HP BL680c XenServer Software Development Kit Guide 4.1.0 - Page 25

Using the API

19

•

permute.py

: selects a set of VMs and uses XenMotion to move them simultaneously between hosts;

•

powercycle.py

: selects a set of VMs and powercycles them;

•

shell.py

: a simple interactive shell for testing;

•

vm_start_async.py

: demonstrates how to invoke operations asynchronously; and

•

watch-all-events.py

: registers for all events and prints details when they occur.

4.2.4. Command Line Interface (CLI)

Rather than using raw XML-RPC or one of the supplied language bindings, third-party software developers

may instead integrate with XenServer Hosts by using the XE CLI

xe.exe

.

CLI dependencies

Platform

supported:

Linux and Windows

Library:

None

Binary:

xe[.exe]

Dependencies:

None

The CLI allows almost every API call to be directly invoked from a script or other program, silently taking

care of the required session management. The XE CLI syntax and capabilities are described in detail in

Chapter 5 of the XenServer Administrator's Guide. The SDK contains 3 example

bash

shell scripts which

demonstrate CLI usage. These are:

•

install-debian

: installs a Debian Etch 4.0 VM, adds a network interface, starts it booting and waits for

the IP address to be reported;

•

clone-vms

: shuts down a VM if it is running, clones it and starts it up again; and

•

suspend-resume

: suspends a running VM and then resumes it.

Note

When running the CLI from a XenServer Host console, tab-completion of both command names

and arguments is available.

4.3. Complete application examples

This section describes two complete examples of real programs using the API. The application source code

is contained within the SDK.

4.3.1. Simultaneously migrating VMs using XenMotion

This python example (contained in

/SDK/client-examples/python/permute.py

) demonstrates how

to use XenMotion to move VMs simultaneously between hosts in a Resource Pool. The example makes

use of asynchronous API calls and shows how to wait for a set of tasks to complete.

The program begins with some standard boilerplate and imports the API bindings module

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 25

Command Line Interface (CLI), 4.3. Complete application examples

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