VMware vCloud Director - 1.5 Programming Guide

vCloud API Programming Guide

vCloud Director 1.5

This document supports the version of each product listed and supports all subsequent versions until the document is replaced by a new edition. To check for more recent editions of this document, see http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs.

EN-000579-00

vCloud API Programming Guide

You can find the most up-to-date technical documentation on the VMware Web site at:

http://www.vmware.com/support/

The VMware Web site also provides the latest product updates.

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vCloud API Programming Guide 7

About the VMware vCloud API 9

Object Taxonomy 10

Objects, References, and Representations 11

Links and Link Relations 12

Client Workflow Overview 15

Using the vCloud API with vCloud Director 18

About the vCloud API Examples 22

Hello vCloud: A Simplified RESTful Workflow 23

Logging In 24

Find a Catalog and a vDC 26

Retrieve the Contents of a Catalog 27

Retrieve a Catalog Item 28

Retrieve Deployment Information From the vDC 30

Deploy the vApp 31

Get Information About a vApp 34

Displaying the Virtual Machine Console 37

Delete the vApp 38

Log Out 39

Exploring a Cloud 41

Summary of vCloud API Browsing Requests 41

Retrieve the Login URL and List of Supported API Versions 42

Create a Login Session 44

Retrieve a List of Organizations Accessible to You 46

Retrieve an Administrative View of a Cloud 47

Retrieve a List of vSphere Platform Operations and Objects for a Cloud 49

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Provisioning an Organization with vApps, Templates, and Media 53

Summary of vCloud API Provisioning Requests 54

Upload an OVF Package to Create a vApp Template 55

Download a vApp Template as OVF 64

Upload a Media Image 67

Copying and Moving with the vCloud API 69

Capturing and Importing vApps 70

Cataloging vApp Templates and Media Images 70

View or Change the Owner of an Object 73

vCloud API Programming Guide

Deploying and Operating vApps 75

Summary of vCloud API vApp and Virtual Machine Operations Requests 77

Create a vApp From a Template 78

Compose a vApp From Existing Virtual Machines 80

Recompose a vApp to Add or Remove Virtual Machines 83

Operate a vApp 85

Configuring vApps and Virtual Machines 86

Creating, Provisioning, and Managing Organizations 109

Summary of Administrative Requests 109

Administrator Credentials and Privileges 111

Organization Administration 112

Network Administration 118

vDC Administration 139

Catalog Administration 145

User and Group Administration 148

Working With Roles and Rights 153

Controlling Access to vApps and Catalogs 157

Using vCloud API Extensions to Provision and Manage a Cloud 161

Summary of vSphere Platform Extension Requests 161

Retrieve or Update System Settings 165

Attach a vCenter Server 166

Finding Available vCenter Resources 167

Create a Provider vDC 173

Create an External Network 180

Create a Network Pool 183

Import a Virtual Machine from vCenter 189

Relocate a Virtual Machine to a Different Datastore 192

Working With Object Metadata 195

Retrieve or Update a Metadata Element 196

Retrieve or Update a Metadata Value 199

Using the Query Service 201

Typed Queries 201

Packaged Queries 207

Query Parameters 211

Configuring and Using Blocking Tasks and Notifications 215

Configure Notifications and AMQP Settings 216

Retrieve or Update Blocking Task Settings 225

Monitor Blocking Tasks 228

Take Action on a Blocking Task 229

Extend The Timeout Expiration of an Active Task 232

XML Representations in the vCloud API 233

XML Namespace Identifiers 234

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Common vCloud API Attributes 235

Retrieve an Object as an Entity 237

Index 239

Contents

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vCloud API Programming Guide

6 VMware, Inc.

vCloud API Programming Guide

The vCloud API Programming Guide provides information about version 1.5 of the vCloud API.

VMware provides many different APIs and SDKs for applications and goals. This guide provides information about the vCloud API for developers who are interested in creating RESTful clients of VMware vCloud Director.

Revision History

The vCloud API Programming Guide is revised with each release of the product or when necessary. A revised version can contain minor or major changes.

Table 1. Revision History

Revision Date Description

01SEP11 API Version 1.5

30AUG10 API Version 1.0

14APR10 API Version 0.9

Intended Audience

This guide is intended for software developers who are building VMware Ready Cloud Services, including interactive clients of VMware vCloud Director. This guide discusses Representational State Transfer (REST) and RESTful programming conventions, the Open Virtualization Format Specification, and VMware Virtual machine technology. You must be familiar with these and other widely deployed technologies such as XML, HTTP, and the Windows or Linux operating system.

Related Publications

The VMware vCloud Director Administrator's Guide and VMware vCloud Director User’s Guide contain detailed information about many of the objects and operations referred to in this guide. Most users of the vCloud API will find the information in those documents valuable when developing client applications. To access the current versions of these and other VMware books, go to http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs.

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vCloud API Programming Guide

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About the VMware vCloud API 1

The VMware vCloud API provides support for developers who are building interactive clients of VMware vCloud Director using a RESTful application development style.

vCloud API clients and vCloud Director servers communicate over HTTP, exchanging representations of vCloud objects. These representations take the form of XML elements. You use HTTP GET requests to retrieve the current representation of an object, HTTP POST and PUT requests to create or modify an object, and HTTP DELETE requests to delete an object.

