vCenter Appliance SSH Commands (Not Shell)

I finally got around to playing with VSAN (thank you @PunchingClouds. When I grow up, I want to be like you) and ran into a problem (which I’m still trying to resolve. I think I found the solution just need to read up on Windows AD and NTP stuff) that had me check the time and NTP configuration in vCenter 6.  My first instinct was to go in the vSphere Web Client and look for the time. Well, let me just say that after going to every tab I didn’t find it.

Then I thought, “oh, I’ll just go look in the VAMI in vCenter (port 5480)” ß I thought the port 5480 without the parenthesis J. But I don’t have vCenter 6 U1. And I’m not sure if I would’ve found there either anyway.  So, off to the CLI.

When you ssh into vCenter Appliance, and entering credentials, you are greeted by this prompt:

Using username "root". VMware vCenter Server Appliance 6.0.0 Type: vCenter Server with an embedded Platform Services Controller root@vcenter-b's password: Last login: Tue Jan 12 23:37:10 UTC 2016 from jumphost.piratas.caribe on pts/0 Last login: Wed Jan 13 01:44:46 2016 from ftp.piratas.caribe Connected to service * List APIs: "help api list" * List Plugins: "help pi list" * Enable BASH access: "shell.set --enabled True" * Launch BASH: "shell" Command>

Not much information but if you double tab, you would be asked if you wan the list of all commands available (100 of them). If you say yes, you would encounter this command that gives you the system time (hallelujah):

com.vmware.appliance.version1.resources.system.time.get

You can either type the entire command to get this (while using tab to autocomplete):

Command> com.vmware.appliance.version1.resources.system.time.get Config: Date: Wed 01-13-2016 Timezone: UTC Secondssinceepoch: 1452650703.735 Time: 02:05:03 Command>

Or be smart (or lazy depending on your mindset) and type just the stuff after vesion1, like this:

Command> resources.system.time.get Config: Date: Wed 01-13-2016 Timezone: UTC Secondssinceepoch: 1452650759.495 Time: 02:05:59 Command>

While we are at it, a series of commands of more value might be setting up the NTP client and adding a NTP Server. Below are the commands you would need to execute to get that going for you:

Command> ntp.server.set --servers ntp.piratas.caribe Command> timesync.set --mode NTP Command> ntp.get Config: Status: Up Servers: ntp.piratas.caribe Command>

Elver’s Opinion: There has to be an easier way to see vCenter’s system time. I’ll update this post when I find out.

.elver