5.5

Table Of Contents
Retrieve or Modify Groups of Related Sections in a Virtual Machine
The vCloud API provides links that you can use to retrieve or update groups of sections that define related
hardware items such as disks, media devices, and network cards in a Vm element.
As shown in “Example: Configuration Links in a Vm Element,” on page 120, Link elements for disks, media
devices, and network cards are grouped at the end of the VirtualHardwareSection. These links have content
type application/vnd.vmware.vcloud.rasdItemsList+xml, and reference a RasdItemsList element in the
VirtualHardwareSection of a Vm. The vCloud API uses the RasdItemsList element to aggregate related
elements in a VirtualHardwareSection. This approach simplifies retrieval and modification of Item elements
that are typically viewed or modified as a group.
Prerequisites
Verify that you are logged in to the vCloud API as an administrator or vApp Author.
Procedure
1 Retrieve the RasdItemsList from a Vm.
Make a GET request to the URL in the link where
type="application/vnd.vmware.vcloud.rasdItemsList+xml" and rel="down". See “Example: Retrieve
the Hard Disks and Controllers in a Virtual Machine,” on page 142.
2 Modify the items in the retrieved list.
Modified sections must contain all required elements, even if you are not changing their values.
Because optional elements revert to default values if they are omitted or empty, it is a best practice to
include optional elements in updates. Link elements and href attributes from responses do not need to
be included in modified sections. Some elements and attributes might be read-only. See the schema
reference for details.
3 Update the sections with your modifications.
Make a PUT request to the URL in the link where
type="application/vnd.vmware.vcloud.rasdItemsList+xml" and rel="edit", and supply the modified
section as the request body.
The response to this request is a Task element that tracks the update operation. When the task is
complete, the section is updated.
Example: Retrieve the Hard Disks and Controllers in a Virtual Machine
This example uses the virtualHardwareSection/disks link shown in “Example: Configuration Links in a Vm
Element,” on page 120 to retrieve the list of hard disks and hard disk controllers for a virtual machine.
Request:
GET https://vcloud.example.com/api/vApp/vm-4/virtualHardwareSection/disks
Response:
200 OK
Content-Type: application/vnd.vmware.vcloud.rasdItemsList+xml
...
<RasdItemsList
xmlns="http://www.vmware.com/vcloud/v1.5"
xmlns:rasd="http://schemas.dmtf.org/wbem/wscim/1/cim-
schema/2/CIM_ResourceAllocationSettingData"
type="application/vnd.vmware.vcloud.rasdItemsList+xml"
href="https://vcloud.example.com/api/vApp/vm-4/virtualHardwareSection/disks" ... >
<Link
vCloud API Programming Guide
142 VMware, Inc.