vRealize Automation 7
So you are used to using vRA software component properties. You therefore know how powerful they are for performing Guest OS operations during a build request. They can be seen by the user. which is the issue. That is fine if that’s the intention (such as initial password). It can be pain if you want to expose internal properties to a Guest OS. This post explains how to be able to remove software component properties…
Leave a CommentThis post explains how to use a vRA Software Component in vRA to implement a generated VM password (local user within Guest OS) and then display it to the user as part of a VM request. Firstly, create a Software Component or edit an existing one. Add a “Computed” property named “LocalAdminPassword” (or whatever name you prefer). Enter the relevant below code (Bash for Linux or PowerShell for Windows) in the “Configure” life cycle action.…
2 CommentsWith the release of vRA 7.4 came custom forms. Custom forms remove the need for wrapping IaaS and PaaS blueprints behind XaaS blueprints. One of the many benefits is the ability to apply advanced formatting of the layout and fields, including adding images. When adding an image to a form you can set the value to a URL (as below). One of the issues with doing this is the end user who will use the…
3 CommentsI experienced this issue when working on a particular platform, it was a weird one so thought I would document it. The Issue I had a Windows Server 2019 template that I had created and tested deploying within vCenter, no issues at all. I then proceeded to create a blueprint in vRA (vRealize Automation) to allow Windows Server 2019 VMs to be built. Tested a build and failed (timed out and deleted). Windows was just…
Leave a CommentAllowing users to create snapshots against VMs using vRA (vRealize Automation) is great, however left unchecked could cause an issue with snapshots growing too large. I created a vRO workflow that can delete snapshots after they expire. Set the workflow to run on a schedule and never worry about snapshots growing too large ever again. Instructions Download the dev.vautomation.expiredsnapshots.package zip file below Extract the zip file to get the vRO (vRealize Orchestrator) package file Import…
2 CommentsCustom properties (or property definitions) in vRA (vRealize Automation) are very flexible, allowing you to store information against a VM. These custom properties can be used to filter on event subscriptions or the values can be extracted and used within vRO (vRealize Orchestrator) workflows and actions. The downside is once these custom properties have been set during a build they are not easy to change, not to mention if you create new custom properties they…
Leave a CommentEvent subscriptions in vRA (vRealize Automation) are very flexible, allowing you to customise more or less anything you want using vRO (vRealize Orchestrator) code. Since event subscriptions are created in each tenant they can be a bit of a nightmare to manage, especially when things need to change and all tenants should have the same subscriptions. I created a couple of vRO workflows that can “Get” and “Set” event subscriptions via the vRA API. This…
Leave a CommentEver wanted to hide the domain drop down on a vRA (vRealize Automation) tenant login page? This vRO (vRealize Orchestrator) package contains a workflow and actions to allow just that, making vRA (vRealize Automation) more secure and user friendly. Running the workflow will change your tenant login page from this: to this: Instructions Download the dev.vautomation.tenantlogin.package zip file below Extract the zip file to get the vRO (vRealize Orchestrator) package file Import the vRO (vRealize…
Leave a CommentI experienced this issue when working on a particular platform, it was a weird one and took some trial and error to fix so thought I would document it. The Issue When trying to view a NSX XaaS provisioned item it would just display a blank white page. Also if a resource (day 2) action was attempted on the provisioned item a red ‘internal error’ box would be displayed and so the resource (day 2)…
Leave a CommentI experienced this issue while working on a particular platform. It was a weird one so thought I would document it. The Issue Trying to remote console to a VM using the vRealize Automation (vRA) portal would fail with the message… Cannot establish a remote console connection , verify that the machine is powered on if the server has self-signed certificate, you might need to accept certificate, then close and retry the connection. I found…
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