VMware Communities : All Content - VMware vSphere™ PowerCLI

Get-Cluster - CPU Usage 95%

harkamal — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 07:18:20 GMT

Get-Cluster appears to be an expensive query, on the VC, CPU usage goes as high as 95% (for vmxd.exe) when using get-cluster, otherwise it is fine.

Is there any workaround to avoid this, or an equivalent SDK method ?

Get-VM | %{
   Get-Cluster -vm $_.Name
}

Need a powershell script to collect esx patch info

harkamal — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 07:14:54 GMT

This is how you can query patches on esxHosts

$h = Get-VMHost <host> | Get-View
$h.ConfigManager.PatchManager
$pm = get-view $h.ConfigManager.PatchManager
$pm | gm -MemberType Method Query*

Historical performance using VI tool kit

LucD — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 00:52:43 GMT

No,I think your script s the standard method for getting historical performance data.
I would go for exporting the data to a CSV file, but perhaps you have a good reason to use a data table.

Question about Get-View

AGFlora — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 21:36:18 GMT

Thanks

Relating Disk partitions to vmdk files

notorious_bdg — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 20:49:29 GMT

Check out http://www.peetersonline.nl/index.php/vmware/get-vmware-disk-usage-with-powershell/.

extend a vmdk\windows hard drive via powershell

c_shanklin — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 17:59:24 GMT

Check out Set-HardDisk in PowerCLI 4.0 U1, it contains a feature to do exactly this. It requires a helper VM and the VM being resized needs to be powered off. I'd be interested to hear your feedback.

=====
Carter Shanklin
Read the PowerCLI Blog
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Help with few steps in Post configuration of esx4i server

c_shanklin — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 15:32:08 GMT

I was connected directly to ESX, in which case you don't need to specify a VMhost parameter. If you connect to vCenter you always do, even if you only have one ESX host.

=====
Carter Shanklin
Read the PowerCLI Blog
Follow me on Twitter

Getting Cluster Name of VM

VirtualMonster35 — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 01:44:50 GMT

Thanks LucD....perfect!

Create alarm "Lost Network Redundancy" by script?

yboychev — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:33:54 GMT

I don't have a particular fancy script with parameters and everything else but I can show you the steps needed to filter the alarms by name and delete the desired one.

#retrieve alarm manager
$alarmManager = Get-View -Id 'AlarmManager-AlarmManager'

#Get the entity which contains the alarm you want to delete. I'll do it for a Vm
$entityView = Get-Vm -Name MyVm | Get-View

#get all alarm MoRefs
$alarmMoRefList = $alarmManager.GetAlarm($entityView.MoRef)

#Retrieve tha alarm views from the MoRefs
$alarmViewList = $alarmMoRefList | foreach { Get-View $_}

#Now filter the alrams by name
$alarmToDelete = $alarmViewList | where {$_.Info.Name -eq "AlarmToDelete"}

#Finally delete the alarms
$alarmToDelete.RemoveAlarm()

It shouldn't be to hard to put it in a reussable function or a script. If you have troubles with that I'll be happy to help again!

Get-stat counter not available

yboychev — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:34:05 GMT

Hi all,

The problem that was causing errors to be thrown for some of the metrics was addressed in the newly released version of PowerCLI - 4.0 Update 1. Give it a try and I'll be happy to get further feedback in case you still experience some problems in the specified cases!

\Yavor

Get-Stat script help

LucD — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:32:20 GMT

Thanks Yavor, will try them out asap.

set-oscustomizationspec and IP address

LucD — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:31:23 GMT

Thanks Yavor, I will try them out.
Can't wait to see to the demo(s0.

vSphere PowerCLI 4.0 Update 1 Cmdlet Reference

Mariana Zdravkova — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 08:59:10 GMT

logic in powershell script

yboychev — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 08:48:32 GMT

Hi Rob and all,

Just want to mension that the newly released PowerCLI 4.0 Update 1 supports virtual machine cloning with the New-Vm cmdlet using the -Vm parameter! For more info see the examples provided in the help for New-Vm cmdlet! Enjoy it!

\Yavor

related bugs in set-vmhostnetwork and set-vmhostnetworkadapter

yboychev — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 08:42:51 GMT

Hi Hal and all,

Just want to mention that the described problem is now resolved with the newly released PowerCLI4.0 Update 1.

Get-VmHostNetworkAdapter cmdlet is now implemented and it has -Console, -Physical and VmKernel switches that will do the work. Enjoy it!

\Yavor

Datastore and Controller Report

monderick — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:42:33 GMT

thanks for the quick response, i'm actually exporting it to htm.

trying to simplify it down to the below example:

Name	Datastore	Total Disks combined (Gb)
Server1	VF2DS06	29.00

Tasks Status ...

vZedification — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:01:58 GMT

Thanks for your reply. I'll will try this and keep you aware.

Thanks again !

Lucien.

