I had the same issue... brand new B200 M4's and this is the first time we tried to use auto deploy with SD cards and no internal disks.  Its confusing because the installer lists the SD card as an acceptable installation location, and when you look at the host later on in vCenter, it lists the HBA and datastore on the SD card.  However, if you auto deploy the hosts, the available storage adapters will show up blank and you won't see a place to add it.  It turns out I had to create a host profile off of the host in question, change the System Image Cache Configuration to "Enable stateful installs to a USB disk on the host", update my auto deploy rule sets to include the host profile, then re-image the host.  After that, stateful installs on the SD card succeeded.  Oh, and don't forget to set the boot policy of the server to use "SD Card" and not local storage... that was another item I overlooked for a while.  ... View more

It finally works!  I updated to 5.3 the other day so that may have had something to do with it and I have done limited testing to see what other variables may have impacted the end result, but I just made a custom workflow with the Execute VIX Script task (all variables were supplied directly in the task configuration pane, nothing was passed through from a user selection or workflow input) and the VM ran the script.  The script command was a simple one-liner show below.  I will be experimenting with more combinations but I did try with it using #!/bin/bash which didn't seem to work.  At least I have something to work off of know to know which settings break it and which work.  One more item to note was that the VM was set to Red Hat 6 x64 despie it actually being a CentOS 6 VM, which may or may not have an impact. Script" /bin/echo "Hello world" >> /tmp/world.txt ... View more

FYI, I am trying to use the macros in this document: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/unified_computing/ucs/ucs-director/administration-guide/4-0/ucs_director_admin_guide/using_macros.html#wp1061223 According to that, ${VM_NAME} should reference the name of the VM and can be used in a workflow input, however it doesn't say whether or not it can be used in an admin input filter. Based on this guide though, it sounds as though dynamic admin input filters are possible, but I have yet to find any examples of one. http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/unified_computing/ucs/ucs-director/orchestration-guide/4-0/OrchestrationGuide/orch_creating_workflows.html " Admin Input Filter field The administrator's input filter value used to define custom inputs based on a filter (static or d dynamic). For example, you can filter on aggregate, volumes, and POD." ... View more

Michael- What version of vSphere are you using?  I found this today when trying to investigate further, not sure if it's relevant or not. http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/techpaper/vsphere_powercli51r1_technote.pdf "Based on the version of your VMware virtualization software, Invoke-VMScript selects a service to run your script with. -For vCenter  Server 5.0 and later or ESX/ESXi 5.0 and later, Invoke-VMScript runs your script through the VIM service. -For earlier vCenter Server and ESX/ESXi versions, Invoke-VMScript runs your script through the VIX component. The VIX component is included with PowerCLI." There is a difference in behavior indicate by the task log of the guest in vSphere between running the commands through PowerCLI and UCSD. PowerCLI: Guest operation Create Temporary File performed. info 3/26/2015 5:17:18 PM Guest operation Start Program performed. info 3/26/2015 5:17:19 PM Guest operation List Processes performed. info 3/26/2015 5:17:19 PM Guest operation List Processes performed. info 3/26/2015 5:17:24 PM Guest operation Initiate File Transfer From Guest performed. info 3/26/2015 5:17:25 PM Guest operation Delete File performed. info 3/26/2015 5:17:25 PM UCSD: A ticket of type guestControl has been acquired. info 3/26/2015 5:19:51 PM Nothing else happens after that.  So it seems as though UCSD is in fact not using the same method to inject a script into the guest as PowerCLI does.  Any ideas on what I could do to create my own custom workflow/task to make direct calls to the vSphere API?  Not really sure where to get started there... I also noticed that there is an Execute Command task that seems similar to the Execute VIX Script but it errors out when I try to run it and I seem to remember seeing somewhere that it doesn't work with ESXi 5 and later.  ... View more

I created a new task from scratch and I still get no results.  VMware tools is installed and is up to date.  vSphere versions is 5.5 u3, vm hardware version 10.  /test.sh (manual execution shows that script works and puts results in /tmp): #!/bin/bash echo "Hello" >> /tmp/ucsdtest.txt VIX Task is identical to yours save for the script name.  I get the inputs at run time from the user, although my previous attempts were defined admin inputs. ... View more

Password issue is definitely fixed, thanks for that.  Script issue still exists though, even when trying to call a local script.  I created /test.sh and tried to call it from the workflow.  Despite the workflow reporting that it was successful, nothing ever happens on the guest VM.  ... View more

