Connection to vCenter REST API with PHP

Question

I am trying to get VM information from VMware vCenter v6.5 with PHP 7. I am receiving error code 400 from curl_getinfo.

I copied the code for this from this post: VCenter ReST API authentication

I've tried this from command line and am able get a session ID, so I know that the server is sending information back as it should, just not to the PHP web page.

Reference for following command: https://communities.vmware.com/thread/556377

curl -X POST --header 'Content-Type: application/json' --header 'Accept: application/json' --header 'vmware-use-header-authn: test' --header 'vmware-api-session-id: null' -u 'administrator@vsphere.local' 'https://vcenter.mydomain.local/rest/com/vmware/cis/session'

<?php
$ch = curl_init();

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST, false);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, false);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL,'https://vcenter.mydomain.local/rest/com/vmware/cis/session');
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERPWD, 'administrator@vsphere.local:Passw0rd');
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPAUTH, CURLAUTH_BASIC );
$headers = array(
'Content-Type: application/json',
'Accept: application/json',
'vmware-use-header-authn: test',
'vmware-api-session-id: null',
'Expect:'
);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, $headers);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLINFO_HEADER_OUT, true);

$out = json_decode(curl_exec($ch));

if(!curl_exec($ch)){
die('Error: "' . curl_error($ch) . '" - Code: ' . curl_errno($ch));
}

$info = curl_getinfo($ch);
echo "<p>CURL URL: " . $info['url'];
echo "<p><font color=green>CURL Dump: <br>";
echo '<pre>';
var_dump($info);
echo "</pre>\n";
echo "<p>OUT:<br>";
var_dump($out);
if ($out === false) {
   echo 'Curl Error: ' . curl_error($ch);
   exit;
}
$sid = $out->value;

echo "<br>SID: " . $sid;

curl_close($ch);
?>

I expect the output from $out->value will be a session ID, instead I get NULL . Grateful for any help, thanks!

Answer 1

my best guess is that VCenter blocks requests with no user-agent header, and curl-cli adds such a header automatically, but libcurl / php's libcurl wrappers does not. try

curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_USERAGENT, 'php/' . PHP_VERSION . ' libcurl/' . (curl_version()['version']));

then you'll get something like

User-Agent: php/7.1.16 libcurl/7.59.0

which is truthful :)

Answer 2

The http 400 error is caused by this header:

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, true);

And replacing it with this one solves the issue:

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST, 'POST');

Answer 3

With curl you can connect in this way:

curl -X POST \
  https://<your_vcenter>/rest/com/vmware/cis/session \
  -H 'Accept: application/json' \
  -H 'Authorization: Basic <encoded_password...see *1)' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -H 'vmware-use-header-authn: SomerandomValue'

*1 => https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_access_authentication**

Then you get as response:

{
    "value": "vmware-api-session-id"
}

With this id you can do:

curl -X GET \
  https://<your_vcenter>/rest/vcenter/host \
  -H 'Accept: application/json' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -H 'vmware-api-session-id: vmware-api-session-id' \
  -d '{
    "filter": {
    }
}'

and get

{
    "value": [
        {
            "host": "host-1",
            "name": "esx01.your.domain",
            "connection_state": "CONNECTED",
            "power_state": "POWERED_ON"
        },
        {
            "host": "host-2",
            "name": "esx02.your.domain",
            "connection_state": "CONNECTED",
            "power_state": "POWERED_ON"
        }
    ]
}