gem-version Test Lint

This is a community-supported, open source project at VMware. It is built and maintained by programmers like you!


RbVmomi is a Ruby interface to the vSphere API. Like the Perl and Java SDKs, you can use it to manage ESX and vCenter servers. The current release supports the vSphere 7.0 API. RbVmomi specific documentation is online and is meant to be used alongside the official documentation.


gem install rbvmomi


A simple example of turning on a VM:

require 'rbvmomi'

vim = RbVmomi::VIM.connect(host: 'foo', user: 'bar', password: 'baz')
dc = vim.serviceInstance.find_datacenter('my_datacenter') || fail('datacenter not found')
vm = dc.find_vm('my_vm') || fail('VM not found')

This code uses several RbVmomi extensions to the vSphere API for concision. The expanded snippet below uses only standard API calls and should be familiar to users of the Java SDK:

require 'rbvmomi'

root_folder = vim.serviceInstance.content.rootFolder
dc = root_folder.childEntity.grep(RbVmomi::VIM::Datacenter).find { |x| x.name == 'mydatacenter' } || fail('datacenter not found')
vm = dc.vmFolder.childEntity.grep(RbVmomi::VIM::VirtualMachine).find { |x| x.name == 'my_vm' } || fail('VM not found')
task = vm.PowerOnVM_Task
filter = vim.propertyCollector.CreateFilter(
  spec: {
    objectSet: [{ obj: task }]
  partialUpdates: false
ver = ''
loop do
  result = vim.propertyCollector.WaitForUpdates(version: ver)
  ver = result.version
  break if ['success', 'error'].member?(task.info.state)
raise(task.info.error) if task.info.state == 'error'


A few important points:

  • Properties are exposed as accessor methods.
  • Enumeration values are simply strings.
  • Example code is included in the examples/ directory.
  • A set of helper methods for Optimist is included to speed up development of command line apps. See the included examples for usage.
  • If you don't have trusted SSL certificates installed on the host you're connecting to, you'll get an OpenSSL::SSL::SSLError "certificate verify failed". You can work around this by using the :insecure option to RbVmomi::VIM.connect.

Built-in extensions are under lib/rbvmomi/vim/. You are encouraged to reopen VIM classes in your applications and add extensions of your own. If you write something generally useful please open a pull request so it can be merged back in


Open an issue on the issues page or fork the project on GitHub and send a pull request.


You can chat on Gitter or join the VMware code Slack team and join the #rbvmomi channel.