By default, libvirt and its command virsh are not compiled with the VMware extension:
$ virsh -c esx://192.168.2.202 error: failed to connect to the hypervisor error: unsupported configuration: libvirt was built without the 'esx' driver
Fortunately this ppa has a version with the esx driver in it. Just add it and install it in Ubuntu 12.04 or Ubuntu 13.10:
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:zulcss/esx $ sudo apt-get update $ sudo apt-get install libvirt-bin
In an ESXi host:
$ virsh -c esx://root@192.168.2.200?no_verify=1 list --all Enter root's password for 192.168.2.200: Id Name State ---------------------------------------------------- - 077c7a49-a328-482b-9a9e-e0e0bfbdebd5 shut off - 1b6ea2ac-a24e-4497-b75e-0c53db246e16 shut off - maas-node-1 shut off - nova-compute shut off
Start a VM:
$ virsh -c esx://root@192.168.2.202?no_verify=1 start "vCenter 5.1" Enter root's password for 192.168.2.202: Domain vCenter 5.1 started
In the vCenter Server:
$ virsh -c 'vpx://root@192.168.2.22/Fusion%20Datacenter/Fusion%20Cluster/192.168.2.202?no_verify=1' list --all Enter root's password for 192.168.2.22: Id Name State ---------------------------------------------------- 171 vCenter 5.1 running
More info in the libvirt ESX hypervisor driver documentation web page.
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How would you manage a VM if your setup is using vMotion to balance the esx servers? The VM constantly move between hosts. So even with the VPX protocol, I wouldn’t know which host the VM is currently residing. It doesn’t seem like Virsh has enough support built in to not specify a host.
Hi Jonathan, I don’t have the setup online right now to test it but I believe when the ESXi hosts are part of a vSphere cluster any ESXi host of the cluster can migrate VMs running on another ESXi host of the same Cluster. Having said that, I cannot test it right now. If you have a setup up and running please let me know if it works.
It is probably worth discussing it in the mailing list (http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/libvir-list). In the documentation (http://libvirt.org/drvesx.html#uriformat) they mention it: “A vpx:// connection is currently restricted to a single ESX server. This might be relaxed in the future.” So the developers have had it in mind even if it’s not implemented yet.