If you know the VimObjectType and MoRef of an object represented in the VMware Cloud Director API, you can use that information to retrieve a URL that you can use to access the object with the vSphere Web Client.

Using the vSphere Web Client to examine an object VMware Cloud Director uses can help a system administrator diagnose problems with resource consumption and allocation. To retrieve the vSphere URL of an object, you must construct a request URL in the following format. 

API-URL/admin/extension/vimServer/id/vimObjType/vimObjMoref/vSphereWebClientUrl
  • API-URL is a URL of the form https://vcloud.example.com/api.
  • id is a unique identifier in the form of a UUID, as defined by RFC 4122. The vimServer object that has this id must be the one that hosts the object that vimObjType and vimObjMoref identify.
  • vimObjType is the vSphere object type, expressed as one of the following strings:
    • CLUSTER_COMPUTE_RESOURCE
    • DATASTORE
    • DATASTORE_CLUSTER
    • DV_PORTGROUP
    • DV_SWITCH
    • FOLDER
    • HOST
    • NETWORK
    • RESOURCE_POOL
    • STORAGE_PROFILE (available from vCenter 5.1 and later)
    • VIRTUAL_MACHINE
  • vimObjMoref is the vSphere managed object reference of the object, as returned by the VMware Cloud Director API.

For an example request URL, see the request portion of Retrieve the vSphere URL of a Resource Pool. All of the information you need to construct the URL is available when you retrieve the XML representation of any of the supported object types. See Retrieve a Resource Pool Set, Retrieve a List of Available Portgroups and Switches from a vCenter Server, and Retrieve a List of Storage Profiles from a vCenter Server.

Note: See Mapping a VMware Cloud Director Object to a vSphere Object for a list of VMware Cloud Director objects and corresponding vSphere objects.

Prerequisites

This operation is restricted to system administrators.

Verify that the vSphere Web Client URL is enabled for all vCenter instances from which you want to retrieve the vSphere URL of an object. You can manage this feature on the General tab of the vCenter details page in the VMware Cloud Director Service Provider Admin Portal.

Procedure

  1. Retrieve the VimObjectType and MoRef elements of the object, and the VimServerRef element of the vSphere server that hosts the object.
  2. Construct a request URL that includes the VimServerRef, VimObjectType, and MoRef elements.
    You can use the value of the href attribute of the VimServerRef element as the vimServer/ id part of the request URL.
  3. Make a GET request to the URL you constructed in Step 2.
    The response contains a URL you can use with the vSphere Web Client. See Retrieve the vSphere URL of a Resource Pool.

Example: Retrieve the vSphere URL of a Resource Pool

This request retrieves the vSphere URL of one of the resource pools referenced in Retrieve a Resource Pool Set.

Request: 
GET https://vcloud.example.com/api/admin/extension/vimServer/9/RESOURCE_POOL/resgroup-195/vSphereWebClientUrl
Response: 
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<vmext:VSphereWebClientUrl
   xmlns:vmext="http://www.vmware.com/vcloud/extension/v1.5"
   ...>
   <vmext:URL>https://10.147.22.134:8443/vsphere-client/#extensionId=vsphere.core.sp.summary;...
   </vmext:URL>
</vmext:VSphereWebClientUrl>

Use the URL that the vmext:URL element contains to access the object with the vSphere Web Client. The URL is truncated in this example.