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Vmware Storage

Use this skill whenever the user needs to manage VMware storage — datastores, iSCSI targets, and vSAN clusters. Directly handles: browse datastores, scan for...

personAuthor: zw008hubclawhub
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VMware Storage

Disclaimer: This is a community-maintained open-source project and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by VMware, Inc. or Broadcom Inc. "VMware" and "vSphere" are trademarks of Broadcom. Source code is publicly auditable at github.com/zw008/VMware-Storage under the MIT license.

VMware vSphere storage management — 11 MCP tools for datastores, iSCSI, and vSAN.

Split from vmware-aiops for lighter context and local model compatibility. Companion skills: vmware-aiops (VM lifecycle), vmware-monitor (read-only monitoring), vmware-vks (Tanzu Kubernetes), vmware-nsx (NSX networking), vmware-nsx-security (DFW/firewall), vmware-aria (metrics/alerts/capacity), vmware-avi (AVI/ALB/AKO), vmware-harden (compliance baselines). | vmware-pilot (workflow orchestration) | vmware-policy (audit/policy)

What This Skill Does

| Category | Tools | Count | |----------|-------|:-----:| | Datastore | list all datastores, browse files, scan for OVA/ISO/OVF/VMDK images, list cached images | 4 | | iSCSI | enable adapter, show status, add target, remove target, rescan HBAs | 5 | | vSAN | cluster health summary, capacity overview (total/used/free) | 2 |

Quick Install

uv tool install vmware-storage
vmware-storage doctor

When to Use This Skill

  • Browse datastore files or scan for deployable images (OVA/ISO/VMDK)
  • Configure iSCSI: enable adapter, add/remove send targets, rescan storage
  • Check vSAN cluster health and capacity
  • Any storage-focused VMware operation

Use companion skills for:

  • VM lifecycle, deployment, guest ops → vmware-aiops
  • Inventory, health, alarms, events → vmware-monitor
  • Tanzu Kubernetes → vmware-vks
  • Load balancing, AVI/ALB, AKO, Ingress → vmware-avi

Related Skills — Skill Routing

| User Intent | Recommended Skill | |-------------|-------------------| | Read-only monitoring, alarms, events | vmware-monitor | | Storage: iSCSI, vSAN, datastores | vmware-storage ← this skill | | VM lifecycle, deployment, guest ops | vmware-aiops | | Tanzu Kubernetes (vSphere 8.x+) | vmware-vks | | NSX networking: segments, gateways, NAT | vmware-nsx | | NSX security: DFW rules, security groups | vmware-nsx-security | | Aria Ops: metrics, alerts, capacity planning | vmware-aria | | Multi-step workflows with approval | vmware-pilot | | Compliance baselines (CIS / 等保 / PCI-DSS), drift detection, LLM remediation advisor | vmware-harden (uv tool install vmware-harden) | | Load balancer, AVI, ALB, AKO, Ingress | vmware-avi (uv tool install vmware-avi) | | Audit log query | vmware-policy (vmware-audit CLI) |

Common Workflows

Set Up iSCSI Storage on a Host

Pre-flight (judgment):

  • Network reachability: vmkping <iscsi-target-ip> from the ESXi host must succeed BEFORE adding the target. Adding an unreachable target leaves the host in a degraded state, retrying forever.
  • Adapter sanity: iscsi status first — if already enabled, do not "re-enable"; just add the target.
  • Idempotency: add-target is idempotent (re-adding same IP is a no-op), but remove-target is not safely reversible mid-IO. Always verify no LUNs from this target are in use before removing.
  • Existing targets: list them first; some sites add targets one-per-host while others use cluster-wide. Check site convention.

Steps:

  1. iscsi status esxi-01 → confirm adapter state and existing targets
  2. iscsi enable esxi-01 --dry-run then real (skip if already enabled)
  3. iscsi add-target esxi-01 <ip> --dry-run then real (auto-rescans on success)
  4. iscsi status esxi-01 again → confirm target listed AND devices appearing
  5. If devices missing 30+ sec after add: iscsi rescan esxi-01 once more, then check ESXi-side vmkping and target ACL

Find Deployable Images Across Datastores

Judgment: image search is read-only and safe, but blind scanning of every datastore is slow on large estates. Filter first.

