Virtual Machine Handler

This project is a wrapper around VMWare's GOVC command line tool to easily provision virtual machines & manage them via a simple REST API. Uses cloud-init to provision the servers. You must have templates set up before running VMH.

Templates that we use can be found under packer directory.

We have a set of Packer-based template generators for various versions of Ubuntu, CentOS & Debian.

WORK IN PROGRESS

Features

• Uses cloud-init to provision servers, providing compatibility between different Linux distros.

• Modular and backend agnostic. VMH provides its minimal REST API. It can integrate with existing infrastructures.

• Security first. VMH generates passwords randomly and requires users to change their password on the first login.

• Async by default. Non-blocking calls with HTTP callbacks. Ability to define auth headers and tokens for verification.

• Archive instead of delete. VMH archives virtual machines instead of permanently deleting them. Keeps business data safe.

• Manages multiple datacenter configurations with a single deployment and without a database.

• Default configuration that can be shared between multiple datacenter configurations.

• Handles machine state via REST API. Available actions as on, off, suspend, shutdown and reboot.

Configuration

First need to pass vCenter configuration in your environment:

IDENTIFIER_GOVC_INSECURE=1

IDENTIFIER_GOVC_URL=xxx
IDENTIFIER_GOVC_USERNAME=xxx
IDENTIFIER_GOVC_PASSWORD=xxx
IDENTIFIER_GOVC_DATACENTER=xxx
IDENTIFIER_GOVC_DATASTORE=xxx
IDENTIFIER_GOVC_RESOURCE_POOL=xxx

IDENTIFIER_DELETE_DIRECTORY=xxx
IDENTIFIER_TARGET_DIRECTORY=xxx
IDENTIFIER_GATEWAY=xxx
IDENTIFIER_NAMESERVERS=8.8.8.8,8.8.4.4

IDENTIFIER_WEBHOOK_URL=xxx
IDENTIFIER_WEBHOOK_AUTH_HEADER=xxx
IDENTIFIER_WEBHOOK_AUTH_TOKEN=xxx

LOCATION_IDS=IDENTIFIER1,IDENTIFIER2

HTTP_PORT=8080
POWER_OFF_TIMEOUT=1m

Remember to replace IDENTIFIER with a location ID like AMS1 (or anything you like).

You can define multiple datacenters. Each configuration extends the DEFAULT config.

If you are using a single location, you can define the defaults and use DEFAULT as your location ID.

You also need to set LOCATION_IDS with a comma separated list of location identifiers. DEFAULT is enabled by default.

Example

DEFAULT_GOVC_INSECURE=1
AMS1_GOVC_URL=AMS1_URL
AMS2_GOVC_URL=AMS2_URL
LOCATION_IDS=AMS1,AMS2

In this example, both configurations will have a value of 1 for GOVC_INSECURE.

Usage

VMH routes are basically RPC routes. Every action sent as a POST request with a JSON body. We refer to endpoints as actions.

For each request, you'll need to send locationId & targetName.

Calls are async by default. VMH will return only return a UUID as response. You can use this UUID to track the progress of request with callbacks.

env

{
  "locationId": "IDENTIFIER"
}

create / recreate

{
  "locationId": "IDENTIFIER",
  "template": "Ubuntu1804",
  "targetName": "UbuntuTarget",
  "cpu": 1,
  "memory": 1024,
  "diskSize": "100G",
  "sshKey": "ssh-key",
  "ipToAssign": "1.1.1.1"
}

delete

{
  "locationId": "IDENTIFIER",
  "targetName": "UbuntuTarget"
}

update

{
  "locationId": "CENTER2",
  "targetName": "UbuntuTarget",
  "cpu": 1,
  "memory": 1024,
  "diskSize": "50G"
}

cpu, memory and diskSize fields can be omitted, only provided values will be updated

state

{
  "locationId": "IDENTIFIER",
  "targetName": "UbuntuTarget",
  "action": "shutdown"
}

action must be one of the following values: on | off | suspend | shutdown | reboot

Notes

Template names must contain one of the following values, lower/upper case doesn't matter

centos-7
centos-8
ubuntu
debian

Creating VMware templates

The only user with login access should be root

cloud-init clean should be run after every change to template

Ubuntu

Install

apt install python3-pip
curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/vmware/cloud-init-vmware-guestinfo/master/install.sh | sh -
cloud-init clean

CentOS

Install

yum install python3
curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/vmware/cloud-init-vmware-guestinfo/master/install.sh | sh -