Automated Registration of Local vSphere Client

You can register your local vSphere Client with the vCenter Server instance using an automated method that applies only to the vCenter Server Appliance.
  • Verify that you have access to the
    vCenter Server Appliance
    .
  • Verify that SSH is enabled on the
    vCenter Server Appliance
    .
  • Verify that the bash shell is enabled on the
    vCenter Server Appliance
    .
    See
    Toggling the vCenter Server Appliance default shell
    , https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2100508.
The SDK provides a registration script that you can run on your development machine. The script connects to the
vCenter Server Appliance
and configures your local Web browser application to interact with it.
  1. Set the environment variable
    VMWARE_CFG_DIR
    to specify the directory where the script will place the configuration files it creates.
    On a Windows development machine, set the variable to
    C:\Program Data\VMware\vCenter Server\cfg
    .
    On a MacOS development machine, set the variable to
    /var/lib/vmware/vsphere-client/
    .
  2. In a command window, navigate to the
    vCenter registration scripts
    folder under
    tools
    in your SDK installation.
  3. Run the registration script with the following parameters:
    • -vcip
      vc server ip
      is the IPv4 address of the vCenter Server instance where you want to register your local vSphere Client.
    • -u
      SSH username
      is the user account to authenticate the SSH connection with the vCenter Server instance.
    • -pw
      SSH password
      is the password for the SSH username.
    • -p
      vc server ssh port
      is the port on which the vCenter Server instance serves the SSH connection. The parameter is optional. The default value is
      22
      .
    • On a Windows development machine, the script is
      server-registration.bat
      .
    • On a MacOS development machine, the script is
      server-registration.sh
      .
    ./server-registration.sh -vcip 192.0.2.1 -u myUser -pw myPassword -p 22
    To view the full list of parameters for the script, use the
    --help
    option.
  4. Start the local
    vSphere Client
    by running the startup script located in
    your_SDK_folder
    /html-client-sdk/vsphere-ui/server/bin
    .
    • On a Windows development machine, the script is
      startup.bat
      .
    • On a MacOS development machine, the script is
      startup.sh
      .
    You might need to make the script executable:
    chmod +x startup.sh
  5. Open a Web browser and log into your local
    vSphere Client
    at
    https://localhost:9443/ui
    .
    Your local
    vSphere Client
    connects to the
    vCenter Server
    instance and displays the vSphere inventory.
You can deploy your custom plug-ins to the local
vSphere Client
and verify whether the plug-ins function properly in your development environment before deploying them on the remote Web browser applications.