Here is an introduction to PowerCli presentation I gave back in July at the Central Ohio VMware User’s Group.

Understanding Microsoft Virtualization Solutions (Second Edition) http://blogs.msdn.com/b/microsoft_press/archive/2010/02/16/free-ebook-understanding-microsoft-virtualization-r2-solutions.aspx

Here is the list of VMware PowerCLI cmdlets ordered by noun. I find this easier to use when I am trying to write scripts. You can locate what items you want to work with and then see the action you can take. This post contains the code used to generate the list. <th> Verbs </th> <td> Get,Set </td> <td> Get,New,Remove,Set </td> <td> Get,Move,New,Remove,Set </td> <td> Get,New,Remove,Set </td> <td> New,Remove,Set </td> <td> Get,Move,New,Remove,Set </td> <td> Get,New,Remove,Set </td> <td> Copy </td> <td> Apply,Get </td> <td> Get,New,Remove,Set </td> <td> Get </td> <td> Get,New,Remove,Set </td> <td> Get,Move,New,Remove,Set </td> <td> Copy,Get,New,Remove,Set </td> <td> Get,Move,Remove </td> <td> Get,New,Remove,Set </td> <td> Get </td> <td> Get </td> <td> Get,New,Remove,Set </td> <td> Get,Set </td> <td> Get,New,Remove,Set </td> <td> Get,New,Remove,Set </td> <td> Add,Get,Remove </td> <td> Get,Set </td> <td> Get </td> <td> Get,Move,New,Remove,Set </td> <td> Get,Set </td> <td> Get,Set </td> <td> Get,New,Remove,Set </td> <td> Get </td> <td> Get,New,Remove,Set </td> <td> Get </td> <td> Get,Stop,Wait </td> <td> Get,Move,New,Remove,Set </td> <td> Dismount,Mount,Update </td> <td> Get,Remove </td> <td> Export,Get,Import,New,Remove,Set,Start,Stop </td> <td> Get,New,Remove </td> <td> Get </td> <td> Get </td> <td> Get </td> <td> Get,New,Remove,Set </td> <td> Get </td> <td> New,Remove </td> <td> Get,New,Remove,Set </td> <td> Get,New,Remove,Set </td> <td> Get,New,Remove,Set </td> <td> Connect,Disconnect </td> <td> Get,Move,New,Remove,Restart,Set,Start,Stop,Suspend </td> <td> Get,Restart,Shutdown,Suspend </td> <td> Copy </td> <td> Get,Set </td> <td> Get,New,Remove,Set </td> <td> Add,Get,Move,Remove,Restart,Set,Start,Stop,Suspend </td> <td> Get,New,Remove,Set </td> <td> Get,Set </td> <td> Get </td> <td> Get,Set </td> <td> Get,Set </td> <td> Get,Set </td> <td> Get,Set </td> <td> Get,Set </td> <td> Get,Set </td> <td> Get,Set </td> <td> Get,New,Remove,Set </td> <td> Add,Get,Remove </td> <td> Get,Install </td> <td> Apply,Export,Get,Import,New,Remove,Set </td> <td> Test </td> <td> Get,New,Remove,Set </td> <td> Get,Restart,Set,Start,Stop </td> <td> Get,Set,Test </td> <td> Get,Set </td> <td> Get,Set </td> <td> Get,Set </td> <td> Get,Set </td> <td> Get,Set </td> <td> Invoke </td> <td> Get,Set </td>

Here is a quick and dirty PowerShell script to parse the output of the rpowermt command used to manage PowerPath/VE on ESX (for EMC arrays). I wrote the code quickly to solve a particular problem, but if I get requests I could extend it to parse the rest of the output and do so in a little more robust fashion. Why do this? I am in the middle of migrations between frames and I needed an easy way to determine what needed moved when the storage admin said move all LUNs from CLARiiON XXXX to the new LUNs on YYYY – and make sure to move LUN 41 to LUN 88.

One of the worst case scenarios when securing an ESXi host is disabling the DCUI, enabling lockdown mode, and then losing vCenter for some reason. If your vCenter database is corrupt then you have lost the ability to manage the host. The official answer at this point is to rebuild the host. While I hope you have an automated build process that would make this easy, there is at least one other option to recover your system.

An example of how to get the human readable path of an object in the VMware SDK. This is using PowerShell and requires that PowerCLI be installed, but should be easily converted to other languages. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 Function Get-VIHumanReadablePath { param ( $target ) try { if ($target.

I have 5 difference vCenter servers installed over various timeframes and I am seeing different counts for the Non-Critical Host Updates across them. After some digging it appears that this is due to the Nexus 1000v updates. We have not deployed the Nexus to production yet so this was a little confusing for me. It appears that when Update Manager is installed it downloaded the patches for the Nexus 1000v, but they are not included in the updates that are downloaded because we have none running in the environment and Update Manager was not configured to download them.

I am looking to do PXE booting of the ESXi installer as the first step in rolling out my new automated deployment solution. We already have an Altiris (HP RDP) PXE server in house for Windows deployments so I needed to figure out a way to make it work. Below is the first phase of this using standard pxelinux and not gPXE. Download the ESXi 4.1 installable release from VMware Download the current 3.

It has come to my attention that some times the scripts will still hang after using the trick from a previous post to fix an issue with standard input when running PowerShell in Orchestrator workflows. After further research there appears to be an issue with stderr hanging the scripts in a similar way to stdin. To be safe you should do something with the output from stderr (where error messages are sent).

Updated 7/29/2010 – I have added a new follow up post this post regarding another related hanging issue. Please make sure to check it out. This is a copy of my comment in the VMware Communities, but some times the Google search results for items in this blog show up and the ones for the communities do not. The original problem is that PowerShell scripts hang when running them in Orchestrator.

In order to get access to PowerCLI when using another PowerShell shortcut or environment you can run the following commands which is what happens when you run the VMware provided shortcut. 1 2 3 4 5 6 # Adds the base cmdlets Add-PSSnapin VMware.VimAutomation.Core # Add the following if you want to do things with Update Manager Add-PSSnapin VMware.VumAutomation # This script adds some helper functions and sets the appearance.

These are some examples that I will be reviewing at an upcoming Central Ohio VMware User’s Group. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 # List all VMs Get-VM # Get one VM Get-VM ubuntu01 # Get VMs that match Get-VM ubuntu* # List VMs in a Datacenter Get-Datacenter dc001 | Get-VM # List VMs in a cluster Get-Cluster cluster001 | Get-VM # Get 2 CPU or larger VMs Get-VM | Where-Object {$_.