Introduction

Content libraries (CLibs) are container objects for VM and vApp (OVF) templates and other types of files, such as ISO images, text files, and so on across multiple vCenter Server instances in the same or remote locations which ensures consistency and compliance when deploying virtual machine workloads.

On this page:

The following table shows a brief description and HTTP methods allowed to interact with Content Libraries and Items available to users.

Resource	URI	Description
Content Library	/contentlib	Main content library resource
Content Libraries	/contentlib/library	Available Content Libraries
Content Library Items	/contentlib/items	Available Content Library Items

TK stores the Cloud API Token generated as a result of the following POST request to the /auth/request-token resource:

curl -X POST https://vss-api.eis.utoronto.ca/auth/request-token -u <username>

For example, extracting the token with the jq command:

TK=$(curl -X POST https://vss-api.eis.utoronto.ca/auth/request-token -u <username> | jq -r '.token')

List available Content Library items

The content library hosts three types of items:

Type	Description
OVF	vApp OVF appliance
ISO	ISO Images.
VM	Virtual Machine Templates

The following examples implements HTTPie and CURL to list available Ubuntu ISO images:

http GET "https://vss-api.eis.utoronto.ca/v2/contentlib/item?filter=type,eq,ISO" "Authorization: Bearer $TK"

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $TK" -X GET "https://vss-api.eis.utoronto.ca/v2/contentlib/item?filter=type,eq,ISO"

Response Body

{
    "_links": {
        "self": "https://vss-api.eis.utoronto.ca/v2/contentlib/item?filter=type,eq,ISO%3Bname,like,ubuntu-20%25"
    },
    "data": [
        {
            "content_version": "2",
            "created_on": "2021-04-12 Mon 09:48:24 EDT",
            "creation_time": "2021-04-12T13:46:40.266Z",
            "description": "",
            "id": "0921acc6-f049-49ba-bf72-36abf3dcd1a1",
            "last_modified_time": "2021-04-12T13:47:21.025Z",
            "library": {
                "id": "8632f1a0-4a5d-4a30-a629-4cbfdcce2e2e",
                "name": "VSS-Nix",
                "type": "LOCAL"
            },
            "library_id": "8632f1a0-4a5d-4a30-a629-4cbfdcce2e2e",
            "metadata_version": "1",
            "name": "ubuntu-20.10-live-server-amd64",
            "size": 1046083584,
            "type": "ISO",
            "updated_on": "2021-04-12 Mon 09:48:24 EDT",
            "urn": "urn:vapi:com.vmware.content.Library.Item:0921acc6-f049-49ba-bf72-36abf3dcd1a1",
            "version": "1"
        }
    ],
    "meta": {
        "count": 2,
        "filter": "type,eq,ISO;name,like,ubuntu-20%",
        "pages": {
            "first_url": "https://vss-api.eis.utoronto.ca/v2/contentlib/item?filter=type%2Ceq%2CISO%3Bname%2Clike%2Cubuntu-20%25&page=1&per_page=10&expand=True",
            "last_url": "https://vss-api.eis.utoronto.ca/v2/contentlib/item?filter=type%2Ceq%2CISO%3Bname%2Clike%2Cubuntu-20%25&page=1&per_page=10&expand=True",
            "next_url": null,
            "page": 1,
            "pages": 1,
            "per_page": 10,
            "prev_url": null,
            "total": 1
        },
        "time": "0.01401s",
        "user": "josem"
    }
}

Expand

You can also expand given resources by adding the parameter to the query string expand=1 as follows:

http GET "https://vss-api.eis.utoronto.ca/v2/contentlib/item?expand=1" "Authorization: Bearer $TK"

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $TK" -X GET "https://vss-api.eis.utoronto.ca/v2/contentlib/item?expand=1"

Paging

All requests to the /contentlib/item URL are paginated. The response body includes a 'meta.pages' key with everything to navigate through the results, for instance:

Key	Description
first_url	Contain the URLs to navigate through results.
last_url
prev_url
next_url
page	Current page
pages	Total number of pages
per_page	Results per page. Maximum 250; Default 10.
total	Total number of results

Results per page can be set by including the parameter in the URL query, so we can get the desired number of elements per page, for example:

http GET "https://vss-api.eis.utoronto.ca/v2/contentlib/item?per_page=250&expand=1" "Authorization: Bearer $TK"
curl -X GET -H "Authorization: Bearer $TK" "https://vss-api.eis.utoronto.ca/v2/contentlib/item?per_page=250&expand=1"

Filtering

ISOs can be filtered by adding the filter argument to the query string in the following format:

filter=<field_name>,<operator>,<value>

Operators can be:

Operator	Description
eq	Equals
ne	Not equal
lt	Lower than
le	Lower equal
gt	Greater than
ge	Greater equal
like	Matching pattern
in	Match value in many items separated by commas

A resource can be filtered by as many attributes the request has, for instance /contentlib/item can be filtered by name, path, created_on, updated_on, etc. Thus, the following example will filter only CentOS images:

http GET "https://vss-api.eis.utoronto.ca/v2/contentlib/item?per_page=250&expand=1&filter=name,like,CentO%" "Authorization: Bearer $TK"

Sorting

Content Library Items can be sorted by adding the sort parameter in the URL query string in the following format:

sort=<field_name>,<asc|desc>

The following example shows how to filter by date (latest first):

http GET "https://vss-api.eis.utoronto.ca/v2/contentlib/item?per_page=250&expand=1&filter=name,like,CentO%&sort=name,desc" "Authorization: Bearer $TK"

curl -X GET -H "Authorization: Bearer $TK" "https://vss-api.eis.utoronto.ca/v2/contentlib/item?per_page=250&expand=1&filter=name,like,CentO%&sort=name,desc"