Get a VM's IP address? (when DNS not available)

LucD — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:45:57 GMT

Thanks (I think)

You don't have to use the hostname nor IP address for the Invoke-VMScript cmdlet.
You do that against the object that is returned by Get-VM
Like this:

Invoke-VMScript -VM (Get-VM Server1) -ScriptText "ipconfig" -HostUser <host-account> -HostPassword <host-password> -GuestUser <guest-user> -GuestPassword <guest-password>

Btw the solution Alan proposed is valid provided you have the VMware Tools installed and running.

find slider bar setting in DRS fully automated mode on cluster

LucD — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:40:05 GMT

Although you can use the Set-Cluster cmdlet to change the DRS Automation level (with the -DrsAutomationLevel parameter) you can't change the vmmotionRate number.
For that you will have to fall back on the SDK method called ReconfigureComputeResource.

$clus = get-cluster "clus1" | get-view
$spec = New-Object VMware.Vim.ClusterConfigSpecEx
$spec.drsConfig = New-Object VMware.Vim.ClusterDrsConfigInfo
# 1 : aggressive
# 5 : conservative
$spec.drsConfig.vmotionRate = 5

$clus.ReconfigureComputeResource($spec, $true)

Enable Mount and resignature of snap luns on vSphere

tonygent — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:14:35 GMT

Hi.
Re-Signature happens automatically. The DataStore will appear with snap-xxxxxx-<datastorename> where xxxxx is a random set of chars, you don't define the new name yourself..

To enable Resig and try the following from the service console of the ESX host :

Run the following commands:
1. esxcfg-advcfg --get /LVM/EnableResignature It should be set to 0 - Resignaturing is OFF

2. Now set it to on.
esxcfg-advcfg -s 1 /LVM/EnableResignature

3. Issue a "refresh" in VI client storage view and the snapshot Luns of the same source LUN get re-signatured simultaneously:

4. Reset the enableResignature option:
esxcfg-advcfg -s 0 /LVM/EnableResignature

Thanks to Darragh Connolly for assistance with this issue.

Let me know how you get on.

TG

Need to report VM path and Full path of .vmx file using friendly LUN ID

AGFlora — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:51:31 GMT

Yes this is what I was looking for thanks. I still get that "Cannot index into a null array" error when I try to add annotations(customFields) to this script?

Note: () = brackets because this site doesn't like brackets...

$_.Name.CustomFields("Bar Code")

Should I have something like:

$Vms = Get-VM | Get-View | % (
foreach($vm in $vms)
$vm.CustomFields("Bar Code")

Thanks

Copying VM or Templates from one datastore to another

alasdair.carnie — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 09:38:52 GMT

I have two VMFS datastores. One can be seen by the students and one cannot, it is masked so that only the management ESX hosts can see it. I need to deploy 16 VMs from a particular template onto the student servers and it is much quicker to deploy them from a datastore the student servers can see than one they can't. The problem is that either the students or instructors could inadvertantly delete the template, so what I wanted to do was run a check on the SharedTMPLs datastore to ensure that the template was in place before registering it and deploying the VMs and if not, transfer a copy of it from the secure datastore before registration and deployment. The vCenter I am running this via, can see both datastores.

VM disk usage and datastore report

kwharrisit — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 04:42:44 GMT

OK so here is what I think works so far:

Connect-VIServer vc
Get-Cluster 'cluster'| Get-VM | Where { $_.PowerState -eq "PoweredOn" } | Get-VMGuest | Select VmName -ExpandProperty Disks | Export-Csv c:\reports\storreport.csv

So how can I round the answer for capacity and free space to where capacity = "x"GB and free space can display "X.XX" GBs?

Also can I show what percentage of the disk is being used and the VMFS datastore?

SearchDatastoreSubFolders + GetVersion Question

Sirry — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 18:02:45 GMT

Thank you; this works.

background jobs with VMware.VimAutomation.Core

pathitt — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:56:05 GMT

I have the same problem. What is interesting is that on a Win 7 machine it works correctly. If I run the following:

start-job {add-pssnapin vmware.vimautomation.core ; get-pssnapin ;Connect-VIServer -server myserver -user myuser -password mypassword ; echo "Success" ;get-vm|echo}

I get the expected output when I receive-job xx on the Win 7 machine. On my XP SP3 machine, the job.state stays "running" for hours before eventually erroring out.

Both machines have Powershell 2.0 with the PowerCLI from VMware-Vim4PS-4.0.0-162509.exe.

Help with vswitch active/standby vmnic configuration

kalex — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 02:27:17 GMT

Thank you LucD. I would have waited myself but I just got an order to deploy 16 esx4i hosts into production so ....

Your script worked great.

