2.4.3 Oracle VM Virtual Machine Messaging (ovm

2.4.3 Oracle VM Virtual Machine Messaging (ovm_vmmessage)

The ovm_vmmessage utility lets you send a message to a running virtual machine, or to query the value of a message sent from within a virtual machine to Oracle VM Manager using the Oracle VM API messaging interface. These values are basic key/value pairs such as foo=bar.

New Oracle VM templates released by Oracle contain a configuration utility called ovmd. This utility is used to perform first-boot installation configuration either locally from the virtual machine console or remotely through the messaging interface provided by this utility. The ovmd utility also allows the owner of the virtual machine to send messages back to Oracle VM Manager. For more information about ovmd, and the Oracle VM Guest Additions in general, see Chapter 3, Oracle VM Guest Additions.

To send messages you combine -k key and -V value. To retrieve messages, use -q key.

Syntax

ovm_vmmessage { -u username } { -p password | -E } { -h hostname } [ -v vm_name ] [ -k key ] [ -V value ] [ -q key ]

Options

The following table shows the available options for this command.

Option	Description
`-u username`	The username of an Oracle VM Manager admin user. This option is required.
{ `-p password` \| `-E` }	The `-p` option is the password corresponding with the admin username. Alternatively, you can use the `-E` option to set the password in an environment variable named `OVMUTIL_PASS`, and securely submit the password. To set this variable for a single session on Oracle Linux, use: # export OVMUTIL_PASS=`password` This option is required.
`-h hostname`	The hostname of the server running Oracle VM Manager. This option is required.
`-v vm_name`	The virtual machine name. The virtual machine name is the name you assign during the creation of the virtual machine.
`-k key`	The key to send.
`-V value`	The value to send with the key. This command must be used in combination with: `-k` `key`
`-q key`	The key to query.

Examples

Example 2.5 Sending a message to a virtual machine

# ./ovm_vmmessage -u admin -p password -h localhost -v MyVM02 -k foo -V bar 
Oracle VM VM Message utility version.
Connected. 
VM : 'MyVM02' has status :  Running. 
Sending message. 
Message sent successfully.

Example 2.6 Retrieving a message from a virtual machine

# ./ovm_vmmessage -u admin -p password -h localhost -v MyVM02 -q foo 
Oracle VM VM Message utility version.
Connected. 
VM : 'MyVM02' has status :  Running. 
Querying for key 'foo'. 
Query successful. 
Query for Key : 'foo' returned value 'bar'. 
Key set 27 minutes ago.