Get vmId via pyVmomi

Question

Currently Im using vim-cmd to perform multiple operations in my VMware center.

I'm using SSH paramiko module to connect and retrieve vim-cmd command status:

vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms
vim-cmd vmsvc/power.getstate 13
vim-cmd vmsvc/power.on 13
vim-cmd vmsvc/power.off 13
vim-cmd vmsvc/destroy 13

I want to use pyVmomi library to run some commands and for this it is required to provide the vmId identifier:

from pyvim import connect
from pyVmomi import vim
from pyVmomi import vmodl

vim-cmd vmsvc/get.summary 13
Listsummary:

(vim.vm.Summary) {
   dynamicType = <unset>, 
   vm = 'vim.VirtualMachine:13', 

What command can I use to get the vmId?

Answer 1

What you are calling the vmid is called a ManagedObjectReference or mor, or a moref (within the context of the vSphere Web services API). With pyVmomi there are a couple of ways to get the moref. One is to just print the object. That method will print the moref in a format such that it gives the ManagedObjectType:moref like below. Another way if you just want the actual moref you can access vm._moId. Below is an example using a Datacenter object.

from pyVim.connect import SmartConnect
from pyVmomi import vim
si = SmartConnect(host='10.12.254.137', user='[email protected]', pwd='password')
content = si.RetrieveContent()
children = content.rootFolder.childEntity
for child in children:
    print child

'vim.Datacenter:datacenter-33'
'vim.Datacenter:datacenter-2'
children[0].name
'1000110'
dc = vim.Datacenter('datacenter-33')
dc._stub = si._stub
dc.name
'1000110'

If you want to access an Object using its moref then follow the example I provided. I covered this on my blog here about a year or so ago. You might check out that article for a more in depth explanation.

Answer 2

I've encountered the same thing,
I know it has been a while but I suggest this
hack which works fine for me, I hope you can use it.

buf = ("%s" % (vm.summary.vm))

which for example gives

vim.VirtualMachine:11

now, we wish to extract the number and for python3 it is recommended using regular expression.

import re #regular expression
re.findall('\d+', buf)

which result with a list with 1 element

'11'
type(buf)<br/>
<class 'list'>