This section describes the VSS Command Line Interface in detail.
Help
To get help when using the VSS CLI, you can add --help option to the end of a command. For example:
vss-cli --help
The following command lists the available sub commands for the compute command:
vss-cli compute --help
Help in sub commands is divided in three main sections: Usage, where the command syntax is shown as well as a brief description; Options and sub commands available with a short help column as shown below:
Usage: vss-cli compute [OPTIONS] COMMAND [ARGS]... Compute related resources such as virtual machines, networks supported operating systems, logical folders, OVA/OVF images, floppy images, ISO images and more. Options: --help Show this message and exit. Commands: domain List compute domains. floppy Manage floppy images. folder Manage logical folders image Manage personal and list public VM images. inventory Manage inventory reports iso Manage ISO images. net List available virtual networks os Supported OS. template List virtual machine templates vm Manage virtual machines
For instance, the vss-cli compute vm ls command, is used to list your virtual machines hosted in the ITS Private Cloud, has the following usage:
Usage: vss-cli compute vm ls [OPTIONS]
List virtual machine instances.
Filter and sort list by any attribute. For example:
vss-cli compute vm ls -f name=vm-name -f version=13
Simple name filtering:
vss-cli compute vm ls -f name=%vm-name% -s name desc
Options:
-f, --filter-by <TEXT TEXT>... filter list by <field_name>
<operator>,<value>
-a, --show-all show all results [default: False]
-p, --page page results in a less-like format
-s, --sort <TEXT TEXT>... sort by <field_name> <asc|desc>
-c, --count INTEGER size of results
--help Show this message and exit.
An example of how to use filters and display virtual machine summary is shown below:
vss-cli compute vm ls -f name=%VM% -s name=desc moref name folder.path cpu_count memory_gb power_state ip_address ------- -------------------- ------------------------------------------------ ----------- ----------- ------------- ------------ vm-1274 1910T-TestVM1 VSS > Development 1 2 poweredOff vm-1270 1910T-TestVM2 VSS > Development 1 2 poweredOff vm-1258 1910T-TestVM3 VSS > Development 1 1 poweredOff
Command Structure
The VSS CLI command structure is compose by the base vss-cli command followed by options, subgroups, sub-commands, options and arguments.
vss-cli [OPTIONS] COMMAND [ARGS]...
Parameters take different types of input values such as numbers, strings, lists, tuples, and JSON data structures as strings.
Parameter Values
VSS CLI options vary from simple string, boolean or numeric values to JSON data structures as input parameters on the command line.
Common
String parameters can contain alphanumeric characters and spaces surrounded by quotes. The following example renames a virtual machine:
vss-cli compute vm set vm-123 name 'VM-New'
Or this can be done by using the VM name instead as follows:
vss-cli compute vm set TEST name VM-New
If there’s more than one virtual machine with “TEST” in their name, you will be prompted to select which one you want to change:
Found 5 matches. Please select one: => (vm-1270) VSS > Development > 1910T-TestVM1 (vm-1258) VSS > Development > 1910T-TestVM2 (vm-1274) VSS > Development > 1910T-TestVM3
Once, selected the change will be processed.
Timestamp is widely used in any vm set command to schedule --schedule a change or in vm mk snapshot to define the start date --from of the snapshot. Timestamps are formatted YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM. In the next example, a virtual machine consolidation task has been submitted to run at 2017-03-10 21:00:
vss-cli compute vm set --schedule '2017-03-10 21:00' vm-123 consolidate
Lists are implemented in arguments and options. In arguments list are generally series of strings separated by spaces. The below command shows how to delete two virtual machines in a single line:
vss-cli compute vm rm vm-123 vm-234
Multiple options are taken as lists. For instance, in order to specify multiple disks when deploying a virtual machine, multiple occurrences of --disk should be specified as follows:
vss-cli compute vm mk from-template --power-on --source TestVM1 \ --description 'New virtual machine' --disk 40 --disk 20 --disk 30 VM2
Boolean is a binary flag that turns an option on or off, such is the case of a virtual machine marked as template by using the --on flag or template marked as virtual machine by not specifying the flag.
