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govc

govc is a vSphere CLI built on top of govmomi.

The CLI is designed to be a user friendly CLI alternative to the GUI and well suited for automation tasks. It also acts as a test harness for the govmomi APIs and provides working examples of how to use the APIs.

Installation

Docker

The official govc Docker image is built from the Dockerfile.

A separate govc runner image is also available, built from Dockerfile.govc.runner, which provides a minimal Alpine-based image allowing both govc and shell commands to be run.

Binaries

You can find prebuilt govc binaries on the releases page.

You can download and install a binary locally like this:

# Extract govc binary to /usr/local/bin.
# Note: The "tar" command must run with root permissions.
curl -L -o - "https://github.com/vmware/govmomi/releases/latest/download/govc_$(uname -s)_$(uname -m).tar.gz" | tar -C /usr/local/bin -xvzf - govc

Source

Install via go install

To build govc from source, first install the Go toolchain. You can then install the latest govc from GitHub using:

cd $(mktemp -d) && git clone github.com/vmware/govmomi . && go -C govc install

Note: To inject build variables (see details below) used by govc version [-l], GOFLAGS can be defined and are honored by go get.

[!tip] Make sure $GOPATH/bin is in your PATH to use the version installed from source.

If you've made local modifications to the repository, you can install with the following command from inside the ./govc package:

go install .

You can also use the following command from the root of the project:

go -C govc install

Install via goreleaser

You can also build govc following our release process using goreleaser (requires Go toolchain).

This will ensure that build time variables are correctly injected. Build (linker) flags and injection are defined in .goreleaser.yaml and automatically set as GOFLAGS when building with goreleaser.

Install goreleaser as per the installation instructions, then:

git clone https://github.com/vmware/govmomi.git
cd govmomi

# pick a tag (>=v0.50.0)
RELEASE=v0.50.0

git checkout ${RELEASE}

# Build for the host OS/ARCH, otherwise omit --single-target
# Binaries are placed in respective subdirectories in ./dist/
goreleaser build --clean --single-target

Usage

For the complete list of commands and flags, refer to the USAGE documentation.

Common flags include:

  • -u: ESX or vCenter URL (e.g., user:pass@host)
  • -debug: Trace requests and responses (to ~/.govmomi/debug)

Managed entities can be referred to by their absolute path or by their relative path. For example, when specifying a datastore to use for a subcommand, you can either specify it as /mydatacenter/datastore/mydatastore, or as mydatastore. If you're not sure about the name of the datastore, or even the full path to the datastore, you can specify a pattern to match. Both /*center/*/my* (absolute) and my*store (relative) will resolve to the same datastore, given there are no other datastores that match those globs.

The relative path in this example can only be used if the command can unambiguously resolve a datacenter to use as origin for the query. If no datacenter is specified, govc defaults to the only datacenter, if there is only one. The datacenter itself can be specified as a pattern as well, enabling the following arguments: -dc='my*' -ds='*store'. The datastore pattern is looked up and matched relative to the datacenter which itself is specified as a pattern.

Besides specifying managed entities as arguments, they can also be specified using environment variables. The following environment variables are used by govc to set defaults:

  • GOVC_URL: URL of ESX or vCenter instance to connect to.

    The URL scheme defaults to https and the URL path defaults to /sdk. This means that specifying user:pass@host is equivalent to https://user:pass@host/sdk.

    If username or password includes special characters like \, # or : you can use GOVC_USERNAME and GOVC_PASSWORD to have a simple GOVC_URL

    When using govc against VMware Workstation, GOVC_URL can be set to "localhost" without a user or pass, in which case local ticket based authentication is used.

  • GOVC_USERNAME: Username to use if not specified in GOVC_URL.

  • GOVC_PASSWORD: Password to use if not specified in GOVC_URL.

  • GOVC_TLS_CA_CERTS: Override system root certificate authorities.

    export GOVC_TLS_CA_CERTS=~/.govc_ca.crt
# Use path separator to specify multiple files:
export GOVC_TLS_CA_CERTS=~/ca-certificates/bar.crt:~/ca-certificates/foo.crt

  • GOVC_TLS_KNOWN_HOSTS: File(s) for thumbprint based certificate verification.

