You can register your local vSphere Client with the vCenter Server instance using an automated method that applies only to the vCenter Server Appliance.
The SDK provides a registration script that you can run on your development machine. The script connects to the vCenter Server Appliance and configures your local Web browser application to interact with it.
Procedure
- Set the environment variable
VMWARE_CFG_DIR
to specify the directory where the script will place the configuration files it creates.
On a Windows development machine, set the variable to
C:\Program Data\VMware\vCenter Server\cfg
.
On a MacOS development machine, set the variable to
/var/lib/vmware/vsphere-client/
.
- In a command window, navigate to the vCenter registration scripts folder under tools in your SDK installation.
- Run the registration script with the following parameters:
- -vcip vc server ip is the IPv4 address of the vCenter Server instance where you want to register your local vSphere Client.
- -u SSH username is the user account to authenticate the SSH connection with the vCenter Server instance.
- -pw SSH password is the password for the SSH username.
- -p vc server ssh port is the port on which the vCenter Server instance serves the SSH connection. The parameter is optional. The default value is
22
.
- On a Windows development machine, the script is server-registration.bat.
- On a MacOS development machine, the script is server-registration.sh.
./server-registration.sh -vcip 192.0.2.1 -u myUser -pw myPassword -p 22
Note: To view the full list of parameters for the script, use the
--help option.
- Start the local vSphere Client by running the startup script located in your_SDK_folder/html-client-sdk/vsphere-ui/server/bin.
- On a Windows development machine, the script is startup.bat.
- On a MacOS development machine, the script is startup.sh.
Note: You might need to make the script executable:
chmod +x startup.sh
- Open a Web browser and log into your local vSphere Client at https://localhost:9443/ui.
Your local
vSphere Client connects to the
vCenter Server instance and displays the vSphere inventory.
What to do next
You can deploy your custom plug-ins to the local vSphere Client and verify whether the plug-ins function properly in your development environment before deploying them on the remote Web browser applications.