Alex

P.S. I just read your blog entry about Onyx and agree 100%. back to SDK and Hal's book

Stagger VM startups get-vm -Name server1 | start-vm

teddyboy — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 02:55:54 GMT

Based on the script to start VMs will this now shutdown VMs in the same manner? Please note I am using the first ESX host as DR stopping VMs then connect to the Prod ESX host server to then start the production VM's up again.

add-pssnapin VMware.VimAutomation.Core
connect-viserver -server ESXSERVER01 -user root -password password

$vms = @( "server1", "server2", "server3")
foreach($vm in $vms) {
write-host "Stoping $vm ..."
get-vm -Name $vm | stop-vm
while ( ( get-vmguest -vm $vm ).State -ne "running" ) { start-sleep 20 }
}

connect-viserver -server ESXSERVER02 -user root -password password

$vms = @( "server1", "server2", "server3")
foreach($vm in $vms) {
write-host "Starting $vm ..."
get-vm -Name $vm | start-vm
while ( ( get-vmguest -vm $vm ).State -ne "running" ) { start-sleep 20 }
}

Copy files (vmx) , how to script it ??

alasdair.carnie — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 12:20:50 GMT

Hi Luc,

Could this be adapted to check for the exsistance of a VM or Template and if it does not exist then copy the VM or Template from one datastore to another?

I am storing my templates in a datastore that cannot be seen by my students ESX hosts, but I need to deploy lots of VMs from this template to the student servers. At the moment I am manually copying the VM Template from the protected Datastore to one the students can see and then running a powershell script to register the template, add the student ESX hosts to a vCenter and then deploy 16 VMs (two onto each host). I'd like to store a copy of the VM Template on the public store, but be able to check that it is there before trying to deploy the VMs, in case a student has deleted the template by mistake.

I tried just deploying the template from the protected datastore, but the performance is really bad. Any help would be appreciated.

All blue folders do not show in report

AGFlora — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 01:24:33 GMT

Thanks Luc... You're the best!

Pro grammatically deploying a virtual machine to Data Center A from a template in Data Center B

jswager1 — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 23:24:00 GMT

Well, this is embarrassing. After I had posted this code snippet, I went back and did some more testing. I found that one of the references - the storage - had some transposed characters in the database. The incorrect value referred to a storage device on the wrong data center. So, all in all, the error message was absolutely correct. After I fixed the data error, the Clone method call worked just like it does when called via the VI Client.

Set Default CPU Masking options

nicad449 — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 22:28:36 GMT

Using the Alpha of Project Onyx, I was able to get the answer I was looking for using the following:

Function Reset-VMCPUMask ($vm) {

$vmspec = New-Object VMware.Vim.VirtualMachineConfigSpec
$vmspec.files = New-Object VMware.Vim.VirtualMachineFileInfo
$vmspec.cpuFeatureMask = New-Object VMware.Vim.VirtualMachineCpuIdInfoSpec[] (4)
$vmspec.cpuFeatureMask[0] = New-Object VMware.Vim.VirtualMachineCpuIdInfoSpec
$vmspec.cpuFeatureMask[0].operation = "remove"
$vmspec.cpuFeatureMask[0].info = New-Object VMware.Vim.HostCpuIdInfo
$vmspec.cpuFeatureMask[0].info.level = 1

$vmspec.cpuFeatureMask[1] = New-Object VMware.Vim.VirtualMachineCpuIdInfoSpec
$vmspec.cpuFeatureMask[1].operation = "remove"
$vmspec.cpuFeatureMask[1].info = New-Object VMware.Vim.HostCpuIdInfo
$vmspec.cpuFeatureMask[1].info.level = 1
$vmspec.cpuFeatureMask[1].info.vendor = "amd"

$vmspec.cpuFeatureMask[2] = New-Object VMware.Vim.VirtualMachineCpuIdInfoSpec
$vmspec.cpuFeatureMask[2].operation = "remove"
$vmspec.cpuFeatureMask[2].info = New-Object VMware.Vim.HostCpuIdInfo
$vmspec.cpuFeatureMask[2].info.level = -2147483647

$vmspec.cpuFeatureMask[3] = New-Object VMware.Vim.VirtualMachineCpuIdInfoSpec
$vmspec.cpuFeatureMask[3].operation = "remove"
$vmspec.cpuFeatureMask[3].info = New-Object VMware.Vim.HostCpuIdInfo
$vmspec.cpuFeatureMask[3].info.level = -2147483647
$vmspec.cpuFeatureMask[3].info.vendor = "amd"

$vmView = Get-View -Id $vm.id
$vmView.ReconfigVM_Task($vmspec)

}

Reset-VMCPUMask (get-vm vmname)

This seems to have the same effect of clicking "Reset All to Default" under the CPU Identification Mask Advanced settings.

Remove a vmnic from a VirtualSwitch

IMMatt — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:15:48 GMT

Waiting for next release of vSphere PowerCLI for resolution.

Unregistering VMs

alasdair.carnie — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 13:02:26 GMT

Hi Alan,

Sorry, I forget about the Remove-VM cmdlet. Thanks for the function though, it's better than my cobbled together effort.

Best Regards,

Alasdair..........

reset sensors

RobMokkink — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:58:34 GMT

HI Yasen,

That was exactly what i was looking for. Thanks!

ESX Install Kit

phsym — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 13:42:26 GMT

help with vmkernel route scripting

kalex — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 07:56:39 GMT

LucD - Thank you for explanation. makes perfect sense and makes my life easier

Set-NetworkAdapter

c_shanklin — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 21:43:48 GMT

Disconnect:

Get-VM DR* | Get-NetworkAdapter | Set-NetworkAdapter -connected:$false

Just switch $false to $true to reconnect.