This chapter includes the following topics:

“Object Taxonomy,” on page 10

“Objects, References, and Representations,” on page 11

“Links and Link Relations,” on page 12

“Client Workflow Overview,” on page 15

“Using the vCloud API with vCloud Director,” on page 18

“About the vCloud API Examples,” on page 22

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Catalog 2

Catalogitem

em em em

Catalog 1

Catalog 3

vDC2

Catalogitem Catalogitem Catalogitem Catalogitem

users

Media

vApp

template

Media

vApp

TasksList

Organization

vDC1

Media

vApp

template

Media

vApp

Network

Catalogitem

em em em

groups

vCloud API Programming Guide

Object Taxonomy

The vCloud API defines a set of objects common to cloud computing environments. An understanding of these objects, their properties, and their relationships is essential to using the vCloud API.

Figure 1-1. vCloud API Object Taxonomy

vCloud API objects have the following high-level properties:

Organizations

A cloud can contain one or more organizations. Each organization is a unit of administration for a collection of users, groups, and computing resources. Users authenticate at the organization level, supplying credentials established when the user was created or imported.

Users and Groups

An organization can contain an arbitrary number of users and groups. Users can be created by the organization administrator or imported from an LDAP directory service. Groups must be imported from the directory service. Permissions within an organization are controlled through the assignment of

Catalogs

Networks

rights and roles to users and groups.

Catalogs contain references to virtual systems and media images. A catalog can be shared to make it visible to other members of an organization, and can be published to make it visible to administrators in other organizations. A system administrator specifies which organizations can publish catalogs, and an organization administrator controls access to catalogs by organization members.

An organization can be provisioned with one or more networks. These organization networks can be configured to provide services such as DHCP, NAT, VPN, and firewalls.

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Chapter 1 About the VMware vCloud API

Virtual Datacenters

Virtual Systems and Media Images

A virtual datacenter (vDC) is a deployment environment for virtual systems and an allocation mechanism for resources such as networks, storage, CPU, and memory. In a vDC, computing resources are fully virtualized, and can be allocated based on demand, service level requirements, or a combination of the two.

Virtual systems and media images are stored in a vDC and can be included in a catalog. Media images are stored in their native representation (ISO or floppy). Virtual systems are initially stored as templates, using an open standard format (OVF 1.0). These templates can be retrieved from catalogs and transformed into virtual systems, called vApps, through a process called instantiation, which binds a template’s abstract resource requirements to resources available in a vDC. A vApp contains one or more individual virtual machines (Vm elements), along with parameters that define operational details:

How the contained virtual machines are connected to each other and to external networks.

The order in which individual virtual machines are powered on or off.

End-user license agreement terms for each virtual machine.

Deployment lease terms, typically inherited from the containing organization, that constrain the consumption of vDC resources by the vApp.

Access control information specifying which users and groups can perform operations such as deploy, power on, modify, and suspend on the vApp and the virtual machines that it contains.

Tasks

Asynchronous operations that members of an organization initiate are tracked by task objects, which are kept on the organization’s tasks list.

Objects, References, and Representations

The vCloud API represents objects as XML documents in which object properties are encoded as elements and attributes with typed values and an explicit object hierarchy defined by an XML schema.

XML representations of first-class vCloud API objects, such as the objects in Figure 1-1, include these attributes.

type

href

The object identifier, expressed in URN format. The value of the id attribute uniquely identifies the object, persists for the life of the object, and is never reused. The id attribute value is intended to provide a context-free identifier that can be used with the vCloud API entityResolver (see “Retrieve an Object

as an Entity,” on page 237), and is also suitable for use by clients that need to

access the object using a different API.

The object type, specified as a MIME content type.

An object reference, expressed in URL format. Because this URL includes the object identifier portion of the id attribute value, it uniquely identifies the object, persists for the life of the object, and is never reused. The value of the

href attribute is a reference to a view of the object, and can be used to access a

representation of the object that is valid in a particular context. Although URLs have a well-known syntax and a well-understood interpretation, a client should treat each href as an opaque string. The rules that govern how the server constructs href strings might change in future releases.

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vCloud API Programming Guide

Example: Object id, type, and href Attributes

This XML fragment, extracted from the representation of a vApp, shows its id, type, and href attributes.

Links and Link Relations

The vCloud API makes extensive use of Link elements to provide references to objects and the actions that they support. These elements are the primary mechanism by which a server tells a client how to access and operate on an object.

The server creates Link elements in a response body. They are read-only at the client. If a request body includes a Link element, the server ignores it.

Attributes of a Link Element

In the XML representation of a vCloud object, each Link element has the following form:

<Link rel=" type="application/vnd.vmware.vcloud. href=" name="

relationship

URL

string

"/>

Attribute values in a Link element supply the following information:

rel

type

href

object_type

+xml"

Defines the relationship of the link to the object that contains it. A relationship can be the name of an operation on the object, a reference to a contained or containing object, or a reference to an alternate representation of the object. The relationship value implies the HTTP verb to use when you use the link's href value as a request URL.

The object type, specified as a MIME content type, of the object that the link references. This attribute is present only for links to objects. It is not present for links to actions.

href attribute is a reference to a view of the object, and can be used to access a

name

The name of the referenced object, taken from the value of that object's name attribute. Action links do not include a name attribute.

