This next bug is a silly one…. (tested on vRops 6.6.1.6163035)

One of the guys which runs vMug with me asked if I knew a work around to enter a Sender Email Address with a top-level domain (TLD) longer than 6 characters on the Standard Email Plugin… It turns out that vRops invalidates the sender address if the TLD is longer than 6 chars so you cant save the instance in the GUI!!

Here is an example with a length of 6 characters, allows me to click SAVE.

Here is an example with a length greater than 6 characters, does not allow me to click SAVE.

doh!!… so the only way to get around this is to create the Standard Email Plugin using the API…

Below is the XML structure required to POST to /suite-api/api/alertplugins to create the plugin as the suite-api example just throws a 500 error with no explanation! (sigh) it turns out the example is missing <ops:name> in the XML provided.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<ops:notification-plugin version="0" xmlns:ops="http://webservice.vmware.com/vRealizeOpsMgr/1.0/" xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
    <ops:pluginTypeId>StandardEmailPlugin</ops:pluginTypeId>
    <ops:name>vMAN cloud.services Test</ops:name>
    <ops:description>vMAN cloud.services Test</ops:description>
    <ops:configValues>
        <ops:configValue name="IS_SECURE_CONNECTION">false</ops:configValue>
        <ops:configValue name="IS_REQUIRES_AUTHETICATION">false</ops:configValue>
        <ops:configValue name="SECURE_CONNECTION_TYPE">SSL</ops:configValue>
        <ops:configValue name="SMTP_HOST">cloud.services</ops:configValue>
        <ops:configValue name="SMTP_PORT">25</ops:configValue>
        <ops:configValue name="USERNAME">test@cloud.services</ops:configValue>
        <ops:configValue name="PASSWORD">Password</ops:configValue>      
        <ops:configValue name="senderEmailAddress">test@cloud.services</ops:configValue>
        <ops:configValue name="senderName">vMAN Cloud Services Test</ops:configValue>         
    </ops:configValues>
</ops:notification-plugin>

Here is a working example of the POST using the Advanced Rest Client from Chrome, don’t forget to specify the headers “Content-Type : application/xml” and “authorization : Basic XXXXXXXXX

The adapter has been created it now appears in API…

It also appears in the GUI but has an Invalid Status… (I can confirm it works and notifications are sent… it is just a validation / visual thing… but just make sure not to try and modify it in the GUI or it might break it!)

I have raised this with my VMware / vRops contacts and hopefully will get a bug created and get them to correct the Suite-api documentation.

vMan