    Thumbprint based verification can be used in addition to or as an alternative to GOVC_TLS_CA_CERTS for self-signed certificates.

    export GOVC_TLS_KNOWN_HOSTS=~/.govc_known_hosts
govc about.cert -u host -k -thumbprint | tee -a $GOVC_TLS_KNOWN_HOSTS
govc about -u user:pass@host

  • GOVC_TLS_HANDSHAKE_TIMEOUT: Limits the time spent performing the TLS handshake.

  • GOVC_INSECURE: Disable certificate verification.

    This option sets Go's tls.Config.InsecureSkipVerify flag and is false by default.

    [!NOTE] InsecureSkipVerify controls whether a client verifies the server's certificate chain and host name.

    If InsecureSkipVerify is true, TLS accepts any certificate presented by the server and any host name in that certificate.

    In this mode, TLS is susceptible to man-in-the-middle attacks. This should be used only for testing.

    Reference

  • GOVC_DATACENTER: Name of the datacenter to use as default.

  • GOVC_DATASTORE: Name of the datastore to use as default.

  • GOVC_NETWORK: Name of the network to use as default.

  • GOVC_RESOURCE_POOL: Name of the resource pool to use as default.

  • GOVC_HOST: Name of the host system to use as default.

  • GOVC_GUEST_LOGIN: Guest credentials for guest operations.

  • GOVC_VIM_NAMESPACE: Vim namespace. Defaults to urn:vim25.

  • GOVC_VIM_VERSION: Vim version. Defaults to 6.0.

  • GOVC_VI_JSON: Uses JSON transport instead of SOAP. (Experimental; usable only for vim25 APIs in vCenter 8.0u1)

Troubleshooting

Verbose Flag

The -verbose flag writes request and response data to stderr, in a format more compact than the -trace or -debug flags.

The output includes the request method name with abbreviated input parameters. The response data is more detailed and may include structures formatted as Go code, such as Task property updates. The value of some properties will the govc object.collect command that can be used to view the actual value.

Trace flag

The -trace flag writes HTTP request and response data to stderr. XML bodies are formatted using xmlstarlet if installed and JSON bodies using jq if installed. Formatting can be disabled via export GOVC_DEBUG_FORMAT=false.

If both -trace and -verbose flags are specified, request and response data is formatted as Go code.

Debug Flag

The-debug flag traces vSphere API calls similar to the -trace flag, but saves to files rather than stderr. When the -debug flag is specified, the default behavior is to put the output in ~/.govmomi/debug/<run timestamp>. In that directory will be four (4) files per API call.

1-0001.req.headers #headers from the request sent to the API
1-0001.req.xml #body content from request sent to the API
1-0001.res.headers #headers from the response from the API
1-0001.res.xml #body from the response from the API

In that filename the 0001 represents the an incremented call order and will increment for each time the SOAP client makes an API call.

To configure the debug output you can use two environment variables.

  • GOVC_DEBUG_PATH: defaults to ~/.govmomi/debug
  • GOVC_DEBUG_PATH_RUN: defaults to timestamp of the run

The debug-format script can be used to format the debug output similar to the -trace flag.

Print Version Information

For troubleshooting and when filing issues, get build related details with:

govc version -l

stderr debug

If you prefer debug output to be sent to stderr and seen while the command is running you can override the file behavior by setting the debug path to a dash: export GOVC_DEBUG_PATH=-

Environment variables

If you're using environment variables to set GOVC_URL, verify the values are set as expected:

govc env

Connection Issues

Check your proxy settings:

env | grep -i https_proxy

Test connection using curl:

curl --verbose -k -X POST https://x.x.x.x/sdk

Status

Changes to the CLI are subject to semantic versioning.

Refer to the CHANGELOG for version to version changes.

When new govc commands or flags are added, the PATCH version will be incremented. This enables you to require a minimum version from within a script, for example:

govc version -require 0.24

License

govc is available under the Apache 2 license.

Name

Pronounced "go-v-c", short for "Go(lang) vCenter CLI".
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