Schedule VM snapshot deletion

Requirement:

There is no default feature available in Vcenter to schedule snapshot deletion. We need to automate snapshot deletion of VM.

Pre-requisite:

1. SSH service should be running on ESXi host.
2. Target VM should be run on pre-defined host.
3. One Linux system with cron job running.

Step 1:

Enable ssh service on ESXi host.

Login to Vcenter > Select host > Configuration > Security Profile > Services > Select SSH > Options > Start > OK

Step 2:

Allow SSH access to ESX/ESXi hosts with public/private key

i). Generate public/private keys on Linux system.

$ssh-keygen -t rsa

These will generate 2 files in ~/.ssh: id_rsa and id_rsa.pub.

ii). On the remote host, store id_rsa.pub (the public key content) in ~/.ssh/authorized_keys.

For ESXi 5.0, the location of authorized_keys is: /etc/ssh/keys-<username>/authorized_keys

iii). To allow root access, change PermitRootLogin no to PermitRootLogin yes in the /etc/ssh/sshd_config file. By default it is yes.

iv). To disable password login, ensure that ChallengeResponseAuthentication and PasswordAuthentication are set to no. It is optional.

• v. Reload the service with the command:

$/etc/init.d/SSH start

Step 3:

Create snapshot-del.sh script on ESXi host.

#!/bin/bash

# name : snapshot-del.sh

# date : 10-22-2013

# revision : 1.0

# description : This script removes snapshot if the count is greater than 2

VM_ID=11

SNAP_COUNT=`vim-cmd vmsvc/snapshot.get $VM_ID|grep 'Snapshot Id'|wc -l`

if [ "$SNAP_COUNT" -gt 2 ]; then

echo "Deleting snapshot"

SNAP_DEL=`vim-cmd vmsvc/snapshot.get $VM_ID|grep 'Snapshot Id'|head -1|awk '{print $4}'`

echo $SNAP_DEL

vim-cmd vmsvc/snapshot.remove $VM_ID $SNAP_DEL

echo "snapshot $SNAP_DEL deleted"

else

echo "Snapshot count not greater than 2"

fi

Step 4:

Create a script on Linux system to run from cron

#!/bin/bash

echo `date +%a%t%d%t%b%t%Y%t%T` >> /opt/vmware/script/snapshot-del.log

ssh 'IP of the ESXi host' 'Full path of the script' >> /opt/vmware/script/snapshot-del.log

echo >> /opt/vmware/script/snapshot-del.log