=====
Carter Shanklin
Read the PowerCLI Blog
Follow me on Twitter

Test whether a variable has anything in it so a script can continue - if($var1 -gt 0)

a2alpha — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 14:42:34 GMT

alanrenouf, exactly what I was after, thanks so much for the quick response.

Dan

help enhancing existing script

rg01 — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:09:11 GMT

That is perfect. Thanks!

Script Powershell to clone a VM

AdamMiller — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:43:15 GMT

LucD wrote:
Also be aware that your cloned guest will have the same SID as the original (provided you have a WIndows OS running on the guest of course).

This thread has helped me a ton.

However, the above quoted text from LucD....I am at a point i do want to customize my VM's during these cloning processes, however i cannot seem to figure out how to invoke the customization wizard via PowerCLI.

Any help will be appreciated.

Need a powershell Script to copy a RPM into ESX server and perform a -ivh

Sureshadmin — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 18:58:47 GMT

Thanks a lot for your scripts. I will use it and update you in a day or two.

Omitting VM's associated with DRS Rules

Zsoldier — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 13:55:59 GMT

I have a copy of the original post if you would like me to repost. LOL. That worked, thank you. Knew it was something stupid.

K. Chris Nakagaki (Zsoldier)
http://tech.zsoldier.com

Way to report on Orphaned .VMDK files

LucD — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 09:01:32 GMT

Yes, see Yasen's reply in Way to report on Orphaned .VMDK files

How to Increase Video RAM

LucD — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 07:08:07 GMT

You can use the following script.
It changes the video Ram to support a 2560 x 2048 resolution.
I used KB1003 for the formula.

$vmName = <VM-name>
$vm = Get-VM $vmName | Get-View

$width = 2560
$height = 2048

$videoRam = $width * $height * 4

$dev = $vm.Config.Hardware.Device | where {$_.GetType().Name -eq "VirtualMachineVideoCard"}
	
$spec = New-Object VMware.Vim.VirtualMachineConfigSpec
$devConfig = New-Object VMware.Vim.VirtualDeviceConfigSpec
$devConfig.device = $dev
$devConfig.device.videoRamSizeInKB = $videoRam/1KB
$devConfig.operation = "edit"
$spec.deviceChange += $devConfig

$vm.ReconfigVM($spec)

Note1: the script could be extended by a test to check if the new video ramsize was less than 4MB (which is the default size)
In that case there is no need to change the value.
Note2: you can't use the ReconfigVM method with the extraconfig property. If there is a method available to change a specific VMX entry (svga.vramSize in this case) then that method is not available.

Storage vmotion all vms resident on one datastore to another datastore

jssidhu71 — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:04:31 GMT

Thanks Alan

Connect-VIServer causing two sessions

abarilla — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 22:49:32 GMT

I tried this, but it's the same problem.

Create alarms by script?

LucD — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 21:25:05 GMT

After some further investigation it looks as if the previous problem with the settings was not my script but apparently the vSphere client.
Have a look at CreateAlarm not (always) compatible with the vSphere client

PowerCLI restrictions ?

bjkamp — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:16:41 GMT

Just so you know, with vmware you can execute local scripts on the vmhost and you are able to execute local scripts remotely using ssh and Putty plink on any vmhosts in batch. See for example http://communities.vmware.com/message/1414668#1414668

Maybe that will help you managing vm machines remotely using batch scripts, if you are a script kidd

Question about getting Size of Virtual Machine

Zsoldier — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:51:03 GMT

The easy way is to use the GUI. To get hard disk sizes for your VM's:

(Get-VM VMName).Harddisks

This will list all disks associated with the VM. Add these numbers together with the amount of RAM you have allocated to the VM and you get how much space the VM is taking up on a datastore. Below shows how you can add it all together.

((Get-VM VMName).Harddisks | foreach {$_.CapacityKB / 1kb} | measure-object -sum).sum + (get-vm vmname).MemoryMB

More efficiently and faster would look like below:

$VMName = Get-VM VMName

($VMName.Harddisks | foreach {$_.CapacityKB / 1kb} | measure-object -sum).sum + $VMName.MemoryMB

K. Chris Nakagaki (Zsoldier)
http://tech.zsoldier.com

Alarm Settings via Powershell GUI

Benomatic — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 07:00:15 GMT

http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-7480

thanks

Script for Migrating all contents from one Virtual centre to another for a particular DataCentre including folder structure within VM's & Templates view

jssidhu71 — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 22:14:02 GMT

Hi - Was this scripr ever posted or added to the thread..?

Connect-VIServer and Single Sign-on

bkboyer — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:59:12 GMT

In case anyone else has the problem with single sign-on and using RunAs:

Adding the following lines to the global profile fixed the issue.

