Hello. I'm working on a vSphere client plugin using the HTML SDK and I checked the vsphere-wssdk-service project included in the SDK as one of the examples where VimService and VimPortType classes are used to get ServiceContent for a VC and then it's used to work with VC VMODL API. In that project VimPortType instance is statically initialized because it takes several seconds. I made some tests and indeed it takes about 5-6 seconds to create VimPortType instance and since it takes so much time I'm trying to figure out how to effectively reuse that instance so my questions are:

1. Can we reuse VimPortType across multiple requests ? - it is obviously done in wssdk example in the SDK but is that part of the code production ready ?

2. Can we reuse VimPortType across multiple request handlers/dataProviders ? - so that we can initialize it statically on only one place in the server code and reuse it across different request handlers or dataProviders

3. Is VimPortType thread safe so that one instance can be safely used from multiple threads without external synchronization ? - again this is done in wssdk

4. Should we externally handle synchronization for this code from wssdk example (com.vmware.samples.vspherewssdk.DataProviderImpl) (not done in the example) :

      Map<String, Object> reqContext = ((BindingProvider)_vimPort).getRequestContext();

      reqContext.put(BindingProvider.ENDPOINT_ADDRESS_PROPERTY, serviceUrl);

      reqContext.put(BindingProvider.SESSION_MAINTAIN_PROPERTY, true);

      reqContext.put(MessageContext.HTTP_REQUEST_HEADERS, reqHeadrs);

      ServiceContent serviceContent = null;

      try {

         serviceContent = _vimPort.retrieveServiceContent(svcInstanceRef);

      } catch (RuntimeFaultFaultMsg e) {

         _logger.error("getServiceContent error: " + e);

      }

I checked that multiple threads work with a single instance of the data provider with a single instance of the VimPortType (_vimPort reference in the example above). Since _vimPort.requestContext is first modified with the selected VC and user session and then _vimPort.retrieveServiceContent is invoked then the whole block should be synchronized for _vimPort reference. Am I right in my guess or the whole DataProviderImpl.getProperties() is somehow externally synchronized and guaranteed that no simultaneous request are being handled which means in that case that we should not care for synchronization ?

5. And to partially reiterate my previous question - is there any external synchronization performed by vSphere client when handling server request to plugin services ?

We started to build some parts of our plugin in HTML and noticed that in vcenter version 6.0.0.2559267, the flex part of our plugin deploys fine, but the HTML views show this error. It works fine on versions 6.0 U1 and above, but not on this particular build. Was HTML supported on this version of vcenter?

Error: Unsupported plugin dependency type css

at com.vmware.extensionfw::PluginModuleLoader/loadDependency()

at com.vmware.extensionfw::PluginModuleLoader/loadModule()

at com.vmware.extensionfw::PluginClassLoader/onPluginInfoRetrieved()

at com.vmware.extensionfw::PluginClassLoader/instantiate()

at WorkItem_LoadingType()

at com.vmware.flexutil::MxmlDeserializer/xmlToObjectInternal()

at com.vmware.flexutil::MxmlDeserializer/processWorkItems()

at com.vmware.flexutil::PseudoThread/onTimer()

at com.vmware.flexutil::PseudoThread/start()

at com.vmware.flexutil::MxmlDeserializer/xmlToObjectAsync()

at com.vmware.extensionfw::ExtensionObjectParser/parse()

at com.vmware.extensionfw::ExtensionObjectFactory/getObject()

at com.vmware.extensionfw::ExtensionManager/createObjectInternal()

at com.vmware.extensionfw::ExtensionManager/onResourceModulesLoaded()

at com.vmware.extensionfw::MiscUtil$/loadResourceModules()

at com.vmware.extensionfw::ExtensionManager/createObject()

at com.vmware.vsphere.client.views.app::AppViewMediator/showDomainView()

at com.vmware.vsphere.client.views.app::AppViewMediator/activateExtension()

at com.vmware.ui.navigation::NavigationManager/onExtensionHostsRetrieved()

