Hey,

of course there are scripts. And of course they were written by LucD ;-)

You can find several here in the forums:

Re: Folder migration

Re: Export / Import selective Folder structure

Tim

I've scripted a bunch of stuff for my 5.0 to 5.5 migrations, so I probably don't have the exact thing you're looking for, but I should have something you can steal from.  I will say that the poster above is correct, all this info was borrowed/stolen from LucD.  For my environment the best way to migrate is to move a host at a time, so what I do is run the first script which pulls in all VM info on a particular host:

Function Get-VMFolderPath {

  Param($VMname)

  Get-VM $VMname | Get-View | %{

  $row = "" | select Name, ResourcePool, Path

  $row.Name = $_.Name

  $row.ResourcePool = (Get-View $_.ResourcePool[0]).Name

  $current = Get-View $_.Parent

  #$path = $_.Name

  $path = $null

  do {

    $parent = $current

      if($parent.Name -ne "vm"){$path =  $parent.Name + "/" + $path}

      $current = Get-View $current.Parent

  }

  while ($current.Parent -ne $null)

  $row.Path = $path

  $report += $row

  }

$Path

}

 

Write-Host

$SourceHost = Read-Host "Enter the fqdn name of the 5.0 source VM Host"

 

 

Write-Host

Write-Host "Gathering a list of VMs from $SourceHost..." -ForegroundColor "Green"

Write-Host

 

 

$VMList = @()

$VMs = Get-VMHost $SourceHost | Get-VM

 

 

ForEach ($VM in $VMs) {

  $obj = "" | Select Name, Folder

  $obj.Name = $VM.Name

  $OutputPath = Get-VMFolderPath $VM.Name

  $obj.Folder = $OutputPath.Substring(0,$OutputPath.Length-1)

  $VMList += $obj

}

 

$VMList | Sort Name | Export-Csv .\$SourceHost-VMList.csv -NoTypeInformation -UseCulture

In my script I'm also pulling resource pool and VLAN (port group) of network adapter 1 on the VM, but I took it out to simplify things.  Then I add the 5.0 host to the 5.5 vCenter live.  In my scripts I'm doing some things to manipulate the VMs between hosts and standard/distributed switches, but if you're only worried about the folders, this should work once the host is in 5.5:

#Adds in VDS PowerCLI snap in

Add-PSSnapin VMware.VimAutomation.Vds

 

 

function Get-FolderByPath {

<#

.SYNOPSIS  Retrieve folders by giving a path

.DESCRIPTION The function will retrieve a folder by it's

  path. The path can contain any type of leave (folder or

  datacenter).

.NOTES  Author:  Luc Dekens

.PARAMETER Path

  The path to the folder.

  This is a required parameter.

.PARAMETER Separator

  The character that is used to separate the leaves in the

  path. The default is '/'

.EXAMPLE

  PS> Get-FolderByPath -Path "Folder1/Datacenter/Folder2"

.EXAMPLE

  PS> Get-FolderByPath -Path "Folder1>Folder2" -Separator '>'

#>

 

  param(

  [CmdletBinding()]

  [parameter(Mandatory = $true)]

  [System.String[]]${Path},

  [char]${Separator} = '/'

  )

 

  process{

    if((Get-PowerCLIConfiguration).DefaultVIServerMode -eq "Multiple"){

      $vcs = $defaultVIServers

    }

    else{

      $vcs = $defaultVIServers[0]

    }

 

    foreach($vc in $vcs){

      foreach($strPath in $Path){

        $root = Get-Folder -Name Datacenters -Server $vc

        $strPath.Split($Separator) | %{

          $root = Get-Inventory -Name $_ -Location $root -Server $vc -NoRecursion

          if((Get-Inventory -Location $root -NoRecursion | Select -ExpandProperty Name) -contains "vm"){

            $root = Get-Inventory -Name "vm" -Location $root -Server $vc -NoRecursion

          }

        }

        $root | where {$_ -is [VMware.VimAutomation.ViCore.Impl.V1.Inventory.FolderImpl]}|%{

          Get-Folder -Name $_.Name -Location $root.Parent -Server $vc

        }

      }

    }

  }

}

 

$SourceHost = Read-Host "Enter the fqdn name of the 5.0 source VM Host"

$VMs = import-csv ".\$SourceHost-VMList.csv"

 

 

