VMware Communities : Document List - VMware vSphere™ PowerCLI

vSphere PowerCLI 4.0 Update 1 Cmdlet Reference

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 08:59:10 GMT

ESX Install Kit

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 13:42:26 GMT

Using VI Toolkit from .Net C#

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 05:44:54 GMT

http://www.slideshare.net/vmwarecarter/using-vi-toolkit-for-windows-from-net#

Check for Privileges

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 03:14:42 GMT

Quick Migrate Function

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 19:43:20 GMT

VMWare Quick Migration Function

Author: Justin Grote <jgrote NOSPAMAT enpointe DOT com>
Credit: Inspired by Mike DiPetrillo's Quick Migration Script: http://www.mikedipetrillo.com/mikedvirtualization/2008/10/quick-migration-for-vmware-the-power-of-powershell.html
Version: 0.1
Last Revised: 31 July 2009

Description: Performs the fucntional equivalent of a Hyper-V Quick Migration by suspending a VM,
moving it to a new host, and resuming it. This does not require vMotion licensing.
it works by providing required VM objects via the pipeline or the second argument,
and specifying the Destination host in the first argument.
The commeand accepts both text strings and VMHost objects for the VMHost Parameter

Prerequisites:
Powershell v1
VMWare PowerCLI 4.0 (May work with earlier version but not tested)

Instructions to Install: Save this script and import into your session with, for example, . C:\temp\quickmigrate.ps1
You can also include it in your PowerCLI profile to have it automatically included.

Command Usage: get-vm MyTestVM | Quick-MigrateVM "MyTestHost2"

Get-Stat2 : another way of getting at the statistical data

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 15:18:59 GMT

With the release of PowerCLI v4 the Get-Stat cmdlet has been much improved.

In October 2008, as a temporary solution for the problems with the Get-Stat cmdlet in older PowerCLI or VITK releases, I wrote the Get-Stat2 script.
The Get-Stat2 script allows lightly different parameters than the regular Get-Stat cmdlet.

For that reason I will make the Get-Stat2 script available again (the original document was removed some time ago).

But please only use this script when you couldn't get the result you needed with the current Get-Stat cmdlet!

An extract from the original document:
The script accepts the following parameters:

-Entity <VIObject>	: the object for which the statiscal data will be collected. Only 1 object allowed !
-Start <DateTime>	: start of the interval
-Finish <DateTime>	: end of the interval
-Stat <string[]>	: array of statistic identifiers
-Instance <string>	: some statistic identifiers allow instances.
                        ("" : aggregate (default) / "*" : all instances / array of specific instances)
-Interval <string>	: desired sampling interval, allowed values: "RT","HI1","HI2","HI3","HI4"
			  RT : real time
                          HI : historical interval
                         (results in these defaults 20, 300, 1800, 7200, 86400 seconds)
-Maxsamples <int32>	: only for "Real time" interval; number of intervals
-QueryMetrics		: return all available metrics for the Entity
-QueryInstances	: return all available instances for the Entity and Stat

Update 01/11/08
When you add a new resource to an entity, the statistical data for historical intervals will not be available immediately.
You will have to wait at least till the sampling period of the historical interval has expired.
The QueryPerf method will return sampling periods (date/time stamps) but there will be no statistical data (yet).

Example:

you add a vCPU to a virtual machine
data for HI2 for that CPU instance will only be available after +/- 30 minutes

The minimum wait time to see data for a new resource:

RT 20 secs
HI1 5 mins
HI2 30 mins
HI3 2 hours
HI4 1 day

To avoid errors from the Get-Stat2 function a test was added to verify if any data was returned by the QueryPerf method.
If there is no data, the Get-Stat2 function returns $null.

The attached script has been updated.

Update 15/02/09
The attached Get-Stat2.ps1 script has been updated.
The changes:

corrected MaxSamples parameter
corrected Cluster entity clastype
corrected missing Start and Finish parameters test
added -QueryMetrics option
added -QueryInstances option

With the addition of these last two parameters, the script can now be used to

query all the valid metrics for a specific entity
query all the valid instances for one or more metrics

Example -QueryMetrics


$esx = Get-VMHost <ESX-hostname> | Get-View
./Get-Stat2.ps1 -entity $esx -querymetrics |ft

produces an array of custom objects like this


Group                Name                               Rollup                  Id               Level                Type Unit
-----                ----                               ------                  --               -----                ---- ----
clusterServices      cpufairness                        latest                 105                   1            absolute number
clusterServices      memfairness                        latest                 106                   1            absolute number
cpu                  idle                            summation                 112                   3               delta millisecond
cpu                  reservedCapacity                  average                 110                   2            absolute megaHertz
cpu                  usage                             average                   2                   1                rate percent
cpu                  usage                             maximum                   4                   4                rate percent
cpu                  usage                             minimum                   3                   4                rate percent
cpu                  usagemhz                          average                   6                   1                rate megaHertz
cpu                  usagemhz                          maximum                   8                   4                rate megaHertz
cpu                  usagemhz                          minimum                   7                   4                rate megaHertz
cpu                  used                            summation                 111                   3               delta millisecond
disk                 busResets                       summation                 115                   3               delta number
disk                 commands                        summation                 113                   3               delta number
disk                 commandsAborted                 summation                 114                   3               delta number
disk                 deviceLatency                     average                 156                   2            absolute millisecond
disk                 deviceReadLatency                 average                 148                   2            absolute millisecond
disk                 deviceWriteLatency                average                 152                   2            absolute millisecond
disk                 kernelLatency                     average                 157                   2            absolute millisecond
disk                 kernelReadLatency                 average                 149                   2            absolute millisecond
disk                 kernelWriteLatency                average                 153                   2            absolute millisecond
disk                 numberRead                      summation                  91                   3               delta number
disk                 numberWrite                     summation                  92                   3               delta number
disk                 queueLatency                      average                 159                   2            absolute millisecond
disk                 queueReadLatency                  average                 151                   2            absolute millisecond
...

Example QueryInstances


$esx = Get-VMHost <ESX-hostname> | Get-View
./Get-Stat2-v1.1.ps1 -entity $esx -stat "disk.deviceLatency.average","net.received.average" -queryinstances | ft

produces an array of custom objects like this


Stat                                                                    Instance
----                                                                    --------
disk.deviceLatency.average                                              vmhba0:0:0
disk.deviceLatency.average                                              vmhba0:1:0
disk.deviceLatency.average                                              vmhba32:0:0
disk.deviceLatency.average                                              vmhba32:0:1
disk.deviceLatency.average                                              vmhba32:1:0
disk.deviceLatency.average                                              vmhba32:11:0
disk.deviceLatency.average                                              vmhba32:2:0
disk.deviceLatency.average                                              vmhba32:2:1
disk.deviceLatency.average                                              vmhba32:6:0
disk.deviceLatency.average                                              vmhba32:6:1
disk.deviceLatency.average                                              vmhba32:7:0
disk.deviceLatency.average                                              vmhba32:7:1
disk.deviceLatency.average                                              vmhba32:8:0
net.received.average                                                    vmnic0
net.received.average                                                    vmnic1
net.received.average                                                    vmnic2
net.received.average                                                    vmnic3

Note that an instance can have a length zero for some metrics.
This ("") is the instance that returns the aggregated statistics value.


$esx = Get-VMHost <ESX-hostname> | Get-View
./Get-Stat2-v1.1.ps1 -entity $esx -stat "cpu.usage.average" -queryinstances | ft

returns


Stat                                                                    Instance
----                                                                    --------
cpu.usage.average
cpu.usage.average                                                       0
cpu.usage.average                                                       1

The first object in the array is the "aggregate" instance.