at com.vmware.extensionfw::CallbackUtil$/callback()

at com.vmware.extensionfw::ExtensionManager/getExtensionHosts()

at com.vmware.ui.navigation::NavigationManager/onNavigationRequest()

at com.vmware.vsphere.client.views.app::AppViewMediator/onObjectNavigatorNodeSelected()

at flash.events::EventDispatcher/dispatchEvent()

at mx.core::UIComponent/dispatchEvent()

at com.vmware.ui.objectnavigator::ObjectNavigator/onNodeSelected()

at flash.events::EventDispatcher/dispatchEvent()

at mx.core::UIComponent/dispatchEvent()

at com.vmware.ui.objectnavigator.views::CategoryNodeViewMediator/handleNodeSelection()

at com.vmware.ui.objectnavigator.views::CategoryNodeViewMediator/onNodeSelected()

at flash.events::EventDispatcher/dispatchEvent()

at mx.core::UIComponent/dispatchEvent()

at com.vmware.ui.objectnavigator.views::CategoryNodeListView/nodeSelectionOrFocusChanged()

at com.vmware.ui.objectnavigator.views::CategoryNodeListView/__listView_selectionChanged()

at flash.events::EventDispatcher/dispatchEvent()

at mx.core::UIComponent/dispatchEvent()

at com.vmware.widgets.controls.navigatorclasses::TreeNodeView/onNodeSelected()

at flash.events::EventDispatcher/dispatchEvent()

at mx.core::UIComponent/dispatchEvent()

at com.vmware.widgets.controls.navigatorclasses::TreeNodeItem/setSelectedState()

at com.vmware.widgets.controls.navigatorclasses::TreeNodeItem/setNodeSelected()

at com.vmware.widgets.controls.navigatorclasses::TreeNodeItem/onItemClicked()

Thanks,

Virat

Hi,

Our Flex based UI plugin module has action extension points both on Actions menu (+ right click on object) AND under Manage view. These have filtering criterion so they appear only for certian object types. It works well until someone upgraedes their vSphere Web server to 6.0 u2 or newer. I don't see any errors and didn't find any docuemtation on what has changed... closest I saw was Action menu's are now flattened to top level. Appreciate suggestsions. Am including the plugin file snippet for reference. 

Thanks.

Version 0.9.7 of the tool is available on the Fling site vSphere HTML5 Web Client: download the file plugin-seed-0.9.7.zip. See the attached change-log PDF for the list of changes!  If you have general questions or requests feel free to reply to this thread, but if you need help on a specific area or error please start a new thread with all necessary details. Thanks.

FYI, the following two problems were found after version 0.9.7 was published and are easy to fix:

1)  Clarity Wizard problems in Clarity 0.9.3, fixed in 0.9.4:

=> In seed-ui/package.jsonchange the version of "clarity-angular", "clarity-icons" and "clarity-ui", to 0.9.4, and change the version of "@webcomponents/custom-elements" to 1.0.0-rc.3.

2)  Global refresh handler not working with Flex Client:

=> in seed-ui/src/app/shared/globals.service.ts, line 33 replace:

window.parent["WEB_PLATFORM.refresh" + window.name] = handler;

with

window.parent["WEB_PLATFORM"]["refresh" + window.name] = handler;

I am not sure if this is a bug but I always got the error 'com.sun.xml.internal.ws.fault.ServerSOAPFaultException: Client received SOAP Fault from server: The session is not authenticated. Please see the server log to find more detail regarding exact cause of the failure.' while invoking vSphere API 'hasPrivilegeOnEntity' the first time.

But surprisingly it works well the second time invoking the API.

Plus I don't have this problem while working with Flex SDK.

I attach the detailed error messages and codes which invoke the vSphere API 'hasPrivilegeOnEntity' inside the java service.

Could someone help?

What is the correct way to get and display an icon for a built-in object (e.g. for HostSystem, Datastore, etc.)?