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Chapter 1 About the VMware vCloud API

Table 1-1. Link Relationships and HTTP Request Types

rel Attribute Value Action or Relationship Description Implied HTTP Verb

add Add an item to this container. POST

alternate References an alternate representation

of this object.

catalogItem References the CatalogItem object

that refers to this object.

collaboration:abort Abort this blocking task. POST

collaboration:fail Fail this blocking task. POST

collaboration:resume Resume this blocking task. POST

consolidate Consolidate this virtual machine. POST

controlAccess Apply access controls. POST

copy Reserved, unimplemented. N/A

deploy Deploy this vApp. POST

disable Disable this object. POST

discardState Discard the suspended state of this

virtual machine.

down References an object contained by this

object.

download:alternate Reserved, unimplemented. N/A

download:default References the default location from

which this file can be downloaded.

edit Modify this object. PUT

enable Enable this object. POST

firstPage Reference to the first page of a

paginated response.

installVmwareTools Install VMware Tools on this virtual

machine.

lastPage Reference to the last page of a

paginated response.

media:ejectMedia Eject virtual media from a virtual

device.

media:insertMedia Insert virtual media into a virtual

device.

move Reserved, unimplemented. N/A

nextPage Reference to the next page of a

paginated response.

ova Reserved, unimplemented N/A

ovf References the OVF descriptor of this

vApp template.

power:powerOff Power off this vApp or virtual

machine.

power:powerOn Power on this vApp or virtual

machine.

power:reboot Reboot this vApp or virtual machine. POST

power:reset Reset this vApp or virtual machine. POST

GET

POST

GET

POST

GET

POST

GET

POST

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vCloud API Programming Guide

Table 1-1. Link Relationships and HTTP Request Types (Continued)

rel Attribute Value Action or Relationship Description Implied HTTP Verb

power:shutdown Shut down this vApp or virtual

POST

machine.

power:suspend Suspend this vApp or virtual machine. POST

previousPage Reference to the previous page of a

GET

paginated response.

publish Publish this catalog. POST

recompose Recompose this vApp. POST

reconnect Reconnect this vCenter Server to this

POST

cloud.

POST

cloud.

reject Reject this request. POST

relocate Relocate this virtual machine. POST

remove Remove this object. DELETE

repair Repair this ESX/ESXi host. POST

screen:acquireTicket Retrieve a screen ticket for this virtual

GET

machine.

screen:thumbnail Retrieve a thumbnail view of the

GET

screen of this virtual machine.

task:cancel Cancel this task. POST

blockingTask A list of pending blocking task

GET

requests in this cloud.

taskOwner Reference to the owner of a task GET

taskParams Reference to the request parameters of

GET

a task

taskRequest Reference to the request associated

GET

with a task

undeploy Undeploy this vApp. POST

unlock Unlock a user account POST

unregister Unregister this vCenter Server. POST

up References an object that contains this

GET

object.

updateProgress Request an update of this task's

POST

progress.

upgrade Upgrade this ESX/ESXi host. POST

upload:alternate Reserved, unimplemented. N/A

upload:default References the default location to

PUT

which this object can be uploaded.

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Client Workflow Overview

vCloud API clients implement a RESTful workflow, making HTTP requests to the server and retrieving the information they need from the server’s responses.

About RESTful Workflows

REST, an acronym for Representational State Transfer, describes an architectural style characteristic of programs that rely on the inherent properties of hypermedia to create and modify the state of an object whose serialized representation is accessible at a URL.

If a URL of such an object is known to a client, the client can use an HTTP GET request to retrieve the representation of the object. In the vCloud API, this representation is an XML document. In a RESTful workflow, documents that represent of object state are passed back and forth between a client and a service with the explicit assumption that neither party need know anything about an object other than what is presented in a single request or response. The URLs at which these documents are available often persist beyond the lifetime of the request or response that includes them. The other content of the documents is nominally valid until the expiration date noted in the HTTP Expires header.

vCloud REST API Workflows

Chapter 1 About the VMware vCloud API

Application programs written to a REST API use HTTP requests that are often executed by a script or other higher-level language to make remote procedure calls that create, retrieve, update, or delete objects that the API defines. In the vCloud REST API, these objects are defined by a collection of XML schemas. The operations themselves are HTTP requests, and so are generic to all HTTP clients.

To write a RESTful client, you must understand only the HTTP protocol and the semantics of XML, the transfer format that the vCloud API uses. To use the vCloud API effectively in such a client, you need to know only a few things:

What is the set of objects that the API supports, and what do they represent. For example, what is a vDC and how does it relate to an organization or catalog?

How does the API represents these objects. For example, what does the XML schema for an Org look like? What do the individual elements and attributes represent?

How does the client refer to an object on which it wants to operate. For example, where are the links to objects in a vDC? How does a client obtain and use them?

You can find this information in the vCloud API XML schemas. The XML elements, attributes, and composition rules defined in these schemas and represent the data structures of objects in the cloud. A client can read an object by making an HTTP GET request to the object’s URL. A client can create or modify an object with an HTTP PUT or POST request that includes a new or changed XML body document for the object. A client can usually delete an object with an HTTP DELETE request.

The vCloud API schema reference includes detailed information about the XML representations of all vCloud API objects and examples of HTTP requests that operate on those objects. See “About the Schema Reference

Downloadable Archive,” on page 19.

RESTful Workflow Patterns

All RESTful workflows follow a common pattern.

1 Make an HTTP request, typically GET, PUT, POST, or DELETE. The target of this request is either a well-

known URL such as a the vCloud API versions URL, or a URL obtained from the response to a previous request. For example, a GET request to an organization URL returns links to catalog and vDC objects that the organization contains.

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vCloud API Programming Guide

2 Examine the response, which always includes an HTTP response code and usually includes a body. In the

vCloud API, a response body is an XML representation of an object, including elements and attributes that represent object properties, links that implement operations on the object or provide references to contained or containing objects and, if the object is being created or modified, an embedded task object that tracks the progress of the creation or modification. The response also includes an HTTP response code, which indicates whether the request succeeded or failed, and might be accompanied by a URL that points to a location from which you can retrieve additional information.

These operations can repeat, in this order, for as long as necessary.

vCloud API REST Requests

To retrieve object representations, clients make HTTP requests to object references. The server supplies these references as href attribute values in responses to GET requests.