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll upgrade to 5.2 and give that a try, although I wouldn't consider that an ideal solution.  What we're trying to do is support a multi-tenant environment where each tenant VM is based off of a single template image (less templates to maintain means easier to update and less of a chance of having configuration drift) and each customization task is contained in the specific workflow.  While we could consolidate everything down to a single image and then store our post customization scripts on the host itself, destroying them once the customization is complete, it would be better to have it all done/maintained in the workflow and UCSD itself.  I know it is possible to inject a bash script into a VM through powershell, so the functionality is there already in VMware's API, it's just a matter of being able to call it in UCSD. I'll send an update once I try running a local script.  ... View more

5.1.0.0 Build 51089 I know there are various ways to supply the password, i.e. workflow user inputs, admin inputs, task inputs, etc.  I think I've tried all of them and experience the same behavior but can't say 100% for sure.  The log below is from a workflow using the password supplied via admin task input in the workflow designer.  Input type is listed as credential and password is masked in the workflow/task design input dialog box. Mar 18, 2015 12:03:30 EDT Request submitted Mar 18, 2015 12:03:33 EDT Executing workflow item number 1 Mar 18, 2015 12:03:33 EDT Completed workflow item number 1, with status Completed Mar 18, 2015 12:03:39 EDT Executing workflow item number 2 Mar 18, 2015 12:03:39 EDT Trigger context executeWorkFlowStep called Mar 18, 2015 12:03:39 EDT Executing custom action Execute VM Script (custom_Execute VIX Script - 2014-10-28) Mar 18, 2015 12:03:39 EDT Executing custom action Execute VM Script (custom_Execute VIX Script - 2014-10-28) for VM 28 (testvm1) Mar 18, 2015 12:03:39 EDT Executing custom script for Execute VIX Script - 2014-10-28 Mar 18, 2015 12:03:40 EDT [VIXActionHandler] - account details VMName testvm1 Host testhost1.domain.com OS Type Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 (64-bit) Mar 18, 2015 12:04:25 EDT Task #1 (Execute VM Script (custom_Execute VIX Script - 2014-10-28)) completed successfully in 45 seconds Mar 18, 2015 12:04:25 EDT Input/Output values for Task #1 (Execute VM Script (custom_Execute VIX Script - 2014-10-28)): Mar 18, 2015 12:04:25 EDT [Mapped Input: Select VM = 28] Mar 18, 2015 12:04:25 EDT [Local Input: Credential Type = Login] Mar 18, 2015 12:04:25 EDT [Local Input: Login = root] Mar 18, 2015 12:04:25 EDT [Template Input:Password = UnmaskedPword ] Mar 18, 2015 12:04:25 EDT [Resolved Template Input: Password = L] Mar 18, 2015 12:04:25 EDT [Local Input: Password = **masked-value**] Mar 18, 2015 12:04:25 EDT [Local Input: Script = touch /tmp/UCSD_script] Mar 18, 2015 12:04:25 EDT [Local Input: Undo Script = ] Mar 18, 2015 12:04:25 EDT Completed workflow item number 2, with status Completed Mar 18, 2015 12:04:28 EDT Executing workflow item number 3 Mar 18, 2015 12:04:28 EDT Completed workflow item number 3, with status Completed ... View more

Still trying to get this working, but just an FYI I noticed that if you put a password in for root, it will display it openly in the task logs.  There are two entries, one that has a masked password and one that shows the actual password.  Not sure if it's something I am doing wrong or not but something to be aware of, especially if you have this in a vDC where end users can see the logs of services requests that may contain it.  Can anyone else confirm if they see the same behavior or if everything is properly masked in their logs?  ... View more

Anyone?  Even if someone has a sample of a working bash script injected using this method that would be extremely helpful.  I've tried a bunch of variations in the script and I still get a report back saying that it was successful but nothing actually seems to run on the target VM.  ... View more

I definitely think that's possible, theoretically if you can inject that bash script you can do anything you want with the machine.  ... View more

That is in effect what we are trying to do, just using UCSD instead of vCAC/vApp Director as our cloud management utility and catalog provider to the end user.  Currently, we have the templates in vCenter created and the salt formulas made to transform the clone into the final desired product, so all we need to do now is get those items tied together into a UCSD catalog image and associated workflow.  I'm working on using the "Execute VIX Script" task which is a built-in task to inject the bash script into the VM (I've used the VIX/VIM interface before to inject bash scripts using PowerCLI so I know that portion of it works) but I'm currently running into new-user issues with it such as understanding proper syntax and formatting to use.  ... View more