I've wanted to be able to read VMX entries for a while but I can't remember why. Anyway I've added a function that parses VMX files to the VI Toolkit Extensions on Codeplex. To use it, download the module and run

get-vm yourvm | get-tkevmx

. It should spit out an object-ified version of your VMX file. Note that this requires a separate login because it uses the HTTP thing Hal mentioned.

Note you'll need PowerShell CTP2 v2 to load the module.

I am in the same boat. I used Carter`s CodePlex example for the download (System.Net.WebClient) and it worked great.
Now trying to use the same System.Net.WebClient class and get errors:

.UploadFile($URL,"PUT",$File) returns (501) not implemented

.UploadFile($URL,$File) returns (400) Bad request

I have read elsewhere that this stuff uses PUT, or at least the host site does. I have got the following code working when called as a VBScript so it is some form of PUT

Set oHTTP = WScript.CreateObject("MSXML2.ServerXMLHTTP")
oHTTP.setOption 2,13056
oHTTP.open "PUT", sURL, False, sUserID, sPassword
iReturn=oHTTP.send(sData)

Any assistance would be most appreciated.

I was working on this some today but didn't have a chance to finish. There's three more popular ways to do web stuff in powershell: system.net.webclient (.NET), system.net.HttpWebRequest (.NET), and Xml Http (COM). Shay wrote a post some months ago which did a great job of summarizing their use (in response to a discussion I'd had with him about the topic).

http://scriptolog.blogspot.com/2007/08/query-http-status-codes-and-headers.html

Anyway, my point is that if you can do it in Vbscript then you can do it in PowerShell. The syntax may be a little different but the logic is going to be the same when talking about accessing that COM object.

Further, I messed with uploading files and got stuck so I punted it as my first Stackoverflow test: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/65856/how-can-i-perform-http-put-uploads-to-a-vmware-esx-server-in-powershell

I never had a chance to test Jaykul's reply, but it probably works when tuned to the problem at hand.

So in other words--I'd love the answer as well. It's one of those things that I wanted to do, but when I found it wasn't quite as simple as I wanted it to be, I moved on to something else.






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

Awesome. Could you post the full example for everyone's benefit?

(I had read that thread before, but didn't notice it had a second page with the vital PreAuthenticate key.)






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

Update to the update

Carter Shaklin has done an excellent job at this link http://communities.vmware.com/message/1063296 presenting my rather cumbersome Powershell code to get uploads to work.

This mechanism seems to work to upload things to the https://esxserver/hosts URL (e.g., SSL key and certificate, hosts file), and to Datastores as is shown in the link.