TL-DR

On a clean VM as root

apt install python3-pip git
git clone https://github.com/Kodomo/esxi-vm
pip3 install paramiko pyyaml
cd esxi-vm
make install

then, as a normal user you setup your credentials and create a VM

esxi-vm-create -u -H esxi.host.local -U root -P My!Secure#Password
esxi-vm-create -n TestDebian8VM

the VM is fully compatible with VMWare ESXi 6.0

Introduction

This utility is a simple to use command line tool to create or destroy VMs on an ESXi host from from a system running python and SSH. vCenter is not required. This tool is an easy way to automate building VM's from command line or from other testing or automation tools such as Bamboo, Puppet, Saltstack, or Chef.

Requirements

• You must enable SSH access on your ESXi server. The VMware VIX API tools are not required.

• It's highly recommenced to use password-less authentication by copying your SSH public keys to the ESXi host, otherwise your ESXi root password could be stored in clear-text in your home directory.

• Python 3, paramiko and PyYAML:

apt install python3-pip
pip3 install paramiko pyyaml

Usage

• Get help using --help option. The defaults will be displayed in the help output.

• The only command line required parameter is the VM name (-n), all other command line arguments are optional.

• Defaults are stored in your home directory in ~/.esxi-vm.yml. You can edit this file directly, or you can use the tool to update most the defaults by specifying --updateDefaults.

• One of the first settings to set and save as defaults is the --Host (-H), --User (-U) and --Password (-P).

• Some basic sanity checks are done on the ESXi host before creating the VM. The --verbose (-V) option will give you a little more details in the creation process. If an invalid Disk Stores or Network Interface is specified, the available devices will be shown in the error message. The tool will not show the list of available ISO images, and Guest OS types. CPU, Memory, Virtual Disk sizes are based on ESXi 6.0 limitations.

• The --dry (-d) option will go through the sanity checks, but will not create the VM.

• By default the Disk Store is set to LeastUsed. This will use the Disk Store with the most free space (in bytes).

• By default the ISO is set to None. Specify the full path to the ISO image. If you specify just the ISO image filename (no path), the system will attempt to find the ISO image on your DataStores.

• By default the Network set set to None. A full or partial MAC address can be specified. A partial MAC address argument would be 3 Hex pairs which would then be prepended by VMware's OEM 00:50:56.

• By default the VM is powered on. If an ISO was specified, then it will boot the ISO image. Otherwise, the VM will attempt a PXE boot if a Network Interface was specified. You could customize the ISO image to specify the kickstart file, or PXE boot using COBBLER, Foreman, Razor, or your favorite provisioning tool.

• To help with automated provisioning, the script will output the full MAC address and exit code 0 on success. You can specify --summary to get a more detailed summary of the VM that was created.

Command Line Args

./esxi-vm-create --help

usage: esxi-vm-create [-h] [-d] [-H HOST] [-T PORT] [-U USER] [-P PASSWORD]
                      [-K KEY] [-n NAME] [-c CPU] [-m MEM] [-v HDISK] [-i ISO]
                      [-N NET] [-M MAC] [-S STORE] [-g GUESTOS] [-o VMXOPTS]
                      [-p POOL] [-V] [--summary] [-u]

ESXi Create VM utility.

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -d, --dry             Enable Dry Run mode (False)
  -H HOST, --Host HOST  ESXi Host/IP (esxi)
  -T PORT, --Port PORT  ESXi Port number (22)
  -U USER, --User USER  ESXi Host username (root)
  -P PASSWORD, --Password PASSWORD
                        ESXi Host password (*****)
  -K KEY, --Key KEY     ESXi Host path to private key ()
  -n NAME, --name NAME  VM name ()
  -p POOL, --pool NAME  Resource pool to attach the VM (ha-root-pool)
  -c CPU, --cpu CPU     Number of vCPUS (2)
  -m MEM, --mem MEM     Memory in MB (4096)
  -v HDISK, --vdisk HDISK
                        Size of virt hdisk (16)
  -i ISO, --iso ISO     CDROM ISO Path | None (None)
  -N NET, --net NET     Network Interface | None (None)
  -M MAC, --mac MAC     MAC address
  -S STORE, --store STORE
                        vmfs Store | LeastUsed (LeastUsed)
  -g GUESTOS, --guestos GUESTOS
                        Guest OS (centos-64)
  -o VMXOPTS, --options VMXOPTS
                        Comma list of VMX options
  -V, --verbose         Enable Verbose mode (False)
  -f LOG, --logfile LOG
                        Path to the log file (/Users/sebastien/esxi-vm.log)
  -l, --log             Write to log file (False)
  --summary             Display Summary (False)
  -u, --updateDefaults  Update Default VM settings stored in ~/.esxi-vm.yml

./esxi-vm-destroy --help

usage: esxi-vm-destroy [-h] [-H HOST] [-T PORT] [-U USER] [-P PASSWORD]
                       [-K KEY] [-n NAME] [-V] [--summary]

ESXi Destroy VM utility.

