RubyNsxCli

This gem is in early stages of development and has only a small set of VMWare's NSX API currently implemented.

The main focus for developing this gem was to provide a simple way to automate network creation using the NSX API.

Features

  1. Creation and deletion of virtual wires
  2. Attaching interfaces an edge
  3. Adding DHCP relay agents to an edge
  4. Creating a DHCP IP pool on an edge (This is limited in that it only provides a subset of the available options)

Installation

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'ruby_nsx_cli'

And then execute:

$ bundle

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install ruby_nsx_cli

Usage

Create a new virtual wire:

virtualwire = RubyNsxCli::NSXVirtualWire.new

virtualwire_args = {
  :name => 'api-test-wire-1',
  :scope_id => 'vdnscope-1',
  :description => 'virtual wire for api testing',
  :tenant_id => nil,
  :control_plane_mode => nil
}

virtualwire.create(virtualwire_args)

Attach an interface to an edge:

edge = RubyNsxCli::NSXEdge.new


interface_args = {
  :edge_id => 'edge-5',
  :name => 'api-test-lif-1',
  :primary_address => '10.250.30.1',
  :subnet_mask => '255.255.255.0',
  :mtu => '1500',
  :connected_to_id => virtualwire_id,
  :type => 'internal'
}

edge.attach_interface(interface_args)

Chain commands together to create a new virtualwire, attach the interface and create a DHCP pool:

# First, create the virtual wire 
virtualwire = RubyNsxCli::NSXVirtualWire.new
virtualwire_args = {
  :name => 'api-test-wire-attach-dhcp-1',
  :scope_id => 'vdnscope-1',
  :description => 'virtual wire for api testing',
  :tenant_id => nil,
  :control_plane_mode => nil
}
virtualwire_id = virtualwire.create(virtualwire_args)

# Second, attach the interface to the specified edge
edge = RubyNsxCli::NSXEdge.new
gateway_address = '10.250.31.1'

interface_args = {
  :edge_id => 'edge-5',
  :name => 'api-test-lif-dhcp-1',
  :primary_address => gateway_address,
  :subnet_mask => '255.255.255.0',
  :mtu => '1500',
  :connected_to_id => virtualwire_id,
  :type => 'internal'
}

# The response from attaching the interface will contain the vnic index required for adding a DHCP relay
response = edge.attach_interface(interface_args)

# Parse the vNIC index from the response given when attaching the interface
vnic_index = edge.get_attr_text_from_xml(response, 'index')

# Finally, add the dhcp agent to the edge
edge.add_dhcp_agent(edge_id, vnic_index, gateway_address)

Development

After checking out the repo, run bin/setup to install dependencies. Then, run rake test to run the tests. You can also run bin/console for an interactive prompt that will allow you to experiment.

To install this gem onto your local machine, run bundle exec rake install. To release a new version, update the version number in version.rb, and then run bundle exec rake release, which will create a git tag for the version, push git commits and tags, and push the .gem file to rubygems.org.

Please note that you will need to set the following environment variables before running rake test:

  1. NSX_USERNAME
  2. NSX_PASSWORD
  3. NSX_MANAGER_URL
  4. NSX_TEST_ESG_ID
  5. NSX_TEST_DLR_ID

How to run a single test using rake:

rake test TEST=test/nsx_edge_test.rb TESTOPTS="--name=test_add_dhcp_relay -v"

Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/daniel-cole/ruby_nsx_cli. This project is intended to be a safe, welcoming space for collaboration, and contributors are expected to adhere to the Contributor Covenant code of conduct.

License

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.