vss-cli compute vm set TestVM3 template --on
Integers
vss-cli compute vm set TestVM2 memory size 1
Binary objects are handled by passing a relative or full path to the object to process. When uploading a file to VSKEY-STOR, a path should be passed as argument as follows:
vss stor ul ~/Downloads/50123e0d-6c74-0c6f-a65a-3704dd1ec619-ud.iso -d isos
JSON
Some VSS CLI options and arguments require data to be formatted as JSON, such as reconfiguring a virtual machine guest operating system specification (hostname, domain, dns, ip, subnet and gateway) upon deployment. The option --custom-spec expects the following JSON data structure:
{
"dhcp": false,
"ip": "192.168.1.23",
"gateway": ["192.168.1.1"],
"dns": ["192.168.1.1"],
"hostname": "vm1",
"domain": "utoronto.ca"
}
Passing above JSON data structure to --custom-spec in Linux, macOS, or Unix and Windows PowerShell use the single quote ' to enclose it.
vss-cli compute vm mk from-template --source TestVM3 --power-on \
--description 'New virtual machine' \
--custom-spec '{"dhcp": false, "ip": "192.168.1.23", "gateway": ["192.168.1.1"],
"dns": ["192.168.1.1"], "hostname": "vm1", "domain": "utoronto.ca"}' VM1
On the Windows command prompt, use the double quote " to enclose the data structure and escape the double quotes from the data structure using the backslash \:
vss-cli compute vm mk from-template --source FrontEnd-1 \
--description 'New virtual machine' \
--custom-spec "{\"dhcp\": false, \"ip\": \"192.168.1.23\", \"gateway\": [\"192.168.1.1\"],
\"dns\": [\"192.168.1.1\"], \"hostname\": \"vm1\", \"domain\": \"utoronto.ca\"}" VM1
Command Output
The VSS CLI supports the following formats:
-
Table (table)
-
JSON (json)
-
YAML (yaml)
-
NDJSON (ndjson)
-
auto (table)
By default VSS CLI output is table, and this can be configured either by the output option:
vss-cli --output json
Or the VSS_OUTPUT environment variable:
export VSS_OUTPUT=json
Environment variable VSS_OUTPUT always overrides any value set in the -o/--output option.
Table
The table format presents the VSS CLI output into tab-delimited lines, helpful when using grep, sed, and awk on Unix or Windows PowerShell.
vss-cli --table-format=rst compute vm ls -f name=%VM% -s name=desc ======= ==================== ================================================ =========== =========== ============= ============ moref name folder.path cpu_count memory_gb power_state ip_address ======= ==================== ================================================ =========== =========== ============= ============ vm-1274 1910T-TestVM1 VSS > Development 1 2 poweredOff vm-1270 1910T-TestVM2 VSS > Development 1 2 poweredOff vm-1258 1910T-TestVM3 VSS > Development 1 1 poweredOff ======= ==================== ================================================ =========== =========== ============= ============
You can also control the data shown with --columns providing a name and a jsonpath.
If you for example just wanted the UUID, NAME and PROVISIONED GB per virtual machines, you could do:
vss-cli --columns=moref,name,gb=provisioned_gb compute vm ls -f name=VM moref name gb ------- -------------------- ----- vm-1270 1910T-TestVM1 22.19 vm-1258 1910T-TestVM2 21.19 vm-1274 1910T-TestVM3 2.19
The option --columns-width allows you to set a maximum column width for a given output:
vss-cli --columns-width 0 compute vm ls -f name=VM moref name folder.path cpu_count memory_gb power_state ip_address ------- -------------- -------------- ----------- ----------- ------------- ------------ vm-1270 1910T-TestVM-… VSS > Develop… 1 2 poweredOff vm-1258 1910T-TestVM-… VSS > Develop… 1 1 poweredOff vm-1274 1910T-TestVM-… VSS > Develop… 1 2 poweredOff
--columns-width can be set to 0 in order to let the vss-cli to calculate the proper column size based on your terminal:
vss-cli --columns-width 18 compute vm ls -f name=VM moref name folder.path cpu_count memory_gb power_state ip_address ------- ------------------ ------------------ ----------- ----------- ------------- ------------ vm-1017 1908Q-VM-2 ITS > EIS > Data … 1 1 poweredOff vm-1270 1910T-TestVM1 VSS > Development 1 2 poweredOff vm-1258 1910T-TestVM2 VSS > Development 1 1 poweredOff vm-1274 1910T-TestVM3 VSS > Development 1 2 poweredOff
JSON
Many languages can easily decode JSON structures using built-in modules or open source libraries. The VSS CLI can provide the output in json so it can be easily processed by other scripts or JSON processors such as jq.
