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1,217 Views 3 Replies Last post: May 4, 2011 9:13 AM by IanGibbs RSS
OlivierD Novice
OlivierD
7 posts since
Apr 22, 2008
Currently Being Moderated

Jun 30, 2009 2:19 AM

Change vnic-portgroup Assignment during Clone operation

 

Hello,

 

 

I've got a powershell script that creates VMs from a Template, and I want to change the vnic-portgroup

 

 

assignement in my Clone Specification.

 

 

$vmcSpec = New-Object VMware.Vim.VirtualMachineCloneSpec

$vmspec.Config = New-Object VMware.Vim.VirtualMachineConfigSpec

 

 

How can access to the nic configuration through $vmspec.Config ? With deviceChange property ?

 

 

Thanks for your help

 

 

Olivier

 

 

 

 

 

LucD Guru User Moderators vExpert
LucD
8,981 posts since
Oct 31, 2005
Currently Being Moderated
1. Jun 30, 2009 6:04 AM in response to: OlivierD
Re: Change vnic-portgroup Assignment during Clone operation

Yes, you will have to use the VirtualDeviceConfigSpec via the deviceChange property.

A useful trick is to first find the device in question and then just change the required properties.

In this case only the network (portgroup) needed to be changed

$templateName = <template-name>
$newVM = <VM-name>
$esxName = <ESX-hostname>
$poolName = <resourcepoolname>
$nicName = <NIC-name>                                # Ex "Virtual Ethernet Adapter"
$newPGName = <new-portgroup-name>
$folderName = <foldername>
$datastoreName = <datastorename>

$fromVM = Get-View -Id (Get-Template $templateName).Id
$folder = Get-Folder $folderName | Get-View
$esx = Get-VMHost $esxName | Get-View
foreach($pg in $esx.Network){
     if((Get-View $pg).Name  -eq $newPGName){
          break
     }
}

$found = $false
foreach($dev in $fromVM.Config.Hardware.Device){
     if($dev.DeviceInfo.Label -eq $nicName){
          $found = $true
          break
     }
}

$spec = New-Object VMware.Vim.VirtualMachineCloneSpec
$spec.Config = New-Object VMware.Vim.VirtualMachineConfigSpec 
$devSpec = New-Object VMware.Vim.VirtualDeviceConfigSpec
$devSpec.device = $dev
$devSpec.Device.Backing.DeviceName = $newPGName
$devSpec.Device.Backing.Network = $pg
$devSpec.Operation = "edit"
$spec.Config.deviceChange += $devSpec

$spec.location = New-Object VMware.Vim.VirtualMachineRelocateSpec
$spec.location.datastore = (Get-Datastore $datastoreName | Get-View).MoRef
$spec.location.host = (Get-VMHost $esxName | Get-View).MoRef
$spec.Location.Pool = (Get-ResourcePool $poolName | Get-View).MoRef
$spec.powerOn = $false
$spec.template = $false

$fromVM.CloneVM_Task($folder.MoRef, $newVM, $spec)

 

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OlivierD Novice
OlivierD
7 posts since
Apr 22, 2008
Currently Being Moderated
2. Jun 30, 2009 7:17 AM in response to: LucD
Re: Change vnic-portgroup Assignment during Clone operation

Thank you for the tip.

 

Here is the extract of my script (My template has 2 nics) :

 

$vmcSpec = New-Object VMware.Vim.VirtualMachineCloneSpec

$templateId = get-view -Id (Get-Template -Name $vmtemplate).Id

 

$vmcSpec.Config = New-Object VMware.Vim.VirtualMachineConfigSpec

 

#Create an array of VirtualDevice

 

$nics = @(New-Object VMware.Vim.VirtualDevice)

 

#Get Nics from template

foreach ($dev in $templateId.Config.Hardware.Device ) {

     if ($dev.DeviceInfo.Label -eq "Network Adapter 1" ) {

          $nics[0] = $dev

     }

     if ($dev.DeviceInfo.Label -eq "Network Adapter 2" ) {

          $nics += New-Object VMware.Vim.VirtualDevice

          $nics[1] = $dev

     }

}

 

#Nic0

$nicSpec0 = New-Object VMware.Vim.VirtualDeviceConfigSpec

$nicSpec0.device = $nics[0]

$nicSpec0.Device.Backing.DeviceName = $nic0_pg

$nicSpec0.Device.Backing.Network = $pg

$nicSpec0.Operation = "edit"

 

$vmcSpec.Config.deviceChange += $nicSpec0

 

#Nic1

$nicSpec1 = New-Object VMware.Vim.VirtualDeviceConfigSpec

$nicSpec1.device = $nics[1]

$nicSpec1.Device.Backing.DeviceName = $nic1_pg

$nicSpec1.Device.Backing.Network = $pg

$nicSpec1.Operation = "edit"

 

$vmcSpec.Config.deviceChange += $nicSpec1

 

etc ....

 

Thank you for your help

 

Olivier

IanGibbs Enthusiast
IanGibbs
22 posts since
Nov 22, 2006
Currently Being Moderated
3. May 4, 2011 9:13 AM in response to: LucD
Re: Change vnic-portgroup Assignment during Clone operation

This example code won't work  in current versions of vCenter. Don't know if it ever did.

 

1. "Property 'DeviceName' cannot be found on this object; make sure it exists and is settable."

 

This will be the first error you get from this code. To resolve, replace

 

$devSpec.Device.Backing.DeviceName = $newPGName

 

with

 

$nicBacking = New-Object VMware.Vim.VirtualEthernetCardNetworkBackingInfo
$nicBacking.deviceName = $newPGName
$devSpec.Device.Backing = $nicBacking

 

2. "Get-VMHost : Cannot validate argument on parameter 'Name'. The argument is null or empty."

 

This will be your next error. To fix this, in each of the following lines (in various places), add -Name after the Get- cmdlet:

 

a - $folder = Get-Folder $folderName | Get-View
b - $esx = Get-VMHost $esxName | Get-View
c - $spec.location.host = (Get-VMHost $esxName | Get-View).MoRef
d - $spec.Location.Pool = (Get-ResourcePool $poolName | Get-View).MoRef

 

 

such as

 

$esx = Get-VMHost -Name $esxName | Get-View


As a side note, if you don't have any resource pools in use, you can put the clone in the root of the cluster like this:

 

$spec.Location.Pool = (Get-Cluster -Name $cluster_name | Get-ResourcePool -Name "Resources" | Get-View).MoRef

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