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Table Of Contents
VMware, Inc. 7
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ThevSphereManagementAssistant(vMA)isaSUSELinuxEnterpriseServer11basedvirtualmachinethat
includesprepackagedsoftwaresuchasthevSpherecommandlineinterface,andthevSphereSDKforPerl.
vMAallowsadministratorstorunscriptsoragentsthatinteractwithESXihostsandvCenterServersystems
withouthaving
toauthenticateeachtime.
Thechapterincludesthefollowingtopics:
“vMACapabilities”onpage 7
“vMAComponentOverview”onpage 8
“vMAUseCasesonpage 9
TogetstartedwithvMArightaway,goto“GettingStartedwithvMA”onpage 11.
vMA Capabilities
vMAprovidesaflexibleandauthenticatedplatformforrunningscriptsandprograms.
Asadministrator,youcanaddvCenterServersystemsandESXihostsastargetsandrunscriptsand
programsonthesetargets.Onceyouhaveauthenticatedwhileaddingatarget,youneednotloginagain
whilerunningavSphereCLIcommandoragentonanytarget.
Asadeveloper,youcanusetheAPIsprovidedwiththeVmaTargetLiblibrarytoprogrammatically
connecttovMAtargetsbyusingPerlorJava.
vMAenablesreuseofserviceconsolescriptsthatarecurrentlyusedforESXiadministration,though
minormodificationstothescriptsareusuallynecessary.
vMAcomespreconfiguredwithtwouseraccounts,namely,viadminandviuser.
Asviadmin,youcanperformadministrativeoperationssuchasadditionandremovaloftargets.
You canalsorunvSphereCLIcommandsandagentswithadministrativeprivilegesonthe
added targets.
Asviuser, youcanrunthevSphereCLIcommandsandagentswithreadonlyprivilegesonthe
target.
YoucanmakevMAjoinanActiveDirectorydomainandloginasanActiveDirectoryuser.Whenyourun
commandsfromsuchauseraccount,theappropriateprivilegesgiventotheuseronthevCenterServer
systemortheESXihostwouldbeapplicable.
vMAcanrunagentcodethatmakeproprietaryhardwareorsoftwarecomponentscompatiblewith
VMwareESX.ThesecodecurrentlyrunintheserviceconsoleofexistingESXhosts.Youcanmodifymost
oftheseagentcodetoruninvMA,bycallingthevSphereAPI,ifnecessary.Developersmustmoveany
agentcodethatdirectlyinterfaceswithhardwareintoaprovider.
Introduction to vMA
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