  1. datastore list → get the inventory; ignore datastores marked inaccessible or low free space
  2. datastore scan-images <ds> on the datastore most likely to hold images (typically named iso-*, templates, or central nfs-shared)
  3. If unsure where images live: scan multiple in parallel via separate calls; results are cached in the local registry
  4. datastore browse <ds> --pattern "*.iso" for ad-hoc searches; pattern is glob, not regex
  5. If datastore not found: name is case-sensitive. datastore list --target <vc> to verify exact spelling.

For filtered queries against the cache: use list_cached_images MCP tool with image_type and datastore parameters — avoids re-scanning.

vSAN Health Assessment

Judgment: vSAN problems often masquerade as vSphere problems and vice-versa. Check both planes — if vSAN is healthy but VMs are slow, the issue is at the compute or network layer, not storage.

  1. vsan health <cluster> → look beyond green/red — check disk group state, network partitioning, and cluster member counts. A "yellow" disk group is the early warning of a failure.
  2. vsan capacity <cluster> → utilization > 70% triggers slack-space risk; > 80% impedes resync; never let prod cross 80%.
  3. Cross-check vmware-monitor health alarms for vSAN-related alarms (HCL warnings, network anomalies)
  4. If vSAN not enabled on this cluster: check cluster type via vmware-monitor inventory clusters; vSAN is opt-in, not default
  5. For deep investigation, follow references/investigation-protocol.md (in companion skill) — vSAN issues frequently fail the Mechanism criterion (capacity is correlated, not causal)

Multi-Target Operations

All commands accept --target <name> to operate against a specific vCenter or ESXi host from your config:

# Default target (first in config.yaml)
vmware-storage datastore list

# Specific target
vmware-storage datastore list --target prod-vcenter
vmware-storage iscsi status esxi-lab --target lab-esxi

Usage Mode

| Scenario | Recommended | Why | |----------|:-----------:|-----| | Local/small models (Ollama, Qwen) | CLI | ~2K tokens vs ~8K for MCP | | Cloud models (Claude, GPT-4o) | Either | MCP gives structured JSON I/O | | Automated pipelines | MCP | Type-safe parameters, structured output |

MCP Tools (11 — 6 read, 5 write)

All MCP tools accept an optional target parameter to select which vCenter/ESXi to connect to.

| Category | Tool | Type | Description | |----------|------|:----:|-------------| | Datastore | list_all_datastores | Read | List datastores with capacity, usage %, VM count | | | browse_datastore | Read | Browse files with optional path and glob pattern | | | scan_datastore_images | Read | Find OVA/ISO/OVF/VMDK in a datastore | | | list_cached_images | Read | Query local image registry with type/datastore filters | | iSCSI | storage_iscsi_status | Read | Show adapter status, HBA device, IQN, send targets | | | storage_iscsi_enable | Write | Enable software iSCSI adapter on a host | | | storage_iscsi_add_target | Write | Add iSCSI send target (IP + port) and rescan | | | storage_iscsi_remove_target | Write | Remove iSCSI send target and rescan | | | storage_rescan | Write | Rescan all HBAs and VMFS volumes | | vSAN | vsan_health | Read | Cluster health summary and disk group details | | | vsan_capacity | Read | Total/used/free capacity in GB and usage % |

Read/write split: 6 tools are read-only, 5 modify state. Write tools require explicit parameters (host name, IP address) and are audit-logged.

CLI Quick Reference

# Datastore
vmware-storage datastore list [--target <name>]
vmware-storage datastore browse <ds_name> [--path <subdir>] [--pattern "*.ova"]
vmware-storage datastore scan-images <ds_name> [--target <name>]

# iSCSI
vmware-storage iscsi enable <host> [--dry-run]
vmware-storage iscsi status <host>
vmware-storage iscsi add-target <host> <ip> [--port 3260] [--dry-run]
vmware-storage iscsi remove-target <host> <ip> [--port 3260] [--dry-run]
vmware-storage iscsi rescan <host> [--dry-run]

# vSAN
vmware-storage vsan health <cluster> [--target <name>]
vmware-storage vsan capacity <cluster> [--target <name>]

# Diagnostics
vmware-storage doctor [--skip-auth]

Full CLI reference with all options and output formats: see references/cli-reference.md

Troubleshooting

iSCSI enable fails with "already enabled"

Not an error. The software iSCSI adapter is already active on that host. The response includes the current HBA device name and IQN. Run iscsi status to see configured send targets.