Update 02/03/09
The attached Get-Stat2.ps1 script has been updated.
The changes:

corrected issue with missing -Maxsamples parameter
corrected issue with incorrect instances returned for -QueryInstances
introduced default value ("RT") for -Interval parameter

Issue getting healthcheck to run manually or scheduled

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 19:38:23 GMT

Up until ESX 3.5 Update 4 we had the HealthCheck script schedule to run everyday, but since we updated it does not seem to be able to run.

I have tried it manually and recieved this error:

vSphere PowerCLI C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\VIToolkitForWindows\Scripts> dir
Directory: Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\FileSystem::C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\VIToolkitForWindows\Scripts
Mode LastWriteTime Length Name
----

-a--- 7/7/2009 2:12 PM 16674 Healthcheck.ps1
-a--- 4/23/2009 6:56 AM 7771 Initialize-VIToolkitEnvironment.ps1
vSphere PowerCLI C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\VIToolkitForWindows\Scripts> ./Healthcheck.ps1
Incomplete string token.
At C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\VIToolkitForWindows\Scripts\Healthcheck.ps1:121 char:270
+ $vmhosts | Sort Name -Descending | % { $server = $_ |get-view; $server.Config.Product | select { $server.Name }, Version, Build, FullName }| Co
nvertTo-Html â?"body "<H2>$cluster Cluster Information.</H2>" -head "<link rel='stylesheet' href='style.css' type='text/css' / <<<< >" | Out-File -Ap
pend $filelocation
vSphere PowerCLI C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\VIToolkitForWindows\Scripts>

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated

E-Mail Alert for Datastores

Mon, 09 Mar 2009 17:40:25 GMT

Portgroup - how to configure Nic Teaming

Sun, 22 Feb 2009 01:48:00 GMT

list virtual machines per cluster

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 14:32:32 GMT

$clusters = get-cluster

foreach ($cluster in $clusters)
{
    foreach ($vmhost in ($cluster | get-vmhost))
    {
        $vmhost | get-vm | Select-Object @{Name="Cluster"; Expression={$cluster.name}},`
            Name
    }
}

http://www.vmwarescripting.com

This document was generated from the following thread: list virtual machines per cluster

Here is a PowerShell script to list datastore information per cluster

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 14:31:42 GMT

$clusters = get-cluster
aforeach ($cluster in $clusters)
{
    $vmhosts = $cluster | get-vmhost
    $firsthost = $vmhosts[0]
    $datastores = $firsthost | get-datastore | % {(Get-View $_.ID).summary}
    foreach ($datastore in $datastores)
    {
        $datastore | select-object @{Name = "Date"; Expression = {get-date}}, @{Name = "Cluster"; Expression = {$cluster.name}}, URL, Name, Freespace, Capacity
           }
        }

http://www.vmwarescripting.com

This document was generated from the following thread: Here is a PowerShell script to list datastore information per cluster

get the socket/core info for each vmware host

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 14:30:59 GMT

Get-VMHost | %{Get-View $_.ID} | %{
  $name = $_.name
  $esx = "" | select NumCpuPackages, NumCpuCores, Hz, Memory
  $esx.NumCpuPackages = $_.Hardware.CpuInfo.NumCpuPackages 
  $esx.NumCpuCores = $_.Hardware.CpuInfo.NumCpuCores
  $esx | select-object @{Name = "Name"; Expression = {$name}}, @{Name = "Sockets"; Expression = {$esx.NumCpuPackages}}, @{Name = "Cores"; Expression = {$esx.NumCpuCores}}
  }

http://www.vmwarescripting.com

This document was generated from the following thread: get the socket/core info for each vmware host

Compare hostname of VM with display name of VM

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 14:30:36 GMT

$VMs = Get-VM
foreach ($VM in $VMs){
	$VM = Get-View $VM.ID
	$nm = $VM.name
    $hn = $VM.guest.hostname 
    $vm | select @{Name = "Name"; Expression = {$nm}}, @{Name = "Hostname"; Expression = {$hn}}
    }

http://www.vmwarescripting.com

This document was generated from the following thread: Compare hostname of VM with display name of VM

Find HA/DRS status of each host in cluster

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 14:30:22 GMT

Get-Cluster | Get-View | %{
  foreach($h in $_.Host){
      Write-Host $_.name
      Write-Host "`tDRS enabled : " $_.Configuration.DRSConfig.Enabled
      Write-Host "`tHA enabled  : " $_.Configuration.DasConfig.Enabled
    }
  }

http://www.vmwarescripting.com

This document was generated from the following thread: Find HA/DRS status of each host in cluster

verify licensed features of a vmware host

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 14:29:35 GMT

$vmhostname = "vmhostname.domain.com"
Connect-VIServer $vmhostname | Out-Null
$vmhost = get-vmhost
$ServiceInstance = Get-View ServiceInstance
$LicManRef=$ServiceInstance.Content.LicenseManager
$LicManView=Get-View $LicManRef
$LicManView.featureinfo | Where-Object {$_.state -eq "enabled"} | `
    Select-Object      @{Name = "VMHost"; Expression = {$vmhost.name}},`
                       @{Name = "License Server"; Expression = {$licManView.source.LicenseServer}},`
                       @{Name = "Version"; Expression = {$licManView.LicensedEdition}},`
                       @{Name = "Feature"; Expression = {$_.key}}

This document was generated from the following thread: verify licensed features of a vmware host

find left over VCB snapshots

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 14:28:54 GMT

Get-VM | Get-Snapshot | `
    Where-Object {$_.Name -eq "_VCB-BACKUP_"} | `
	Select Name, @{Name="VM Name" ; `
	Expression={$_.VM.Name}}

http://www.vmwarescripting.com

This document was generated from the following thread: find left over VCB snapshots

Export/import baselines from one Update Manager server to another

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 14:36:52 GMT

set-vi3-entity switch code for scripts

Wed, 04 Feb 2009 20:38:15 GMT

Live Cloning with Powershell - Across Clusters/Hosts

Tue, 03 Feb 2009 21:05:09 GMT

I have written a script that will clone a live vm from one cluster to another (Across Datacenters or Local).
To understand what is happeing I will explain our environment and then what this is used for:

Environment:
Consists of 3 Clusters spanning 2 DataCenters (2 in NYC, 1 in NJ)
All Managed by a single VirtualCenter Server(VM)
All ESX Hosts are HP BL680c G5 fully Loaded and are attached to HP EVA 8K's with multiple Fiber Connection/Paths.
All Network connections are aggregated for maximum bandwith (Minimum 4 connection per VLAN).
So now what the scripts are used for:
On a daily basis we have a need to clone a set of VM's to our Hot/Hot/DR site. (Each site acts as DR to the other for specific applications and some application are spanned/Load Balanced between the two.
The first file SC_DR_E.cfg established what work to do by setting the details for the other scripts to interprit.
The Second file SC_DR.ps1 determines if its an Odd or Even day (As we keep online 2 days working of clones in case anything failed we alway have backup at both locations.).
Third file SC_CloneVM_Task.ps1 does the actual work and if requested send a ASCII email with the output during the process.
If you have any questions post them to this forum and I am sure someone will answer your questions.

Enjoy!

This document was generated from the following thread: Live Cloning with Powershell - Across Clusters/Hosts not working (Help! Please!)

