Help? scan datastore then register all vmx

[SandyB]

Hi guys i am trying to automate my companies DR for VMware.

we replicate 8 vmware luns using our normal SAN technology and i have scripted taking a view on the latest PIT (point in time snapshot) and assigning it to 4 esx host that are in the the DataCenter "DR" and the cluster "DR Cluster"

I can use the PowerCLI to issue a rescan

get-vmhost | get-vmhoststorage -rescanallhba

this should make the datastores all pop in. (vmfs1,vmfs2,vmfs3 etc)

can i use the PowerCLI

$vmxpath = get-datastorefiles (get-datastore vmfs1) |

where { $_.Path -match '.vmx$' } | select path | % { Register-VM $_.Path

-vmhost (get-vmhost dresx.company.com) }

is there a way to register a VM to a cluster rather than a host? that way i dont need to worry about which ESX is being used for which VM, i can just let DRS deal with it when they are powered on.

Is there a simple way to tie these scripts together? is it possible to power all the VMs on and answer the VM question on wether to keep the uuid?

[LucD · Accepted solution]

Have a look at , it contains a script to search a datastore for unregistered guests.

Yes, you can use a cluster by not specifying a host to the RegisterVM_Task method, provided the cluster is configured for DRS.

For answering guest questions see .

[smccreadie]

Quick question about rescanning hosts with powershell. I notice that using

Get-Cluster -Name $Cluster | Get-VMHost | Get-VMHostStorage -RescanAllHba -RescanVmfs

results in the hosts being rescanned one at a time, in a serial fashion. It waits until one rescan task is done before it starts the next host. I notice that when i run the rescan function in the vspher VIC it seems to be able to scan all the hosts concurrently. Is there a way to do this in powershell? Thanks as always

Sean

[depping]

I would not recommend rescanning all datastores at the same time. I know it's a lot quicker but it does cause a certain level of stress on your environment that you would want to avoid at anytime.

Duncan

VMware Communities User Moderator | VCP | VCDX

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[smccreadie]

Great thanks for the recommendation. I was hoping to use this in our DR environment for some failover automation, hopefully that would be a use where it would be OK? Does anyone know how to do this in Powershell? Thanks

Sean

[RobMokkink]

For DR purposes, rescanning the datastores like that shouldn't be a problem.

[LucD]

If you use the RescanHba method, you will have to wait till the scan is finished before you can start the next one.

There is no _Task version of this method!

The only way to bypass this apparently built-in feature is to use PowerShell v2 and use the Start-Process cmdlet.

In PowerShell v1 you could use the Community Extensions which also offer a Start-Process cmdlet.

[RobMokkink]

You can loop through each host in the cluster use a rescanhba. That would be an option?

[smccreadie]

Im pretty new to scripting, does anyone know the basic syntax to using the Start-Process cmdlet to rescan all the datastores? I have Windows 7 with Powershell v2 installed and verified the Start-Process cmdlet is there. Thanks for the great help.

Sean

[LucD]

Rob, the RescanHba method doesn't come back to your script until the scan is finished.

You can loop through all your HBAs and launch the RescanHba with a Start-Process cmdlet.

You're in fact launching each RescanHba in it's own thread.

[LucD]

From the top of my head I would tackle it this way.

-) in the main script loop through all the HBAs

-) for each HBA call a separate script through the Start-Process cmdlet, with the HBA as parameter, that will launch the RescanHba method

If you want I can give you some actual PowerShell code later

[smccreadie]

Perfect! I'll give it a try and let you know how it goes, thanks for the help.

[smccreadie]

LucD,

I have tried to craft a way to do this using the Start-Job cmdlet available in Powershell 2. I am trying to rescan all hosts in a cluster at the same time and not wait for each host scan to complete before the next one begins. Im having trouble getting it to runcorrectly andI cant find a wholelot of examples of this cmdlet online. Ive been trying stuff like this below with no success, i obviously have no clue how to use this cmdlet. Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Connect-ViServer "Vcenter"

$hosts = Get-Cluster "name of cluster" | Get-Vmhost

foreach ($machine in $hosts) {

Start-Job -ScriptBlock {

Add-PSSnapin Vmware.VimAutomation.Core

Connect-VIServer "Vcenter"

Get-Cluster "name of cluster" | Get-VMHost $machine | Get-VMHostStorage -RescanAllHba -RescanVmfs

Disconnect-VIServer -Confirm:$false

}

}