Introduction

Logical Folders are containers for storing and organizing inventory objects, in this case virtual machines. As the network resource, a Folder has a Managed Object Reference (moref) which is required for either virtual machine deployment (where a virtual machine will be placed upon creation) or updating virtual machine containing folder (moved).

The /v2/folder resource lists folders you are allowed to access in our environment. If by any chance you cannot see a folder and you add it to a new virtual machine creation request or a virtual machine change request, they will not be successfully processed. If you believe you need access to a specific folder, please let us know.

On this page:

The following table shows a brief description and HTTP methods allowed to interact with logical folders.

Resource	URI	Description	GET	POST	PUT	PATCH	OPTIONS
Folder	/folder	Logical Folder Management resource. List permitted folders and their attributes

OPTIONS HTTP method

Remember, you can also show what methods are allowed and method description, parameters, etc. by making an OPTIONS HTTP request to /v2/folder.

http OPTIONS "https://vss-api.eis.utoronto.ca:8001/v2/folder"
curl -X OPTIONS "https://vss-api.eis.utoronto.ca:8001/v2/folder"

List

In order to list allowed Folders you should make a GET request to the endpoint /v2/folder, passing your access token. As a result, you will get a reference URI /v2/folder/<moref> to get detailed information about that folder, human readable name and Managed Object Reference (moref).

Name	Type	Description
name	string	Folder name.
parent	string	Parent folder name.
moref	string	vCenter Managed Object Reference (moref)
_links	array	List of URIs related to the resource.
full_path	string	vCenter full path to the folder

The following examples implements HTTPie and CURL to list all folders a user have access to:

http -a $TK GET "https://vss-api.eis.utoronto.ca:8001/v2/folder"
curl -u $TK -X GET "https://vss-api.eis.utoronto.ca:8001/v2/folder"

Response Body

{
    "_links": {
        "api": "https://vss-api.eis.utoronto.ca:8001/v2/",
        "self": "https://vss-api.eis.utoronto.ca:8001/v2/folder"
    },
    "data": [
        {
            "_links": {
                "self": "https://vss-api.eis.utoronto.ca:8001/v2/folder/group-v6736"
            },
            "full_path": "VSS > Sandbox > jm > APIDemo",
            "moref": "group-v6736",
            "name": "APIDemo",
            "parent": "jm"
        },
        {
            "_links": {
                "self": "https://vss-api.eis.utoronto.ca:8001/v2/folder/group-v6749"
            },
            "full_path": "VSS > Sandbox > jm > DockerDatacenter",
            "moref": "group-v6749",
            "name": "DockerDatacenter",
            "parent": "jm"
        }
    ],
    "meta": {
        "count": 2,
        "time": "0.46083s",
        "user": "jm"
    }
}

Filters

This resource has two main filters to narrow down the number of Networks shown in the result.

Name	Description
Name	Folder name
moref	vCenter Managed Object Reference (moref)

The following examples show how to make a GET request, which in both cases, the result would be the same because APIDemo moref contains number 6379.

http -a $TK GET "https://vss-api.eis.utoronto.ca:8001/v2/folder?name=API"
http -a $TK GET "https://vss-api.eis.utoronto.ca:8001/v2/folder?moref=6736"

Response Body

{
    "_links": {
        "api": "https://vss-api.eis.utoronto.ca:8001/v2/",
        "self": "https://vss-api.eis.utoronto.ca:8001/v2/folder"
    },
    "data": [
        {
            "_links": {
                "self": "https://vss-api.eis.utoronto.ca:8001/v2/folder/group-v6736"
            },
            "full_path": "VSS > Sandbox > jm > APIDemo",
            "moref": "group-v6736",
            "name": "APIDemo",
            "parent": "jm"
        }
    ],
    "meta": {
        "count": 1,
        "time": "0.46083s",
        "user": "jm"
    }
}

List specific folder info

Some of the attributes will have an object value. Such is the case of items in attribute vms.

