Deploying Your Plug-In on a Remote
vSphere Client

You can verify whether your custom plug-in runs as expected by deploying the plug-ins on a remote
vSphere Client
.
You can register your plug-ins with the remote Web browser applications by using one of the following options:
  • Create an
    Extension
    data object and register the data object with the
    ExtensionManager
    by using the Managed Object Browser (MOB) of your
    vCenter Server
    instance.
  • Use the
    vCenter Server
    plug-in registration tool provided with the
    vSphere Client
    SDK.

vCenter Server
Plug-In Registration Tool

The
vSphere Client
SDK provides a tool to ease the registration of custom plug-ins with the
vSphere Client
. You can locate the tool at the
vCenter plugin registration
folder under
html-client-sdk\tools
.
The
prebuilt
folder contains the
extension-registration
script that allows you to register and unregister your plug-ins as extensions to the
vCenter Server
instance. You can also update the registration of an existing plug-in extension to
vCenter Server
.
The
project
folder contains the source code and build scripts for the plug-in registration tool which you can use to extend the logic of the tool.
To use the plug-in registration tool, run the script from the command line by providing the following command-line options:
extension-registration -action
<action>
[-c
<company>
] [-k
<key>
] [-n
<name>
] [-p
<vc pass>
] [-pu
<plugin url>
] [-s
<summary>
] [-show] [-st
<server thumbprint>
] [-u
<vc user>
] [-url
<vc url>
] [-v
<version>
]
Command-Line Options for the Plug-In Registration Tool
Command-Line Option
Description
-action
<action>
The action that the tool must perform. You can choose from the following options:
  • registerPlugin
  • unregisterPlugin
  • isPluginRegistered
  • updatePlugin
-c
or
--company
<company>
The company that developed the plug-in.
-k
or
--key
<key>
The unique extension key that must be the same as the plug-in package ID of your plug-in.
-n
or
--name
<name>
The name of your plug-in.
-url
<vc url>
The URL of the
vCenter Server
instance where you want to register your plug-in. The URL must end with
/sdk
.
-p
or
--password
<vc pass>
The credentials for logging into the
vCenter Server
instance.
-u
or
--username
<vc user>
-pu
or
--pluginUrl
<plugin url>
The URL from which your plug-in package ZIP file is downloaded.
-s
or
--summary
<summary>
The short description of your plug-in.
-show
or
--showInSolutionManager
The plug-in is available under
Administrator
Solutions
vCenter Server Extensions
.
This option is not supported by the
vSphere Client
.
-st
or
--serverThumbprint
<server thumbprint>
The thumbprint of the Web server hosting your plug-in package. This option is required when your plug-in package ZIP file location is a secure URL (HTTPS).
-v
or
--version
<version>
The dot-separated version number of the plug-in package that is defined in the
plugin-package.xml
manifest file.
For example, to register the
com.acme.myplugin
plug-in with version
1.0.0
that is located at
https://150.20.23.254/MyPluginpackage.zip
, use the following command on a Mac OS development machine:
./extension-registration.sh -url https://10.23.222.35/sdk -username administrator@vsphere.local -password administrator -action registerPlugin -key com.acme.myplugin -version 1.0.0 -pluginUrl https://150.20.23.254/MyPluginpackage.zip -serverThumbprint 99:FD:2B:0D:12:85:37:AA:DA:A0:08:E1:F4:3B:4A:E6:08:AC:49:CD
After you register your custom plug-in, log in the
vSphere Client
to verify that the plug-in is visible in the remote
vSphere Client
. You can also use the MOB of your
vCenter Server
instance to view all registered plug-ins.