Every cloud has a well-known URL from which an unauthenticated user can retrieve a list of vCloud API versions that the server supports. Each version has its own login URL. A system administrator can use that URL to authenticate to the cloud by logging in to the System organization. An authenticated user can discover other vCloud API URLs by making GET requests to URLs retrieved from the login response, and the URLs contained in responses to those requests. See Chapter 3, “Exploring a Cloud,” on page 41.

Requests are typically categorized in terms of the type of requested operation: create, retrieve, update, and delete. This sequence of verbs is often abbreviated with the acronym CRUD.

Table 1-2. CRUD Operations Summary

Operation Type HTTP Verb Operation Summary

Create POST Creates a new object.

Retrieve GET Retrieves the representation of an

existing object.

Update PUT Modifies an existing object.

Delete DELETE Deletes an existing object.

Authentication

HTTP communications between a vCloud API client and server are secured with SSL. The vCloud API also implements Basic HTTP Authentication, as defined by RFC 2617, which enables a client to authenticate individual HTTP requests by including an authentication header in the request. See “Logging In,” on page 24.

Request Headers

The following HTTP headers are typically included in vCloud API requests:

All requests must include an HTTP Accept header that designates the XML namespace in which to process the request. The following header indicates that the request is to be processed in the vCloud API 1.5 namespace:

Accept: application/*+xml;version=1.5

Accept-Encoding

By default, vCloud Director returns response content as uncompressed XML. Compressing the response can improve performance, especially when the response is large and network bandwidth is a factor. To request a response to be returned as compressed XML, include the following header:

Accept-Encoding: gzip

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Chapter 1 About the VMware vCloud API

The response is encoded using gzip encoding as described in RFC 1952, and includes the following header:

Content-Encoding: gzip

In the default configuration, responses smaller than 64KB are never compressed.

Authorization

All requests from authenticated clients must include an Authorization header. See “Logging In,” on page 24 for details about the value of this header.

Content-Type

Requests that include a body must start with the appropriate HTTP Content-

Type header. Content types for all elements are included in the schema

reference. In addition, the type attribute of a response body indicates the content type of the document. For example, this response fragment indicates that the content type associated with a CatalogItem object is

application/vnd.vmware.vcloud.catalogItem+xml.

A POST or PUT request that supplies a CatalogItem in the request body requires the following Content-Type header:

Content-Type: application/vnd.vmware.vcloud.catalogItem+xml

When it appears as the value of a Content-Type header or the type attribute of an element in the vCloud API, this string is case-insensitive in requests, and can be returned in either mixed case or lowercase characters in responses.

Request Bodies

vCloud Director uses a validating XML parser that requires elements in a request body to agree with the schema in order and number. Request bodies are rejected as invalid unless they meet the following criteria:

XML namespace attributes must be supplied for all namespaces represented by elements in the request. See “XML Namespace Identifiers,” on page 234.

If multiple namespaces are represented in the request, XML namespace attributes must include an identifying prefix, and that prefix must be used with all elements from that namespace.

All required elements must appear in request bodies. All elements that appear in request bodies must appear in the order that the schema establishes, and with content that conforms to the type constraint that the schema specifies.

vCloud API REST Responses

All responses include an HTTP status code and, unless the status code is 204 (No Content), a Content-Type header. Response content depends on the request. Some responses include a document body, some include only a URL, and some are empty.

A vCloud API client can expect a subset of HTTP status codes in a response.

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Table 1-3. HTTP Status Codes that the vCloud API Returns

Status Code Status Description

200 OK The request is valid and was completed. The response

201 Created The request is valid. The requested object was created and

202 Accepted The request is valid and a task was created to handle it. This

204 No Content The request is valid and was completed. The response does

303 See Other The response to the request can be found at the URL specified

400 Bad Request The request body is malformed, incomplete, or otherwise

401 Unauthorized An authorization header was expected but not found.

403 Forbidden The requesting user does not have adequate privileges to

404 Not Found One or more objects specified in the request could not be

405 Method Not Allowed The HTTP method specified in the request is not supported

500 Internal Server Error The request was received but could not be completed

501 Not Implemented The server does not implement the request.

503 Service Unavailable One or more services needed to complete the request are not

includes a document body.

can be found at the URL specified in the Location header.

response is usually accompanied by a Task element.

not include a body.

in the Location header.

invalid.

access one or more objects specified in the request.

found in the specified container.

for this object.

because of an internal error at the server.

available on the server.

Using the vCloud API with vCloud Director

VMware vCloud Director 1.5 supports version 1.5 of the vCloud API. You can use a browser or other HTTP client program to send requests and receive responses.

The vCloud Director REST API Reference documentation includes HTML reference material for all XML elements and complex types defined by the vCloud API. It also includes examples XML representations. See

“About the Schema Reference Downloadable Archive,” on page 19. For information about HTTP client

programs to use with vCloud Director, see “REST Client Programs,” on page 19.

Procedure

1 Configure the vCloud Director REST API base URL.

a Log in to the vCloud Director Web Console as a system administrator.

b In the vCloud Director Web Console, open System Settings > Public Addresses

c Type the URL in the VCD public REST API base URL text box.

2 Download the schema reference.

The schema reference is an essential supplement to the vCloud API Programming Guide.

What to do next

Decide on an HTTP client program to use. See “REST Client Programs,” on page 19.

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Chapter 1 About the VMware vCloud API

REST Client Programs

You can use the vCloud API with any browser or client application that supports HTTP and SSL.

