Retrieve or Update a Metadata Value

Each name=value pair in an object's metadata is represented as a MetadataEntry element, which includes links that an administrator or the object owner can use to retrieve or update the metadata value, or delete the MetadataEntry.

Prerequisites

• Verify that you are logged in to the VMware Cloud Director API as an administrator or the object owner. Verify that you are logged in to the vCloud Air Compute Service as a Virtual Infrastructure Administrator or the End User who owns this object.

• Retrieve the object's Metadata element. See Retrieve or Update a Metadata Element

Procedure

1. Examine the retrieved Metadata element to find the MetadataEntry you want.
   Each MetadataEntry contains a link of the following form, which you can use when updating the Value of the entry:

   <Link
      rel="edit"
      type="application/vnd.vmware.vcloud.metadata.value+xml"
      href="https://vcloud.example.com/api/admin/object/id/metadata/DOMAIN/key-name" />

   For example:

   <Link
      ...
      href="https://vcloud.example.com/api/admin/org/26/metadata/SYSTEM/LOS/>

2. Retrieve or update the value.
   Make a request to the URL in the value of the href attribute of the MetadataEntry that contains the Key.
   • To retrieve the value, make a GET request to URL in the value of the href attribute of the MetadataEntry. The response is a MetadataValue element.
   • To update the value, make a PUT request to the URL in the edit link described in Step 1, and supply a MetadataValue element as the request body. See .Update a Metadata Value
   Note: The href value of a MetadataEntry in the SYSTEM domain includes the SYSTEM qualifier. The href value of a MetadataEntry in the GENERAL domain does not include a qualifier.

Example: Update a Metadata Value

This request updates the value of the metadata Key named LOS from the original value of bronze (shown in Update a Metadata Element) to a new value of silver. Note that because this MetadataValue is contained by a MetadataEntry where the Domain is SYSTEM and visibility is PRIVATE, only a system administrator can update it.

Request:

PUT https://vcloud.example.com/api/admin/org/26/metadata/SYSTEM/LOS
Content-Type: application/vnd.vmware.vcloud.metadata.value+xml
...
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<MetadataValue
   xmlns="http://www.vmware.com/vcloud/v1.5"
   xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
   <TypedValue
      xsi:type="MetadataStringValue">
      <Value>silver</Value>
   </TypedValue>
</MetadataValue>

This request updates the value of the metadata Key named PenTested from the original value of false (shown in Update a Metadata Element) to a new value of true.

Request:

PUT https://vcloud.example.com/api/vApp/vapp-7/metadata/PenTested
Content-Type: application/vnd.vmware.vcloud.metadata.value+xml
...
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<MetadataValue
   xmlns="http://www.vmware.com/vcloud/v1.5"
   xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
   <TypedValue
      xsi:type="MetadataBooleanValue">
      <Value>true</Value>
   </TypedValue>
</MetadataValue>

The response is a task.

Response:

<Task
   xmlns="http://www.vmware.com/vcloud/v1.5"
   status="running"
   ...
   operationName="metadataUpdate"
   operation="Updating metadata for vApp (7)"
   ... >
   ...     
</Task>