Modify StartDelay for multiple VMs

[chakoe]

Hi and good morning,

here i am again with a new question

I want to set the StartDelay to 10 seconds on multiple VM´s.

I think I have to use sometihng like

Get-VM -Name <vmname> | Set-VMStartPolicy -StartDelay 10000

But this doesn´t work...

Thx for any help

Chakoe

[LucD]

Startdelay is expressed in seconds.

And you set it like this

 Get-VM <vm-name> | Get-VMStartPolicy | Set-VMStartPolicy -StartDelay 10

____________

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[chakoe]

Hi,

your scipt returns no error, it returns an OK-Message

VM StartAction StartDelay StartOrder

-- -

---

-

---

-

---

vmname None 10

The VirtualCenter posts a message like:

Reconfigure AutoStart Manager Target=vmhost Status=completed

But when i check the vm ( Edit Settings, Options, BootOptions) The PowerOn Boot delay is set to 0

It seems that the script reports no error but does nothing?

[LucD]

Btw, you use the same logic to enable/disable the start policy on the hosts.

Get-VMHost -Name <hostname> | Get-VMHostStartPolicy | Set-VMHostStartPolicy -Enabled:$true

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[LucD · Accepted solution]

You are looking at the Boot Delay option, not the Startup delay.

That one lives in the VMX file and can be changed like this (value in milliseconds).

$value = "5000"

$vm = Get-VM <vmname> | Get-View
$vmConfigSpec = New-Object VMware.Vim.VirtualMachineConfigSpec
$vmConfigSpec.BootOptions = New-Object VMware.Vim.VirtualMachineBootOptions
$vmConfigSpec.BootOptions.BootDelay = $value
$vm.ReconfigVM_Task($vmConfigSpec)

____________

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Twitter: lucd22

[chakoe]

Hey,

thanks....works fine!

Greets

Chakoe

[chakoe]

Hi,

i stil have a little problem with this, because i cannot modify multiple vm´s...

If i change the value for the target-vm from vmname1 to vmname* (to use all vm´s beginning with "vmname" ), the script fails with the folowing error:

Method invocation failed because [http://System.Object[|http://System.Object[]] doesn't contain a method named 'ReconfigVM_Task'.

At :Row:10 Char:19

+ $vm.ReconfigVM_Task <<<< ($vmConfigSpec)

[RvdNieuwendijk]

To change multiple VM's you can change Luc's script into:

$value = "5000"

$vmConfigSpec = New-Object VMware.Vim.VirtualMachineConfigSpec
$vmConfigSpec.BootOptions = New-Object VMware.Vim.VirtualMachineBootOptions
$vmConfigSpec.BootOptions.BootDelay = $value

Get-VM <vmname> | Get-View | ForEach-Object {
  $_.ReconfigVM_Task($vmConfigSpec)
}

Regards, Robert

[pmerkel]

Is there a cmd to retrieve the current value of the bootdelay?

[LucD]

There is no PowerCLI cmdlet that returns that property.

But you can easily get it like this.

In PowerCLI 4.1

Get-VM | Select Name,@{N="BootDelay";E={$_.ExtensionData.Config.BootOptions.BootDelay}}

or with the New-VIProperty cmdlet

New-VIProperty -Name "BootDelay" -ObjectType VirtualMachine -Value {
	param($vm)
	
	$vm.ExtensionData.Config.BootOptions.BootDelay
}  -BasedOnExtensionProperty "Config.BootOptions"

Get-VM | Select Name, "BootDelay"

When you're not yet migrated to PowerCLI 4.1, you can do

Get-VM | Select Name,@{N="BootDelay";E={($_ | Get-View).Config.BootOptions.BootDelay}}

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Twitter: lucd22

[mazdajai]

I am trying to read the machine from a text file to but I seem to be getting synatx errors.

Any help is appreicated.

$value = "6500"

$vmConfigSpec = New-Object VMware.Vim.VirtualMachineConfigSpec
$vmConfigSpec.BootOptions = New-Object VMware.Vim.VirtualMachineBootOptions
$vmConfigSpec.BootOptions.BootDelay = $value

Get-Content -Path D:\abc.txt | `
ForEach-Object (Get-VM -Name $_).ReconfigVM_Task($vmConfigSpec)
}

[LucD]

Try it like this

$value = "6500"

$vmConfigSpec = New-Object VMware.Vim.VirtualMachineConfigSpec
$vmConfigSpec.BootOptions = New-Object VMware.Vim.VirtualMachineBootOptions
$vmConfigSpec.BootOptions.BootDelay = $value

Get-Content -Path D:\abc.txt | %{
   (Get-VM -Name $_).Extensiondata.ReconfigVM_Task($vmConfigSpec)
}

[mazdajai]

Thanks It worked!

Can you explain why ForEach-Object is not needed? And .Extensiondata is needed?

[LucD]

Sorry for that, the % is an alias for the Foreach-Object cmdlet.

You can check with

Get-Alias %