Using the command-line interface of Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization 3.1

by Rob Locke (Red Hat)

One of the new features introduced in version 3.1 of Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization is a command line interface (CLI) to connect to the manager. The CLI also contains a scripting system, which helps system administrators perform periodic maintenance or repetitive tasks on their virtualization environment.

Communication with the RHEV Manager is secured through the use of a certificate that needs to be downloaded from the manager:

$ wget http://rhevm.pod0.example.com/ca.crt

Connect to the RHEV Manager using the rhevm-shell command (referring to the downloaded certificate):

$ rhevm-shell -l https://rhevm.pod0.example.com/api \
-u rhevadmin@example.com -A ca.crt -c
Password: redhat
... output omitted ...
[RHEVM shell (connected)]#

There are numerous subcommands that can be specified at the rhevm-shell prompt. Use help for a list of subcommands, then help subcommand to see what can be done:

[RHEVM shell (connected)]# help
... output omitted ...
[RHEVM shell (connected)]# help action
... output omitted ...

Those rhevm-shell subcommands can be entered interactively from the prompt above or embedded in a text file for automation from a standard shell prompt:

$ cat /tmp/rhel0.shutdown
action vm rhel0 shutdown
exit
$ rhevm-shell -l https://rhevm.pod0.example.com/api \
-u rhevadmin@example.com -A ca.crt -f /tmp/rhel0.shutdown -c
Password: redhat

Learn more about rhevm-shell and other methods of automation in our updated Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization (RH318) course.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.