$USER=$env:username
$env:appdata = "C:\Documents and Settings\" + $USER + "\Application Data"

Running VI script as a scheduled task - credential issue

bkboyer — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:56:30 GMT

Adding the following lines to my profile worked for me, too, for single sign-on with RunAs:

$USER=$env:username
$env:appdata = "C:\Documents and Settings\" + $USER + "\Application Data"

Just in case anyone else is having the issue. Great info!!!

how to get a Lun number from StorageDeviceInfo property to match a DeviceName or DevicePath?

sylvain82 — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:51:55 GMT

Hi,

Finally, it is working well. Thanks again lucD

PowerCLI - Datastores and LUNs.... Argh!!!

catman — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:14:55 GMT

Sure. Code and example output attached.

Cheers

Setting Custom-Fields via New-VM?

LucD — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 21:40:31 GMT

There is currently no parameter on the New-VM cmdlet for custom attributes (like there is for the Description property), but you can "pipe" the output of the New-VM cmdlet to the Set-CustomField cmdlet.
Something like this for example

New-VM -Name "PC1" -Description "PC1" -Datastore (Get-Datastore <dsname>) -VMHost (Get-VMHost <esxname>) | Set-CustomField -Name "Kostenstelle" -Value <some-value>

scripts for Update Manager in vSphere4

olegarr — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 20:43:21 GMT

Luc,

Thank you for your help.

oleg

Script to count VMotions per VM

rassini — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:42:40 GMT

LucD,

Thanks. This is exactly what I was looking for.

rassini

Powershell syntax to check whether a VM exists

joeflint — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 10:48:20 GMT

Alan, thanks for the prompt feedback and the issue is now resolved.

When I initially attempted the code you advised e.g. "$Exists = get-vm -name $desktop", I still recieved the same error I previosuly experienced. However, I then added "-ErrorAction SilentlyContinue", which allows the script to continue without displying the error.

Thanks

Get-VM Generates Error: Unable to read data from the transport connection

VMuser0123 — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:47:04 GMT

I had the same problem here. By following the instructions in this thread I was able to determine which host was causing the issue by running

" get-vm -location <clustername> " on each cluster, and then " get-vm -location <hostname> " on each host in the cluster until I saw the one that returned the "unable to read data fromt the transport connection" message.

Once I had determined the one host that was causing the problems, I opened a ticket with VMware and the support tech's only recommendation was to remove and re-add the host to the cluster. It so happened that we were scheduled to patch this host the next day. The host was rebooted as part of the patching and that fixed the issue. We did not have to remove and re-add the host to the cluster.

This has happened to me twice so far (the first time the problem seemed to go away on it's own after a week), once when we upgraded our VC server to vSphere, and once when we implemented "vCenter requires verified host SSL certificates" . In both of these cases, all the hosts had to be added back to vCenter after the change, so my theory is that this problem can occur when a host is added to vCenter.

Manage Folder in Home - Inventory - Networking

LucD — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:37:56 GMT

The Get-Folder cmdlet in the current build doesn't look in the Network folder.
To be able to use New-Folder on the Network folder you have to use a little trick

$dc = Get-Datacenter <datacenter-name> | Get-View
$netFolder = Get-View -Id $dc.NetworkFolder
$nf = Get-VIObjectByVIView -MORef $netFolder.MoRef
New-Folder -Name "Test" -Location $nf

Disconnecting iSCSI target via script?

d_hristov — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:49:26 GMT

Here's how to turn that into a function:

function RemoveIScsiTarget ($vmHostList, $address, $port) {
        foreach ($vmHost in $vmHostList) {
		$storageSystem =  $vmHost | Get-VMHostStorage | Get-View
		$storageSystem.UpdateViewData("storageDeviceInfo.hostBusAdapter")
		$iScsiDevice = "vmhba33"
		$iScsi = $storageSystem.StorageDeviceInfo.HostBusAdapter | where { $_.GetType().Name -eq "HostInternetScsiHba" }
		$sendTarget = $iScsi | foreach { $_.ConfiguredSendTarget } | where { $_.Address -like $address -and $_.Port -like $port }
		$sendTarget = $iScsi | foreach { $_.ConfiguredStaticTarget  } | where { $_.Address -like $address -and $_.Port -like $port }
		
		if ($sendTargets -ne $null -and $sendTargets.Count -gt 0) {
			$storageSystem.RemoveInternetScsiSendTargets($iScsiDevice, $sendTarget)
		}
		if ($staticTargets -ne $null -and $staticTargets.Count -gt 0) {
			$storageSystem.RemoveInternetScsiStaticTargets($iScsiDevice, $staticTarget)
		}
	}
}

And here's an example how to remove iScsi targets from all hosts in your VC:

RemoveIScsiTarget (Get-VMHost) "10.10.10.*" "*"

Reporting through Powershell

FirstByte — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:07:15 GMT

Thanks for the reply and the links mattroblin, but the problem is I don't know how to "tweak" the scripts unfortunately...

The VESI interface looks cool, and that DailyCheck script would appear to give a lot of useful information (perhaps too much).... (It took me about an hour just to work out how to kick the script off, and then after about two hours of running I cancelled it - because it appears to run on the entire VC, instead of promting for a folder or Cluster)

The VESI gives some basic reports that could be helpful, but would be great if it were possible to custom select some extra columns, so that when it reports on Virtual Machines, it reports all the info the you would find if you went to VirtualCenter, right-clicked on the VM, and Edit Settings... Things like which Network Adapter it is connected to; VMware Tools Status; Boot Delay etc Is there any way to add these particular fields for reporting, or is the only way to get something scripted - because that would be a showstopper for me...