Name	Type	Description
vms	array	Array of Virtual Machines in folder.
vmCount	integer	Number of virtual machines in folder

The following example, requests information about a particular Folder using the base resource /v2/folder and appending the moref to get the URI /v2/folder/group-v6736:

http -a $TK GET https://vss-api.eis.utoronto.ca:8001/v2/folder/group-v6736
curl -u $TK -X GET https://vss-api.eis.utoronto.ca:8001/v2/folder/group-v6736

HTTP response body would look something like:

Response Body

{
    "_links": {
        "folder": "https://vss-api.eis.utoronto.ca:8001/v2/folder",
        "self": "https://vss-api.eis.utoronto.ca:8001/v2/folder/group-v6736"
    },
    "data": {
        "name": "APIDemo",
        "parent": "jm",
        "path": "VSS > Sandbox > jm > APIDemo",
        "vmCount": 2,
        "vms": [
            {
                "_links": {
                    "href": "https://vss-api.eis.utoronto.ca:8001/v2/vm/501269e6-2c49-ecda-fdc0-862693465325"
                },
                "name": "1605T-loving_wilson"
            },
            {
                "_links": {
                    "href": "https://vss-api.eis.utoronto.ca:8001/v2/vm/50124dc2-aba4-5c57-130c-da207557e5bd"
                },
                "name": "1605T-sick_stallman"
            }
        ]
    },
    "meta": {
        "count": 5,
        "time": "0.42114s",
        "user": "jm"
    }
}

Create

To create a new folder you just need to submit a request to /v2/folder/<moref> and provide the name of the new folder as a parameter. So, the folder <moref> will be parent of the new folder. For this example we will create a subfolder in APIDemo > APISubFolder, so request will be crafted as follows:

http -a $TK POST https://vss-api.eis.utoronto.ca:8001/v2/folder/group-v6736 name=APISubFolder
curl -u $TK -X POST https://vss-api.eis.utoronto.ca:8001/v2/folder/group-v6736 -d '{"name": "APISubFolder"}'

Response

Headers

HTTP/1.1 202 ACCEPTED
Allow: POST, HEAD, OPTIONS, GET
Connection: keep-alive
Content-Length: 400
Content-Type: application/json
Date: Wed, 11 May 2016 17:19:15 GMT
Location: https://vss-api.eis.utoronto.ca/v2/request/task/fff43ba4-40c1-40df-bf5b-02f5424e091a
Server: nginx
X-RateLimit-Limit: 3000
X-RateLimit-Remaining: 2997
X-RateLimit-Reset: 1462989600

Body

{
    "data": {
        "_links": {
            "request": "https://vss-api.eis.utoronto.ca:8001/v2/request/folder/2",
            "task": "https://vss-api.eis.utoronto.ca:8001/v2/request/task/fff43ba4-40c1-40df-bf5b-02f5424e091a"
        },
        "message": "VM Folder creation request has been accepted for processing",
        "name": "Accepted",
        "state": "Submitted",
        "status": 202
    },
    "meta": {
        "time": "0.07877s",
        "user": "jm"
    }
}

Listing folder

Listing folders with the API word in them, would show the folder has been successfully created:

Response Body

{
    "_links": {
        "api": "https://vss-api.eis.utoronto.ca:8001/v2/",
        "self": "https://vss-api.eis.utoronto.ca:8001/v2/folder"
    },
    "data": [
        {
            "_links": {
                "self": "https://vss-api.eis.utoronto.ca:8001/v2/folder/group-v6899"
            },
            "full_path": "VSS > Sandbox > jm > APIDemo > APISubFolder",
            "moref": "group-v6899",
            "name": "APISubFolder",
            "parent": "APIDemo"
        },
        {
            "_links": {
                "self": "https://vss-api.eis.utoronto.ca:8001/v2/folder/group-v6736"
            },
            "full_path": "VSS > Sandbox > jm > APIDemo",
            "moref": "group-v6736",
            "name": "APIDemo",
            "parent": "jm"
        }
    ],
    "meta": {
        "count": 2,
        "time": "0.55448s",
        "user": "jm"
    }
}