By tracing the standard UI, I can retrieve the "primaryIconId" property from either my own objects or the VMWare-provided ones (HostSystem, Datastore). This returns a string, e.g. "vsphere-icon-datastore". However, passing this into ns.getString() just returns the same text, with "Resource key not found" output to the console. Trying "WEB_PLATFORM.getString("vsphere-icon", "datastore") returns "datastore" with "Bundle not found" on the console.

I found using WEB_PLATFORM.getString("commonImages", "datastore") - but this returns a 24x24 PNG graphic that isn't used in either the HTML or Flex UIs.

Is there a proper Javascript API call and/or example method to get the correct icon that will be consistent with the rest of the VMWare-provided UI?

Hi,

For Web Client 6.0 we performed GUI Automation using the provided solution.

vsphere-webclient-automation-6.0.0-beta.zip - Google Drive

This solution doesn't seem to support Web Client version 6.5.

Is there an existing solution we can obtain or one being worked on which can support 6.5?

Or is there possible a contact who can assist in the matter?

Thanks

Tim

Hi,

I would like to display additional properties to existing vSphere managed entities (e.g. Hostsystem) in the H5/webclient. The additional properties are coming from another source (through an API).

From reading the documentation, I know that in the service layer I need to create a Data Service adapter. However, this comes in two forms:

1) Property Provider Adapter (PPA)

2) Data Provider Adapter (DPA)

I would like to know which of these (or both) I need to create?

I was thinking that I need to create a PPA because the documentation says this:

"Property Provider Adapters

You create a Property Provider Adapter to allow the Data Service to access new properties for existing 

vSphere objects, such as virtual machines or hosts. For example, your vSphere environment might contain 

custom virtual machines or hosts that provide extra properties not normally available through the Data

Service. You can create a Property Provider Adapter to extend the Data Service to fetch these additional

properties."

However, it also looks like a PPA can only be used to collect properties from vCenter?

Could you please advise what is the correct approach to being able to achieve this please? 

Many thanks.

Hello, I'm developing a new html 5 web client plugin (sdk 6.5), I want to add a summary for our custom object. The summary should have header and two or three portlets.

In the old flex sdk we added 

[2017-05-25 23:25:45.806] [ERROR] TCP Connection(9)-127.0.0.1 org.eclipse.virgo.medic.eventlog.default DE0002E Installation of bundle 'com.company.hi' version '5.0.0' failed. org.eclipse.virgo.kernel.osgi.framework.UnableToSatisfyBundleDependenciesException: Unable to satisfy dependencies of bundle 'com.company.hi' at version '5.0.0': Cannot resolve: com.company.hi

  Resolver report:

  An Import-Package could not be resolved. Resolver error data <Import-Package: org.springframework.http; version="3.1.4">. Caused by missing constraint in bundle <com.company.hi_5.0.0>

  constraint: <Import-Package: org.springframework.http; version="3.1.4">

vSphere web client version: Version 5.5.0 Build 1588022

This works fine on 6.0 and 6.5 vCenter, but not on 5.5.1. I can see the jars on the server but for some reason it is unable to pick it up

localhost:/usr/lib/vmware-vsphere-client # find . -name *spring-web*

./server/repository/ext/spring-web-3.1.2.RELEASE.jar

./server/repository/ext/spring-webmvc-3.1.2.RELEASE.jar

./server/repository/ext/spring-webmvc-portlet-3.1.2.RELEASE.jar

localhost:/usr/lib/vmware-vsphere-client # pwd

/usr/lib/vmware-vsphere-client

in my MANIFEST.MF I have the following under import-packages

Import-Package: org.apache.commons.logging,

org.springframework.flex.core,

flex.messaging,

com.vmware.vise.usersession,

com.vmware.vise.data,

com.vmware.vise.data.query,

com.vmware.vise.data.uri,

com.vmware.vise.vim.data,

javax.activation,

javax.xml.ws,

javax.net.ssl,

javax.jws,

javax.servlet.http,

javax.xml.bind,

javax.xml.bind.annotation,

javax.xml.datatype,

javax.xml.namespace,

org.springframework.http,

org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation,

org.springframework.stereotype,

org.springframework.util,

org.springframework.web.bind.annotation,

org.springframework.web.servlet

Hi,

We have a couple of global view extensions (vise.global.views) with global refresh event(DataRefreshInvocationEvent) extended.

