PowerCLI | Electric Monk

Archive for PowerCLI

Install and Configure vSphere PowerCLI

March 5, 2013 Objective 8 Perform Scripting and Automation, PowerCLI No comments

What is vSphere PowerCLI?

vSphere PowerCLI provides easy-to-use C# and PowerShell interface to VMware vSphere APIs. It ships with a number of cmdlets that you can use to perform various administration tasks on VMware vSphere components

Installation Pre-Requisites

.NET 2.0 SP1
Windows PowerShell 1.0/2.0/3.0

Supported Operating Systems
VMware vSphere PowerCLI 5.0 is supported on the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the following Windows operating systems:

Windows 7
Windows Server 2008
Windows Vista
Windows XP Service Pack 2
Windows 2003 Server Service Pack 2

Supported VMware Environments

vSphere PowerCLI 5.0 is compatible with the following VMware environments:

VMware ESXi 5.0
vCenter Server 5.0
VMware ESX 4.1/vCenter Server 4.1
VMware ESXi 4.1
VMware ESX 4.0 Update 2/vCenter Server 4.0 Update 2
VMware ESX 4.0 Update 1/vCenter Server 4.0 Update 1
VMware ESX 4.0i Update 1
VMware ESX 3.5 Update 5
VMware ESXi 3.5 Update 5
VMware VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 6
VMware ESX 3.0.3 Update 1

Identify Cmdlet Concepts

PowerShell cmdlets use a consistent verb-noun structure, where the verb specifies the action and the noun specifies the object to operate on. PowerShell cmdlets follow consistent naming patterns, which makes it easy to figure out how to construct a command if you know the object you want to work with.
All command categories take parameters and arguments. A parameter starts with a hyphen and is used to control the behavior of the command. An argument is a data value consumed by the command.

PowerCLI Components

To use these snap-ins, you must add them using the add-pssnapin cmdlet.

Example

add-pssnapin vmware.vimautomation.core

Installing

Download PowerCLI from the VMware website
Click the exe and install
You may get a message such as below

And this message – Click Continue

Click Next

Click Next

Click Next

Keep the default selection

Click Install

Configuring PowerCLI

Set the properties for Remote Signing

For security reasons, Windows PowerShell supports an execution policy feature. It determines whether scripts are allowed to run and whether they must be digitally signed. By default, the execution policy is set to Restricted, which is the most secure policy. If you want to run scripts or load configuration files, you can change the execution policy by using the Set-ExecutionPolicy cmdlet. For more information about the execution policy and script digital signing in Windows PowerShell, run Get-Help About_Signing.

Right click on the PowerCLI icon and selecy Run as Administrator
Type Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned

Slow Startup

I experienced a really slow start-up from PowerCLI. It had something to do with internet access and checking the certificates. I disabled this by doing the below

Open the Control Panel → Go To Internet Options → Go to the Advanced tab → Go to the Security Section
Un-check the “Check for publisher’s certificate revocation” check-box

Certificate Errors

Certificate error can generally be ignored but if you want to make sure they don’t come up try typing the following

Set-PowerCLIConfiguration -invalidCertificateAction ignore -confirm:$false

Guides

vSphere PowerCLI User Guide

PowerCLI cmdlet Reference

PowerShell Community

http://communities.vmware.com/community/vmtn/server/vsphere/automationtools/powercli

How To Change Virtual Machine Network Adapter Type Using vSphere PowerCLI

September 19, 2012 PowerCLI, PowerCLI, VMware No comments

The Task

You want to upgrade your VM NIC from E1000 or VMXNET to VMXNET3. There is a manual way to do this but it is quicker in Powershell

Instructions

Power off the VM
Log into Powershell – Connect-VIServer – Enter credentials if required
Run the following command
get-vm vmname | get-networkadapter | set-networkadapter -type “vmxnet3”

If you have more than one adapter, it will ask you about all of them. Select Y or N as required
Check in the VM Settings that the NIC Type has changed to VMXNET3

Power on VM
The IP Address settings that were originally set should still be there

The Manual Way (Slower)

Power down machine
Right click on machine and remove from inventory
Go to machine VMX file in the datastore and upload to desktop
Edit the vm.vmx file to ethernet0.virtualDev = “vmxnet3”
Rename the original vm.vmx file in the datastore to vm.vmx.bak
Upload the edited vm.vmx file to the datastore
Right click and add vm.vmx file to inventory
Power on machine
Check IP Address

Qs and As

[Q]
I have run this command while the test vm is powered off and then powered up again and the NIC has changed in the VM settings and within the Wndows 2008 R2 VM however it does not retain the IP Address. Is this standard behaviour or do we need to re-enter the IP Address?

[A]
Yes this is standard behaviour as once the NIC has been changed it is seen as a new device so a new IP will need to be assigned.

[Q]
Can this Powershell command be run while the VM is running and if so will we get the same thing where it will change the NIC type fine but not retain the IP Address?

[A]
No the command will not work while the VM is running. You can “add” a new adapter while the VM is running but to change the adapter type from E1000 to VMXNET3 the VM need to be powered off

Find memory/CPU reservation on all VMs

September 18, 2012 PowerCLI, PowerCLI, VMware No comments

Find memory/CPU reservation on all VMs

To retrieve the settings for reservation of both memory and CPU run the following PS scripts

## retrieve the values for MemReservationMB for the given VMs
Get-Cluster “myCluster” | Get-VM | Get-VMResourceConfiguration | select VM,MemReservationMB

## retrieve the values for CPUReservationMhz for the given VMs
Get-Cluster “myCluster” | Get-VM | Get-VMResourceConfiguration | select VM,CPUReservationMhz

If you want to go through a set all VM memory/CPU reservations to “0” run the following

## set the MemReservationMB to 0 for given VMs
Get-Cluster “myCluster” | Get-VM | Get-VMResourceConfiguration | Set-VMResourceConfiguration -MemReservationMB 0 -Confirm:$false

## set the CPUReservationMhz to 0 for given VMs
Get-Cluster “myCluster” | Get-VM | Get-VMResourceConfiguration | Set-VMResourceConfiguration -CPUReservationMhz 0 -Confirm:$false