extensiondata does not show up some values "directly"

[esxi1979]

Some of the values does not come up straight .. eg

(get-vm -name name1).extensiondata.runtime.host

Type

----

HostSystem

In above case how do we get the value of the VM's host ?

thanks

[deang1609]

My assumption is that you are trying to retrieve the host name to which the VM resides, you could achieve this by invoking the Get-VM cmdlet as below:

(Get-VM name1).VMHost.Name

From your example, the value that will be retrieved will be the Host Id value and not the name, but you could return the value as below:

((Get-VM -Name name1).Extensiondata.Runtime.Host).Value

[LucD]

What Dean said is correct, but to clarify a bit further.

The ExtensionData property of PowerCLI objects, aka .Net objects, maps to the read-only copy of the corresponding vSphere object.

In this case for a .Net VirtualMachine object, the ExtensionData property will map to a vSphere VirtualMachine object.

Although the objects are named the same, they are 2 different objects.

To see what properties are in the vSphere object, you consult the API Reference.

If you follow the path to Host property you are using, you will see that the property holds a MoRef (which is a pointer to another vSphere object).

To get the vSphere object the MoRef is pointing, you can use the Get-View cmdlet.

Get-View -Id (Get-VM -Name MyVM).ExtensionData.Runtime.Host

[esxi1979]

((Get-VM -Name name1).Extensiondata.Runtime.Host).Value

did not give the expected output tho

[Zsoldier]

What value are you expecting?

[Zsoldier]

Yes, I understand that, but given the first answer would have ultimately been the quickest way, I was responding to the very last comment.

[esxi1979]

Thanks,

Get-View -Id (Get-VM -Name MyVM).ExtensionData.Runtime.Host

does revile the name of the vm's host, but there is no easy way to get this with " get-view -ViewType VirtualMachine"

Then cluster too.

[LucD · Accepted solution]

There is, like this

Get-View -ViewType VirtualMachine -Property Name,"runtime.host" |

Select @{N="VM";E={$_.Name}},@{N="ESXi";E={Get-view -Id $_.runtime.host | select -ExpandProperty Name}}

And if you want a specific VM, you can do

$vmName = "MyVM"

Get-View -ViewType VirtualMachine -Property Name,"runtime.host" -Filter @{"Name"=$vmName} |

Select @{N="VM";E={$_.Name}},@{N="ESXi";E={Get-view -Id $_.runtime.host | select -ExpandProperty Name}}

[esxi1979]

Thanks that did work... But the purpose of using get-view does not meet as its taking a lot of time with this added change ..

[esxi1979]

i think its even slower than , get-vm |selec name, vmhost ..

[LucD]

Very strange, how many VMs do you have in that environment ?

[esxi1979]

Here is the o/p

PowerCLI C:\> Measure-Command {get-vm |select name,vmhost}

Days              : 0

Hours             : 0

Minutes           : 0

Seconds           : 32

Milliseconds      : 791

Ticks             : 327911132

TotalDays         : 0.000379526773148148

TotalHours        : 0.00910864255555555

TotalMinutes      : 0.546518553333333

TotalSeconds      : 32.7911132

TotalMilliseconds : 32791.1132

PowerCLI C:\> Measure-Command {Get-View -ViewType VirtualMachine -Property Name,"runtime.host" |Select @{N="VM";E={$_.Name}},@{N="ESXi";E={Get-view -Id $_.runtime.host | select -ExpandProperty Name}} }

The last cmd will give o/p may be after 30 min or 1 hr is my estimate .. but it gives info correct ..

btw i have 1500 vms

[esxi1979]

also ran it for single vm

PowerCLI C:\> Measure-Command {get-vm xxxxxxxx |select name,vmhost}

Days              : 0

Hours             : 0

Minutes           : 0

Seconds           : 8

Milliseconds      : 191

Ticks             : 81913350

TotalDays         : 9.48071180555556E-05

TotalHours        : 0.00227537083333333

TotalMinutes      : 0.13652225

TotalSeconds      : 8.191335

TotalMilliseconds : 8191.335

PowerCLI C:\> $vmName = "xxxxxxxx"

PowerCLI C:\>

PowerCLI C:\> Measure-Command {Get-View -ViewType VirtualMachine -Property Name,"runtime.host" -Filter @{"Name"=$vmName} |Select @{N="VM";E={$_.Name}},@{N="ESXi";E={Get-view -Id $_.runtime.host | select -ExpandProperty Name}} }

Days              : 0

Hours             : 0

Minutes           : 0

Seconds           : 11

Milliseconds      : 540

Ticks             : 115409488

TotalDays         : 0.000133575796296296

TotalHours        : 0.00320581911111111

TotalMinutes      : 0.192349146666667

TotalSeconds      : 11.5409488

TotalMilliseconds : 11540.9488

PowerCLI C:\>

[LucD]

The Get-View variation is doing a lot more of course, compared to the Get-VM with the Select-Object.

In this case you should go for the simple Get-VM.

But the original question was why the runtime.host property didn't give the ESXi hostname.

The short answer, because it returns a MoRef.