Determining the ESXi Installation type by PowerCLI

[MikkoJ]

Hello,

I'm creating reporting script (aren't we all) to server various VMware environments, and one thing to get reported would be ESXi installation type.

This is possible via SSH running "esxcfg-info -e" ( Determining the ESXi installation type (2014558) | VMware KB )

Problem is that esxcfg-info does not have PowerCLI equivalent out of the box. I found William Lams script for this: Using the vSphere API to remotely collect ESXi esxcfg-info | virtuallyGhetto

But the output info from this does not hold "boot type" or "visor-" info, which I could parse out.

Has anyone done this kind of info pull with PowerCLI so far?

The obvious step is (in case type is visor-thin) to see if ESXi host is installed on local disk or SAN LUN. KB article for this is Identifying ESXi/ESX boot LUNs for Boot From SAN configurations (2030957) | VMware KB

-Mikko

[LucD · Accepted solution]

Have a look at 1.  Re: Esxi OS running on Local Sata HDD or SD card

[MikkoJ]

If only I could use search engines..

Thank you for the answer.

Second step proves to be bit hard: I do get UUID out for boot disk, and if I could map UUID to NAA, I could nicely tell more info about boot disk, for example if it is on local disks, or in SAN.

vmkfstools would give answer, but I found no way to run it with PowerCLI, and I do not want to go to Orchestrator workflow for this.

If every boot LUN would have VMFS volume, it could be done starting from here:

(Get-View (Get-View (Get-VMHost -Name $vmhost).ID).ConfigManager.StorageSystem).filesystemvolumeinfo.mountinfo.volume

I found this from here: PowerCLI script to get Datastore UUIDs

This would have UUID and NAA, and having NAA I could use for example get-scsilun or esxcli like

$esxcli = Get-EsxCli -VMHost $vmhost

$esxcli.storage.core.device.list()

or

$esxcli.storage.nmp.device.list()

[LucD]

Could you show a screenshot of the vmkfstools output that you are referring to?
Is SSH to the ESXi nodes an option?

[MikkoJ]

Hello,

below is output from CLI. All else I can obtain via PowerCLI, but not NAA - UUID pair.

SSH to hosts is not possible due to network topology. I'm doing reporting to several environments on different customers, which would also create quite a hassle with credential / key management.

[root@gra-esx01:~] ls -l /

lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root            49 Nov 17 10:26 altbootbank -> /vmfs/volumes/d3b2137e-40691826-634b-dad06e6fa681

[root@gra-esx01:~] vmkfstools -P /vmfs/volumes/0ba53a7f-76616496-4d0f-ce5617d2afdb

vfat-0.04 file system spanning 1 partitions.

File system label (if any):

Mode: private

Capacity 261853184 (63929 file blocks * 4096), 46415872 (11332 blocks) avail, max supported file size 0

UUID: 0ba53a7f-76616496-4d0f-ce5617d2afdb

Partitions spanned (on "disks"):

        naa.600508b40008ca6a0000700002f40000:5

Is Native Snapshot Capable: NO

[root@gra-esx01:~] esxcli storage core device list -d naa.600508b40008ca6a0000700002f40000

naa.600508b40008ca6a0000700002f40000

   Display Name: HP Fibre Channel Disk (naa.600508b40008ca6a0000700002f40000)

   Has Settable Display Name: true

   Size: 6144

   Device Type: Direct-Access

   Multipath Plugin: NMP

   Devfs Path: /vmfs/devices/disks/naa.600508b40008ca6a0000700002f40000

   Vendor: HP

   Model: HSV300

   Revision: 1130

   SCSI Level: 5

   Is Pseudo: false

   Status: on

   Is RDM Capable: true

   Is Local: false

   Is Removable: false

   Is SSD: false

   Is VVOL PE: false

   Is Offline: false

   Is Perennially Reserved: false

   Queue Full Sample Size: 0

   Queue Full Threshold: 0

   Thin Provisioning Status: yes

   Attached Filters:

   VAAI Status: supported

   Other UIDs: vml.0200010000600508b40008ca6a0000700002f40000485356333030

   Is Shared Clusterwide: true

   Is Local SAS Device: false

   Is SAS: false

   Is USB: false

   Is Boot USB Device: false

   Is Boot Device: true

   Device Max Queue Depth: 30

   No of outstanding IOs with competing worlds: 32

   Drive Type: unknown

   RAID Level: unknown

   Number of Physical Drives: unknown

   Protection Enabled: false

   PI Activated: false

   PI Type: 0

   PI Protection Mask: NO PROTECTION

   Supported Guard Types: NO GUARD SUPPORT

   DIX Enabled: false

   DIX Guard Type: NO GUARD SUPPORT

   Emulated DIX/DIF Enabled: false

[root@gra-esx01:~]