vss --output=json compute vm ls
[
{
"moref": "vm-1270",
"name": "1910T-TestVM1",
"provisioned_gb": 2.18,
"tools_running_status": "guestToolsNotRunning",
"tools_version": "0",
"tools_version_status": "guestToolsNotInstalled",
"uncommitted_bytes": 2338168320,
"unshared_bytes": 996,
"updated_on": "2020-04-21 Tue 02:10:03 EDT",
"uuid": "5030f8d5-fa01-8eff-bb21-8d1ee7e6c230",
"version": "vmx-15"
...
}
]
YAML
As with JSON, YAML can be easily decoded by many programming languages. The VSS CLI can provide the yaml output as follows:
vss-cli --output=yaml compute vm ls -f name=%TEST% -s name desc - moref: vm-2173 name: 2004P-test-vm-centos provisioned_gb: 2.18 tools_running_status: guestToolsNotRunning tools_version: '0' tools_version_status: guestToolsNotInstalled uncommitted_bytes: 2338168320 unshared_bytes: 996 updated_on: 2020-04-21 Tue 02:10:03 EDT uuid: 5030f8d5-fa01-8eff-bb21-8d1ee7e6c230 version: vmx-15
Auto-completion
Bash completion support is provided by [Click][Click] and will complete sub commands and parameters. Sub commands are always listed whereas parameters only if at least a dash has been provided. Example:
vss-cli compute <TAB><TAB> account compute configure request stor token vss-cli -<TAB><TAB> --config --no-verbose --output --verbose --version -c -o
Source File
To activate completion in bash or zsh or fish is recommended to use a generated script and source it to ensure responsiveness:
For bash:
Save the script somewhere.
_VSS_CLI_COMPLETE=bash_source vss-cli > ~/.vss-cli-complete.bash
Source the file in ~/.bashrc.
. ~/.vss-cli-complete.bash
After modifying the shell config, you need to start a new shell in order for the changes to be loaded or source the file . ~/.vss-cli-complete.bash.
For zsh:
Save the script somewhere.
_VSS_CLI_COMPLETE=zsh_source vss-cli > ~/.vss-cli-complete.zsh
Source the file in ~/.zshrc.
. ~/.vss-cli-complete.zsh
After modifying the shell config, you need to start a new shell in order for the changes to be loaded or source the file . ~/.vss-cli-complete.zsh.
For fish:
Save the script to ~/.config/fish/completions/vss-cli.fish:.
_VSS_CLI_COMPLETE=fish_source vss-cli > ~/.config/fish/completions/vss-cli.fish
After modifying the shell config, you need to start a new shell in order for the changes to be loaded.
Source
However, there’s also a non-persistent method:
For bash:
source <(vss-cli completion bash)
For zsh:
source <(vss-cli completion zsh)
Shell
The VSS CLI provides a REPL interactive shell with tab-completion, suggestions and command history.
Usage: vss-cli shell [OPTIONS] REPL interactive shell Options: -i, --history TEXT File path to save history --help Show this message and exit.
To enter the shell just execute vss-cli shell and you will get the following welcome message:
__ _____ ___
\ \ / / __/ __| API Endpoint: https://vss-api.eis.utoronto.ca/v2
\ V /\__ \__ \ Tab-completion & suggestions
\_/ |___/___/ Prefix external commands with "!"
CLI v2021.5.2 History is saved: /Users/vss/.vss-cli/history
Exit shell with :exit, :q, :quit, ctrl+d
vss (vss-api) >
Every VSS CLI command, option and argument is available in the shell context. Just exclude the vss-cli command, for instance:
vss (vss-api) > --columns=moref,name compute vm ls -f name=VM moref name ------- --------------- vm-1270 1910T-TestVM1 vm-1258 1910T-TestVM2 vm-1274 1910T-TestVM3