Report on all VMs with snapshots

Sun, 11 Jan 2009 04:45:51 GMT

Snapshots are one of those things that tend to get created and then forgotten over time until you run out of disk space and can't quite figure out why. The script below will give you a handy way to generate a tabular report showing all of your VMs that have snapshots and when they were created. Its a quick "two liner", with the first line just getting you connected to your VC, and the 2nd line doing the heavy lifting of enumerating all of the VMs, finding the shapshots, looking up what host currently houses the VM and then creating the actual table

connect-viserver VCServerName
get-vm | get-snapshot | Select-Object VM, Name, Description, PowerState, Created, @{Name="Host"; Expression = {(Get-VM $_.VM).Host.Name}} | ft -auto

The output looks like

VM	Name	Description	PowerState	Created	Host
S5	Pre 4.1 Upgrades		PoweredOn	11/21/2008 7:13:27 AM	abc.domain.com
W2K3-Router	Test Snapshot	Test description	PoweredOn	1/8/2009 1:12:10 AM	abc.domain.com
BT	Pre WSS		PoweredOff	8/10/2008 11:38:37 PM	def.domain.com

VMotion Check

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 15:31:35 GMT

NARPC (Not Another Resource Pool Copier)

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 12:55:39 GMT

This script copies a hierarchical tree of resource pools from one cluster to another.

It can easily be adapted to not to use Clusters as the starting point.

As usual, use at your own risk.

Oct 27:

The script now optionally copies resource group permissions thanks to work by ekjreci and lucd.
The script also tries to use cmdlet/function like command-line arguments (e.g., -FromCluster cluster) when calling scripts and will prompt for 'from' and 'to' cluster names

NADUS (Not Another Data Upload Script)

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 19:40:24 GMT

In the environment we are working in, we want our CDROM images to be available from shared storage accessible from any ESX server, but for various reasons (corporate standards mostly, although network utilization and additional protocols on the ESX server were a factor) didn't want to use NFS or SMB. Also, because this is the first VMware deployment for this organization, the change management organizations don't want to use templates and therefore want to build VM's using the same processes as for their metal servers. Hence the need for the ISOs. Finally, we didn't want to have to teach the Configuration Management/Package Deployment people how to use WinSCP to upload ISOs.

So this script:

Goes through a Windows folder tree which has been populated with media by our configuration management/deployment folks.
Replicates that tree into a VMFS datastore which is implemented on our SAN and published to all our ESX servers.
Uploads any file it finds in the windows folder tree to the corresponding folder on the VMFS partition

You will never use this script as written, however there may be useful concepts such as:

how to upload files to VMware datastores. These techniques can be adapted to uploading data to other targets such as the ESX hosts URL
how to find the datacenter a store is located in
how to use recursion in powershell functions
find out where the Datastore psdrive is useful and where it might be tweaked in a future version
how to upload to a VC-aware datastore using only your current windows credentials. Note that if your ESX/ESXi server is not part of a VC environment, you will need valid ESX credentials

This script borrows extensively from the cmdlets Carter Shanklin has uploaded to www.codeplex.com/vitoolkitextensions. He and I worked together on the upload bit, and we found that the upload function requires as much memory as the largest file being uploaded. In this case, we want to upload some pretty decent sized ISO's so this wasn't feasible since things break when you run out of memory. The functions in this script are modified slightly to use a modest fixed amount of memory, however the upload does take significantly longer than the code in the VIToolkitExtensions (about 10minutes for a 500MB ISO).

This is far from perfect:

It doesn't remove anything from the VMFS side
The upload speed could be improved, but we haven't had the time to play with that

Please use this at your own risk. No guarantee it will work.

NARMD (Not Another Removable Media Disconnector)

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 16:58:25 GMT

We are using this script to provide a slightly more user-friend CDROM and floppy disconnect environment.

You can easily disconnect all CDROMS with

Get-VM | Get-CDROMDrive | Set-CDROMDrive -Connected $False -Confirm:$False

However you have little control over the above process, and might disconnect things that are actually in use. This script presents a list of VM's whose CDROM(s) or Floppie(s) are connected now, or are set to connect at startup, then prompts the operator to continue.

If the operator confirms the action, it will go ahead and disconnect all the CDROMs and Floppies and uncheck the Connect At Startup, but at least the operator knows what's happening.

If you want a log file you can invoke this as follows:

.\removableDrives.ps1 | Tee-Object C:\Logs\removableDrives.log

Here's a sample console session (up to the prompt)

VM: Server1 (PoweredOff)
CD/DVD Drive 1 Connected=True ConnectAtPowerUp=True
Floppy Drive 1 Connected=False ConnectAtPowerUp=False
VM: Server2 (PoweredOff)
CD/DVD Drive 1 Connected=True ConnectAtPowerUp=True
Floppy Drive 1 Connected=True ConnectAtPowerUp=True
VM: Workstation3 (PoweredOff)
CD/DVD Drive 1 Connected=True ConnectAtPowerUp=True
Floppy Drive 1 Connected=False ConnectAtPowerUp=False
VM: DomainController1 (PoweredOn)
CD/DVD Drive 1 Connected=True ConnectAtPowerUp=True
Floppy Drive 1 Connected=False ConnectAtPowerUp=True
Do you want to disconnect all removable drives, and disable the connect
at startup? If you don't see any VMs everything is OK and you should
select N here. Type Y or N:

The script is here for full-text searching, and is also attached.

"removableDrives.ps1 Version 1.0a starting"
connect-viserver ($env:computername + "." + $env:userdnsdomain) | out-null

Get-Vm | Where-Object {
(((Get-CDDrive -VM $_ | Where-Object { (($_.ConnectionState.Connected -eq $True) -or ($_.ConnectionState.StartConnected -eq $True))} ) -ne $Null) `
-or `
((Get-FloppyDrive -VM $_ | Where-Object { (($_.ConnectionState.Connected -eq $True) -or ($_.ConnectionState.StartConnected -eq $True))} ) -ne $Null))
} | %{
"VM: " + $_.Name + " (" + $_.PowerState + ")"
Get-CDDrive -VM $_ | ForEach-Object { " " + $_.Name + " Connected=" + $_.ConnectionState.Connected + " ConnectAtPowerUp=" + $_.ConnectionState.StartConnected }
Get-FloppyDrive -VM $_ | ForEach-Object { " " + $_.Name + " Connected=" + $_.ConnectionState.Connected + " ConnectAtPowerUp=" + $_.ConnectionState.StartConnected }
}

if ("Y" -eq (Read-Host `
("Do you want to disconnect all removable drives, and disable the connect `n" + `
" at startup? If you don't see any VMs everything is OK and you should `n" + `
" select N here. Type Y or N"))) {
Get-Vm | Where-Object {
(((Get-CDDrive -VM $_ | Where-Object { (($_.ConnectionState.Connected -eq $True) -or ($_.ConnectionState.StartConnected -eq $True))} ) -ne $Null) `
-or `
((Get-FloppyDrive -VM $_ | Where-Object { (($_.ConnectionState.Connected -eq $True) -or ($_.ConnectionState.StartConnected -eq $True))} ) -ne $Null))
} | %{
"VM: " + $_.Name + " (" + $_.PowerState + ")"
Get-CDDrive -VM $_ | ForEach-Object { Set-CDDRIVE -CD $_ -StartConnected $False -Connected $False -Confirm:$False | %{ " Changed " + $_.Name} }
Get-FloppyDrive -VM $_ | ForEach-Object { Set-FloppyDRIVE -Floppy $_ -StartConnected $False -Connected $False -Confirm:$False | %{ " Changed " + $_.Name} }
}
}

"removableDrives.ps1 finished."