Thanks

change all vm's to enhanced vmxnet + ip address

RobMokkink — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 11:48:46 GMT

Here is the first version.

Check the variables setions for cddrive and administrator account.

The script works as follows.

You have to select a datacenter and then a cluster.
You will be asked to specify root, admin password for the account you specified, subnetmask, gateway, dns.
Current ip get's collected
iso get's mounted
vm goes down
current nic will be replaced with enhanced vmxnet
vm get's powered on
the old nic will be removed with devcon
the vbs's on the iso will be executed with parameters
iso will be unmounted
vm will be rebooted

Let me know what you think.

Message was edited by:

forgot to remove the test array from the script. this is fixed now

Message was edited by: RobMokkink
Removed the scripts

Looping through two arrays to find a match

Matthewq — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 22:46:34 GMT

Okay I have put a foreach in a foreach. It works I was hoping to find a better way. Just trying to learn better techniques that was all. Thanks for looking.

Write-Host 'Attempting Hard disk resize'
	foreach ($resize in $vmDisks) {
		$DiskMatchcount = 0
		foreach ($ResizeDisk in $DiskNewSizes){
			if ([Math]::round($ResizeDisk.CurrentCapacity /100, 0) -eq [Math]::round(($resize.capacitykb /1024 )  /100, 0)) {$DiskMatchcount ++ }
		}
		if ($DiskMatchcount -eq 1) {
			$DiskMatch = $DiskNewSizes | where {[Math]::round($_.CurrentCapacity /100, 0) -eq [Math]::round(($resize.capacitykb /1024 )  /100, 0)}
			$NewSizeKB = $DiskMatch.NewCapacity * 1024
			Write-Host 'Match found resizing' $resize.Name $diskmatch.path 'from' $resize.CapacityKB 'KB to' $NewSizeKB 'KB'
			Set-HardDisk -HardDisk $resize -CapacityKB $NewSizeKB -whatif
		}
		elseif ($DiskMatch.count -ne 1) {
			Write-Host "Can't match disks manual resize required"
		}
	}

credentials not passed to script run as a scheduled task

c_shanklin — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 21:25:07 GMT

I asked the team to take a look at this. I thought it was fixed, and we haven't got any recent complaints, but maybe it's because everyone was using the workaround.

=====
Carter Shanklin
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Fully rehydrating a Vimclient from Vim.dll

jrackliffe — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:00:34 GMT

Yeah I had hoped to follow that model as well, but because the LoadSession is void and it's blackbox implementation doesn't allow for you to bypass the actual File creation (redirect to a MemoryStream or FS) you would still need to deal with the perms even for the fraction of time the file existed. Not the end of the world, but scraping the vmware_soap_session cookie is pretty easy and with the rehydrate process you can keep it lean and mean.

Run scheduled job with SYSTEM account

harkamal — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:44:48 GMT

I am thinking of creating a new group say "ReadVCusers" and add SYSTEM to it. Then add this group as read-only to vc roles. May be then system could get access to vc from scheduled job.

Will try from office tomorrow and update you.

Set-VMHostNetworkAdapter hanging

rdiphoorn — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:30:20 GMT

Hi Luc,

This is a good idea, but it's not possible to remove a Portgroup because when I try I receive this message: The Resource vim.host.PortGroup is in use.

I know I can disable it with esxcfg-vswif -s but can't I do it trough Powershell?

% and ? - meaning in powershell

LucD — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:09:17 GMT

These are aliases for the ForEach-Object (%) and the Where-Object (?) cmdlets.
You can see all the aliases by doing

alias

error adding RDM LUN to VM (File is larger than the maximum size supported by datastore)

sylvain82 — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:55:30 GMT

Thank you very much LucD. I changed the device name format and it is working now. As in vmware ESX 3.5, the format was hbaX:X:X:X, I though we had to use the new runtime name of vsphere.

VpxSettings

harkamal — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 07:28:18 GMT

$si = Get-View ServiceInstance
$si.Content.Setting

Type                                              Value
----                                                  -----
OptionManager                           VpxSettings

So the syntax will become "Get-View Type-Value" , and thats how you got your syntax 
Get-View OptionManager-VpxSettings

Find a host Physical NIC IP address

KarlMitschke — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:51:39 GMT

I think this is the answer - I have 4 MAC addresses, and only 2 IP addresses.

[vCenter] Alarm and script being triggered really slow

LucD — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:23:27 GMT

I can confirm, the dot-vertical bar construct works great.
Good find

Get-View -ViewType VM list only VM's in a Datastore

jxstale — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:56:56 GMT

Thank you very much, that worked like a charm

- Josh

how to make that Customfields automatic insert values?

