vCloud Tools

A collection of tools for provisioning in vCloud Director.

vCloud Tools is a meta-gem that depends on the tools listed below.

You can install the individual gems you require, or you can include or install vcloud-tools which will give you all of the below.

vCloud Launcher

A tool that takes a YAML configuration file describing a vDC, and provisions the vApps and VMs contained within.

( gem in RubyGems | code on GitHub )

vCloud Net Launcher

A tool that takes a YAML configuration file describing vCloud networks and configures each of them.

( gem in RubyGems | code on GitHub )

vCloud Walker

A gem that reports on the current state of an environment.

( gem in RubyGems | code on GitHub )

vCloud Edge Gateway

A gem to configure a VMware vCloud Edge Gateway.

( gem in RubyGems | code on GitHub )

vCloud Core

The gem that handles the interaction with the vCloud API, via Fog.

vCloud Core also comes with command line tool, vCloud Query, which exposes the vCloud Query API.

( gem in RubyGems | code on GitHub )

Installation

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'vcloud-tools'

And then execute:

$ bundle

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install vcloud-tools

Installing vCloud Tools will install all of the tools listed above.

Credentials

vCloud Tools is based around fog. To use it you'll need to give it credentials that allow it to talk to a vCloud Director environment.

1. Create a '.fog' file in your home directory.

For example:

  test_credentials:
    vcloud_director_host: 'host.api.example.com'
    vcloud_director_username: 'username@org_name'
    vcloud_director_password: ''

2. Obtain a session token. First, curl the API:

    curl -D- -d '' \
        -H 'Accept: application/*+xml;version=5.1' -u '<username>@<org_name>' \
        https://<host.api.example.com>/api/sessions
   

This will prompt for your password.

From the headers returned, the value of the x-vcloud-authorization header is your session token, and this will be valid for 30 minutes idle - any activity will extend its life by another 30 minutes.

3. Specify your credentials and session token at the beginning of the command. For example:

    FOG_CREDENTIAL=test_credentials \
        FOG_VCLOUD_TOKEN=AAAABBBBBCCCCCCDDDDDDEEEEEEFFFFF= \
        vcloud-launch node.yaml
   

You may find it easier to export one or both of the values as environment variables.

NB It is also possible to sidestep the need for the session token by saving your password in the fog file. This is not recommended.

Contributing

Contributions are very welcome. Please see the individual tools for contributing guidelines.