NAEPS (Not Another ESX Provisioning Script)

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 02:48:55 GMT

This script builds on the excellent work done by lberc and others in the forums and at VMware

We are deploying VC+ESX to a somewhat interesting environment:

engineering is not directly involved in provisioning so it needs to be as automated as possible within a cost-effective constraint
security is important
We're using ESX not ESXi

The scripts I found stopped too soon for my O-C taste, so this one goes a bit further than others I found including:

Configure the license server
Upload signed SSL key and certificate files to the ESX server
Rename all local datastores to try to reduce the accidental deployment to local stores
Configure the firewall for NTP and updateManager
Targeted for ESX although there is also a nod to ESXi provisioning
Configure the environment for our special case where the VCS-ESX communications are on an isolated network

and a separate isolated VMotion network

Rescan the HBAs

It does the "usual" stuff borrowed from lberc and others:

reset the root password
configure networks
joining to VCS servers
configuring NTP, DNS, domain, name, IP's etc.

Some interesting concepts explored here, although hints of topics on these throughout the forums

Upload files to an https server with a self-signed SSL certificate
Finding the local datastores on an ESX server
Accessing and modifying the firewall configuration
Dealing with Passwords entered with the Read-Host -asSecureString

Some caveats

This is my first significant Powershell, .Net and VI project. I am sure many of you will cringe when you look at the arcane methods I found.
We do a manual install of ESX rather than using kickstart. I expect we'll head towards ESXi and this work wouldn't have paid back. This script is run immediately after the reboot following the installation.
It works pretty well in our target environment, but there is no guarantee or warranty it will work in yours.
The upload stuff works here works for fairly small files. (file size=memory consumed) Carter Shanklin and I are

working to improve the upload process. Watch Carter's (c_shanklin) blog and his VI Toolkit Extensions at http://www.codeplex.com/vitoolkitextensions

A few features for the next version of this script - perhaps in another life:

It should really attach the server to an Update Manager baseline and remediate.
Replace all the anachronisms with the best-practice methods
Configure a VMKernel network and gateway on the Management VLAN
A way cool Windows.Forms with drop-down lists to capture the information
Automatically download backup ESXi configuration file to the local disk

Oct 16 2008

I meant to mention how to generate a log file but forgot.

As you may have noticed all the messages in this script are simply dumped to the console, rather than explicitly output with Write-Host. You can redirect this to a log file and still see the console messages by invoking the script as follows:

.\configureESX.ps1 | Tee-Object .\configureESX-server.log

Script: Map RDMs to VMs using Uuids and vm names imported from CSV

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 15:43:28 GMT

Nic Teaming Policy

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 15:30:44 GMT

I have another question based on the example of adding a virtual switch. What if you also wanted to set the nicTeaming policy of the vSwitch to loadbalance_ip and network failover detection to Link Status Only? I see that those properities are under HostNetworkPolicy, but I'm not sure how you would use that to add that information to this. I'm probably just making this a lot harder than it actually is.

$HS = Find-EntityView -ViewType "HostSystem"
$nwSys = $HS.ConfigManager.NetworkSystem
$mor = Get-View -MoRef $nwSys
$networkConfig = New-Object Vmware.Vim.HostNetworkConfig
$vswtch = New-Object VMware.Vim.HostVirtualSwitchConfig
$networkConfig.vswitch = @($vswtch)
$networkConfig.vswitch[0].name = "SwitchName"
$spec = New-Object Vmware.Vim.HostVirtualSwitchSpec
$spec.numPorts = 1
$portgrp = New-Object VMware.Vim.HostPortGroupConfig
$networkConfig.portgroup = @($portgrp)
$portgropspec = New-Object VMware.Vim.HostPortGroupSpec
$portgropspec.vswitchName = "SwitchName"
$portgropspec.Name = "SwitchNamePort"
$portgropspec.Policy = New-Object VMware.Vim.HostNetworkPolicy
$networkConfig.vswitch[0].spec = $spec
$networkConfig.portgroup[0].spec = $portgropspec
$mor.AddVirtualSwitch("SwitchName",$spec ) $mor.AddPortGroup($portgropspec)

Thanks,Jaime

As you probably know NIC teaming can be defined on the switch and on the portgroup.
This example shows how it is done on a portgroup like you asked.
I left out the vSwitch objects and method so as not confuse you.


$HS = Get-View -ViewType "HostSystem" -Filter @{"Name" = <ESX-name>}
$nwSys = $HS.ConfigManager.NetworkSystem
$mor = Get-View $nwSys
 
$portgropspec = New-Object VMware.Vim.HostPortGroupSpec
$portgropspec.vswitchName = <vswitch-name>
$portgropspec.Name = <portgroup-name>
 
$portgropspec.Policy = New-Object VMware.Vim.HostNetworkPolicy
 
$portgropspec.Policy.NicTeaming = New-Object VMware.Vim.HostNicTeamingPolicy
$portgropspec.Policy.NicTeaming.failureCriteria = New-Object VMware.Vim.HostNicFailureCriteria
$portgropspec.Policy.NicTeaming.failureCriteria.checkBeacon = $false
$portgropspec.Policy.NicTeaming.failureCriteria.checkDuplex = $false
$portgropspec.Policy.NicTeaming.failureCriteria.checkErrorPercent = $false
 
$portgropspec.Policy.NicTeaming.nicOrder = New-Object VMware.Vim.HostNicOrderPolicy
$portgropspec.Policy.NicTeaming.nicOrder.activeNic = @(<NIC1-name>)
$portgropspec.Policy.NicTeaming.nicOrder.standbyNic = @(<NIC2-name>)
$portgropspec.Policy.NicTeaming.policy = "loadbalance_ip"
 
$mor.AddPortGroup($portgropspec)

Note1: in v1 of the VITK the functionality of the Find-EntityView cmdlet has been replaced by the Get-View cmdlet
Note2: for <vswitch-name> you use the name of an existing switch
Note3: "Link Status Only" is the default setting. All flags in the failureCriteria object are set to $false
Note4: for NIC1-name and NIC2-name you use 2 NICs that are already allocated to the vswitch
Note5: the choice for Active-Active or Active-Standby is up to you. If you place the 2 NICs in the activeNic array , as @(<NIC1-name>,<NIC2-name>), you will have Active-Active teaming.

Awesome, thanks for helping me out again. I am using v1 so I have been using the Get-View cmlet. I just copied the example from the FAQ page.

Jaime

This document was generated from the following thread: Nic Teaming Policy

How To: Configure freshly booted ESX with PowerShell

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 15:28:14 GMT

As part of a larger project I've been working on a set of scripts which configure a freshly-installed ESX (or ESXi) system into Virtual Center (after first attempting to remove previous VC state and clean state from the host). Currently they follow a typical post-boot configuration pattern:

Set ESX password
Add to Virtual Center cluster
Configure Virtual Switches
Configure Port Groups
Add NFS partitions
Add iSCSI partitions
Configure NTP
Configure VMotion

Before trying, modify esx-master.ps1 and esx-profile.ps1 to local conditions (or your password will be set to "CHANGEME").

Command: esx-autoconfigure.ps1 "hostname|ip-address"

As this is my initial foray into PowerShell, please excuse any idiosyncracies.

This is a work-in-progress - feedback welcome. Points awarded for the best suggestions in the next few days.

lance

(See boot/config doc).

My comments are as follows:

1. http://www.vmware.com/landing_pages/toolkit_contest.html
2. Cool, I've been working on something similar for a project at work (not to mention for my book).
3. I'm a judge for #1, so I'll refrain from commenting directly on your code in case you decide to submit it, which I suggest you do.