LucD — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:55:30 GMT

I suspect the domainname can also be extracted from

(Get-VM $vmName | Get-VMGuest).HostName

VM expiration script - Automation problem

herreraj — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:42:57 GMT

Hi Harkamal,

Thanks very much for the piece of code, that's exactly what I was missing. It made a huge difference

Is It possible to run a Customscript after a Machine is Created?

LucD — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:11:00 GMT

You can create an Alarm for Virtual Machines that looks for specific events and that is triggered by the event "VM Created".
In the action "Run a command" you can then start a PowerShell script.

Have a look at Carter's blog entry How to run PowerCLI scripts from vCenter Alarms for an example.

How to do get-vm with parameters like (owner, Serv-description , etc)

shatztal — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:56:50 GMT

you are wright my bad

Script for creating VM's and powering on

bulletprooffool — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:26:10 GMT

You need something like (not tested . . done freehand as I don;'t have powershell on the machine):

$name = read-host "Please Specify VM Name"

$iso = Read-Host "Please specify ISO"

$datastore = Read-Host "Please specify Datastore"

Function BuildVm ($name, $isoimage, $Datastore)

{

get-vmhost 'VMhost' | new-vm -name $name -datastore (get-datastore $datastore) -diskmb ( 8GB / 1MB ) -memoryMB ( 1gb / 1mb )

get-vm $name | new-cddrive -isopath $iso -startconnected

Start-VM $name
}

BuildVM ($name, $iso, $Datastore)

Snapshot question

gwagchunks — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:20:10 GMT

Aha! Thanks for that! Points coming up!

New-VM powered on Script

Guv — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 12:30:03 GMT

I am looking for a script to setup a new VM but within the new vm have the cd connected to an iso image on a datastore and then powered on and boot from CD which will start the installation of the guest.

I can use the new-vm to setup a VM with cpu, memory parameters and what datastore, and also setup a variable for the iso destination, but within the new-vm command how can i get the cd connected and then powered on and boot from CD. Is there a script I can run.

Can anyone advise please.

Report on VM Guests

LucD — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:55:36 GMT

Use the Measure-Object cmdlet for your sums, averages...and the Group-Object to create groups (with implicit counts) in your reports.

$VMGuest = @{ N = "Operating System" ; E = { (get-vmguest -VM $_).osfullname} }
Get-VM | Select-Object name, $vmguest, powerstate | Group-Object "Operating System"

Does Powercli support powershell v2 on XP?

packetboy — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:53:51 GMT

cheers LucD

ComputeResource

Fisk — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 22:53:45 GMT

Thanks for the help.

Could have sworn I tried something similar and Get-View told me it didn't recognize the object type.

Oh well.

Thanks again.

Clone VM using PowerCLi script

Fisk — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 20:00:17 GMT

I tried cloning without specifing a Datastore/ResourcePool with no luck. I ended up just specifying the datastore and resourcepool and it worked fine. Not sure if it is a bug or not.

Here is an example function.

Function CloneCopy

{param (string$TargetDSName, string$TargetTempName, string$newTempName, bool$PowerOn, bool$toTemplate)

$newDS = Get-Datastore $TargetDSName | Get-View

$template = Get-Template -Name $TargetTempName | Get-View

$folder = $datacenter.vmFolder

$targethost = $usbhost | Get-View

$vmRelocSpec = New-Object VMware.Vim.VirtualMachineRelocateSpec

$vmRelocSpec.datastore = $newDS.summary.Datastore

$vmRelocSpec.host = $targethost.summary.host

$vmRelocSpec.pool = $resourcePool.config.entity

$vmRelocSpec.transform = "sparse"

$vmCloneSpec = New-Object VMware.Vim.VirtualMachineCloneSpec

$vmCloneSpec.location = $vmRelocSpec

$vmCloneSpec.powerOn = $PowerOn

$vmCloneSpec.template = $toTemplate

$template.CloneVM_Task($folder, $newTempName, $vmCloneSpec)

}

move only one disk per storage vmotion

ringjc — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:12:10 GMT

Ok, thank's, that's good to hear! For now I'll have to finish up my project by manually doing the configuration moves, but scripting the virtual drive moves saved me a good chunk of time so I'm not complaining Just wanted to find out if I was overlooking an existing feature.

Filter command in powershell

LucD — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:53:01 GMT

A Filter is the same as a Function except that it doesn't take any parameters but gets the value on the pipeline (accessible through the $_ variable in the Filter).
In this example the Filter expects a HostSystemImpl object as object on the pipeline, it does a Get-VMHostStorage cmdlet and returns all the properties of the object in the FilesystemVolumeInfo property).

ESX/ESXi Host CPU and Memory usage and export to CSV

kosmasj — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:52:17 GMT

Hello...

How would you make the script get the CPU and Memory for a specific month then average that out?

import permissions into vsphere

LucD — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:49:00 GMT

Did you already look at my article vSphere permissions: export & import – Part 1 and Part 2 on Alan's blog ?

Iscsi multipathing

c_shanklin — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:54:49 GMT

There is not currently a cmdlet to let you do that, though the example you have is possible in the API (if you can figure it out, not very trivial unfortunately).

