XenServer Software Development Kit Guide 4.1.0

Using the API

• permute.py: selects a set of VMs and uses XenMotion to move them simultaneously between hosts;

• powercycle.py: selects a set of VMs and powercycles them;

• shell.py: a simple interactive shell for testing;

• vm_start_async.py: demonstrates how to invoke operations asynchronously; and

• watch-all-events.py: registers for all events and prints details when they occur.

4.2.4. Command Line Interface (CLI)

Rather than using raw XML-RPC or one of the supplied language bindings, third-party software developers

may instead integrate with XenServer Hosts by using the XE CLI xe.exe.

CLI dependencies

Platform

supported:

Linux and Windows

Library: None

Binary: xe[.exe]

Dependencies:None

The CLI allows almost every API call to be directly invoked from a script or other program, silently taking

care of the required session management. The XE CLI syntax and capabilities are described in detail in

Chapter 5 of the XenServer Administrator's Guide. The SDK contains 3 example bash shell scripts which

demonstrate CLI usage. These are:

• install-debian: installs a Debian Etch 4.0 VM, adds a network interface, starts it booting and waits for

the IP address to be reported;

• clone-vms: shuts down a VM if it is running, clones it and starts it up again; and

• suspend-resume: suspends a running VM and then resumes it.

Note

When running the CLI from a XenServer Host console, tab-completion of both command names

and arguments is available.

4.3. Complete application examples

This section describes two complete examples of real programs using the API. The application source code

is contained within the SDK.

4.3.1. Simultaneously migrating VMs using XenMotion

This python example (contained in /SDK/client-examples/python/permute.py) demonstrates how

to use XenMotion to move VMs simultaneously between hosts in a Resource Pool. The example makes

use of asynchronous API calls and shows how to wait for a set of tasks to complete.

The program begins with some standard boilerplate and imports the API bindings module