This week I overwhelmed Robert Baumstark with a lot of questions regarding his ViClient.dll. I started with downloading the pre build dll files from Rob’s website and added them as a reference to my Visual Basic application. So far so good, then I pasted the code from Rob under a button and there was trouble in paradise. Rob warned that this code was written into an e-mail without testing and compiling so it could contain some typo’s and I did. Rob gave me a lot of good tips and hints and after a few hours of struggling there began to shine some light at the horizon. The hardest part of writing your own VMware VB application is to understand how the object references can address an object within your VI-3 environment . I took me some time to get a good grip on that subject. When you finally have all the pieces together you can start programming :-). I created a little demo witch query’s the VI-3 environment for information about Virtual Machines. Especially the number of CPU’s but my final goal is to query the VM’s that won’t start automatically when the ESX rebooted. This is the most forgotten setting in the properties of a VM and this topic isn’t covered in the VI3-IC course either. Another function I would like to add to my first application is to query all virtual machines in a DRS cluster for a connection to the CD player. This connection is important when you want to V-Motion a VM to another host. So I am happy to announce that my first handy application has seen the light. When you want to take a look at the source code just scroll down.
Thursday, May 10. 2007
VB Programming with the ViClient.dll
Imports VIClient
Imports VimApi
Public Class Form1
Dim X As New VIClient.VIClient
Dim LogonForm As New VIClient.frmLogin
Dim VM As New VimApi.ManagedObjectReference
Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
LogonForm.aClient = X
If LogonForm.ShowDialog() = Windows.Forms.DialogResult.OK Then
MsgBox(X.ServiceContent.about.build)
VM = (X.Session.FindByDnsName(X.ServiceContent.searchIndex, Nothing, "DNS name of VM", True))
MsgBox(VM.Value)
MsgBox(X.GetDynamicProperty(VM, "config.hardware.numCPU")(0).propSet(0).val)
End If
X.Disconnect()
End Sub
End Class