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -H HOST, --Host HOST  ESXi Host/IP (esxi)
  -T PORT, --Port PORT  ESXi Port number (22)
  -U USER, --User USER  ESXi Host username (root)
  -P PASSWORD, --Password PASSWORD
                        ESXi Host password (*****)
  -K KEY, --Key KEY     ESXi Host path to private key ()
  -n NAME, --name NAME  VM name ()
  -V, --verbose         Enable Verbose mode (False)
  -f LOG, --logfile LOG
                        Path to the log file (/Users/sebastien/esxi-vm.log)
  -l, --log             Write to log file (False)
  --summary             Display Summary (False)

Example Usage

• Running the script for the first time is recommended to specify your defaults (ESXi HOST, USER, PASSWORD):

./esxi-vm-create -H esxi -P MySecurePassword -u
Saving new Defaults to ~/.esxi-vm.yml

• Create a new VM named testvm01 using all defaults from ~/.esxi-vm.yml:

./esxi-vm-create -n testvm01 --summary

Create VM Success:
RESOURCE POOL: ha-root-pool
VM NAME: testvm01
vCPU: 2
Memory: 4GB
VM Disk: 20GB
DS Store: DS_4TB
Network: None

• Change default number of vCPUs to 4, Memory to 8GB and vDisk size to 40GB:

./esxi-vm-create -c 4 -m 8096 -v 40 -u
Saving new Defaults to ~/.esxi-vm.yml

• Create a new VM named testvm02 using new defaults from ~/.esxi-vm.yml and specifying a Network interface and partial MAC:

./esxi-vm-create -n testvm02 -N 192.168.1 -M 01:02:03
00:50:56:01:02:03

• Available Network Interfaces and Available Disk Storage volumes are listed if an invalid option is specified:

./esxi-vm-create -n testvm03 -N BadNet -S BadDS
ERROR: Disk Storage BadDS doesn't exist.
    Available Disk Stores: ['DS_SSD500s', 'DS_SSD500c', 'DS_SSD250', 'DS_4TB', 'DS_3TB_m']
    LeastUsed Disk Store : DS_4TB
ERROR: Virtual NIC BadNet doesn't exist.
    Available VM NICs: ['192.168.1', '192.168.0', 'VM Network test'] or 'None'

• Create a new VM named testvm03 using a valid Network Interface, valid Disk Storage volume, summary and verbose enabled; save as default:

./esxi-vm-create -n testvm03 -N 192.168.1 -S DS_3TB_m --summary --verbose --updateDefaults
Saving new Defaults to ~/.esxi-vm.yml
Create testvm03.vmx file
Create testvm03.vmdk file
Register VM
Power ON VM

Create VM Success:
RESOURCE POOL: ha-root-pool
ESXi Host: esxi
VM NAME: testvm03
vCPU: 4
Memory: 8096MB
VM Disk: 40GB
Format: thin
DS Store: DS_3TB_m
Network: 192.168.1
Guest OS: centos-64
MAC: 00:0c:29:32:63:92
00:0c:29:32:63:92

• Create a new VM named testvm04 specifying an ISO file to boot:

./esxi-vm-create -n testvm04 --summary --iso CentOS-7-x86_64-Minimal-1611.iso
FoundISOPath: /vmfs/volumes/5430094d-5a4fa180-4962-0017a45127e2/ISO/CentOS-7-x86_64-Minimal-1611.iso
Create testvm04.vmx file
Create testvm04.vmdk file
Register VM
Power ON VM

Create VM Success:
ESXi Host: esxi
VM NAME: testvm04
vCPU: 4
Memory: 8096MB
VM Disk: 40GB
Format: thin
DS Store: DS_3TB_m
Network: 192.168.1
ISO: /vmfs/volumes/5430094d-5a4fa180-4962-0017a45127e2/ISO/CentOS-7-x86_64-Minimal-1611.iso
Guest OS: centos-64
MAC: 00:0c:29:ea:a0:42
00:0c:29:ea:a0:42

• Merge or add extra VMX options, saved as default:

./esxi-vm-create -o 'floppy0.present  = TRUE,svga.autodetect = TRUE,svga.present = TRUE' -u
Saving new Defaults to ~/.esxi-vm.yml

IMPORTANT: Do not set double quotes around values (such as TRUE), they will be automatically added by the tool.

• Set the Virtual machine hardware version to 11 (ESXI 6), be default it is 8:

./esxi-vm-create -o "virtualHW.version = 11" -u
Saving new Defaults to ~/.esxi-vm.yml

IMPORTANT: Do not set double quotes around values (such as 11), they will be automatically added by the tool.

• Create a new VM named testvm04 on the host esxi2 accessible on port 2222 (instead of the usual 22) and with an explicit private key /home/user1/.ssh/id_rsa_esxi2:

./esxi-vm-create -H esxi2 -T 2222 -K /home/user1/.ssh/id_rsa_esxi2 -n testvm04 --summary

Create VM Success:
VM NAME: testvm04
vCPU: 2
Memory: 4GB
VM Disk: 20GB
DS Store: DS_4TB
Network: None

• Destroy the VM named testvm04:

./esxi-vm-destroy -H esxi -P MySecurePassword -U root -n testvm04

This fork

This is a fork. Summary of changes in this fork:

• Fix a bug in the vmx file generation (double quotes missing)
• Migrate to Python 3, as Python 2 is soon dead
• Add parameters --port and --key (SSH port number and private key)
• Verbose is now more verbose (it displays also SSH commands)
• By default, does not write to log file
• esxi-vm-destroy is documented
• Move some common code in esxi-vm-create and esxi-vm-destroy to esxi_vm_functions.py
• Code cleaning (work in progress)
• VM Memory in MB not GB to be able to create low memory VM
• Default VM is now Debian 8-64bits
• Fixed a bug that didn't obtain the list of VMNIC from the esxi instance properly
• Upgraded virtualHW.version 11 (native ESXI 6.0 format)
• Added parameters --pool to attach the VM to a resource pool

Copyrights

• This fork Copyright © 2020 Israel Figueroa
• fork Copyright © 2018 Sebastien Andrivet
• Original code Copyright © 2017 Jonathan Senkerik

License

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.