I should also mention that some stuff in esxcli is not possible through vSphere API at all, especially stuff around the so-called pluggable storage architecture.

=====
Carter Shanklin
Read the PowerCLI Blog
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How to Install PowerCLI on a drive other than C:

sullom — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:50:55 GMT

Sorry for both taking so long to try HARKAMAL's solution and for being a 'PIA'. I gave up on installing PowerCLI on a server for a time while I worked on getting my scripts to run as scheduled tasks on a workstation. Naturally the Security Guys threw in theobstacle ofnobody here having the permission to "Logon as a Batch File", ever since some virus threat was reported to use scheduled tasks to reinfest. I have beaten them at their game and can now run PowerCLI from one of my wokstations. I also worked on a way to save encrypted passwords in a file for the scheduled scripts to use to connect to virtual centers.

So back to the server installation. The server is Windows 2003, Enterprise x64 Edition (Version 5.2.3790). The install process stalls at a point where It is unsuccessful accessing a registry key. I modified HARKAMAL's command line to this so I could log the process:

VMware-Vim4PS-4.0.0-162509.exe /q /s /w /L1033 /V" /qn INSTALLDIR=\"F:\Program Files\VMWarePowerCli\" /l*v \"F:\Install_log.txt\""

The script appears to be looking for a key "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE32\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\VMware, Inc.\VMware VI Toolkit (for Windows)", but there is no HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE32 in the registry.

Any ideas?

Select or select-object

Guv — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:48:10 GMT

OK thanks for making that clear

scheduled tasks + credentials not passed to script

allencrawford — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:55:43 GMT

My two cents to Rob, Luc, and Alan. I have had this problem with PowerCLI 4 as well. However, I think maybe it is sort of fixed. Here's my situation:

1) I have an AD service account that has the appropriate vCenter permissions.

2) I run the scheduled PShell task with this AD service account while logged into the server and it of course works fine.

3) I log out.

4) Script continues to run fine until the server is rebooted (which of course happens each months for Microsoft patches).

5) To fix it I can simply log in as my service account and just log right back out--I don't even have to interactively run the script to fix it.

So it seems to me that logging in must create the %APPDATA% environment variable and apparently logging out doesn't clear the variable properly or something.

My main question is, why is "Connect-VIServer" even trying to make a call to this path? Shouldn't it only do that when I call "Get-VICredentialStoreItem"? My script is simply doing:

[string]$strVCServer = "servername.domain"
Connect-VIServer -Server $strVCServer

Also, sorry for the late post to this old thread, if it should be a new one I can create a new one. This is the first I've seen of this thread today and figured I'd keep it in one place.

relocate vm's from csv file and create schedule task in VC

LucD — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 13:00:52 GMT

Correct, forgot that one.

Find vmdk per script

LucD — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:55:39 GMT

Have a look at Way to report on Orphaned .VMDK files.

script to find the changes done in infrastrcuture for a period of time

LucD — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 10:19:32 GMT

You could try the method I decribed in TA2650 scripts – Part 3 – Checking cluster node configurations.
Like I mentioned in TA2650 scripts – Part 1 – Profiling your vSphere environment the XML files are good way of keeping an audit track of your vSPhere environment.

list disks rdm with powershell

zMarkz — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 20:08:24 GMT

This script is very helpful. I have trying to figure out how to add 'Runtime Name:' and 'Adpater:' information to this report.

Any thoughts on how to do this?

Thanks in advance.

-Mark

fc.200000e08b9bad3f:210000e08b9bad3f-fc.50060160c1e02ae9:5006016141e02ae9-naa.60060160efe01900c883b8dee114de11
Runtime Name: vmhba1:C0:T0:L22
Device: naa.60060160efe01900c883b8dee114de11
Device Display Name: DGC Fibre Channel Disk (naa.60060160efe01900c883b8dee114de11)
Adapter: vmhba1 Channel: 0 Target: 0 LUN: 22
Adapter Identifier: fc.200000e08b9bad3f:210000e08b9bad3f
Target Identifier: fc.50060160c1e02ae9:5006016141e02ae9
Plugin: NMP
State: active
Transport: fc
Adapter Transport Details: WWNN: 20:00:00:e0:8b:9b:ad:3f WWPN: 21:00:00:e0:8b:9b:ad:3f
Target Transport Details: WWNN: 50:06:01:60:c1:e0:2a:e9 WWPN: 50:06:01:61:41:e0:2a:e9

Is it possible to create Alarms by using CLI?

LucD — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 17:42:16 GMT

No problem, you're more than welcome

How to extract VM UUIDs

bulletprooffool — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:28:08 GMT

Powershell:

$vc = Read-Host "Please specify your VirtualCenter"
Connect-VIServer $vc
$VMHs = Get-VM

$myCol = @()
ForEach ($vmh in $vmhs)
{
$myObj = "" |
Select Name, UUID
$myObj.name = $vmh.name
$myObj.UUID = Get-VM $vmh.name | %{(Get-View $_.Id).config.uuid}
$myCol += $myObj
}

$myCol