Author of the upcoming book: Managing VMware Infrastructure with PowerShell
Co-Host, PowerScripting Podcast (http://powerscripting.net)

Some suggestions:

configure or check DNS and gateways before steps 3/4/7/8. Critical for clustering, HA and DRS!
configure the firewall
(eventually) configure some advanced ESX settings. See for example a recent discussion about NFS.MaxVolumes
check (and eventually configure) licensing before using clustering with HA/DRS/vMotion
configure (or adjust) resource pool(s). Adding an ESX server will increase the available resources.

Very nice, you should definately enter the comp.

Alan Renouf
VMware, Citrix, Microsoft Consultant
UK

My Blog

iberc,

I'm doing a large roll-out of esxi. I have been working on the exact same as what you're doing. If I can add anything across what you got i may post it.

You're scripts look to be more portable. This is my first dive into significant scripting not to mention powershell. The envronment i'm building for is very homogenous so the work reflects it. this is definately work in progress. these files on their own need to be edited etc and linked.

I've been looking for awhile now for configuration of ESXi via powershell and it seems very limited. Most resources are directed at management of existing.

Message was edited by: olan025

Lance works for VMware, no $5000 for him, for us 3rd prize is we're fired

My cover has been blown. - l

Looks great!

Lance, do you know Aiden Dalgleish? He's a PSO Consultant from the UK and already created a hell of a lot scripts for installing. Talk to him, he's got some cool stuff!

Duncan
My virtualisation blog:
http://www.yellow-bricks.com

If you find this information useful, please award points for "correct" or "helpful".

Hal,

How about making an exception to allow me a sneak peak at your new book? My scripting needs to be tuned up as you can tell i'm a beginner if you looked at my earlier attachments.

I'm making changes and updates to those, if anyone does care for them post it. otherwise my stuff is pretty basic compared to Lance's functionalized code.

This document was generated from the following thread: How To: Configure freshly booted ESX with PowerShell

How to Move a Template

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 16:33:13 GMT

I was surprised this morning to find that you can't directly move templates using the existing cmdlets. Looks like you can either a) change template to a VM using set-template or b) use Get-View on a Folder object and then call its MoveIntoFolder method.

Method A - there and back again

$vm = Get-Template wind* | Set-Template -ToVM | 
	Move-VM -Destination (Get-Folder templates) 
$vmView = $vm | Get-View
$vmView.MarkAsTemplate()

TotalSeconds : 8.9222029

Method B - do it folder style

This one should be much faster...let's see:

$TmplView = Get-Template wind* | Get-View
$FolderView = Get-Folder Templates | Get-View
$FolderView.MoveIntoFolder( $TmplView.MoRef )

TotalSeconds : 2.0466224

We have a winner

Note that the timing was performed on my home lab. I imagine on nice hardware method B would take less than a second.

Script: Create Disaster Recovery Hard Drive, with Backup-VM VCB Wrapper CMDLet

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 14:47:56 GMT

Update 27-Aug-08: Script updated for VI Toolkit 1.0 and Powershell v2 CTP2

Create Disaster Recovery Hard Drive

Motivation

This script was created out of a motivation of laziness. Since VM's proliferate so fast, most backup and disaster recovery solutions are a pain in the ass because you have to manually add and remove virtual machines to their backup processes. What if there was a way to automatically add and remove VM's to a backup solution simply because of where they are located in Virtualcenter? What if I had an automated DR solution to removable USB hard drives for my smaller clients that was FREE?

Hence this script. This script dynamically backs up all VM's in a particular Virtualcenter folder using VCB, and drops them out to a USB hard drive for disaster recovery purposes. If I don't want a VM backed up anymore, I simply take it out of that folder.

Note that this also leverages the new networked method of VCB, so YOU DO NOT NEED A SAN AND DIRECT ACCESS TO THE LUNs.

The script is also flexible enough so that if you do have the SAN VCB configuration, you can do LAN-free backups with this method too.

Note that the query here is just an example. Any way you can return a list of VM's, you can give it to the backup-vm cmdlet.

Some examples that come to mind:

Backup all virtual machines with disks under 500MB in size
Backup all virtual machines created after July 1st
Backup all virtual machines with "Prod" in their names
Backup all virtual machines with a custom attribute defined called "BackMeUp" set to true
Backup all virtual machines currently residing on a particular host, cluster, or datacenter.

This script took me about 8 hours, mostly because I was learning how to do script cmdlets and dealing with all the incompatabilities/breakage of CTP Powershell releases as well.

Script Cmdlets

The task evolved into my first foray into the new Script Cmdlets in Powershell v2. They're so easy to make I went wild and wrote a near-complete wrapper to VCB. Cut and paste the "cmdlet" section out of the code and put it in your profile, and you can now use the Backup-VM cmdlet.

Usage

Install onto a server or workstation with the prerequisites defined in the script (VCB, Powershell v2 CTP2, VI Toolkit v1.0)
Edit the parameters of the script to suit your environment. BE VERY CAREFUL WITH VMBackupDestination
Run to test, then set up as a scheduled task on a daily interval.

Example Screenshot:
VCB Backup Script in Action

Script

Due to issues with VMWare Communities, the script is now attached to this document.

Script: VMWare Lab Manager Automatic Cleanup

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 01:15:55 GMT

Motivation

In the official documentation they say that you shouldn't use Lab Manager and Virtualcenter to manage the same ESX Hosts. Since I don't have the luxury of investing in dedicated ESX Servers for my lab, I decided to write a script that automatically moves Lab Manager-created VM's into a specific folder and resource pool, and automatically removes undeployed Lab Manager VM's from the inventory.

This keeps my VirtualCenter organized and puts the Lab Machines in low-end resource pools so that my production VM's still get their reserves and SLA shares.

Requirements

Powershell
VI Toolkit for Windows
A VirtualCenter user with rights to browse through VirtualCenter and Move VM's
Access to the SSL port of your Virtualcenter server from the host you run the script (i.e. not firewalled).

Usage

First, edit the script and change the constants so that they match your environment:

Lab Manager Resource Pool - Which resource pool you want your Lab Manager VMs to reside (ex. "MyLab")
Lab Manager Folder - Same as above but a folder under Virtual Machines and Templates
Virtualcenter Server - Your VC Server. Note that the name here must match the name on your virtualcenter SSL certificate.
VC Username - The user to connect to VirtualCenter as. I recommend a service account but you can use "administrator" if you want.
VC Password - Password for the user. Yes, I know it is in cleartext in the script, but since it's on my VC server using a low-privilege service account and I apply strict permissions to the files there, I'm not worried. If this bothers you, look up the SecureCredentials stuff in powershell.

I set up this to run as a scheduled task on my VirtualCenter server every 5 minutes, but it can run anywhere that has the VI Toolkit and access to the VirtualCenter SSL port.

I recommend creating a service account to run the script periodically under, because it looks cool in your Virtualcenter when a bunch of cleanup tasks owned by "LabManagerCleanup" come up every 5 minutes.

Huge thanks to the VI Toolkit team! The meat of the script is probably only about 10-15 lines and makes some direct VMWare SDK accesses that the base cmdlets don't do, I've just added a ton of comments and colored output fluff. Powershell saved me so much time, I banged this out in a couple hours.

Hope this helps anyone else out there! I know there's some kludgy logic in this script and I note it, but I'm a consultant/admin, not a programmer, and it works just fine. Feel free to make it better!

NOTE: The below may not format well in some versions of IE7. View it in Firefox and it should be line-carriaged properly.

