Released 2 Apr 2020 Build 16453907 is the 7.0 release of the vSphere SDK for Perl. Important: The vSphere SDK for Perl 7.0 build has been updated as of 25 Jun 2020 to fix an API version issue in the request header. Release notes last updated on 5 Mar 2021. Check frequently for additions and updates to these release notes.

vSphere SDK for Perl 7.0 Release Notes

Welcome to the vSphere SDK for Perl 7.0 release notes.

The vSphere SDK for Perl provides an easy-to-use Perl scripting interface to the vSphere Web Services API.

About the vSphere SDK for Perl

The vSphere SDK for Perl is a client-side Perl framework that provides an easy-to-use scripting interface to the vSphere Web Services SDK . Administrators and developers who are familiar with Perl can use the vSphere SDK for Perl to automate a wide variety of administrative, provisioning, and monitoring tasks in the vSphere environment. The vSphere SDK for Perl includes ready-to-use utility applications, which you can immediately put to use in your virtual data center.

The vSphere SDK for Perl installation includes the WS-Management Perl Library, which allows you to write scripts that retrieve CIM data from the ESX host using CIMOM, a service that provides standard CIM management functions over a WBEM (Web-Based Enterprise Management).

You can use the vSphere SDK for Perl to manage ESXi 6.x, ESXi 7.x, vCenter Server 6.x, and vCenter Server 7.x.

What's New in vSphere SDK for Perl 7.0

Installer — This release does not include vSphere CLI as part of the installer package. The new installer is based on the deprecated vSphere CLI installer, but contains only vSphere SDK for Perl components. ESXCLI components are available as a separate package.

OS support — This release adds support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7.5 (Server) 64-bit and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7.6 (Server) 64-bit.

Updated libraries — This release includes updated libraries that add support for ESXi 7.0 and vCenter Server 7.0. If you have an earlier version installed on your system, you must replace the existing libraries with the new libraries.

Feature and Support Notice

Starting with vSphere 7.0, the vSphere CLI package will no longer be released and is replaced by API-based modern tools such as ESXCLI, rESXTOP, and DCLI. For more information on these tools, visit code.vmware.com.

Supported Platforms

For this release, vSphere SDK for Perl is supported on the following Linux platforms:

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6.6 (Server) — 64-bit
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7.1 (Server) — 64-bit
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7.3 (Server) — 64-bit
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7.5 (Server) — 64-bit
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7.6 (Server) — 64-bit
• Ubuntu 12.04 (LTS) — 64-bit
• Ubuntu 14.04 (LTS) — 64-bit
• Ubuntu 15.10 (LTS) — 64-bit
• Ubuntu 16.04 (LTS) — 64-bit
• SLES 11 SP3 — 64-bit
• SLES 12 — 64-bit

For this release, vSphere SDK for Perl is supported on the following Windows platforms:

• Windows 8 (64-bit)
• Windows 10 (64-bit)
• Windows 2008 (64-bit)
• Windows 2012 R2 (64-bit)

Resolved Issues

• vSphere SDK for Perl fails to install on RHEL 6.6 with no direct Internet access
  If you try to to install vSphere SDK for Perl on a system that runs RHEL 6.6 and uses a proxy network to connect to the Internet, the installation fails.

Known Issues

• Retrieving task information fails

  When you query a recent task list against ESXi 7.0 or later, you receive an error message of type Can't load class 'vslmCatalogChangeResult'.

• Obtaining objects of different types requires multiple calls to the Vim::get_views() subroutine
  The Vim::get_views() subroutine takes a reference to an array of managed object references and returns a reference to an array of view objects. Although the array can contain multiple managed object types, objects of only one type can be obtained at the same time.

  Workaround: You can call get_views() multiple times to obtain multiple object types. Or you can specify the appropriate base class (rather than a specific subclass) as the view type to access values of properties that are common across all objects based on the superclass. For example, view_type = 'ManagedEntity' allows you to retrieve all objects that extend from this base class (VirtualMachine, HostSystem, Folder, ResourcePool, and so on).

• Must use encoded representation when constructing filters that recognize names containing certain special characters
  Based on what the vSphere Web Services API returns, a few property values, such as ManagedEntity.name, VirtualMachineConfigInfo.name, and VirtualMachineConfigSpec.name, are returned with the characters ’/’, ’\’, and ’%’ encoded as %2f, %5c, and %25.

  For example, if you have a Folder named My%Folder, its name is returned as My%25Folder. If you want to construct a filter that recognizes names containing slashes or percent signs, you must use the encoded representation.

  Workaround: To match a name that contains a percent sign, write:
  filter => { name => qr/%25/ }
  You cannot perform a match on percent sign alone, because a percent sign alone also matches other characters that are preceded by a percent escape character.
  filter => { name => qr/%/ } # wrong;
  You must use case-insensitive matching for escape character sequences that contain alpha characters:
  filter => { name => qr/%2f/i } # matches %2f and %2F