Any client application that can send HTTP requests over a secure channel by using SSL can be an appropriate tool for developing RESTful applications with the vCloud API. The examples in this information were developed using two open-source programs: cURL (http://curl.haxx.se/) and the RESTclient (http://code.google.com/p/rest-client/).

VMware provides additional SDK products that implement language-specific bindings for the vCloud API, and include their own HTTP client capability. See

http://communities.vmware.com/community/developer/forums.

About the Schema Reference Downloadable Archive

XML schema reference documentation in HTML format for the vCloud API is available as a downloadable archive. This archive also includes the schema definition files, and examples XML representations of vCloud API objects.

To use the reference documentation:

1 Download the compressed archive from

http://www.vmware.com/support/vcd/doc/rest-api-doc-1.5-html.zip

2 Uncompress the archive into any convenient folder.

3 In the folder, open the file index.html in a browser.

How the Schema Reference Documentation is Organized

The schema reference documentation is organized to reflect the division of the vCloud API into user, administrator, and extension categories. Within each category, you can open a list of elements, types that the elements extend, and operations that create, retrieve, update, or delete the objects that the elements represent.

User Operations, Elements, and Types

Administrator Operations, Elements, and Types

Extension Operations, Elements, and Types

These operations are performed by all users who have permission to log into an organization. User elements and user types represent the objects that these operations manipulate. See Chapter 3, “Exploring a Cloud,” on page 41,

Chapter 4, “Provisioning an Organization with vApps, Templates, and Media,” on page 53, Chapter 5, “Deploying and Operating vApps,” on

page 75, and Chapter 2, “Hello vCloud: A Simplified RESTful Workflow,” on page 23.

These operations are performed by organization administrators or system administrators. Administrator elements and types represent the objects that these operations manipulate. See Chapter 6, “Creating, Provisioning, and

Managing Organizations,” on page 109.

These operations are performed by system administrators who need access to vSphere platform objects from the vCloud API. Extension elements and types represent the objects that these operations manipulate. See Chapter 7, “Using

vCloud API Extensions to Provision and Manage a Cloud,” on page 161.

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Searching In a Category

You can enter a search string in the Quick Index text box to search the lists of operations, elements, and types in any category.

In an Operations list, you can search for the following items:

All or part of the name of the object on which you want to operate. The search returns a list of all of the operations that are possible on that object. For example, selecting User Operations and typing

vApp in the Quick Index text box returns a list of all of the requests that operate on a vApp object.

The name of an action to perform. For example, selecting User Operations and typing power in the Quick Index text box returns a list of all the requests that change the power state of a vApp.

An HTTP verb (GET, PUT, POST, DELETE) to view a list of all the requests that use that verb. For example, selecting User Operations and typing PUT in the Quick Index text box returns a list of all of the requests that update an object.

In an Elements or Types list, type all or part of the element or type name.

Search terms are not case-sensitive.

Operation Summary Syntax

Operations consist of an HTTP verb and a request URL. The reference documentation represents the verb and the URL using the following syntax:

HTTP_VERB /object_type/{id}[/action/action_name]

In this syntax, the initial / character is assumed to follow a site-specific API URL, such as

https://vcloud.example.com/api. The following strings represent variables in the remainder of the URL:

HTTP_VERB

object_type

The HTTP verb used to request the operation.

An abbreviation of the MIME type of the object referenced by the operation. This abbreviation is constructed from the final component of the object's media type, between the . and the +xml designation. For example, for an object whose media type is application/vnd.vmware.vcloud.catalogItem+xml, the

{id}

action_name

object_type

The unique identifier of the object of the operation.

The name of an action. Required only when the operation request URL includes

is shown as catalogItem.

the string /action/.

Element and Type Reference Pages

For each element or complex type, the reference documentation provides a page that lists the following items:

Element

Type

The name of the element.

The name of the type that the element extends.

Namespace

Description

Since

Schema

The XML namespace in which this element or type name is defined.

A description of the purpose and contents of the element or type.

The vCloud API version in which this element or type first appeared.

The name of the XML schema definition file in which this element or type is defined. Click to open the file in your browser, or right-click to download it.

Media Type

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The MIME type associated with this element or type.

Chapter 1 About the VMware vCloud API

Extends

XML Representation

Attributes

Elements

The base type from which this element is derived.

The XML representation of the element or type. Names of contained elements are links to the reference pages for those elements.

A table listing the following properties of each attribute of the element or type:

Attribute

Type

Required

The name of the attribute.

The primitive XML type of the attribute.

Yes for attributes that are required. No for attributes

that are optional.

Modifiable

A value of always means that a client request can modify the value of this attribute. A value of create means that this attribute can be set or modified only as part of object creation. A value of none means that this attribute is read-only.

Since

The vCloud API version in which this attribute first appeared.

Description

A description of the purpose and contents of the attribute.

A table listing the following properties of each element defined in the type:

Element

Type

Occurrence

Modifiable

Since

Description

The name of the element.

A link to the definition of the complex type that the element is based on.

The occurrence constraint for the element. The constraint can be one of the following expressions:

0..*

Optional. Can occur zero or more times.

0..1

Optional. Can occur at most once.

Required. Must occur exactly once.

A value of always means that a client request can modify the contents of this element. A value of

create means that element contents can be set or

modified only as part of object creation. A value of

none means that this element is read-only.

The vCloud API version in which this element first appeared.

A description of the purpose and contents of the element.

Operations

A summary of the operations permitted on the element. Operations are categorized by request type; one of create, retrieve, update, and delete. This sequence of verbs is often abbreviated with the acronym CRUD.