# TITLE: 	Lab Manager Cleanup Script
# AUTHOR:	Justin Grote <jgrote*NO*@!SPAM!enpointe.|PLEASE|com>
# PURPOSE:	Cleans up undeployed Lab Manager VM's, and puts deployed Lab Manager VM's 
# 			into specific resource pools and folders
# USAGE:	Edit Constants to match your environment, run once manually to test, then schedule as repeating task.
 
#Load the VI Toolkit for Powershell
add-pssnapin VMWare.VimAutomation.Core
 
## CONSTANTS
 
#Virtualcenter Server Name
$VCNAME = "virtualcenter.yourcompany.com"
 
#VirtualCenter Service Account
#NOTE: Highly recommended this be a separate service account such as "VMLabMgrSA" so it is easy
#      to see in Virtualcenter when the script is moving things about.
$VCUSER = "username"
$VCPASSWORD = "yourpassword"
 
#Desired Lab Resource Pool Name
$LABMGRPOOLNAME = "MyLabManagerResourcePool"
 
#Desired Virtualcenter Folder
$LABMGRFOLDERNAME = "MyLabManagerFolder"
 
#Creates an indentation for subtasks. Used for script output formatting
$INDENT = "  "
 
### SCRIPT
write-host -fore green "== BEGIN LAB MANAGER CLEANUP =="
 
#Connect to Virtualcenter
$vc = get-viserver $VCNAME -user $VCUSER -password $VCPASSWORD
 
#Lab Manager Resource Pool
$LabMgrPool = get-resourcepool $LABMGRPOOLNAME
 
#Lab Manager Virtualcenter Folder
$LabMgrFolder = get-folder $LABMGRFOLDERNAME
 
#Discover all Lab Manager VM's. 
#Note this is done really sloppily by looking for all VM's that have a .vmx file in a 
#specific datastore folder that Lab Manager manages. 
#A Better way would be to query some sort of Lab Manager API.
$LabMgrVMs = get-vm | where {(get-view $_.ID).summary.config.vmpathname -like "*] VM/*"}
 
 
## TASK 1: Move All Virtual Machines to the designated Lab Manager Folder and Resource Pool
 
write-host -fore green "Moving Lab Manager Virtual Machines to their desired locations..."
foreach ($LabMgrVM in $LabMgrVMs) {
 
  #Verify that the VM is not already in the desired folder and move it.
  if (-not ($(get-vm -location $LabMgrFolder | foreach{$_.get_ID() }) -contains $LabMgrVM.get_ID() )) {
    write-host -fore Yellow $INDENT "Moving" $LabMgrVM.Name "to folder" $LabMgrFolder.Name
    move-VM $LabMgrVM -Location $LabMgrFolder | out-null
  }
  else {
    write-host $INDENT $LabMgrVM.Name "is already in folder" $LabMgrFolder.Name
  }
 
  #Verify that the VM is not already in the desired resource pool and move it.
  if (-not ($(get-vm -location $LabMgrPool | foreach{$_.get_ID() }) -contains $LabMgrVM.get_ID() )) {
    write-host -fore Yellow $INDENT "Moving" $LabMgrVM.Name "to resource pool" $LabMgrPool.Name
    move-VM $LabMgrVM -Location $LabMgrPool | out-null
  }
  else {
    write-host $INDENT $LabMgrVM.Name "is already in resource pool" $LabMgrPool.Name
  }
}
 
 
## TASK 2: Clean up all undeployed Lab Manager VMs.
 
write-host -fore green "Cleaning up all undeployed Lab Manager VMs"
 
#Get all Lab Manager VM's listed in the defined Lab Manager folder.
#I do this instead of getting *ALL* VM's because there may be some orphaned VMs that
#Aren't from Lab Manager that we may not want to touch
#Again, this is sloppy, and should use some sort of Lab Manager API
$LabMgrRegisteredVMs = get-vm -location $LabMgrFolder
 
#Check if any Lab Manager VM's are orphaned, and remove them from the inventory.
foreach ($LabMgrVM in $LabMgrRegisteredVMs) {
  if ((get-view $LabMgrVM.get_ID() ).runtime.ConnectionState -like "orphaned") {
    write-host $INDENT "Removing orphaned VM" $LabMgrVM.Name "from inventory."
    remove-VM $LabMgrVM -confirm:$false | out-null
  }
}
 
write-host -fore green "== END LAB MANAGER CLEANUP =="
### END SCRIPT

Justin Grote
Senior Systems Engineer
En Pointe Technologies

Get-CustomField.ps1 Script

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 21:15:50 GMT

# TITLE: 	Get-CustomField.ps1
# AUTHOR:	Hal Rottenberg <hal@halr9000.com>
# PURPOSE:	Retrieve custom field data from any VMware Infrastructure "managed entity" 
# 			(i.e. VM, VMHost, Cluster, etc.).
# USAGE:	Use a Get cmdlet such as Get-VM or Get-Inventory and pipe to this script.
#			Optionally, specify the Name parameter to modify items retrieved.  Wildcards
#			are permitted.
# INPUT:	By pipeline only, any managed entity.
# OUTPUT:	A custom object containing the fields Name, Value, InputObject, and Type
# EXAMPLE:	
# PS> Get-Inventory | Get-CustomField.PS1 -name Service*
# 
# Name                    Value                  InputObject            Type
# ----                    -----                  -----------            ----
# ServiceLevel            Gold                   192.168.0.51           VMHostImpl

param (
	$Include # Search by this custom field name (aka key)
)
Process {
	# If the object on the pipeline does not have a CustomFields property, ignore it
	if ( !$_.CustomFields ) { continue }
	# Save this for later inclusion into the output custom object.
	$InputObject =  $_
	# An entity can be one of several types, it may be useful to know which one.
	$Type = $InputObject.GetType().Name
	$_.CustomFields | ForEach-Object {
		# If Name was provided, filter out the non-matches
		if ( ( $Name -and ( $_.Key -like $Name )) -or !$Name ) {
			# Build custom object to hold output.
			$Process = New-Object PSObject
			$Process | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name Name -Value $_.Key -PassThru |
				Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name Value $_.Value -PassThru |
				Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name InputObject -Value $InputObject -PassThru |
				Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name Type -Value $Type
			Write-Output $Process
		}
	}
}

VI Toolkit (for Windows) (Very) Unofficial Extensions

cshanklin@vmware.com — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 20:13:26 GMT

Specify the boot devices for a virtual machine

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 18:19:00 GMT

The below Powershell script is (heavily) based on this Perl script.
It uses a feature that is available with VC2.5 or later and ESX 3.5 or later.

The keyword "bios.bootDeviceClasses" allows to define the boot devices in the VMX file.

Note: this does not allow one to change the boot order !

For more info on the syntax see the Perl script.

The following example sets the boot devices of the virtual machine to the CD drive and the hard disk.


$spec = New-Object VMware.Vim.VirtualMachineConfigSpec
$spec.extraConfig += New-Object VMware.Vim.OptionValue
$spec.extraConfig[0].key = "bios.bootDeviceClasses"
$spec.extraConfig[0].value = "allow:cd,hd"
 
(get-view (Get-VM -Name <VM-name>).ID).ReconfigVM_Task($spec)

If you want to force a boot from CD, for example for an OS deployment, only allow the CD device.
Once the OS installation is complete change the allowed boot devices to only the hard disk.

Managing VMware with PowerShell FAQ

cshanklin@vmware.com — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 04:25:34 GMT

Managing VMware with PowerShell -- Frequently Asked Questions

This document contains frequently asked questions about managing VMware with PowerShell. This document is a wiki page, so if you have contributions or corrections, feel free to make them by editing the document directly.

Note: If you are using Internet Explorer, the code samples below do not render properly. To deal with this problem you can click "Edit Document" on the left hand side of the page, switch to plain text view, and copy text out of the document.