Method onGlobalRefreshRequest will be called even if the view is not active.As per  laurentsd answer in Re: Inventory Refresh or Global Refresh event on webclient UI  thread. we need to check for _contextObject null value to avoid this.

But problem is global views wouldn't have any context. Even if we implement the IContextObjectHolderinterface, web client framework won't set context objects for global view extensions.

So how could we check of the view is active or not?

It seems this is a design short-come or a memory leak.

NOTE: Our plugin is flex based one and using vSphere client sdk v6.0.

Thanks,

Sravan

I'm trying to use a portlet on VM summary view and the content of my portlet is bigger but the portlet does not resize and instead a vertical scroll bar is displayed in the portlet which scrolls the content. Is there any way to specify portlet size for example in plugin.xml or anywhere else or force it somehow to update its size so that the content is not scrolled ? I'm not trying to make it wider - I see that's fixed but I need to make it longer like some of the platform portlets that are already on the VM summary view.

In plugin.xml, is there any straightforward way to apply a metadata filter for the vCenter version? May be any Global property that can be used like Global.Licenses?

OR this has to be done via a custom PropertyProviderAdapter?

<extension id="com.mycomp.host.monitor">

      <extendedPoint>vsphere.core.host.monitorCategories</extendedPoint>
      <object>
         <label>#{mycomp.hostmonitor.label}</label>
      </object>
   </extension>
   <extension id="com.mycomp.host.monitor.gettingstarted">
      <extendedPoint>vsphere.core.host.monitorViews</extendedPoint>
      <object>
         <name>#{gettingStarted.label}</name>
         <categoryUid>com.mycomp.host.monitor</categoryUid>
         <componentClass className="com.vmware.vsphere.client.htmlbridge.HtmlView">
            <object>
               <root>
                  <url>/vsphere-client/mysample/resources/monitor_GettingStarted.html</url>
               </root>
            </object>
         </componentClass>
      </object>
<metadata>
<???? for vCenter version????>
</metadata>
   </extension>

Our plugin has 3 parts inside its zip file

UI-1.war -> Flex UI components

UI-2.war -> HTML UI components

service.jar -> Java services for both UI components.

The plugin installs and works fine on both clients, but fails when we upgrade the plugin by changing the version in the ExtensionManager. The flex client downloads and updates the plugin just fine. On the other hand, the HTML5 client does the following

1. Un-deploys the older version -> Any users already logged and using the plugin cannot use the plugin anymore. (the flex client does not do any such thing)
2. Tries to deploy the new version and fails
3. No error logs at all, it looks like it passes all the checks and then just stops working.

Is there any logging I can increase to see what is happening?

Virat

Problem:

Opening a page in my plugin on Vcenter Vsphere WebClient with images and CSS and JS file associated. In the JS i have a method which opens up a Modal Dialog box on a click action. When i close the modal dialog, the icons and images on the original page get bigger, and also some css is lost on some other elements. I also cannot find the JS file associated with the page.

When i tried debugging it, i set breakpoints before and after closing the Dialog box. It turns out that WEB_PLATFORM loses its reference after the dialog box is closed. It turns out to be null.

Solutions Tried:

I tried saving the WEB_PLATFORM and using it after closing but that doesnt work. I also tried a shallowcopy of the same and using it later but that doesnt work either.

Note: The problem persists only on IE and Chrome. Mozilla Firefox works perfectly as it is supposed to.

Any help would be great.

Thank you.

