ShutDown / PowerOn VMs

[EXPRESS]

Hi All,

I am hoping you guys can help me here. I am sure someone may even have done this already as well. What I am looking to do is to be able to run a script to be able to;

So what I would like to do is from windows:

1. Power Off a list of VM's at 8:00 pm on Saturdays (on a weekly basis)

2. Power On the list of VM's at 8:05 pm on Saturdays (on a weekly basis)

3. Send me an email if possible when completed

lamw sent me a script, but I need some help in setting it up see thread below. If someone has one I can use I would really appreciated. We have about 100 VM's...

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/232914

Thank you,

Express

[alanrenouf]

Should be easy enough, where are you getting the list of vm's, all vms in one cluster, all vms on certain hosts or are you wanting to get the names from a csv file ?

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Alan Renouf

[EXPRESS]

I didn't know I had that many options! Well let me ask you what would be the easiest? I guess getting the names from a cvs file would be good this way if I dont want certain vm's not to shutdown or startup. So for instance I have 100 vms in one datacenter within three hosts running in a HA Cluster...

Virtual Center - esxvc1.express.com

Hosts names - esx1, esx2, esx3

vmnames - vmw-expres1, vmw-expres2, vmw-expres3

Let me know what other information you would need and THANKS so much for your help!

Thank you,

Express

[alanrenouf]

---

Please make sure you test this first ! -

---

Personaly I would keep it simple with something like this as a scheduled task for shutting down the VMs

Import-Csv "C:\test.csv" | Foreach {Shutdown-VMGuest -VM $_}


$mailer = new-object Net.Mail.SMTPclient("smtp.mydomain,com")
 $msg = new-object Net.Mail.MailMessage("Fromme@mydomain.com","Toyou@yourdomain.com","Shutdown VMs","The VMs have been shutdown")
 $mailer.send($msg)

And for the power on, a seperate script:

Import-Csv "C:\test.csv" | Foreach {Start-VM -VM $_}

$mailer = new-object Net.Mail.SMTPclient("smtp.mydomain,com")
$msg = new-object
Net.Mail.MailMessage("Fromme@mydomain.com","Toyou@yourdomain.com","Startup
VMs","The VMs have been Started")
 $mailer.send($msg)

You could also add some checks to make sure the VMs have shutdown/startup as all this is doing is telling them to shutdown/startup.

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Alan Renouf

http://virtu-al.net

[EXPRESS]

Thanks for the superfast response!

Now here's another dumb question so do I take those two and creat a perl script for each one? So I am thinking something like this:

create a file called vmon.pl

#!/usr/bin/perl

Import-Csv "C:\test.csv" | Foreach {Shutdown-VMGuest -VM $_}

$mailer = new-object Net.Mail.SMTPclient("smtp.mydomain,com")

$msg = new-object Net.Mail.MailMessage("Fromme@mydomain.com","Toyou@yourdomain.com","Shutdown VMs","The VMs have been shutdown")

$mailer.send($msg)

Then to run it I just call the vmon.pl? Then if so I just schedule it with windows task scheduler? Also I am running this on a VM XP. Sorry for all the questions.

Thank you,

Express

[alanrenouf]

Ok, these are not perl scripts, they are PowerCLI scripts so you need to make sure you have powershell and Powercli installed on your windows box (http://www.virtu-al.net/2008/08/13/getting-started-with-the-vi-toolkit/), add these to a text file with an extension of .ps1 instead of .txt and then call the scheduled task like in the following blog post: http://www.virtu-al.net/2009/07/10/running-a-powercli-scheduled-task/

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Alan Renouf

[EXPRESS]

Okay gotcha, I got that installed I actually thought those two were perl related. Okay I am going to test I will let you know.

Thank you,

Express

[EXPRESS]

Alrighty, before I did the schedule add-in I just wanted to test the .ps1 so what I did was from the c:\progr...\VMwa...\Infras...\vShphe PowerCli\Scripts> (I typed) powershell.exe poffvm.ps1 then I got the following error;

File C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\vSphere PowerCLI\Scripts\poffvm.ps1 cannot be loaded because the execution of scripts is disabled on this system. Please see "get-help about_signing" for more details. At line:1 char:10 + poffvm.ps1 <<<<

Thank you,

Express

[alanrenouf]

Aha, the wonderfull powershell default security policy, if you read the blog post above that tells you to install PowerCLI it also talks about setting your execution policy with set-executionpolicy cmdlet, i would read about this before choosing which is correct for your environment. Normally remotesigned is enough.

