Identify if an ESX host is Boot from San

[loneragang]

Hi,

I am trying to find an identifier if an ESX host is running on local or remote disk, ie boot from SAN through powercli, but I can't find if there is a field for this. Does anyone know if this is something that can be reported on through this or if it is only identiable through the boot sequence?

Thanks

Gareth

[LucD]

It looks as if the HostBootDeviceSystem might hold this information.

Can you try if the following returns the information you're after

$esx = Get-VMHost MyHost

if($esx.ExtensionData.ConfigManager.BootDeviceSystem){
    $bootMgr = Get-View $esx.ExtensionData.ConfigManager.BootDeviceSystem
    $devs = $bootMgr.QueryBootDevices
    $devs.bootDevices
    Write-Host "Current boot device" $devs.currentBootDeviceKey
}
else{
    Write-Host "No boot device config present"
}

[loneragang]

That was the area I thought it would be if it was there, I have hosts that are boot from local disk and boot from san and this field appears empty on . I only have esx 4.0 hosts that are setup to boot from san, so cant see if it works for 3.5 or 4.1, but can say for 4.0 it doesn't seem to supply the information required

Cheers

Gareth

[LucD]

I was fraid of that, but at the moment I know no other way.

[loneragang]

I thought that might have been the case, thanks LucD

[DanMan3395]

it has been YEARS since this post and I am trying the same api (.ExtensionData.ConfigManager.BootDeviceSystem) and its still blank... are we still in a place where this information cannot be checked via API directly?

[LucD]

Does this work for you?

$esx = Get-VMHost MyEsx

$esxcli = Get-EsxCli -VMHost $esx -v2

$boot = $esxcli.system.boot.device.get.Invoke()

$esxcli.storage.filesystem.list.Invoke() | where {$_.Uuid -eq $boot.BootFileSystemUuid}

[DanMan3395]

I think this would work actually. I am going to test on some of our legacy stuff and report back.

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

X:\> $esxcli.system.boot.device.get

==================

EsxCliMethodElement: get

   Methods:

   --------

   SystemBootDevice Invoke()

   string Help()

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

X:\> $esxcli.system.boot.device.get.Invoke()

BootFilesystemUUID BootNIC              StatelessBootNIC

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

                   01-00-fd-45-48-b6-60  

[DanMan3395]

yep works perfectly. if no correlation its just blank.

Do you know how to reference a result like this as a Boolean for the purposes of scripting a large quantity of hosts?

I tried variation along this theme but the return value is not Boolean so it always succeeds or fails.

$temp = $esxcli

if($temp -ne $null){

Write-Host "true"

[LucD]

You mean something like this?

Get-VMHost |

   ForEach-Object -Process {

   $esxcli = Get-EsxCli -VMHost $_ -v2

   $esxcli.system.boot.device.get.Invoke() |

  Select @{N = 'VMHost'; E = {$esxcli.VMHost.Name}},

   @{N = 'BootFilesystemPresent'; E = {$_.BootFilesystemUuid -ne ''}}

}

[DanMan3395]

lol yes that worked perfectly. The only issue is that the block I pasted below uses aliases that are beyond me. I get what you are doing but I do not know how to use select-object in this way.

Select-Object is called obviously but what does @{N = 'VMHost'; E = {$esxcli.VMHost.Name}}, translate too without this aliasing?

Select @{N = 'VMHost'; E = {$esxcli.VMHost.Name}},

   @{N = 'BootFilesystemPresent'; E = {$_.BootFilesystemUuid -ne ''}}

[DanMan3395]

I bought your book, let me know what chapter covers this

[LucD]

Those are called 'calculated properties'.
They are basically a hash table with 2 entries, a N(ame) part and an E(xpression) part.

In the Expression part, which is a code block, you can make whatever calculation you want.

Just make sure to produce some output.

In this case I used a comparison which will produce $true or $false.

Thanks (for the book), and I think this might be covered in one of the Reporting chapters.