Working with ESXi Hosts

Here's how you can use the photon host command or the Photon web interface to work with ESXi hosts. You can, for example, add ESXi hosts to your Photon Controller cluster by using the photon host create command. Adding ESXi hosts to the cluster can expand the cluster's capacity for computation and storage so that you can run more VMs or create larger Kubernetes clusters.

Adding an ESXi Host to a Photon Controller Cluster

The Photon Platform web interface lets you add an ESXi host:

You can also add an ESXi host by using the photon host create command:

photon host create --username root --password ESXiHostPw --address <ip-address-of-new-ESXi-host>

Here's the usage information the photon host create command:

NAME:
   photon host create - Create a new host

USAGE:
   photon host create [command options] [arguments...]

OPTIONS:
   --username, -u 		username to create host
   --password, -p 		password to create host
   --address, -i 		ip address of the host
   --availability_zone, -z 	availability zone of the host
   --tag, -t 			tag for the host
   --metadata, -m 		metadata for the host
   --deployment_id, -d 		deployment id to create host

Working with ESXi Hosts

List the ESXi hosts in a Photon Controller cluster and show their status:

photon host list
ID                     State  IP             Tags
137d4e5a5437f85fea900  READY  198.51.100.44  MGMT CLOUD
Total: 1

Show complete information for a host by citing its ID:

photon host show 137d4e5a5437f85fea900
Host ID:  137d4e5a5437f85fea900
  Username:           root
  IP:                 198.51.100.44
  Tags:               [MGMT CLOUD]
  State:              READY
  Metadata:           map[MANAGEMENT_VM_DISK_GB_OVERWRITE:80 MANAGEMENT_NETWORK_DNS_SERVER:198.51.98.1 MANAGEMENT_NETWORK_NETMASK:255.255.0.0 MANAGEMENT_NETWORK_IP:198.51.100.207 MANAGEMENT_NETWORK_GATEWAY:198.51.100.253 MANAGEMENT_DATASTORE:datastore1 MANAGEMENT_VM_CPU_COUNT_OVERWRITE:4 MANAGEMENT_PORTGROUP:VM Network MANAGEMENT_VM_MEMORY_MB_OVERWRITE:6144]
  AvailabilityZone:   
  Version:            6.0.0

List the VMs on an ESXi host and show their state by citing the ID of the host:

photon host list-vms 137d4e5a5437f85fea900
ID                                    Name                                         State
1305ecbd-8717-4dad-bc4f-1e7b6cebb897  Photon-OS                                    STARTED
19d197fc-2653-466f-bb7f-5f03a5a6bdb1  ec-mgmt-10-118-100-448095e                   STARTED
1eba91ba-c926-41dc-adb1-4b82e0797c4b  master-7a0c629b-52dc-49c9-b58f-f37100948487  STARTED
71b20ca1-5055-4530-8218-e0ca0730e79d  worker-7daa6a2c-39f9-4834-be33-4ccac548f8da  STARTED
85c9325b-ed0f-4f63-8bd6-8c581d4593fa  etcd-96cae740-3c65-4ac8-96e9-c6b170990934    STARTED
ebce1024-1282-49d5-a4dc-930d40923d18  Photon-OS-2                                  STARTED
Total: 6
STARTED: 6

Show the tasks on a host:

photon host tasks 137d4e5a5437f85fea900
Task                   Start Time              Duration
137d4e5a5437f85fee398  2016-12-12 04:44:31.00  00:00:10
CREATE_HOST, COMPLETED
You can run 'photon task show <id>' for more information
Total: 1

There are additional commands for managing the ESXi hosts in a Photon Controller cluster:

photon host --help
NAME:
   photon host - options for host
USAGE:
   photon host command [command options] [arguments...]
COMMANDS:
   create			Create a new host
   delete			Delete a host with specified id
   list				List all the hosts
   show				Show host info with specified id
   list-vms			List all the vms on the host
   set-availability-zone	Set host's availability zone
   tasks			Show tenant tasks
   suspend			Suspend host with specified id
   resume			Resume host with specified id
   enter-maintenance		Host with specified id enter maintenance mode
   exit-maintenance		Host with specified id exit maintenance mode
   help, h			Shows a list of commands or help for one command
OPTIONS:
   --help, -h	show help