:42.931041+00:00 localhost su: (to vpostgres) root on none
2015-04-28T12:51:50.860391+00:00 localhost kernel: [1652145.593672] IPfilter Dropped: IN=eth0 OUT= MAC=01:00:5e:00:00:01:00:22:bd:37:fc:00:08:00 SRC=145.70.12.252 DST=224.0.0.1 LEN=36 TOS=0x00 PREC=0xC0 TTL=1 ID=5260 PROTO=2
2015-04-28T12:51:51.044384+00:00 localhost kernel: [1652145.777641] IPfilter Dropped: IN=eth0 OUT= MAC=01:00:5e:00:00:01:00:22:bd:37:fc:00:08:00 SRC=145.70.12.252 DST=224.0.0.1 LEN=36 TOS=0x00 PREC=0xC0 TTL=1 ID=5416 PROTO=2
2015-04-28T12:52:15.344457+00:00 localhost su: (to vpostgres) roo

Something else I noticed when enabling shell access the timeout starts counting down. As soon as I keep hitting

Command> shell.get
Config:
Enabled: True
Timeout: 3597
Command> shell.get
Config:
Enabled: True
Timeout: 3596
Command> shell.get
Config:
Enabled: True
Timeout: 3596
Command> shell.get
Config:
Enabled: True
Timeout: 3596
Command> shell.get
Config:
Enabled: True
Timeout: 3595

You see the timeout decrease I guess it’s in seconds so 3600 seconds = 60 minutes = 1 hour.

It’s possible to change the timeout using the shell.set command

Command> shell.set -help
shell.set: error: unrecognized arguments: -help
Command> shell.set --help

Usage:
shell.set [--help/-h] --enabled BOOL --timeout INT
Description:
Set enabled state of BASH, that is, access to BASH from
within the controlled CLI.
Input Arguments:
--enabled BOOL
Enabled can be set to true or false
--timeout INT
The timeout (in seconds) specifies how long you enable the
Shell access.