Automation

Hi All,

I need to create a PowerCLI script to gather some informaion from 30x ESXi 5.0 hosts on a daily basis. Here is the equivalent information from a SSH session with the required information in red - but I want to get this without having to SSH onto every host and collate this manually;

~ # stat -f /

  File: "/"

    ID: 1        Namelen: 127     Type: visorfs

Block size: 4096

Blocks: Total: 449852     Free: 330092     Available: 330092

Inodes: Total: 8192       Free: 5562

~ # esxcli system visorfs ramdisk list

Ramdisk Name  System   Reserved      Maximum       Used  Peak Used  Free  Reserved Free

------------  ------  ---------  -----------  ---------  ---------  ----- -------------

root            true  32768 KiB    32768 KiB   1476 KiB   1596 KiB   95 %           95 %

etc             true  28672 KiB    28672 KiB    264 KiB    316 KiB  99 %           99 %

tmp            false   2048 KiB   196608 KiB      0 KiB    340 KiB  100 %          100 %

hostdstats     false      0 KiB  1078272 KiB  14212 KiB  14212 KiB  98 %            0 %

I am aware that the Get-EsxCli cmdlet exists, but have not managed to get it working successfully.

NAME
    Get-EsxCli

SYNOPSIS
    Exposes the ESXCLI functionality.

Is this possible, and if yes, please help with any pointers or ideally a basic script to gather the information - much appreciated!

Thasnk,

Jon

You can get the information using the Get-EsxCLi cmdlet with:

$vmhost = Get-VMHost MyHost
$esxcli = Get-EsxCli -vmhost $vmhost
$esxcli.system.visorfs.ramdisk.list()

Hi Robert,

Thanks very much for the quick response - this is perfect for what I need.

Do you know if a similar method is available to get the number of free inodes from the "stat -f /" command?

Thanks,

Jon

For shell commands such as this you would need to use putty/plink.exe like in this example:

http://www.virtu-al.net/2013/01/07/ssh-powershell-tricks-with-plink-exe/

http://www.shogan.co.uk/vmware/using-plink-to-modify-esxi-host-configuration-files-via-ssh-from-a-powercli-script/

Apart from that you could also leverage this awesome host VIB which extends esxcli to run any shell command:

http://www.v-front.de/2013/01/release-esxcli-plugin-to-run-arbitrary.html

Yes, my esxcli-shell plugin would also do the job ;-)

But I think that "esxcli system visorfs get" provides the information that you also get through "stat -f /".

- Andreas

Yes, that's

esxcli system visorfs get

or

$esxcli.system.visorfs.get()

in PowerCLI.

- Andreas

BTW, with ESXi 5.1 "esxcli system visorfs ramdisk list" will show additional columns with inode stats per filesystem/mountpoint.

With ESXi 5.0 you need to use "esxcli system visorfs get", and that will show the inode stats of all four RAMdisks (/, /etc, /tmp, and /var/lib/vmware/hostd/stats) summed up.

Thanks Andreas, this (and Roberts tip) give me exactly what I need;

PowerCLI C:\> $vmhost = Get-VMHost myhost.mydomain
PowerCLI C:\> $esxcli = Get-EsxCli -vmhost $vmhost
PowerCLI C:\> $esxcli.system.visorfs.get()

FreeInodePercent       : 67
LowestFreeInodePercent : 66
PeakReservedInodes     : 2
PeakUnlinkedInodes     : 9
PeakUsedInodes         : 2731
ReservedInodes         : 0
TotalInodes            : 8192
UnlinkedInodes         : 0
UsedInodes             : 2654

PowerCLI C:\> $esxcli.system.visorfs.ramdisk.list() | ft -au

Free Maximum PeakUsed RamdiskName Reserved ReservedFree System Used
---- ------- -------- ----------- -------- ------------ ------ ----
95   32768   12400    root        32768    95           true   1552
99   28672   316      etc         28672    99           true   264
100  196608  3952     tmp         2048     100          false  0
98   1078272 16536    hostdstats  0        0            false  16536

I can work with this, but as a last "wish list" can I include the hostname in the results so that when I collect this information for 30x hosts I know which set of data applies to which host?

Thanks,

Jon

To get this information for all your hosts and also get the hostname use:

foreach ($VMHost in (Get-VMHost)) {
  $esxcli = Get-EsxCli -vmhost $VMHost
  $esxcli.system.visorfs.get() |
  Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name VMHost -Value $VMHost.Name -PassThru 
}

Hi All,

Thanks very much for the help with script syntax and general support, here is the final result which can be improved from a coding perspective, but it does exactly what I need it to so I will use it as is :smileyhappy: - hopefully someone else will find a use for it?

<#

NAME : Collect-VisorFS-data.ps1

AUTHOR : Jon Munday

DATE : 16/01/2013

PURPOSE : This script collects relevant VisorFS data and is intended to support a root cause analysis

for a situation where inodes are exhausted causing ESXi hosts to become disconnected from

vCenter. The issues is discussed in http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2037798

#>

## Show current date and time for start of script

Write-Host "START :"(Get-Date) -ForegroundColorYellow

## Location of Log files

$outfile_inodes ="C:\_Temp\SR-13266898201\logs\SR-13266898201-inodes-{0:yyyyMMdd-HHmm}.csv"-f(Get-Date)

$outfile_ramdisk ="C:\_Temp\SR-13266898201\logs\SR-13266898201-ramdisk-{0:yyyyMMdd-HHmm}.csv"-f(Get-Date)

## Create empty arrays

$results_inodes =@()

$results_ramdisk =@()

