Subroutines in the Util Package

The Util package includes the following subroutines:

■

connect

■	disconnect

■	get_inventory_path

■

trace

connect

Establishes a session with the vCenter Server or ESX/ESXi Web service by using the token provided in a previously saved session file, or by using the user name and password provided using the command line, environment variables, or a configuration file.

Parameters

Parameter	Description
user_name	User account on the ESX/ESXi or vCenter Server system.
password	Password for the user account.
session_file	Full path and filename for the token saved from a previous successful connection. Use session_file (instead of user_name and password) to reestablish a session to the same server or to establish a new connection to a different server.

Returns

Returns nothing.

disconnect

If used in conjunction with connect and a session file, does nothing. If used in conjunction with a user name and password, logs out and closes the session.

Parameters

No parameters.

Returns

Returns nothing.

get_inventory_path

Returns the inventory path for the specified managed entity, for example, Folder, Datacenter, HostSystem, VirtualMachine, ComputeResource, ClusterComputeResource, or ResourcePool. The resulting inventory path can later be passed to the SOAP operation FindByInventory path to retrieve the ManagedObjectReference for a managed entity (from which a view can be created).

Parameters

Parameter	Description
view	Managed entity view.
vim_instance	Managed object.

Returns

Returns a string that identifies the inventory path of the managed entity.

trace

General-purpose logging function used in conjunction with the --verbose command-line option. Default log level is 0. Passing the --verbose flag without a value sets the level to 1.

Parameters

Parameter	Description
loglevel	Numeric value that specifies the log level. Default is 0.
message	String that specifies the associated loglevel value.

Returns

Returns nothing.