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Alan Renouf

[EXPRESS]

Never easy huh. Quick question as I try and get that policy to work, I will be running this on a vm xp, VC is on a separate server... will this script still work as is?

Thank you,

Express

[harkamal]

Launch powershell and execute following command to enable scripts

Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned

To verify

Get-ExecutionPolicy

[harkamal]

Shutdown VM

Get-Content c:\myServerList.csv | % { Get-VM $_ | Shutdown-VMGuest -confirm:$false }

Start VM

Get-Content c:\myServerList.csv | % { Start-VM $_ }

[alanrenouf]

yes, it doesnt matter where you launch it from just check the link which tells you how to run them as a scheduled task, for now you can use the connect-viserver cmdlet at the top of each script to connect to your VI server as so:

connect-viserver MyVIServer -User "MyUser" -Pass "MyPass"

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Alan Renouf

[EXPRESS]

Thanks harkamal for that.

Thank you,

Express

[EXPRESS]

Ok, I inserted that line but now i get the following error:

Unexpected token 'connect-viserver' in expression or statement. At C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\vSphere PowerCLI\Scripts\poffvm.ps1:1 char:23 + connect-viserver <<<< esxmansi1 -User express -Pass express123{code]

I really appreciate your time and help with this...

Thank you,

Express

[alanrenouf]

Damn forum, get rid of the {code... bit at the end so it is just:

connect-viserver "myviserver" -user "me" -pass "mypass"

or if your account you are logged in as has rights you can just do a connect-viserver "myviserver"

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Alan Renouf

[EXPRESS]

Okay I got changed the following let me know if this is correct:

{code Connect-VIserver esxmansi1.express.com -User express -Pass Expres123 code}

Below for this line in the debugging it shows on the PowerGUI Script Editor a wavy line under the t in VMGuest

Import-Csv "C:\vmlist.csv" | Foreach {Shutdown-VMGuest -VM $_}

The term 'Shutdown-VMGuest' is not recognized as a cmdlet, function, operable program, or script file. Verify the term and try again. At :line:6 char:54 + Import-Csv "C:\vmlist.csv" | Foreach {Shutdown-VMGuest <<<< -VM $_}

Thank you,

Express

[alanrenouf]

No 'code' or brackets, just the words. PowerGUI is great, good move. Looks like you havent activated the PowerCLI snapin though, go to File, Powershell libraries and tick the box for VMware.vim.....

This will enable powergui to understand the PowerCLI cmdlets.

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Alan Renouf

[EXPRESS]

Added the VMware.VimAutomatio snap-in, but now I am getting this:

Cannot bind parameter 'VM'. Cannot convert "" to "VMware.VimAutomation.Types.VirtualMachine".

At :line:5 char:59

+ Import-Csv "C:\vmlist.csv" | Foreach { Shutdown-VMGuest -VM <<<< $_}

This is the whole script...

connect-viserver esxmansi1.express.com -User express -Pass Expres123

Import-Csv "C:\vmlist.csv" | Foreach { Shutdown-VMGuest -VM$_}

$mailer = new-object Net.Mail.SMTPclient("dsasmtp.express.com")

$msg = new-object Net.Mail.MailMessage("express@express.com","express@express.com","Shutdown VMs","The VMs have been shutdown")

$mailer.send($msg)

- When I just ran it again I get

A parameter cannot be found that matches parameter name 'VM$_'.

At :line:5 char:61

+ Import-Csv "C:\vmlist.csv" | Foreach { Shutdown-VMGuest -VM$_ <<<< }

Thank you,

Express

Message was edited by: EXPRESS

[alanrenouf]

Whats in your csv file ? I had a header called VM then the machines listed underrneath that like this:

VM

TESTVM01

TESTVM02

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Alan Renouf