{"id":258,"date":"2011-02-01T15:27:35","date_gmt":"2011-02-01T20:27:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/enterpriseadmins.org\/blog\/?p=258"},"modified":"2011-02-01T15:27:35","modified_gmt":"2011-02-01T20:27:35","slug":"vcheck-as-a-vsphere-client-solution-and-application","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/enterpriseadmins.org\/blog\/scripting\/vcheck-as-a-vsphere-client-solution-and-application\/","title":{"rendered":"vCheck as a vSphere Client &#8220;Solution and Application&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve always stored my vCheck report output file in &#8220;C:\\ProgramData\\VMware\\VMware VirtualCenter\\docRoot\\vCheck&#8221;.  I use the file name &#8220;index.html&#8221; for the output file name, which makes it the default document name for that folder.  I&#8217;ve always thought this was a really cool place to put the report, because I can simply type my vCenter server name with a &#8220;\/vCheck&#8221; and see the latest report [for example, http:\/\/vcenter.domain.local\/vCheck].  It automatically rewrites the URL to https just like when you go to the normal vcenter.domain.local URL.<\/p>\n<p>The problem is, what I really wanted all along was for it to open up in vCenter.  (It is also feature request #16 and #17 on the vCheck feature request list)  I looked over the instructions at <a href=\"http:\/\/read.virtualizeplanet.com\/?p=352\">http:\/\/read.virtualizeplanet.com\/?p=352<\/a> and made a sample plugin.  I told it to open https:\/\/vcenter.domain.local\/vCheck and then placed the XML file into my local &#8220;C:\\Program Files\\VMware\\Infrastructure\\Virtual Infrastructure Client\\Plugins&#8221; just for testing.  Re-launching my vCenter client gave me the new tab as expected.  So far, so good.  When clicking my new tab it gave me an error. <\/p>\n<pre>Web Browser Unable to download vCheck from vcenter.domain.local.  Unable to open this Internet site.  The requested site is either unavailable or cannot be found. Please try again later.<\/pre>\n<p>I double checked my plugin XML file and everything was in order.  A little more digging showed that the current &#8216;moref&#8217;, &#8216;serverGuid&#8217;, &#8216;sessionId&#8217; and other query strings were being passed to my document.  It appears that Apache couldn&#8217;t process those query strings, so I decided to look somewhere else.  A little bit of Googling found a nice write up by EMC vSpecialist <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/clintonskitson\">@clintonskitson<\/a>.  The write up is avaialble here: <a href=\"https:\/\/community.emc.com\/message\/522461\">https:\/\/community.emc.com\/message\/522461<\/a>  I created a copy of the index.jsp from &#8220;C:\\Program Files\\VMware\\Infrastructure\\tomcat\\webapps\\ROOT&#8221; and named it &#8220;vCheckRedirect.jsp&#8221;.  I removed nearly all of the code and made the page do a very basic META REFRESH redirect to my existing report.<\/p>\n<p>I then updated my Plugin XML to use https:\/\/vcenter.domain.local:8443\/vCheckRedirect.jsp.  The tab now opens a Java page, which does a simple redirect, which opens my vCheck in a tab.<\/p>\n<p>Thats pretty cool, but still not what I really wanted.  I now have to be in the data center inventory view to see my tab.  I wanted it on the home page under &#8216;Solutions and Applications.&#8217;  You know, where things like Capicity IQ and vCenter Update Manager appear.  <\/p>\n<p>The plugin XML file had an extension parent of &#8220;InventoryView.Datacenter&#8221;.  A little more digging and I found the solution.  The extension parent I really wanted was &#8220;HomeView.Applications&#8221;.  If you want to find more really cool places you could put this, check out the VMware document showing all of your options.  It can be found here: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vmware.com\/support\/developer\/vc-sdk\/vcplugin\/vSphere_Plugin_40_Technote.pdf\">http:\/\/www.vmware.com\/support\/developer\/vc-sdk\/vcplugin\/vSphere_Plugin_40_Technote.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The following articles and dcouments really helped along the way:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/read.virtualizeplanet.com\/?p=352\">http:\/\/read.virtualizeplanet.com\/?p=352<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/community.emc.com\/message\/522461\">https:\/\/community.emc.com\/message\/522461<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.vmware.com\/support\/developer\/vc-sdk\/vcplugin\/vSphere_Plugin_40_Technote.pdf\">http:\/\/www.vmware.com\/support\/developer\/vc-sdk\/vcplugin\/vSphere_Plugin_40_Technote.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n<p>In case anyone wants to try these steps out, I&#8217;ve created a zip file that contains some Instructions and the two files needed &#8212; the plugin XML and the JSP redirect page.  You can get the zip file here: <a href='http:\/\/enterpriseadmins.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/vCheckPlugin.zip'>vCheckPlugin<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>If you test it out, please post a comment below and let me know if it worked.  Thanks!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve always stored my vCheck report output file in &#8220;C:\\ProgramData\\VMware\\VMware VirtualCenter\\docRoot\\vCheck&#8221;. I use the file name &#8220;index.html&#8221; for the output file name, which makes it the default document name for that folder. I&#8217;ve always thought this was a really cool &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/enterpriseadmins.org\/blog\/scripting\/vcheck-as-a-vsphere-client-solution-and-application\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-scripting","category-virtualization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/enterpriseadmins.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/enterpriseadmins.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/enterpriseadmins.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/enterpriseadmins.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/enterpriseadmins.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/enterpriseadmins.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":265,"href":"https:\/\/enterpriseadmins.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258\/revisions\/265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/enterpriseadmins.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/enterpriseadmins.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/enterpriseadmins.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}