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Schema Definition Files

XML schema definition files (*.xsd) are included in the etc folder of schema reference downloadable archive. This folder contains several subfolders:

1.0

1.5

schemas

Schema definition files for vCloud API version 1.0.

Schema definition files for vCloud API version 1.5.

Additional schema definition files that are version-independent or from external sources such as DMTF.

About the vCloud API Examples

The vCloud API Programming Guide includes many examples of HTTP requests and responses. These examples show the workflow and content associated with operations such as browsing, provisioning, and managing your cloud and its contents, and operating virtual systems.

Example requests generally conform to the rules listed in “Request Bodies,” on page 17. Most example responses show only those elements and attributes that are relevant to the operation being discussed. Ellipses (…) indicate omitted content within response bodies. Several additional conventions apply.

The following HTTP header, which is required in all requests that access version 1.5 of the vCloud API, is omitted from most examples.

Accept: application/*+xml;version=1.5

All other request headers required by the vCloud API are included in example requests that are not fragments of some larger example. Although the examples show these strings using the character case in which the implementation defines them, header names and values are case-insensitive, and can be submitted or returned in any character case. Other HTTP headers, such as Date, Content-Length, and

Server, are omitted because they are not relevant to the specifics of any example.

The XML version and encoding header

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

is included in example requests but omitted from example responses.

Object IDs shown in href attribute values appear as small integers, for example vapp-7 or org/3. In the vCloud API that vCloud Director supports, object IDs are universal unique identifiers (UUIDs) as defined by RFC 4122, for example vapp-f5e185a4-7c00-41f1-8b91-0e552d538101 or org/89a1a8f9-

c518-4f53-960c-950db9e3a1fd.

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Hello vCloud: A Simplified RESTful

Workflow 2

vCloud API clients and vCloud Director servers communicate over HTTP, exchanging XML representations of vCloud API objects.

This simplified example of a RESTful workflow includes requests that discover and deploy a particular vApp, in this case, an FTP server with a connection to the public Internet.

These examples assume that you have access to a catalog that includes a vApp template with certain characteristics and an organization network that supports connections to the public Internet. The workflow and examples are flexible, and can accommodate various vApp templates and cloud capabilities.

1 Logging In on page 24

vCloud Director requires API requests to be authenticated. The first step in any RESTful workflow is to obtain an authentication token.

2 Find a Catalog and a vDC on page 26

Before you can deploy a vApp, you must find a vApp template in one of your organization's catalogs and a vDC in your organization to use for the deployment.

3 Retrieve the Contents of a Catalog on page 27

You can make a GET request to a catalog URL to retrieve a list of vApp templates and media images available from the catalog.

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4 Retrieve a Catalog Item on page 28

You can examine the list of items in a catalog to find items of interest based on the values of their name and type attributes. You must retrieve a catalog item to get a Description and a usable reference to the underlying object.

5 Retrieve Deployment Information From the vDC on page 30

To deploy your template as a vApp, you must specify a vDC to deploy it in and a network to connect it to.

6 Deploy the vApp on page 31

To deploy the vApp, you construct an InstantiateVAppTemplateParams element that specifies a vApp template to use and a network to connect to, then POST the element to the

action/instantiateVAppTemplate URL of the vDC.

7 Get Information About a vApp on page 34

When you instantiate a vApp template, the server returns the URL of the resulting vApp. You can use this URL with a GET request to retrieve information that you can use to connect to the vApp, modify its configuration, and operate it.

vCloud API Programming Guide

8 Displaying the Virtual Machine Console on page 37

After a vApp is powered on, you can retrieve a screen ticket from one of its virtual machines. You use that ticket with the VMRC browser plug-in to gain access to the console of the virtual machine.

9 Delete the vApp on page 38

To delete the vApp, power it off, undeploy it, and then use an HTTP DELETE request to delete the vApp object.

10 Log Out on page 39

To log out and terminate a vCloud API session, delete the Session you created when you logged in.

Logging In

vCloud Director requires API requests to be authenticated. The first step in any RESTful workflow is to obtain an authentication token.

Every cloud has a login URL that a client can obtain by making an unauthenticated GET request to the vCloud Director api/versions URL. See “Retrieve the Login URL and List of Supported API Versions,” on page 42. Because all other vCloud API requests must be authenticated, any vCloud API workflow must begin with a login request that supplies user credentials in the form that Basic HTTP authentication requires.

For information about how to create a login request and view the response, see “Example: Login Request and

Response,” on page 25.

Prerequisites

Verify that the following conditions are met:

You know the username and password of the system administrator or a member of one of the organizations in the cloud. The Hello vCloud workflow requires you to log in as a user who has permission to create and operate vApps.

You have access to an organization in which at least one vDC was created and provisioned with a network. For more information about setting up an organization to support the Hello vCloud workflow, see

Chapter 6, “Creating, Provisioning, and Managing Organizations,” on page 109.

The organization contains a catalog in which at least one vApp template is available. For more information about adding a vApp template to a catalog, see Chapter 4, “Provisioning an Organization with vApps,

Templates, and Media,” on page 53.

Procedure

1 Make an API versions request to vCloud Director to obtain the login URL for the REST API.

2 Use the login URL to create a login session.

POST a request to this URL that includes your username, password, and organization name in a MIME Base64 encoding. See “Example: Login Request and Response,” on page 25.

3 Examine the response.

The response code indicates whether the request succeeded, or how it failed.

A successful login request returns an authentication token that you can use in subsequent requests. It also returns a Session element, which contains one or more Link elements, each of which provides a URL that you can use to explore a subset of objects in the cloud. If you log in as a system administrator or organization administrator, this list includes multiple links. See “Example: Create a Login Session,” on page 44. Otherwise, the list typically includes a link of type application/vnd.vmware.vcloud.orgList+xml, as shown in the response portion of “Example: Login Request and Response,” on page 25. You can use this link to find out more about your organization and the objects it contains.

