vSphere Credential Store Subroutine Reference

The ViCredStore package includes the following subroutines:

■

init

■	get_password

■	add_password

■	remove_password

■	clear_passwords

■

get_hosts

■	get_usernames

■

close

init

Initializes the credential store. Call this subroutine once, before any of the other credential store subroutines. The credential store is not created until your program calls add_password.

This subroutine accepts the location of the credential store file. If you do not provide a credential store filename VICredStore::init() looks in the default location.

■	Linux: $HOME/.vmware/credstore/vicredentials.xml

■	Windows: %APPDATA%\VMware\credstore\vicredentials.xml

If no credential store exists at the default location, the initialization process:

■	Checks that the credstore directory exists, and creates one if it does not.

■	Creates the vicredentials.xml file and parent directory.

If you provide a non-default credential store filename to VICredStore::init(), the credential store at that location is used. If there is no credential store at that location and the directory you specify exists, the initialization process creates the file. If the directory you specify does not exist, the initialization process fails.

Parameters

Parameter	Description
filename	Name of credential store file.

Returns

Returns 1 if initialization is successful; otherwise, returns 0.

get_password

Retrieves the password for a specified server and user name.

Parameters

Parameter	Description
server	Server for which you want to retrieve the password for the specified user. Can be an ESX/ESXi or vCenter Server system.
username	User for whom you want to retrieve the password.

Returns

Returns the password, or undef if no password is found.

add_password

Creates a credential store file if none exists and stores the password for a given server and user name.

If a password already exists for that server and user name, add_password overwrites that password.

Parameters

Parameter	Description
server	Server for the new entry. Can be an ESX/ESXi or vCenter Server system.
username	User name for the new entry. VMware recommends that you create a user with appropriate privileges and store the corresponding user name and password in the credential store. Do not use the root or administrator user and the corresponding password.
password	Password for the new entry.

Returns

Returns 1 if a password for this server and user does not exists; otherwise, returns zero.

remove_password

Removes the password for a given server and user name. If no password exists, this method has no effect.

Parameters

Parameter	Description
server	Server from which the password for the specified user is removed. Can be an ESX/ESXi or vCenter Server system.
username	User name for which the associated password is removed.

Returns

Returns 1 if the password existed and was successfully removed; otherwise, returns zero.

clear_passwords

Removes all passwords.

Parameters

No parameters.

Returns

Returns nothing.

get_hosts

Returns a list of all servers that have entries in the credential store.

Parameters

No parameters.

Returns

Returns a list of all servers in the credential store.

get_usernames

For a given server, returns all user names that have an associated password stored in the credential store.

Parameters

server – Server for which all user names are listed.

Returns

Returns a list of all users belonging to the specified server.

close

Closes the credential store, and frees all resources associated with it. If you want to run additional credential store subroutines, you must run init again to reinitialize the credential store.

Call close only once for each credential store initialized by a call to init.

Parameters

No parameters.

Returns

Returns nothing.