PVE API: Power/ACPI Actions (Start/Shutdown/Reboot/Stop) PVE Error/OK unclear, GUI vs API, etc.

[linux]

Hi there,

Just comparing the attached realities of what is reflected for an OK action and then a not-OK action, there are a few things I'm curious about:

1. Rather than just firing and hoping that if the request went through OK, that it is actually OK, we need to know the error/status.
2. Comparing how the GUI and CLI reflect both an OK and not-OK outcome for an action, it seems some are improperly classed?
3. Additionally, when using CLI it seems that an OK firing is silent EXCEPT UPID LINE, however when error there is no such prefix?
4. There appears to be a rogue blank new line sent with one of the potential returns for one of the actions; is it all worth a review?

Therefore, please can you clarify how we should be interacting with PVE API in these regards, and whether the above/attached is all normal?

@fiona - tagging you as this feels like your kind of jam.

Thanks,
Linux

 

[sb-jw]

Have you ever looked at $? what the exit code is?

Otherwise there would be the "Status/current" (https://pve.proxmox.com/pve-docs/api-viewer/index.html#/nodes/{node}/qemu/{vmid}/status/current) function, which tells you whether the process is running or not.

 

[linux]

$?

I'm working in PHP, not Bash? Using a class to fire API calls. JSON replies.

Status makes sense and we use this already, but this is about determining whether a call failed to execute properly, even if syntactically OK.

That's where it seems the UPID is returned regardless, but via JSON if we json_encode() to a debug log the return, it just shows the UPID?

What is the expected structure? $pvecall['data']['errors'] or similar? Else we get the regular UPID line only logged.

 

[fiona]

Hi,
for API calls that return a UPID like the VM start task, you need to check the status of the task later. For other API calls you can see if it was successful from the HTTP status code.

See also:
https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Proxmox_VE_API
https://pve.proxmox.com/pve-docs/api-viewer

 

[linux]

for API calls that return a UPID like the VM start task, you need to check the status of the task later.

Ah hah, though what are your thoughts on my screenshots showing that even the GUI cannot discern some actions' success/error state?

For other API calls you can see if it was successful from the HTTP status code.

Thanks, this is the normal process for us. These power actions seem different, and there are enough discrepancies to query it further!

 

[fiona]

Ah hah, though what are your thoughts on my screenshots showing that even the GUI cannot discern some actions' success/error state?

IIRC, it's not that the GUI can't discern, but the backend doesn't actually fail for stopping an already stopped VM. See: https://bugzilla.proxmox.com/show_bug.cgi?id=3927

Thanks, this is the normal process for us. These power actions seem different, and there are enough discrepancies to query it further!

The power actions spawn a task and return the UPID of the task. You need to query the task itself for those. The relevant endpoint is /nodes/{node}/tasks/{upid}/status