HP BL680c XenServer Software Development Kit Guide 4.1.0 - Page 15

Overview of the XenServer API

9

PBD

A PBD (

Physical Block Device

) object represents an attachment between

a Host and a SR (Storage Repository) object. Fields include "currently-

attached" (which specifies whether the chunk of storage represented

by the specified SR object) is currently available to the host; and

"device_config" (which specifies storage-driver specific parameters that

determines how the low-level storage devices are configured on the specified

host -- e.g. in the case of an SR rendered on an NFS filer, device_config may

specify the host-name of the filer and the path on the filer in which the SR files

live.)

Figure 3.1. Graphical overview of API classes for managing VMs, Hosts, Storage

and Networking

Figure 3.1, “Graphical overview of API classes for managing VMs, Hosts, Storage and Networking” presents

a graphical overview of the API classes involved in managing VMs, Hosts, Storage and Networking. From

this diagram, the symmetry between storage and network configuration, and also the symmetry between

virtual machine and host configuration is plain to see.

3.3. Working with VIFs and VBDs

In this section we walk through a few more complex scenarios, describing informally how various tasks

involving virtual storage and network devices can be accomplished using the API.

3.3.1. Creating disks and attaching them to VMs

Let's start by considering how to make a new blank disk image and attach it to a running VM. We will assume

that we already have ourselves a running VM, and we know its corresponding API object reference (e.g.

we may have created this VM using the procedure described in the previous section, and had the server

return its reference to us.) We will also assume that we have authenticated with the XenServer installation

Section	Page
XenServer Software Development Kit Guide	1
Table of Contents	4
Chapter 1. Introduction	7
Chapter 2. Getting Started	8
2.1. System Requirements and Preparation	8
2.2. Downloading	8
2.3. Installation	8
2.4. What's new	8
2.5. Content Map	8
2.6. Building Samples for the Linux Platform	9
2.7. Building Samples for the Windows Platform	9
2.8. Running the CLI	9
2.8.1. Tab Completion	9
2.9. Accessing SDK reference	9
Chapter 3. Overview of the XenServer API	11
3.1. Getting Started with the API	11
3.1.1. Authentication: acquiring a session reference	11
3.1.2. Acquiring a list of templates to base a new VM installation on	11
3.1.3. Installing the VM based on a template	12
3.1.4. Taking the VM through a start/suspend/resume/stop cycle	12
3.1.5. Logging out	12
3.1.6. \	13
3.2. Object Model Overview	13
3.3. Working with VIFs and VBDs	15
3.3.1. Creating disks and attaching them to VMs	15
3.3.1.1. Creating a new blank disk image	16
3.3.1.2. Attaching the disk image to a VM	16
3.3.1.3. Hotplugging the VBD	17
3.3.2. Creating and attaching Network Devices to VMs	17
3.3.3. Host configuration for networking and storage	17
3.3.3.1. Host storage configuration: PBDs	18
3.3.3.2. Host networking configuration: PIFs	18
3.4. Exporting and Importing VMs	18
3.5. Where to look next	19
Chapter 4. Using the API	20
4.1. Anatomy of a typical application	20
4.1.1. Choosing a low-level transport	20
4.1.2. Authentication and session handling	20
4.1.3. Finding references to useful objects	21
4.1.4. Invoking synchronous operations on objects	21
4.1.5. Using Tasks to manage asynchronous operations	22
4.1.6. Subscribing to and listening for events	22
4.2. Language bindings	23
4.2.1. C	23
4.2.2. C#	24
4.2.3. Python	24
4.2.4. Command Line Interface (CLI)	25
4.3. Complete application examples	25
4.3.1. Simultaneously migrating VMs using XenMotion	25
4.3.2. Cloning a VM via the XE CLI	28
Chapter 5. XenServer API extensions	30
5.1. VM console forwarding	30
5.1.1. Retrieving VNC consoles via the API	30
5.1.2. Disabling VNC forwarding for Linux VM	31
5.2. Paravirtual Linux installation	32
5.2.1. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.1/4.4	32
5.2.2. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.5/5.0	32
5.2.3. SUSE Enterprise Linux 10 SP1	33
5.2.4. CentOS 4.5/5.0	33
5.3. Adding Xenstore entries to VMs	33
5.4. Security enhancements	33
5.5. Advanced settings for network interfaces	34
5.5.1. ethtool settings	34
5.5.2. Miscellaneous settings	35
5.6. Internationalization for SR names	35
5.7. Hiding objects from XenCenter	36

HP BL680c XenServer Software Development Kit Guide 4.1.0 - Page 15

Working with VIFs and VBDs, 3.3.1. Creating disks and attaching them to VMs

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