For more information about the other links in the Session element, see “Create a Login Session,” on page 44.

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Example: Login Request and Response

A request to create a login session must supply the user's credentials in the following form:

user@organization:password

user is the user's login name.

organization is the name of an organization of which the user is a member.

password is the user's password.

These credentials must be supplied in a MIME Base64 encoding, as specified in RFC 1421.

NOTE System administrators must log in to the System organization. See “Administrator Credentials and

Privileges,” on page 111.

This example shows a login request and response for a user named HelloUser logging into an organization named ExampleOrg in a cloud whose login URL is https://vcloud.example.com/api/sessions.

Request:

POST https://vcloud.example.com/api/sessions Authorization: Basic Accept: application/*+xml;version=1.5

encoded-credentials

Response:

200 OK x-vcloud-authorization: cn9uYmdugN8E2j96+5Lqrc3YBvFsEgDHXzyfJrJ/6bM= Content-Type: application/vnd.vmware.vcloud.session+xml;version=1.5 ... <Session xmlns="http://www.vmware.com/vcloud/v1.5" user="HelloUser" org="ExampleOrg" ... > <Link rel="down" type="application/vnd.vmware.vcloud.orgList+xml" href="https://vcloud.example.com/api/org"/> <Link rel="down" type="application/vnd.vmware.vcloud.query.queryList+xml" href="https://vcloud.example.com/api/query" /> <Link rel="entityResolver" type="application/vnd.vmware.vcloud.entity+xml" href="https://vcloud.example.com/api/entity/" /> </Session>

The response code indicates whether the request succeeded, or how it failed.

If the request is successful, the server returns HTTP response code 200 (OK) and headers that include an authorization header of the following form:

x-vcloud-authorization:

token

This header must be included in each subsequent vCloud API request.

If the authentication header is missing, the server returns HTTP response code 403.

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If the credentials supplied in the authentication header are invalid, or if the token has expired, the server returns HTTP response code 401. The token expires after a configurable interval of client inactivity. The default is 30 minutes after the token is created. After the token expires, you must log in again to obtain a new token.

Find a Catalog and a vDC

Before you can deploy a vApp, you must find a vApp template in one of your organization's catalogs and a vDC in your organization to use for the deployment.

After you log in, you can make a GET request to your organization's URL to retrieve the XML representation of the organization. This representation shows the organization's attributes and contents, including links to its catalogs, vDCs, and networks.

Prerequisites

Verify that you are logged in as a system administrator or member of an organization in the cloud.

Procedure

1 Examine the list of organizations to which you have access.

Make a GET request to the URL in the href value of the orgList link, which is present in the response to all login requests.

GET https://vcloud.example.com/api/org/

Unless you are a system administrator, the response to this request is an OrgList element containing a single Org element, which represents your organization.

2 Retrieve the representation of your organization.

See the request portion of “Example: Retrieve the Contents of an Organization,” on page 26.

3 Examine the response to find the links to the organization's catalogs, networks, and vDCs.

See the response portion of “Example: Retrieve the Contents of an Organization,” on page 26.

Example: Retrieve the Contents of an Organization

This example retrieves the ExampleOrg organization listed in the OrgList element shown in Step 1.

Request:

GET https://vcloud.example.com/api/org/5

Response:

200 OK Content-Type: application/vnd.vmware.vcloud.org+xml ... <Org name="ExampleOrg"

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type="application/vnd.vmware.vcloud.org+xml" href="https://vcloud.example.com/api/org/5"> <Link rel="down" type="application/vnd.vmware.vcloud.catalog+xml" href="https://vcloud.example.com/api/catalog/32" name="ExampleCatalog" /> <Link rel="down" type="application/vnd.vmware.vcloud.vdc+xml" href="https://vcloud.example.com/api/vdc/5" name="ExampleVdc01" /> <Link rel="down" type="application/vnd.vmware.vcloud.network+xml" href="https://vcloud.example.com/api/network/14" name="IsolatedOrgNet" /> <Link rel="down" type="application/vnd.vmware.vcloud.network+xml" href="https://vcloud.example.com/api/network/54" name="Internet" /> <Link ... /> <Link ... /> <Description>Example Corp’s Primary Organization</Description> </Org>

Links in the response whose rel attribute has a value of down are references to objects that the organization contains. This example shows the subset of those items that we reference in the Hello vCloud example:

A catalog named ExampleCatalog, at URL https://vcloud.example.com/api/catalog/32, where you can look for vApp templates.

A vDC named ExampleVdc01, at URL https://vcloud.example.com/api/vdc/5, where you can deploy the vApp.

Two networks: one named Internet, at URL https://vcloud.example.com/api/network/54, and one named

IsolatedOrgNet, at URL https://vcloud.example.com/api/network/14. You can connect the vApp to either

of these networks.

Retrieve the Contents of a Catalog

You can make a GET request to a catalog URL to retrieve a list of vApp templates and media images available from the catalog.

To use a vApp template or media image listed in a catalog, retrieve the catalog to discover the set of

CatalogItem elements it contains, then make an additional request to retrieve the CatalogItem of interest.

Prerequisites

Verify that you are logged in as a system administrator or member of an organization in the cloud.

Procedure

1 Retrieve the XML representation of your organization.

Use a request like this one:

GET https://vcloud.example.com/api/org/5

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2 Examine the response to find the links to the organization's catalogs.