General VI Toolkit (for Windows) Questions:

Q: What is the VI Toolkit (for Windows)?
A: The VI Toolkit (for Windows) is a snap-in to Windows PowerShell that provides administration and automation for VMware Virtual Infrastructure.

Q: Does this FAQ cover a particular version of the VI Toolkit (for Windows)?
A: Yes, this FAQ specifically covers the VI Toolkit (for Windows) 1.0, build 103777.

Q: What VMware versions are supported?
A: Version 1.0 supports: VMware ESX 3.0.x, VMware ESX 3.5, VMware ESXi 3.5, VMware VirtualCenter 2.0 and VMware VirtualCenter 2.5. In addition, with the VI Toolkit (for Windows) you can manage multiple hosts at the same time, even if they are different versions of VI.

Q: What client platforms does the VI Toolkit (for Windows) support?
A: Windows XP, 2003 and Vista, 32 and 64 bit versions.

Q: What versions of PowerShell are compatible with the VI Toolkit (for Windows)?
A: The toolkit has been tested with PowerShell version 1, as well as the Community Technology Preview releases of PowerShell version 2.

General PowerShell Questions:

Q: How do I stop PowerShell from prompting me for confirmation before taking action?
A: Using parameter -Confirm one can bypass the confirmation messagebox. This parameter takes input as a Boolean.
Use

-Confirm:$false

Q: Can I manage more than one VirtualCenter server at a time? Can I connect to both ESX and VC at the same time.
A: Yes, but the syntax changes when you want to manage more than one host.

$vcs = @()
$vcs += connect-viserver <VC 1>
$vcs += connect-viserver <VC 2>
...
$vcs += connect-viserver <VC N>
 
# Snapshot all VMs across all VirtualCenter servers.
get-vm -server $vcs | new-snapshot

Initial Steps

Q: How do I connect to a VirtualCenter Server or Host Server?
A: Use the Connect-VIServer cmdlet and provide a value to the Server parameter.

connect-viserver -server <server> -user <user> -password <pwd>

Q: What if my host server listens on a non-default port?
A: Use the Port parameter to specify the port number.

connect-viserver -server <server> -user <user> -password <pwd> -port <port>

VM Lifecycle:

Q: How do I create a VM?
A: New virtual machine can be created using New-VM cmdlet. Before, executing this cmdlet first you need to connect to server. Below script would create a new virtual machine in the same host.

New-VM -Name "Target-VM" -Host (Get-VMHost)

Q: How do I create a VM on a particular datastore?
A: To create a virtual machine on a particular we need the reference of the datastore. This script creates a new virtual machine on a particular datastore.

connect-viserver -server <server> -user <user> -password <pwd>
$datastore = Get-Datastore -Name "Select-Datastore-Name"
New-VM -Name "Target-VM" -Host (Get-VMHost -Datastore $datastore)

Q: How can I import an existing VM?
A: This script will import a VM to the vm folder.

connect-viserver -server <server> -user <user> -password <pwd>
 
# If importing to a cluster uncomment the line below
# $rp = get-cluster <cluster name> | get-resourcepool | get-view
 
# If importing to a non-cluster host uncomment the line below
# $rp = get-vmhost <host name> | get-resourcepool | get-view
 
$vmFolder = get-view (get-folder vm).id
$vmFolder.RegisterVM_Task("[<Datastore Name>] <Path To VMX>.vmx", "<VM Name>", $false, $rp.MoRef, $null)

Q: How can I determine the connection state of CD ROM drives and floppy drives?
A: Connection state of CD drive and Floppy drive can be determined by property “Connected:. This return Boolean value true for connected and false for disconnected state. Below script would determine the connection state of CD and floppy drive.

connect-viserver -server <server> -user <user> -password <pwd>
Write-Output "FloppyDrive Status:"
Get-vm | Select-Object @{ Name="Status"; Expression={(Get-FloppyDrive -VM $_).ConnectionState.Connected}}, @{ Name="Name"; Expression={$_.Name}} | ft
Write-Output "CDDrive Status:"
Get-vm | Select-Object @{ Name="Status"; Expression={(Get-CDDrive -VM $_).ConnectionState.Connected}}, @{ Name="Name"; Expression={$_.Name}} | ft

Q: How can I set VM poweron options, such as configuring tools to automatically upgrade?
A: By setting the ToolsUpgradePolicy property to upgradeAtPowerCycle. With this setting Tools upgrade is automatically performed on the virtual machine and rebooted if necessary. Below is the script for the same.

connect-viserver -server <server> -user <user> -password <pwd>
$vm = Get-View (Get-VM VMName).Id
$vmConfigSpec = New-Object VMware.Vim.VirtualMachineConfigSpec
$vmConfigSpec.Tools = New-Object VMware.Vim.ToolsConfigInfo 
$vmConfigSpec.Tools.ToolsUpgradePolicy = "UpgradeAtPowerCycle"
$vm.ReconfigVM($vmConfigSpec)

Q: How do I set resources, such as limits and reservations, on a VM?
A: Various resources of a virtual machine can be set using the ReconfigVM_task method on virtual machine. To setting the reservation and limits of a virtual machine an instance of VirtualMachienConfigSpec would be created and all the required resources can be set in configspec befre calling the ReconfigVM_Task. Below is the script for the same.

connect-viserver -Server <Server> -User <user> -Password <password>
$vm = Get-VM VMName | % {Get-View $_.ID} 
$spec = new-object VMware.Vim.VirtualMachineConfigSpec
$spec.CPUAllocation = New-Object VMware.Vim.ResourceAllocationInfo
$spec.CpuAllocation.Shares = New-Object VMware.Vim.SharesInfo 
$spec.CpuAllocation.Shares.Level = "normal"
$spec.CpuAllocation.Limit = -1
$vm.ReconfigVM_Task($spec)

Q: How can I determine the version of VMware tools my VMs are using?
A: Toolversion property under the config property of virtual machine object having this information. To get this information we can use the below script.

connect-viserver -Server <Server> -User <user> -Password <password>
get-vm VMName | % { get-view $_.ID } | select Name, @{ Name="ToolsVersion"; Expression={$_.config.tools.toolsVersion}}

Q: How can I change a VM's IP address?
A: This script can be used to change the IP setting.

connect-viserver -server <server> -user <user> -password <pwd>
 
$vmclonespec = New-Object VMware.Vim.VirtualMachineCloneSpec
$vmclonespec.Customization = New-Object  VMware.Vim.CustomizationSpec
$vmclonespec.Customization.NicSettingMap = @(New-Object VMware.Vim.CustomizationAdapterMapping)
$vmclonespec.Customization.NicSettingMap[0].Adapter = New-Object VMware.Vim.CustomizationIPSettings
$vmclonespec.Customization.NicSettingMap[0].Adapter.ip = New-Object VMware.Vim.CustomizationFixedIp
$vmclonespec.Customization.NicSettingMap[0].Adapter.Ip.IpAddress = "<Target IP Address>"
$vmclonespec.Customization.Identity = New-Object vmware.Vim.CustomizationIdentitySettings
$vmclonespec.Customization.GlobalIPSettings = New-Object VMware.Vim.CustomizationGlobalIPSettings
 
$vmclonespec.config = New-Object VMware.Vim.VirtualMachineConfigSpec
$vmclonespec.location = New-Object VMware.Vim.VirtualMachineRelocateSpec
 
$vmclonespec.powerOn = $false
$vmclonespec.template = $false
$name = "Test"
 
