There are several vSphere API which requires datastore UUID as one of its important properties. Some examples of such APIs are MountVmfsVolume(),mountVmfsVolumeEx(), UnmountForceMountedVmfsVolume(), unmapVmfsVolumeEx(), DeleteVmfsVolumeState(), unmountVmfsVolumeEx & unmountVmfsVolume(). Without vmfsUUID we can NOT operate on any of these APIs. Now question is how to get/know the datastore UUID of the VMFS datastores connected to hosts using vSphere APIs. I thought its better to write the vSphere API script to solve this. The script that I am sharing is going to get all hosts and all of its associated datastores and each datastore and its associated UUID. Here we go.

[java]
package com.vmware.vijava;
import java.net.URL;
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Map;
import java.util.Map.Entry;
import com.vmware.vim25.DatastoreInfo;
import com.vmware.vim25.VmfsDatastoreInfo;
import com.vmware.vim25.mo.Datastore;
import com.vmware.vim25.mo.Folder;
import com.vmware.vim25.mo.HostDatastoreBrowser;
import com.vmware.vim25.mo.HostSystem;
import com.vmware.vim25.mo.InventoryNavigator;
import com.vmware.vim25.mo.ManagedEntity;
import com.vmware.vim25.mo.ServiceInstance;
import com.vmware.vim25.mo.VirtualMachine;

public class findVMFSUUIDs {
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
ServiceInstance si = new ServiceInstance(new URL(
"https://10.120.30.40/sdk"), "[email protected]",
"Administrator!23", true);
// Get the rootFolder
Folder rootFolder = si.getRootFolder();

// Get all the hosts in the vCenter server
ManagedEntity[] hosts = new InventoryNavigator(rootFolder)
.searchManagedEntities("HostSystem");

if (hosts == null) {
System.out.println("Host not found on vCenter");
si.getServerConnection().logout();
return;
}

// Map to store the datastore name as key and its UUID as the value
Map< String , String> vmfsdatastoreUUIDs = new HashMap< String , String>();

// Map to store host as key and all of its datastores as the value
Map< ManagedEntity , Datastore[]> hostDatastores = new HashMap< ManagedEntity , Datastore[]>();
for (ManagedEntity hostSystem : hosts) {
HostDatastoreBrowser hdb = ((HostSystem) hostSystem)
.getDatastoreBrowser();
Datastore[] ds = hdb.getDatastores();
hostDatastores.put(hostSystem, ds);
}

System.out.println("Hosts and all of its associated datastores");
for (Map.Entry < ManagedEntity , Datastore[]> datastores : hostDatastores
.entrySet()) {
System.out.println("");
System.out.print("[" + datastores.getKey().getName() + "::");
for (Datastore datastore : datastores.getValue()) {
System.out.print(datastore.getName() + ",");
DatastoreInfo dsinfo = datastore.getInfo();
if (dsinfo instanceof VmfsDatastoreInfo) {
VmfsDatastoreInfo vdinfo = (VmfsDatastoreInfo) dsinfo;
vmfsdatastoreUUIDs.put(datastore.getName(), vdinfo
.getVmfs().getUuid());
}

}
System.out.print("]");
}
System.out.println(" ");
System.out.println("Datastore and its UUID");
for (Map.Entry< String , String> dsuuid : vmfsdatastoreUUIDs.entrySet()) {
System.out.println("[" + dsuuid.getKey() + "::" + dsuuid.getValue()
+ "]");
}

}
}
[/java]

Program Output::

Hosts and all of its associated datastores

[192.168.1.1::DS3,DS2,Local DS,DS4,NFS1,]
[192.168.1.2::LocalDS2,LocalDS1,LocalDS3,]

Datastore and its UUID

[LocalDS1::55d9b324-bad019fa-147a-f04da20356f7]
[Local DS::55b5dee1-ebd2895d-1263-002219574957]
[DS2::51e3e9f7-8ab3eac5-4715-00221957495d]
[LocalDS2::5592e051-da224dfc-ad16-f04da20356f7]
[LocalDS3::55d9b367-d145aef6-dcfe-f04da20356f7]
[DS3::51398f9b-e591008a-1b35-002219574a65]
[DS4::55cc410f-604db805-6fc0-002219574a65]
[/java]

Now you could enhance this code to operate on any vSphere API that requires VMFS UUID as one of parameters. Please do comment if you have any doubts or need any help.

If you have still not setup your VI JAVA Eclipse environment:Getting started tutorial
Important tutorials to start with: Part I & Part II

Note: VI JAVA open source project is forked into YA VIJAVA(Yet another VI JAVA), it will have support to all the new APIs introduced in vSphere 6.0. VI JAVA itself works fine even on vSphere 6.0 (except the new features in vSphere 6.0). Please do stay tuned my post on YA VIJAVA.

Vikas Shitole

Vikas Shitole is a Staff engineer 2 at VMware (by Broadcom) India R&D. He currently contributes to core VMware products such as  vSphere, VMware Private AI foundation and partly VCF . He is an AI and Kubernetes enthusiast. He is passionate about helping VMware customers & enjoys exploring automation opportunities around core VMware technologies. He has been a vExpert since last 11 years (2014-24) in row for his significant contributions to the VMware communities. He is author of 2 VMware flings & holds multiple technology certifications. He is one of the lead contributors to VMware API Sample Exchange with more than 35000+ downloads for his API scripts. He has been speaker at International conferences such as VMworld Europe, USA, Singapore & was designated VMworld 2018 blogger as well. He was the lead technical reviewer of the two books “vSphere design” and “VMware virtual SAN essentials” by packt publishing.

In addition, he is passionate cricketer, enjoys bicycle riding, learning about fitness/nutrition and one day aspire to be an Ironman 70.3