Email trigger to reset VMware VM

Our company provides virtual desktop and virtual server hosting services to different companies. Each company gets a dedicated set of servers and desktops. All of these servers and desktops are VMs running in vSphere Enterprise and are managed by a single vSphere vCenter Server.

Sometimes, one of the virtual desktops will freeze or become inaccessible and the client won't be able to connect to the VM to restart it. In such cases they have to call us and we go in through the vSphere Client and perform a Guest OS Restart or a Reset on the VM that's not responding.

We would like to provide our end-users with the ability to restart SOME of their VMs by themselves when they are not reachable. For instance, we want them to be able to restart their own desktop VMs but not their server VMs. They should obviously NOT be able to restart the VMs of other clients.

Most of our end-users are not technically savy and need an easy way to accomplish this. The most obvious idea is to have them send a SMS message that will trigger a restart/reset of the VM that is frozen. I was thinking of opening a Google Voice account for this purpose.

There are a few requirements for this to be useful:

1) The speed with which the reset command gets executed (from time of sending the SMS) must be fast

2) The user should get a confirmation

3) The user should have the option to perform a Guest OS Restart or a hard reset of the VM (e.g. default is restart, "hard" is reset)

4) All commands need to be logged for future review if there is ever a problem

5) It should be easy for our administrators to manage which machines can be reset by which client and to change the client's password when necessary

By the end of this, I would like to have a VMware VM with a few configurable parameters that can be uploaded onto our environment and be ready to go.

## Deliverables

1) All deliverables will be considered "work made for hire" under U.S. Copyright law. Buyer will receive exclusive and complete copyrights to all work purchased. (No 3rd party components unless all copyright ramifications are explained AND AGREED TO by the buyer on the site per the worker's Worker Legal Agreement).

## Platform

I would prefer for this project to be a standalone linux VM that would perform the necessary tasks. The VM would be placed on our network where it will have connectivity to the vCenter server and be able to run the necessary commands to reset and power on the VMs.

The message that comes from Google Voice has the SMS body as its body and the sender's phone number as the subject. See below.

Subject: SMS from FirstName Last Name [(111) 555-1212]

Body:

"SMS Message" (e.g. "f42djh VM01")

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Sent using SMS-to-email. Reply to this email to text the sender back and save on SMS fees.

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Nº del proyecto: #3481300

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