I'm struggling with API access to my Free ESXI 6.5 instance.
Based on documentation there should be REST API endpoint on address https://server/rest. Also, there should be api-explorer on https://server/apiexplorer. But I don't have any of these endpoints on my ESXi.
Also, based on documentation there is Managed object browser on this address https:/server/mob. I was able to enable mob and also acces it but it's read-only. I'm not able to invoke any method (including turning-on VM for example). But again, based on the documentation this should work.
Is there any limitation in free ESXi 6.5 related to API access? Should I do anything? Can this be caused by the upgrade from ESXi 5.0 instead of clean installation?
I'm logging to ESXi via root account so I should have all permissions.
Best Answer
The ESXi API is only read-only in the free version. If you want to use it to trigger any action, you need to pay for it.
An older blog post directly from VMware:
This is still the case. Another quote from the VMware community regarding version 6.5:
Bottom line, with the free ESXi license you are restricted to read-only access via the API.
Some basic actions can be done through the command line interface via SSH. See the documentation for
esxcli
and for thevicfg-*
commands for details.