In this blog post, we will add a CD-ROM device to a vSphere Virtual Machine in an automated way. This will be done with vRO (vRealize Orchestrator/Aria Automation Orchestrator). The action is used for creating a CD-ROM drive when provisioning a new machine with vRO.

I am doing this blog post because, after a lot of Googling, I could not find a good example or solution online. So it was time to do a blog post after figuring out what I needed to do!

So let’s start the blog post about adding a CD-ROM to a virtual machine.

vRO – Action Code

Here is the vRealize Orchestrator/Aria Automation Orchestrator code for an action. This action creates the specification for adding a CD-ROM to an already running or a new virtual machine. It’s a lot of code for a “simple” CD-ROM drive because, in the vCenter Server interface, it feels like a couple of easy clicks. In the backend it is another story, see the code below. You need to attach a lot of specifications together to add a CD-ROM to a virtual machine.

Action details:

• Name: createCdDvdDriveSpecification
• Version: 1.0.0
• Description: Create the specification for a vSphere CD/DVD drive to add a CD/DVD drive to a virtual machine with the VMware vCenter SDK.
• Inputs: None
• Return Type: Any
• Location: com.bv.vsphere.vm.spec

// Set variable
var deviceConfigSpecs = new Array();
var deviceConfigSpec;

// Add CD-ROM connect spec
var connectInfo = new VcVirtualDeviceConnectInfo();
    connectInfo.allowGuestControl = true;
    connectInfo.connected = false;
    connectInfo.startConnected = true;

// Add CD-ROM backing spec
var backingInfo = null;
    backingInfo = new VcVirtualCdromRemotePassthroughBackingInfo();
    backingInfo.deviceName = "";

// Add Virtual CD-ROM
var cdrom = new VcVirtualCdrom();
    cdrom.backing = backingInfo;
    cdrom.controllerKey = 200;
    cdrom.key = 0;
    cdrom.unitNumber = 0;
    cdrom.connectable = connectInfo;

// Create CD-ROM configuration spec
var deviceConfigSpec = new VcVirtualDeviceConfigSpec();
    deviceConfigSpec.device = cdrom;
    deviceConfigSpec.operation = VcVirtualDeviceConfigSpecOperation.add;
    deviceConfigSpecs[0] = deviceConfigSpec;

// Troubleshooting generated configuration specification
// System.debug(deviceConfigSpec);

// Return specification
return deviceConfigSpec;

vRO – Workflow

This is a part of a larger workflow but it will help you get started. I have listed the most important parts of creating a virtual machine and how to get started. This code is quite identical to changing a virtual machine to add a CD-ROM drive.

// Load module
var vsphereVmSpec = System.getModule("com.bv.vsphere.vm.spec");

// Set variable
var actionName = arguments.callee.name.substr(6);
var deviceConfigSpecs = [];
var deviceConfigSpec;

// Virtual machine spec
var vmConfigSpec = new VcVirtualMachineConfigSpec();
// Lot more stuff here like VM name, resource pool, host etc

// Add CD-ROM
deviceConfigSpec = vsphereVmSpec.createCdDvdDriveSpecification();
deviceConfigSpecs[ii++] = deviceConfigSpec;

// Combine configuration
vmConfigSpec.deviceChange = deviceConfigSpecs;

// Start Virtual Machine creation
try {
    System.log("[" + actionName + "] Starting Virtual Machine creation (" + virtualMachineName +")");
    task = vmFolder.createVM_Task(vmConfigSpec, vmResourcePool, vmHost);
}
catch (exception) {
    throw "[" + actionName + "] exception";
}

// Return VC:Task
return task;

Wrap-up

So this is my technical blog post about adding a CD-ROM to a virtual machine with vRealize Orchestrator (vRO). Hopefully, it is useful for somebody, please respond below if you have any comments or additional information! See you next time! 🙂