ForEach ($VM in $VMs) {

  Get-VM $VM.Name | Move-VM -Destination (Get-FolderByPath -Path $VM.Folder) | Out-Null

  Write-Host "$($VM.Name) moved to Folder $($VM.Folder)." -ForegroundColor "Green"

  Write-Host

}

If you want a script to export/import folder structures, try this for exporting from 5.0:

$datacenter = "Datacenter" #being lazy here and not prompting and auto connecting.

filter Get-FolderPath {

    $_ | Get-View | % {

        $row = "" | select Name, Path

        $row.Name = $_.Name

 

 

        $current = Get-View $_.Parent

        $path = $_.Name

        do {

            $parent = $current

            if($parent.Name -ne "vm"){$path = $parent.Name + "\" + $path}

            $current = Get-View $current.Parent

        } while ($current.Parent -ne $null)

        $row.Path = $path

        $row

    }

}

 

 

#Export all folders

$report = @()

$report = get-datacenter $datacenter | Get-folder vm | get-folder | Get-Folderpath

        #Replace the top level with vm

        foreach ($line in $report) {

        $line.Path = ($line.Path).Replace($datacenter + "\","vm\")

        }

 

 

$report | Sort Path | Export-Csv ".\$($datacenter)-Folders-with-FolderPath.csv" -NoTypeInformation

And this to import into 5.5:

#Import Folders

$vmfolder = Import-Csv ".\$($Datacenter)-Folders-with-FolderPath.csv" | Sort-Object -Property Path

 

 

foreach($folder in $VMfolder){

    $key = @()

    $key =  ($folder.Path -split "\\")[-2]

    if ($key -eq "vm") {

        get-datacenter $datacenter | get-folder vm | New-Folder -Name $folder.Name

    }

  else {

        get-datacenter $datacenter | get-folder vm | get-folder $key | New-Folder -Name $folder.Name

    }

}

Hope this helps!

jessem wrote:

 

Hey, having problems with importing into my target 5.5 vcenter.

 

I have the file I want to import called "Lab 03-Folders-with-FolderPath.csv"

 

But according to the import script, WHERE exactly am I placing this into?

 

#Import Folders

$vmfolder = Import-Csv ".\$($Datacenter)-Folders-with-FolderPath.csv" | Sort-Object -Property Path

 

 

foreach($folder in $VMfolder){

    $key = @()

    $key =  ($folder.Path -split "\\")[-2]

    if ($key -eq "vm") {

        get-datacenter $datacenter | get-folder vm | New-Folder -Name $folder.Name

    }

  else {

        get-datacenter $datacenter | get-folder vm | get-folder $key | New-Folder -Name $folder.Name

    }

}

Are you talking about where to put the CSV file?  The .\ indicates the current directory.  So basically whatever directory you run the script from.  Let me know if you're looking for something else.

This is the line that imports the CSV file:

$vmfolder = Import-Csv ".\$($Datacenter)-Folders-with-FolderPath.csv" | Sort-Object -Property Path

jessem wrote:

 

Hey adamjg,

 

I know that line calls the csv file, maybe I'm confusing the question.  If I run that script on the new vcenter just like that, it errors out because it doesn't know where that csv file is located.  So pretend I have my csv file ready to be imported.  Call is testfile.csv.  So now, in the script, where do I enter testfile.csv so it knows where to get it from?

 

The only thing I did to get it to work is to do:

 

$datacenter = testfile.csv

 

in the beginning of the import script.

 

 

Am I missing somethign?

That won't actually do anything.

#Import Folders

$datacenter = "name of datacenter"

$vmfolder = Import-Csv ".\$($Datacenter)-Folders-with-FolderPath.csv" | Sort-Object -Property Path

The first line is meant to create the variable for your datacenter name.  Let's simplify it and say:

$datacenter = "MyDC"

The next line uses the import-csv cmdlet to import the csv file into the variable $vmfolder.  The context is variable = import-csv <path to file>.  In this instance it would be looking for a file named MyDC-Folders-with-FolderPath.csv.  The .\ indicates current directory. If you want to change that and not use the variable, you can just use a line such as this:

$vmfolder = Import-Csv "c:\mydir\testfile.csv" | Sort-Object -Property Path

I've seen several noble attempts out there to export and re-create folders but these rock!!  They worked perfectly!! Thank you!!