When viewing one of my custom objects (e.g. on its Summary view), the client does not receive a refresh event after an action is performed (using the "Actions" drop-down menu). Is this a known issue, or something not covered in the "chassis-b" sample? Is there a way to ensure that the client is updated?

I really hope this is a bug (or an error in my plugin) rather than by design. This issue means that stale information is always left in the main UI after performing an action, which is a really poor user experience. I hope I've missed something here - otherwise, it seems the "Actions" drop-down is basically unusable for HTML plugins.

I have used the setGlobalRefreshHandler() call to register the refresh callback, and it is called correctly when manually clicking on the Refresh button in the VMWare toolbar.

I have set the action handler in the service Java code to call actionResult.setObjectChangedResult(), and I can see the VMWare-controlled fields (on the navigation pane, and in the title of my summary page to the left of the "Actions" drop-down menu) update when the action completes.

Even the Refresh icon in the VMWare toolbar turns into the spinning busy icon as the action occurs, before returning to its static image - but my refreshData() function is never executed unless the user manually clicks the Refresh button.

Any suggestions/solutions much appreciated!

    There is something wrong with HTML plug-ins running on the flex-base vSphere Client(version 6.0) on  IE(version 11) , the problem shows that the action extension of datacenter cannot display completely and it blocks users' operations.

Dear all.

I am developping a vCenter plugin by using vSphere Web Client SDK. But when we click a button in the screen, it suspend for a while, then an error popup is showed (faultCode:Server.Processing faultString:'org.eclipse.gemini.blueprint.service.ServiceUnavailableException : service matching filter=[(objectClass=com.service.ISettingService)] unavailable' ).

The log contains:

The following exception occurred during request processing by the BlazeDS MessageBroker and will be serialized back to the client:  flex.messaging.MessageException: org.eclipse.gemini.blueprint.service.ServiceUnavailableException : service matching filter=[(objectClass=com..service.ISettingService)] unavailable 

Caused by: org.eclipse.gemini.blueprint.service.ServiceUnavailableException: service matching filter=[(objectClass=com.service.ISettingService)] unavailable

Timer-0                       com.vmware.vise.util.debug.SystemUsageMonitor                     
 Heap     : init = 268435456(262144K) used = 559635432(546518K) committed = 778502144(760256K) max = 778502144(760256K)
 non-Heap : init = 12746752(12448K) used = 88618784(86541K) committed = 88735744(86656K) max = 301989888(294912K)
 No of loaded classes : 20720
 Live Thread Count : 4
 Peak Thread Count : 184
 Daemon Thread Count : 97

Do you know what is the problem?

Is there any documentation on how to debug deployment failures? Also, are there any plans to provide a better installation method in the future? Requiring end users to install Java on a workstation just to be able to run a JAR file that they have to run and provide with server names, credentials etc, that then downloads the actual package from a remote server is a pretty unpleasant experience. Shouldn't it be possible to simply install the plugin directly via the web UI itself (either the package or at least the XML file)?

I've looked through the SDK documents and the online "Deploying a Plug-in Package" instructions here:

VMware vSphere 6.5 Documentation Library

However, this only says to search for your plugin ID and that it should show up if it was successful - nothing about what to look for if it fails, or how to diagnose it further.

I'm using the example registration code from the 6.5.0 SDK to install on a clean 6.5.0 RTM VCSA, with just the necessary parameters changed to match my plugin.

Looking at the extension under ExtensionManager in the MOB browser, everything looks correct (comparing against the XML in the documentation), and the thumbprint is the "SHA1 Fingerprint" string shown Firefox from the server when accessing the extension URL (that seems to be the expected format - a sequence of capitalized two-digit hex values separated by colons - which also isn't mentioned in the documentation).

Downloading the "appliance/support-bundle" file and searching it, I can see the HTTPS server in the "arp_-a.txt" file, indicating that the appliance has at least attempted to resolve the server, and found the correct IP address for it.

