VMware vSphere Web Services SDK Readme

Readme for Java Samples
Readme for the vSphere Management SDK

Welcome to the VMware vSphere Web Services SDK. This Readme contains these topics:

What’s in the SDK Package?
What is the VMware vSphere API?
Checklist of Setup Tasks
VMware Resources

Note: Information in this document may not be current. For up-to-date information, check these VMware Web sites:


Released SDK Products	VMware vSphere Web Services SDK

What’s in the SDK Package?

The vSphere Web Services SDK provides:

Sample code that demonstrates common tasks involved in using the vSphere API to manage the virtual infrastructure. The sample code includes compiled and ready-to-run Java class files, as well as Java source code files. See the respective readme files (readme_java) for information about building and using the samples.
Web Services Definition Language (WSDL) definitions that describe the API for accessing ESXi and vCenter Server systems. The WSDL is divided into two separate files:
- vim.wsdl
- vimService.wsdl (imports the vim.wsdl. Use the vimService.wsdl file to generate stubs.)

Batch files and shell scripts to automate the process of generating client-side stubs, and for re-building the sample applications.
- For Java developers, compiled client-side libraries (vim.jar, vim25.jar, apputils.jar, samples.jar) are available for testing and development purposes.
Reference documentation (vSphere API Reference) that provides language-neutral descriptive information (object type definitions, properties, and method signatures, for example) for the VMware vSphere API.

The vSphere Web Services SDK is contained in the SDK\vsphere-ws directory in the vSphere Management SDK.

    VMware-vSphere-SDK-x.y.z-build
      SDK
        vsphere-ws

The following table contains a brief description of the contents of the vSphere Web Services SDK.

Directory structure (under \SDK\vsphere-ws):

To get started with the vSphere Web Services SDK:

Development language (Java) to use for Web-services client application development.
Identify the target server (or servers) that you’ll use during development. (“Target servers” refers to the vCenter or ESXi systems that will be the targets of the client applications that you develop.)
Verify network access to each server by launching a browser and connect to its URL:

https://vsphere-server-name

Directory	Contents	Documentation
docresources	HTML and graphics resource files.
docs	Legal documents and this vSphere Web Services SDK readme file.	vSphere WSSDK Readme
docs\java	Root directory for sample documentation.	JAXWS samples documentation
docs\ReferenceGuide	vSphere API Reference documentation files. User guides (Developer’s Setup Guide and Programming Guide) are available in the VMware Document Center. You can find a link to the document center on the http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vc-sdk/index.html.	vSphere API Reference

vSphere servers (vCenter and ESXi) use SSL (secure sockets layer) to encrypt communications, so the default protocol is HTTPS (as shown above).

You can configure a vSphere server to use HTTP (rather than HTTPS). See “Modifying the Server Configuration to Support HTTP” in the Appendix (“vSphere Server Certificates”) of the Developer’s Setup Guide.
If a server is configured for HTTPS, you must import its server-certificates as described in “Obtaining Server Certificates” in the (“vSphere Server Certificates”) Appendix of the Developer’s Setup Guide.

For access to the Developer’ Setup Guide, use the link to the vSphere Document Center on the vSphere Web Services SDK Documentation page

Note:

For testing purposes, you can circumvent server-certificate verification by using the Java TrustManager. The JAX-WS samples included in the SDK contain examples of this technique. For production environments, you must establish a keystore for certificate verification. See the information about using a client-side credential store in the “Authentication and Authorization” chapter of the vSphere Web Services SDK Programming Guide.

Install the development environment appropriate for your programming language.

For Java, use the JDK. VMware recommends JDK 11. For more information, see:
http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/

Obtain the appropriate Web-services client tools (XML parser, WSDL-to-proxy-code generation tools, runtime) for your programming language:

For Java, use the JAX-WS 2.3.3 bundled in libs/JAXWS-RI.

Configure environment and other settings on the workstation (as described in the appropriate language-specific sections in the Developer’s Setup Guide), or in the respective readme files (readme_java.html, for the samples.

VMware Resources

For released product information, including known issues, see the VMware Infrastructure SDK page. Be sure to read the Release Notes for the most recent information.

Last updated: 16 June 2022 | VMware vSphere Web Services SDK