Mass-enabling vMotion on vSphere 4.1 with Std licensing

[damiankarlson]

Since the change to 4.1, we've been upgrading all of our hosts from ESX 4.0 to ESXi 4.1. Until recently, I wasn't aware that vMotion was now offered with vSphere Standard licensing, and as a result, was not enabling vMotion during a PowerCLI scripted host setup. This presented me with the opportunity to 1.) Write a script to mass-enable vMotion, and 2.) pass that script along to others in the community.

$viserver = Connect-VIServer -Server vcenter.domain.com -Protocol https
$vmhosts = Get-VMHost
foreach ($vmhost in $vmhosts) {
	if ( ($vmhost.Version -eq "4.1.0") -and ($vmhost.PowerState -eq "PoweredOn") ){
		$vmknic = Get-VMHostNetworkAdapter -VMHost $vmhost | where {$_.PortGroupName -like "YourPortGroupNameHere"}
		if ($vmknic.VMotionEnabled -eq "False") {
			Set-VMHostNetworkAdapter -VirtualNic $vmknic -VMotionEnabled $true -Confirm:$false
		}
	}
}

I hope someone gets some use out of this. Go PowerCLI!

@sixfootdad

[AntonVZhbankov]

A little bit simpler:

From examples, enable VMotion on all VMkernels

Get-VMHost | Get-VMHostNetworkAdapter -VMKernel | Set-VMHostNetworkAdapter -VMotionEnabled $true

Or just on specific ones, based on portgroup name, like you did:

Get-VMHost | Get-VMHostNetworkAdapter | where { $_.PortGroupName -eq "VMkernel 1" } | Set-VMHostNetworkAdapter -VMotionEnabled $true

I don't see any need to check if host is 4.1.0. In 99% cases you will upgrade all hosts in cluster, so you can limit your view by taking just one cluster:

Get-Cluster Cluster4.1 | Get-VMHost |

Or just include 4.1 to where statement

Get-VMHost | where {($_.Version -eq "4.1.0") -and ($_.PowerState -eq "PoweredOn")} |

---

MCSA, MCTS Hyper-V, VCP 3/4, VMware vExpert

http://blog.vadmin.ru

[damiankarlson]

Anton, yes, those are simpler. I run a distributed environment, with about 50 clusters in roughly 40 datacenters -- at this time, there's still a mix of ESX 4.0 and ESXi 4.1 (but not mixed in the clusters). We also run multiple vmknics, and I only wanted to enable vMotion on vmknic that belonged to a specific portgroup. My enthusiasm for PowerCLI, and the excitement that a 5 minute script can accomplish a great deal of manual work (not to mention removes the possibility of human error) got in the way of explaining the reasons behind my script fully.

@sixfootdad