Vsphere answers to some request with binary blobs

[Plaristote]

Greetings !

I have a little issue with rbvmomi.
It might actually come from the vsphere provider for all I know, but it turns out that some specific request, regardless of the context in which they're made, get answered with binary blobs.

I slightly modified trivial_soap.rb to output the response.body.
It usually contains XML, as is expected, but when I am trying to get the config attribute of a VirtualMachine managed object, it only contains unreadable data.

These are the headers from the failing requests:

<env:Envelope xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:env="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
  <env:Body>
    <RetrieveProperties xmlns="urn:vim25">
      <_this type="PropertyCollector">propertyCollector</_this>
      <specSet xsi:type="PropertyFilterSpec">
        <propSet xsi:type="PropertySpec">
          <type>VirtualMachine</type>
          <pathSet>config</pathSet>
        </propSet>
        <objectSet xsi:type="ObjectSpec">
          <obj type="VirtualMachine">vm-447</obj>
        </objectSet>
      </specSet>
    </RetrieveProperties>
  </env:Body>
</env:Envelope>

I wonder why is this happening to me ?

I also wonder if it would be a good idea to add a check after all requests to check whether the vsphere sdk answer is intact ? That would allow to raise a more explicit exception (right now it's just Nokogiri freaking out because he can't find soapenv:Body in the response).

[toobulkeh]

@Plaristote,
What is the request you're formulating to the server?

I have not had this happen to me, but I am only using read functions in the API.

[Plaristote]

Well I first noticed the issue when asking for VIM::VirtualMachine#config.
Moments ago I just tried to use inventory_flat and inventory_tree from the VIM::Folder class, and it turns out that it also triggers the same issue.

[klochto]

Hi

i turn into the same issue

urn:vim25/5.5
<env:Envelope xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:env="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">env:Body<_this type="PropertyCollector">propertyCollector</_this>DatacenternameFoldernameparentVirtualMachinenameparentresourcePoolguest.ipAddresssummary.config.instanceUuidsummary.config.numCpuconfig.extraConfigconfig.flags.snapshotDisabledconfig.flags.snapshotLockedconfig.annotationconfig.guestFullNameconfig.flags.snapshotPowerOffBehaviorconfig.cpuAffinityconfig.memoryAffinitysummary.config.memorySizeMBsummary.config.templatesummary.config.memoryReservationsummary.config.cpuReservationsummary.config.numEthernetCardssummary.runtime.powerStatesummary.runtime.toolsInstallerMountedsummary.config.uuidsummary.config.instanceUuidsummary.guest.hostNameruntime.powerStateruntime.hostResourcePoolnameparentClusterComputeResourcenameparentconfigurationExdatacenter-610VisitVMsFolderVirtualMachineparent0VisitFolderParentsVisitFolderParentsFolderparent0VisitFolderParentsdatacenter-610VisitVMsDatacentervmFolder0VisitFoldersVisitFoldersFolderchildEntity0VisitFoldersVisitVMsResourcePoolsVisitResourcePoolParentsVisitResourcePoolCCRsVisitVMsResourcePoolsVirtualMachineresourcePool0VisitVMsResourcePoolsVisitResourcePoolParentsVisitResourcePoolCCRsVisitResourcePoolParentsResourcePoolparent0VisitResourcePoolParentsVisitResourcePoolCCRsVisitResourcePoolCCRsClusterComputeResourceparent0VisitResourcePoolParentsVisitResourcePoolCCRs/env:Body/env:Envelope

-> return binary blob and exception