VMware Storage

Author: Wei Zhou, VMware by Broadcom — wei-wz.zhou@broadcom.com This is a community-driven project by a VMware engineer, not an official VMware product. For official VMware developer tools see developer.broadcom.com.

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VMware vSphere storage management: datastores, iSCSI, vSAN — 11 MCP tools, domain-focused and lightweight.

• Read-only mode (v1.8.0) — one env var (VMWARE_READ_ONLY=true) strips all 4 write tools (iSCSI enable, add/remove target, rescan) from the MCP registry at startup, leaving the 7 read tools; ideal for audits, PoCs, and untrusted/local models. See Read-Only Mode.

Split from vmware-aiops for lighter context and local model compatibility.

Companion Skills

Quick Install

# Via PyPI
uv tool install vmware-storage

# Or pip
pip install vmware-storage

Configuration

mkdir -p ~/.vmware-storage
cp config.example.yaml ~/.vmware-storage/config.yaml
# Edit with your vCenter/ESXi credentials

echo "VMWARE_MY_VCENTER_PASSWORD=your_password" > ~/.vmware-storage/.env
chmod 600 ~/.vmware-storage/.env

# Verify
vmware-storage doctor

MCP Tools (11)

Auto-Remediation Patterns (PoC)

The patterns/ directory hosts L5 auto-remediation candidate patterns from the Enterprise Harness Engineering framework. The first PoC pattern, patterns/iscsi-target-stale-rescan.yaml, describes an iSCSI HBA rescan as a low-risk, reversible, repeatable operation. The pattern schema is documented here only — runtime enforcement is not yet wired up, so this is a reference design, not production auto-remediation.

Common Workflows

Set Up iSCSI Storage on a Host

1. Enable iSCSI adapter: vmware-storage iscsi enable esxi-01
2. Add target: vmware-storage iscsi add-target esxi-01 10.0.0.100
3. Verify: vmware-storage iscsi status esxi-01

The add-target command automatically rescans storage. Use --dry-run to preview any write command first.

Find Deployable Images Across Datastores

1. List all datastores: vmware-storage datastore list
2. Scan for images: vmware-storage datastore scan-images datastore01
3. Browse with a pattern: vmware-storage datastore browse datastore01 --pattern "*.iso"

vSAN Health Assessment

1. Check health: vmware-storage vsan health Cluster-Prod
2. Check capacity: vmware-storage vsan capacity Cluster-Prod
3. If issues found, investigate with vmware-monitor for alarms and events

Read-Only Mode

A prompt instruction is advisory — a model can ignore it. Read-only mode is structural: set VMWARE_READ_ONLY=true and all 4 write tools (storage_iscsi_enable, storage_iscsi_add_target, storage_iscsi_remove_target, storage_rescan) are removed from the MCP registry at startup, leaving the 7 read tools. list_tools() never offers them, so the model cannot call what it cannot see. Off by default, and fail-closed: if the mode is requested but cannot be guaranteed, the server refuses to start.

Three ways to enable:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "vmware-storage": {
      "command": "vmware-storage",
      "args": ["mcp"],
      "env": { "VMWARE_READ_ONLY": "true" }
    }
  }
}

• Per-skill override: VMWARE_STORAGE_READ_ONLY=true (takes precedence over the family-wide VMWARE_READ_ONLY)
• Config alternative: read_only: true in ~/.vmware-storage/config.yaml

Precedence: per-skill env → family env → config → off. Startup logs list exactly which tools were withheld.

CLI

# Datastore
vmware-storage datastore list
vmware-storage datastore browse datastore01
vmware-storage datastore scan-images datastore01

# iSCSI
vmware-storage iscsi status esxi-01
vmware-storage iscsi enable esxi-01
vmware-storage iscsi add-target esxi-01 192.168.1.100
vmware-storage iscsi remove-target esxi-01 192.168.1.100
vmware-storage iscsi rescan esxi-01

# vSAN
vmware-storage vsan health Cluster-Prod
vmware-storage vsan capacity Cluster-Prod

# Diagnostics
vmware-storage doctor

MCP Server

After uv tool install vmware-storage, start the MCP server with one command (v1.5.15+):

# Recommended — single command, no network re-resolve
vmware-storage mcp

# With a custom config path
VMWARE_STORAGE_CONFIG=/path/to/config.yaml vmware-storage mcp

# Or via Docker
docker compose up -d

Agent Configuration

Add to your AI agent's MCP config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "vmware-storage": {
      "command": "vmware-storage",
      "args": ["mcp"],
      "env": {
        "VMWARE_STORAGE_CONFIG": "~/.vmware-storage/config.yaml"
      }
    }
  }
}

# Run without installing (requires PyPI access each launch)
uvx --from vmware-storage vmware-storage mcp

# Legacy entry point (still works, kept for backward compatibility)
vmware-storage-mcp

Why a Separate Skill?

vmware-aiops has 49 MCP tools — too heavy for local LLMs (7B-14B). By splitting storage into its own skill:

• 11 tools — fits comfortably in small model context windows
• Domain-focused — storage admins get only what they need
• Composable — use alongside vmware-monitor or vmware-aiops as needed

Version Compatibility

Python: 3.10+ (since v1.5.27 — previously 3.11+). Tested on 3.10 / 3.11 / 3.12.

Official Broadcom References

• SDKs: https://developer.broadcom.com/sdks — VCF Python SDK, vSAN Management SDK (bundled in pyVmomi)
• REST APIs: https://developer.broadcom.com/xapis — vSAN Management API, VCF API
• CLI Tools: https://developer.broadcom.com/tools — PowerCLI 9.1, ESXCLI

Safety

Troubleshooting

License

MIT