## Collect file system information for each host and populate the empty arrays

foreach ($VMHostin(Get-VMHost-Name*| Sort-ObjectName)) {

$esxcli =Get-EsxCli-vmhost$VMHost

Write-Host "Processing :"$VMHost-ForegroundColorGray

$results_inodes +=(

     $esxcli.system.visorfs.get() |

     Add-Member-MemberTypeNoteProperty-NameVMHost-Value$VMHost.Name -PassThru|

     Add-Member-MemberTypeNoteProperty-NameDate-Value(Get-Date) -PassThru) ;

$results_ramdisk +=(

      $esxcli.system.visorfs.ramdisk.list() |

     Add-Member-MemberTypeNoteProperty-NameVMHost-Value$VMHost.Name -PassThru|

     Add-Member-MemberTypeNoteProperty-NameDate-Value(Get-Date) -PassThru)

## Export results to CSV files

$results_inodes | Export-CSV-Path$outfile_inodes-NoTypeInformation

$results_ramdisk | Export-CSV-Path$outfile_ramdisk-NoTypeInformation

## Show log files for current execution

Write-Host "END :"(Get-Date) -ForegroundColorYellow

Write-Host ""

Write-Host "LOG :"$outfile_inodes-ForegroundColorGreen

Write-Host "LOG :"$outfile_ramdisk-ForegroundColorGreen

Write-Host ""

## Merge CSV files from the current run into a master file containing results of all previous iterations

Write-Host "Merging inode CSV data :"(Get-Date) -ForegroundColorYellow

$MASTER_outfile_inodes ="C:\_Temp\SR-13266898201\SR-13266898201-inodes.csv"

$MASTER_outfile_ramdisk ="C:\_Temp\SR-13266898201\SR-13266898201-ramdisk.csv"

Get-ChildItem "C:\_Temp\SR-13266898201\logs\*-inodes-*.csv"|

     ForEach-Object{Import-Csv$_} |

     Export-Csv-NoTypeInformation$MASTER_outfile_inodes

Write-Host "Merging ramdisk CSV data :"(Get-Date) -ForegroundColorYellow

Get-ChildItem"C:\_Temp\SR-13266898201\logs\*-ramdisk-*.csv"|

     ForEach-Object{Import-Csv$_} |

     Export-Csv-NoTypeInformation$MASTER_outfile_ramdisk

Write-Host ""

The script requires you to have a connection to vCenter and does the following;

1. Collects required data from each host
   
2. Logs the information into a CSV file
   
3. Merges the data from the current execution into a masteCSV file with all the historical data from all your previous runs.
   

Sample data below;

SR-13266898201-inodes.csv

SR-13266898201-ramdisk.csv

I plan to execute this say every hour or two for period of time to see if I an correlate a specific event or sequence of events which lead up to the inodes being exhausted and production ESXi hosts becoming disconnected.

Thanks again for all your help!

Cheers,

Jon

Jon-

I found your script, made some modifications...  It didn't work for me prior to mods, hope this helps anyone that might need it!

<#

NAME : Collect-VisorFS-data.ps1

AUTHOR : Jon Munday

DATE : 16/01/2013, updated 19/03/2015 (gp)

PURPOSE : This script collects relevant VisorFS data and is intended to support a root cause analysis

for a situation where inodes are exhausted causing ESXi hosts to become disconnected from

vCenter. The issues is discussed in http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2037798

#>

## Show current date and time for start of script

Write-Host "START :"(Get-Date)

## Location of Log files

$outfile_inodes = "C:\Temp\ramdisk\logs\inodes-{0:yyyyMMdd-HHmm}.csv" -f (Get-Date)

$outfile_ramdisk = "C:\Temp\ramdisk\logs\ramdisk-{0:yyyyMMdd-HHmm}.csv" -f (Get-Date)

## Create empty arrays

$results_inodes =@()

$results_ramdisk =@()

## Collect file system information for each host and populate the empty arrays

foreach ($VMHost in (Get-VMHost)) {

$esxcli = Get-EsxCli -vmhost $VMHost

Write-Host "Processing :" $VMHost

$results_inodes +=(

     $esxcli.system.visorfs.get() |

     Add-Member -Type NoteProperty -name VMHost -Value $VMHost.Name -PassThru|

     Add-Member -Type NoteProperty -name Date -Value (Get-Date) -PassThru) ;

$results_ramdisk +=(

      $esxcli.system.visorfs.ramdisk.list() |

     Add-Member -Type NoteProperty -name VMHost -Value $VMHost.Name -PassThru|

     Add-Member -Type NoteProperty -name Date -Value (Get-Date) -PassThru)

## Export results to CSV files

$results_inodes | Export-CSV -Path $outfile_inodes -NoTypeInformation

$results_ramdisk | Export-CSV -Path $outfile_ramdisk -NoTypeInformation

## Show log files for current execution

Write-Host "END :"(Get-Date)

Write-Host ""

Write-Host "LOG :"$outfile_inodes

Write-Host "LOG :"$outfile_ramdisk

Write-Host ""

## Merge CSV files from the current run into a master file containing results of all previous iterations

Write-Host "Merging inode CSV data :"(Get-Date)

$MASTER_outfile_inodes ="C:\Temp\ramdisk\inodes.csv"

$MASTER_outfile_ramdisk ="C:\Temp\ramdisk\ramdisk.csv"

Get-ChildItem "C:\Temp\ramdisk\logs\inodes-*.csv"|

     ForEach-Object{Import-Csv $_} |

     Export-Csv -NoTypeInformation $MASTER_outfile_inodes

Write-Host "Merging ramdisk CSV data :"(Get-Date)

Get-ChildItem "C:\Temp\ramdisk\logs\ramdisk-*.csv"|

     ForEach-Object{Import-Csv $_} |

     Export-Csv -NoTypeInformation $MASTER_outfile_ramdisk

Write-Host "Complete"}

Attachment(s)

ramdisk.ps1.zip   1 KB 1 version