$target = Get-Folder -Name TARGETFOLDER | % {Get-View $_.ID}  
$vmmor = Get-VM VMNAME | Get-View
$vmmor.CloneVM_Task($target.MoRef ,$name, $vmclonespec )

Q: How do I VMotion a VM?
A: This script can be used to VMotion from ESSX1 to ESX2.

connect-viserver -Server <Server> -User <user> -Password <password>
get-vmhost ESX1 | get-vm namevm | move-vm &amp;ndash;destination (get-vmhost ESX2)

Snapshots:

Q: How do I snapshot a VM? Multiple VMs?
A: New-Snapshot cmdlet can be used to create the snapshot of a virtual machine. This script will create the snapshot with name “Target-Snpsht” for all the virtual machines.
To do snapshot of a particular machine use Get-VM with virtual machine. Below is the script for the same.

connect-viserver -server <server> -user <user> -password <pwd>
New-Snapshot -Name &amp;ldquo;Target-Snpsht&amp;rdquo; -VM (Get-VM)

Q: How do I set a VM to a particular snapshot?
A: A virtual machine can have multiple snapshots and any of them can be set at a time. This script can set a virtual machine to a specified snapshot.

connect-viserver -server <server> -user <user> -password <pwd>
$vm = Get-VM -Name &amp;ldquo;VMName&amp;rdquo;
$snapshotname = $vm | Get-Snapshot -Name &amp;ldquo;Target-Snpsht&amp;rdquo;  
$vm | get-snapshot -Name &amp;ldquo;Target-Snpsht&amp;rdquo; | where { $_.name -like $snapshotname.name }  | %{ set-vm $vm -snapshot $snapshotname }

Q: How can I identify all snapshots older than a particular date?
A: This script show snapshots more than 30 days old.

connect-viserver -server <server> -user <user> -password <pwd>
Get-VM | Get-Snapshot | Where { $_.Created -lt (Get-Date).AddDays(-30)} | select Name, Created

ESX Host Configuration:

Q: How can I create virtual switches and portgroups?
A: This script creates the virtual switches.

connect-viserver -server <server> -user <user> -password <pwd>
 
Get-VMHost YOURHOST | New-VirtualSwitch -name "My New Switch" -nic YOURNIC (e.g. vmnic1)
Get-VMHost YOURHOST | Get-VirtualSwitch -name "My New Switch" | New-VirtualPortGroup -vlanid 100

Q: How can I configure NTP?
A: This script can be used to configure the NTP.

connect-viserver -server <server> -user <user> -password <pwd>
$HS = Get-VMHost YOURHOST | get-view
$dtsystem =  $HS.ConfigManager.DateTimeSystem 
$mor = Get-View -MoRef $dtsystem
$dateConfig = New-Object Vmware.Vim.HostDateTimeConfig 
$hsntpConfig = New-Object VMware.Vim.HostNtpConfig 
$dateConfig.ntpConfig = $hsntpConfig 
$dateConfig.ntpConfig.server = @("<Your NTP Server>") 
$dateConfig.timeZone = "<Your Timezone>"
$mor.updateDateTimeConfig($dateConfig)

Q: How can I rescan Host Bus Adapters (HBAs)?
A: This script used to rescan Host Bus Adapters (HBAs).

connect-viserver -server <server> -user <user> -password <pwd>
get-vmhost | Get-VMHostStorage -RescanAllHBA

Q: How can I display and configure the physical adapters of my ESX host.
A: This script display the list of physical adapters of an ESX host.

connect-viserver -server <server> -user <user> -password <pwd>
Get-VMHost | % {Get-View $_.ID} | % {$_.name; $nics = $_.config.network.pnic; foreach ($nic in $nics){$nic.device}}

This script can be used to configure the physical adapters of ESX host.

connect-viserver -server <server> -user <user> -password <pwd>
 
# $nics will hold an array of physical NICs on the server.
$nics = (get-vmhost | get-vmhostnetwork).PhysicalNic
 
$nics | where { $_.DeviceName -eq "NIC_TO_CONFIGURE" } | Set-VMHostNetworkAdapter -duplex full -bitratepersecmb 100

Q: How can I power off an ESX host?
A: This script can be used to power off an ESX host.

connect-viserver -server <server> -user <user> -password <pwd>
$HS = Get-VMHost YOURHOST | get-view
$HS.ShutdownHost("false")

Reporting:

Q: How can I create a tabular report of all my VMs, including their configurations and amount of disk space allocated?
A: This script can be used for tabular reporting of all VMs with their configuration.

connect-viserver -server <server> -user <user> -password <pwd>
get-vm | % { get-view $_.ID } | Select-Object Name, @{ Name="MemoryMB"; Expression={$_.Summary.Config.memorySizeMB}} , @{ Name="MemReservation"; Expression={$_.Summary.Config.memoryReservation}} , @{ Name="numCpu"; Expression={$_.Summary.Config.numCpu}} , @{ Name="numVirtualDisks"; Expression={$_.Summary.Config.numVirtualDisks}}

Other:

Q: How can I create folders that appear under "Hosts and Clusters" in VC (a so-called "Blue Folder")?
A: A "Blue Folder" is a folder created under the VM folder.
For example:

connect-viserver -server <server> -user <user> -password <pwd>
Get-Folder vm | New-Folder -Name &amp;ldquo;Target-Folder-Name&amp;rdquo;

Q: I'm concerned about the security implications of Invoke-VMScript, how can I disable it?
A: Invoke-VMscript can be disabled on a VM-by-VM basis by adding this line to the VM's VMX file: monitor_control.restrict_backdoor = "true" . You can add this line by hand or you can add it with the following script:

$vmsToDisableInvoke = Get-VM <vms to reconfigure>
$vmsToDisableInvoke | foreach {
  $vm = Get-View $_.Id
  $vmConfigSpec = New-Object VMware.Vim.VirtualMachineConfigSpec
  $vmConfigSpec.extraconfig += New-Object VMware.Vim.optionvalue
  $vmConfigSpec.extraconfig[0].Key="monitor_control.restrict_backdoor"
  $vmConfigSpec.extraconfig[0].Value="true"
  $vm.ReconfigVM($vmConfigSpec)
}

PowerShell Remoting with Feedback und Targeting

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 16:58:16 GMT

Hey

take a look at this extremely cool tool, which allows you to schedule and target your PowerShell scripts.

And if this was not enough... you also get a feedback of the results.

http://www.specopssoft.com/powershell/

VI Toolkit (for Windows) Admin Guide

cshanklin@vmware.com — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 16:02:40 GMT

Creating a PSDrive to browse your inventory

Sat, 15 Mar 2008 18:33:25 GMT

(I can't take credit for this, I'm just formatting and publishing instructions received from VMware.)

Establish a connection to your the server using the Connect-VIServer command:
```
Connect-VIServer -Server
```
for example,
```
Connect-VIServer -Server 192.168.10.10
```
When prompted, provide the administrator's username and password to authenticate access on the server.
Get the root folder of the server:
```
$root = Get-Folder -NoRecursion
```
Create a PowerShell drive named VI, based on the server root folder. You can use the built-in New-psDrive cmdlet.
```
New-PSDrive -Location $root -Name vi -PSProvider VimInventory -Root '\'
```
In this release, a single backslash is the required value for the -Root parameter.
Access the new drive by typing the following command:
```
cd vi:
```
To list the drive content, use Get-ChildItem or its alias Dir.
Navigate through your server inventory using the cd command with the full path to the host. For a fictional VI inventory it may looks like the following:
```
cd Folder01\DataCenter01\host\Web\LiveHost01
```

Script: Get-FolderContents

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 17:03:15 GMT