VMware VIEW MANAGER 4.X - EXTENDING VIRTUAL MACHINE DELECTION WITH SCRIPTS, Manual

Technical Note

VMware, Inc.

1

Extending Virtual Machine Deletion 
with Scripts

View Manager 4.x

When

you

delete

a

virtual

machine

from

the

VMware

®

View™

environment,

you

might

want

to

run

your

own

scripts

to

remove

Active

Directory

or

database

entries

that

reference

the

deleted

machine.

This

technical

note

describes

how

to

configure

View

Manager

to

run

such

deletion

scripts

automatically

when

you

delete

a

virtual

machine.

To

enable

a

deletion

script,

you

add

an

entry

for

the

script

to

the

Windows

Registry,

configure

the

account

of

the

user

who

has

the

appropriate

privileges

to

run

the

script,

and

enable

the

VMware

View

Script

Host

service.

You

must

configure

all

View

Connection

Server

hosts

that

need

to

run

deletion

scripts.

There

is

no

mechanism

to

propagate

registry

changes,

VMware

View

Script

Host

service

configuration

changes,

and

deletion

scripts

between

View

Connection

Server

hosts.

Environment Variables

Deletion

scripts

cannot

run

interactively.

A

deletion

script

runs

in

an

environment

created

by

View

Manager,

and

the

script

must

obtain

its

input

data

from

this

environment.

Table 1

shows

the

environment

variables

that

you

can

use.

You

should

ensure

that

a

deletion

script

validates

the

existence

of

any

environment

variable

that

it

uses.

The

following

Visual

Basic

code

fragment

shows

how

to

access

the

environment

variable

for

the

MAC

address

of

the

first

network

interface

of

a

virtual

machine

that

is

being

deleted.

Dim shell
set shell = WScript.CreateObject( "WScript.Shell" )

macAddr0 = shell.ExpandEnvironmentStrings("%VDM_DeleteVm_VmMac.0%")

Table 1.  

Environment Variables for Deletion Scripts

Environment Variable

Description

VDM_DeleteVm_VmName

Name

of

the

virtual

machine

being

deleted.

VDM_DeleteVm_VmDnsName

DNS

name

of

the

virtual

machine

being

deleted.

VDM_DeleteVm_VmDn

Distinguished

name

of

the

virtual

machine

being

deleted.

VDM_DeleteVm_VmPath

Path

in

the

VMware

vCenter™

server

that

manages

the

virtual

machine

being

deleted.

VDM_DeleteVm_PoolDn

Distinguished

name

of

the

pool

that

contains

the

virtual

machine

being

deleted.

VDM_DeleteVm_VcDn

Distinguished

name

of

the

vCenter

server

that

manages

the

virtual

machine

being

deleted.

VDM_DeleteVm_VmMac.<N>

MAC

address

for

the

network

interface

number

of

the

virtual

machine

being

deleted.

VDM_DeleteVm_Error

String

that

describes

a

problem

that

occurred

while

deleting

the

virtual

machine.