"Datastore not found" when browsing

Datastore names are case-sensitive. Run vmware-storage datastore list to get the exact name. Common mistakes: Datastore1 vs datastore1, trailing spaces.

vSAN health shows "unknown" status

vSAN health checks require a vCenter connection (not standalone ESXi). The full VsanVcClusterHealthSystem runs via vCenter's vSAN Health Service. If connected to a standalone ESXi host, vSAN queries will fail or return limited info.

Rescan doesn't discover new LUNs

After adding iSCSI targets, the storage subsystem may need 10-30 seconds to enumerate new LUNs. Steps to resolve:

  1. Verify the target IP is reachable from the ESXi host (vmkping from ESXi shell)
  2. Check that the iSCSI target is correctly configured: vmware-storage iscsi status <host>
  3. Wait 15-30 seconds, then rescan again: vmware-storage iscsi rescan <host>

"Password not found" error

The password environment variable is missing. Variable names follow the pattern VMWARE_<TARGET_NAME_UPPER>_PASSWORD where hyphens become underscores. Example: target my-vcenter needs VMWARE_MY_VCENTER_PASSWORD. Check your ~/.vmware-storage/.env file.

Doctor reports ".env permissions too open"

The .env file contains passwords and must have owner-only permissions:

chmod 600 ~/.vmware-storage/.env

Connection timeout to vCenter

The doctor command tests connectivity with a 5-second TCP timeout. If your vCenter is on a high-latency network, the check may fail even though the connection works. Use --skip-auth to bypass both connectivity and auth checks, then test manually.

invalid peer certificate: UnknownIssuer when starting MCP via uvx

Corporate TLS proxies inject certificates that uv's bundled CA store doesn't trust. Use the recommended vmware-storage mcp form (no PyPI re-resolve), or set export UV_NATIVE_TLS=true to make uv use system CAs.

Safety

  • No VM operations: This skill cannot power on/off, create, delete, or modify VMs — that scope belongs to vmware-aiops
  • Read-heavy: 6 of 11 tools are read-only (list, browse, scan, status, health, capacity)
  • Audit logging: All operations (including reads) are logged to ~/.vmware/audit.db (SQLite WAL, via vmware-policy) with timestamp, user, target, operation, parameters, and result
  • Double confirmation: CLI write commands (iSCSI enable, add/remove target) require two separate "Are you sure?" prompts before executing
  • Dry-run mode: All write commands support --dry-run to preview API calls without executing
  • Input validation: IP addresses validated via ipaddress.ip_address(), ports checked for 1-65535 range, host/cluster/datastore names looked up before operations
  • Prompt injection defense: Datastore file names and paths from vSphere are sanitized via _sanitize() — strips control characters (C0/C1), truncates to 500 chars — preventing malicious file names from injecting instructions into downstream LLM agents
  • Credential safety: Passwords loaded only from environment variables (.env file), never from config.yaml; .env permissions are checked at startup

Full security details: see references/setup-guide.md

Setup

uv tool install vmware-storage
mkdir -p ~/.vmware-storage
cp config.example.yaml ~/.vmware-storage/config.yaml
# Edit config.yaml with your vCenter/ESXi targets

# Add to ~/.vmware-storage/.env (create if missing, chmod 600):
# VMWARE_MY_VCENTER_PASSWORD=<your-password>
chmod 600 ~/.vmware-storage/.env

vmware-storage doctor

All tools are automatically audited via vmware-policy. Audit logs: vmware-audit log --last 20

Full setup guide with multi-target config, MCP server setup, and Docker: see references/setup-guide.md

Architecture

User (natural language)
  ↓
AI Agent (Claude Code / Goose / Cursor)
  ↓ reads SKILL.md
vmware-storage CLI or MCP server (stdio transport)
  ↓ pyVmomi (vSphere SOAP API)
vCenter Server / ESXi
  ↓
Datastores / iSCSI / vSAN

The MCP server uses stdio transport (local only, no network listener). Connections to vSphere use SSL/TLS on port 443.

Audit & Safety

All operations are automatically audited via vmware-policy (@vmware_tool decorator):

  • Every tool call logged to ~/.vmware/audit.db (SQLite, framework-agnostic)
  • Policy rules enforced via ~/.vmware/rules.yaml (deny rules, maintenance windows, risk levels)
  • Risk classification: each tool tagged as low/medium/high/critical
  • View recent operations: vmware-audit log --last 20
  • View denied operations: vmware-audit log --status denied

vmware-policy is automatically installed as a dependency — no manual setup needed.

License

MIT — github.com/zw008/VMware-Storage