Looking for the plugin ID, in "lstool.txt" the it shows up at the end but with ".label" appended to the name - is this expected? No ".label" exists in the registration. This section of "lstool.txt" looks like:

Name: com.mycompany.myplugin.label

Description: com.mycompany.myplugin.summary

Service Product: com.vmware.cis

Service Type: com.mycompany.myplugin

Service ID: 35f74426-d8e0-4c8a-a53b-eacf04c9c0e7_com.mycompany.myplugin

Site ID: csdeploytest

Node ID: 83dcfb4e-fac6-4d4a-a0e7-bee43f1334a7

Owner ID: vpxd-83cc8c46-ad5c-493f-ac6d-ac072360cecc@vsphere.local

Version: 1.0.0

There is a ".properties" file under "vmware-sca/services" for my plugin:

#Wed Jun 07 17:05:58 UTC 2017

controlScriptPath=dummy_path

serviceType.type=com.mycompany.myplugin

serviceName=35f74426-d8e0-4c8a-a53b-eacf04c9c0e7_com.mycompany.myplugin

unsupportedActions=START,STOP,RESTART,SET_STARTUPTYPE

serviceType.product=com.vmware.cis

serviceDescriptionResourceKey=com.mycompany.myplugin.summary

serviceNameResourceKey=com.mycompany.myplugin.label

"ciscli.log" and "cm.log" show lines saying the service was registered (3 and 1 respectively). "sca.log" has a warning which seems odd (given the service name does show up elsewhere):

2017-06-07T17:05:58.445Z [Thread-4 WARN  com.vmware.sca.registration.Services] Failed to process service definition; file:'/etc/vmware-sca/services/35f74426-d8e0-4c8a-a53b-eacf04c9c0e7_com.mycompany.myplugin.properties' [java.lang.Exception: 'serviceName' missing]

"lookupServer.log" has an odd message that references the plugin relating to "ldap_search_s", but I don't understand it at all (why would the plugin name be used by LDAP at all?):

[2017-06-07T17:05:58.194Z ERROR] [OpenLdapClientLibrary] Exception when calling ldap_search_s: base=cn=35f74426-d8e0-4c8a-a53b-eacf04c9c0e7_com.mycompany.myplugin,cn=ServiceRegistrations,cn=LookupService,cn=CSDeployTest,cn=sites,cn=configuration,dc=vsphere,dc=local, scope=2, filter=(objectclass=*), attrs=null, attrsonly=0

com.vmware.identity.interop.ldap.NoSuchObjectLdapException: No such object

There is an error in "vmdird-syslog.log" but it looks harmless (just a check if the plugin already exists before adding the key for it?):

17-06-07T17:05:58.193453+00:00 err vmdird  t@139623003055872: VmDirSendLdapResult: Request (99), Error (32), Message (DNToEID (9703)((MDB_NOTFOUND: No matching key/data pair found)(cn=35f74426-d8e0-4c8a-a53b-eacf04c9c0e7_com.mycompany.myplugin,cn=serviceregistrations,cn=lookupservice,cn=csdeploytest,cn=sites,cn=configuration,dc=vsphere,dc=local))), (0) socket (127.0.0.1)

17-06-07T17:05:58.237094+00:00 info vmdird  t@139623003055872: Add Entry (cn=35f74426-d8e0-4c8a-a53b-eacf04c9c0e7_com.mycompany.myplugin,cn=ServiceRegistrations,cn=LookupService,cn=CSDeployTest,cn=sites,cn=configuration,dc=vsphere,dc=local)

"vpxd-7.log" is full of lots of "Default resource used" referencing my plugin, but has similar messages for lots of VMWare-provided components so I'm assuming they aren't important.

"vsm.log" seems to show the extension being registered:

2017-06-07T17:05:58.573Z  INFO [Thread-3] VCenterExtensionList.java 150 - Adding extension 'com.mycompany.myplugin' to the set of registered extensions

That's all the places that my plugin's name appears in the logs as far as I can see.

Can you provide any hints as to how to diagnose this further, either using the details above, or by giving next-steps / places to look?