Automating VM configurations after mass VMware imports

MK.ultra

Good morning,

I am nearing the end of a thorough POC of XCP-NG as a potential VMware replacement. It ticks many boxes, although there are a few caveats of course, particularly integration with specific 3rd party software like Commvault.

My primary concern though is that our VMs are requiring significant manual configuration post-V2V import. Here is what I am needing to do with them:

-Set the VM network
-Power on VM
-Disable Secure Boot if enabled
-Enable HA on VM
-Mount ISO to install Xen Tools
-Reboot
-Reapply the network configuration within Windows

Is all of this possible via XAPI? I am well-versed in PowerShell but I am a complete noob working with API calls.

Thanks

olivierlambert

Hi,

Commvault should work out of the box with XCP-ng (native support)

Note: we have a powershell module for XO API

MK.ultra

@olivierlambert said in Automating VM configurations after mass VMware imports:

Hi,

Commvault should work out of the box with XCP-ng (native support)

Note: we have a powershell module for XO API

Hi Olivier,

Commvault has significant limitations with Xen such as NBD only transport mode. For our infrastructure size, HotAdd or SAN transport is strongly preferred. Also, I have a ticket open with Commvault, I have thus far not been able to back up a VM with 2x 1.95 TB disks (I made a different thread about that). Lastly, since the Pool Master host is imported into Commvault as the "hypervisor" instead of XOA, if that particular host is down, the VM backups will all fail since they are configured for a single host.

As for the PowerShell module, I ran through all the commands. I did not see anything for actually changing VM configuration in there, only basic start/stop/reboot stuff.

olivierlambert

If you have some specific features you'd like to have in the Powershell module, feel free to ask our @Team-DevOps

Cyrille

Hi,
If you're familiar with Golang, I'm pretty sure the xenorchestra-go-sdk might be able to do what you want (except the network configuration within Windows, but for this you can use Ansible with Xen Orchestra Inventory plugin: read the blogpost.)

The Powershell module is quite new, and we are working on improving it. Please let us know what you are expecting from it

MK.ultra

@Cyrille said in Automating VM configurations after mass VMware imports:

Hi,
If you're familiar with Golang, I'm pretty sure the xenorchestra-go-sdk might be able to do what you want (except the network configuration within Windows, but for this you can use Ansible with Xen Orchestra Inventory plugin: read the blogpost.)

The Powershell module is quite new, and we are working on improving it. Please let us know what you are expecting from it

Configuration of pool, host, and VM settings would be the primary things I'm used to accomplishing with PowerShell in VMware.

olivierlambert

Okay so let's try to prioritize what you need exactly Can you do a list of the top 5 calls you'd like to have?

MK.ultra

@olivierlambert said in Automating VM configurations after mass VMware imports:

Okay so let's try to prioritize what you need exactly Can you do a list of the top 5 calls you'd like to have?

Well, in terms of the specific goal outlined in the original post:

VM network assignment
VM disable/enable Secure Boot
VM configure HA
VM mount ISO from repository

In general:

Host patching
Host storage addition

olivierlambert

Thanks, this is helpful We'll discuss that with the @Team-DevOps and try to get things implemented!