These links have the following form:

<Link rel="down" type="application/vnd.vmware.vcloud.catalog+xml" href="https://vcloud.example.com/api/catalog/id" name="

catalog_name

" />

3 Retrieve the contents of the catalog.

Use a GET request of the form shown in the request portion of “Example: Retrieving the Contents of a

Catalog,” on page 28.

Example: Retrieving the Contents of a Catalog

This example retrieves the catalog shown in the response portion of “Example: Retrieve the Contents of an

Organization,” on page 26.

Request:

GET https://vcloud.example.com/api/catalog/32

Response:

200 OK Content-Type: application/vnd.vmware.vcloud.catalog+xml ... <Catalog xmlns="http://www.vmware.com/vcloud/v1.5" name="ExampleCatalog" type="application/vnd.vmware.vcloud.catalog+xml" href="https://vcloud.example.com/api/catalog/32"> <Description>Main Org Catalog</Description> <CatalogItems> <CatalogItem type="application/vnd.vmware.vcloud.catalogItem+xml" name="Ubuntu Template with vsftpd" href="https://vcloud.example.com/api/catalogItem/221"/> <CatalogItem ... /> <CatalogItem ... /> </CatalogItems> </Catalog>

Retrieve a Catalog Item

You can examine the list of items in a catalog to find items of interest based on the values of their name and

type attributes. You must retrieve a catalog item to get a Description and a usable reference to the underlying

object.

Every vApp template or media image that is added to the catalog is represented as a CatalogItem element. When a client browses a catalog, it can read only the name, type, and href of each CatalogItem. To retrieve an item from the catalog, the client requires more information. In “Example: Retrieve a Catalog Item,” on page 29, the client makes a GET request to the URL in the value of the href attribute of a CatalogItem. The response provides more information, including a description of the referenced object and another URL that the client can use to retrieve a representation of the object.

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Prerequisites

Verify that you are logged in as a system administrator or member of an organization in the cloud.

Procedure

1 Retrieve the representation of a catalog in your organization.

Use a request like this one:

GET https://vcloud.example.com/api/catalog/32

2 Examine the response to find the CatalogItem elements that the catalog contains.

The value of the name attribute of a CatalogItem element is taken from the name attribute of the referenced object. You can use it as a preliminary indicator of what the item represents.

3 Retrieve a CatalogItem.

Use a GET request of the form shown in the request portion of “Example: Retrieve a Catalog Item,” on page 29.

Example: Retrieve a Catalog Item

This example retrieves the CatalogItem shown in the response portion of “Example: Retrieving the Contents

of a Catalog,” on page 28.

Request:

GET https://vcloud.example.com/api/catalogItem/221

In addition to the name attribute and Description element, the CatalogItem contains a rel="up" link to the catalog that contains it, and other links that you can use to manage the CatalogItem.

Response:

200 OK Content-Type: application/vnd.vmware.vcloud.catalogItem+xml ... <CatalogItem xmlns="http://www.vmware.com/vcloud/v1.5" name="Ubuntu Template with vsftpd" id="urn:vcloud:catalogitem:221" href="https://vcloud.example.com/api/catalogItem/221" ... > <Link rel="up" type="application/vnd.vmware.vcloud.catalog+xml" href="https://vcloud.example.com/api/catalog/32" /> <Link rel="down" type="application/vnd.vmware.vcloud.metadata+xml" href="https://vcloud.example.com/api/catalogItem/221/metadata" /> <Link rel="edit" type="application/vnd.vmware.vcloud.catalogItem+xml" href="https://vcloud.example.com/api/catalogItem/221" /> <Link rel="remove" href="https://vcloud.example.com/api/catalogItem/221" /> <Description>Approved template for public FTP sites</Description> <Entity

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href="https://vcloud.example.com/api/vAppTemplate/vappTemplate-111" type="application/vnd.vmware.vcloud.vAppTemplate+xml" name="Ubuntu Template with vsftpd"/> </CatalogItem>

Retrieve Deployment Information From the vDC

To deploy your template as a vApp, you must specify a vDC to deploy it in and a network to connect it to.

Instantiation, deployment, and operation of a vApp all take place in the context of a vDC. The XML representation of a vDC object defines that context in detail. For this exercise, you need several pieces of information from the vDC:

The URL that a client can use to request an instantiateVAppTemplate operation in the vDC.

A list of networks to which the vApp can connect.

“Example: Deployment Information in a vDC,” on page 30 shows this subset of vDC contents.

Prerequisites

Verify that the following conditions are met:

Verify that you are logged in as a system administrator or member of an organization in the cloud.

Retrieve the representation of your organization. See the request portion of “Example: Retrieve the

Contents of an Organization,” on page 26. The response portion contains links to the organization's vDCs.

Procedure

1 Examine the Org response to find the links to the organization's vDCs.

Links to vDCs have the form:

<Link rel="down" type="application/vnd.vmware.vcloud.vdc+xml" href="https://vcloud.example.com/api/vdc/ name="

vDC_name

" />

2 Retrieve the contents of the vDC.

Use a GET request of the form shown in the request portion of “Example: Deployment Information in a

vDC,” on page 30.

Example: Deployment Information in a vDC

This example shows a request to retrieve the XML representation of a vDC. It shows only the subset of the response that contains deployment information.

Request:

GET https://vcloud.example.com/api/vdc/5

Response:

200 OK Content-Type: application/vnd.vmware.vcloud.vdc+xml ... <Vdc xmlns="http://www.vmware.com/vcloud/v1.5" name="ExampleVdc01" type="application/vnd.vmware.vcloud.vdc+xml" href="https://vcloud.example.com/api/vdc/5">

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