Playing with PowerCLI

By | June 13, 2010

Last week I attended a Magirus course on administrating you VMware environment using PowerCLI, and below is some of the small scripts I created.

These code sniplets will help you manage your VMware environment and give you some ideas of how powerful the VMware PowerCLI really is.

I’m sure VMware will add even more CMDLETS to the PowerCLI in the feature.

Get the latest PowerCLI here.
A function to load different PSSnapins.
Put it in the beginning of all you Powershell scripts,
to load the different PSSnapin you need.


function LoadSnapin{
  param($PSSnapinName)
  if (!(Get-PSSnapin | where {$_.Name   -eq $PSSnapinName})){
    Add-pssnapin -name $PSSnapinName
  }
}
LoadSnapin -PSSnapinName   "VMware.VimAutomation.Core"

Clone a VM to template.


$VMToClone = "vm_name"
$TemplateName = "TemplateName"
$Datacenter = "Training"
get-vm $VMToClone| stop-vm
New-Template -VM $VMToClone -Name $TemplateName 
   -Location $(Get-Datacenter $Datacenter)

Convert Template to VM – without changing the name.


$TemplateName = "TemplateName"
Set-Template -Template $(get-template $TemplateName) -ToVM

Convert VM to Template – without changing the name.


$VMtoTemplate = "vm_name"
$vm = Get-VM $VMtoTemplate | Get-View
$vm.MarkAsTemplate()

Deploying a VM from template.


$strNewVMName = "NewVM_01"
$strTemplate = "TemplateName"
$strDestinationHost = "ESX01"
New-VM -Name $strNewVMName -Template $(get-template   $strTemplate) 
   -VMHost $(Get-VMHost $strDestinationHost)

Deploying a VM from template using a Customization Specification and using Thin provisioning.
Make sure the CustomSpec has been created beforehand.


$strNewVMName = "NewVM_01"
$strTemplate = "TemplateName"
$strDestinationHost = "ESX01"
$strCustomSpec = "TEST-CustomSpec"
New-VM -Name $strNewVMName -Template $(get-template $strTemplate) 
   -VMHost $(Get-VMHost $strDestinationHost) -DiskStorageFormat 
   Thin -OSCustomizationSpec $(Get-OSCustomizationSpec $strCustomSpec)

Moving a VM to a specific folder.


$strDistinationFolder = "MyFolder"
$strDatacenter = "Training"
$VMToMove = "MyVM"
move-vm -VM $(get-vm $VMToMove) -Destination $(Get-Folder 
    -Name $strDistinationFolder -Location $(Get-Datacenter $strDatacenter))

Copying a file to a Windows VM (With or without network access)
Requires VMware tools to be running.


$VM = get-vm -name "myVM"
$target = "C:\MY_DIR\"
$source = "C:\MY_DIR\test.txt"
Copy-VMGuestFile -Source $source -Destination $target -vm $VM 
   -LocalToGuest -HostUser "root" -HostPassword "password" 
   -GuestUser "myVM\administrator" -GuestPassword "password" 
   -Force:$true

Copying a file from a Windows VM (With or without network access)
Requires VMware tools to be running.


$VM = get-vm -name "myVM"
$target = "C:\MY_DIR\"
$source = "C:\MY_DIR\test.txt"
Copy-VMGuestFile -Source $source -Destination $target -vm $VM 
   -GuestToLocal -HostUser "root" -HostPassword "password" 
   -GuestUser "myVM\administrator" -GuestPassword "password" 
   -Force:$true

Listing the content of “C:\Windows\System32” from a VM – remotely


$VM = get-vm -name "myVM"
Invoke-VMScript -VM $VM -ScriptText "dir" -HostUser "root" 
   -HostPassword "password" -GuestUser "myVM\administrator" 
   -GuestPassword "password"

Run msinfo32 on a guest VM and pipe the output to a TXT file – Using PowerShell.


$VM = get-vm -name "myVM"
$script = '&"$env:ProgramFiles\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\
   MSInfo\msinfo32.exe" /report "$env:Tmp\inforeport.txt"'
Invoke-VMScript -VM $VM -ScriptText $script -HostUser "root" 
   -HostPassword "password" -GuestUser "myVM\administrator" 
   -GuestPassword "password"

Open the above output file in the guest VM – Using PowerShell.


$VM = get-vm -name "myVM"
$script = '&"notepad.exe" "$env:Tmp\inforeport.txt"'
Invoke-VMScript -VM $VM -ScriptText $script -HostUser "root" 
   -HostPassword "password" -GuestUser "myVM\administrator" 
   -GuestPassword "password" -ScriptType Powershell

Run msinfo32 on a guest VM and pipe the output to a TXT file – Using batch commands.


$VM = get-vm -name "myVM"
$script = '&"%programfiles%\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\
   MSInfo\msinfo32.exe" /report "%tmp%\inforeport.txt"'
Invoke-VMScript -VM $VM -ScriptText $script -HostUser "root" 
   -HostPassword "password" -GuestUser "myVM\administrator" 
   -GuestPassword "password" -ScriptType Bat

Open the above output file in the guest VM – Using batch commands.


$VM = get-vm -name "myVM"
$script = '"notepad.exe"   "%Tmp%\inforeport.txt"'
Invoke-VMScript -VM $VM -ScriptText $script -HostUser "root" 
   -HostPassword "password" -GuestUser "myVM\administrator" 
   -GuestPassword "password" -ScriptType Bat

9 thoughts on “Playing with PowerCLI

  1. Carter Shanklin

    Hi, glad you’re enjoying PowerCLI.

    My preferred way of loading a snapin that may already be loaded is as follows:

    Add-PSSnapin VMware.VimAutomation.Core -ea SilentlyContinue

  2. A. Mikkelsen Post author

    Hi Carter,
    I’m loving PowerShell.
    I find it a lot easier to work with than the Perl VI Toolkit.

    I also like your way, but I don’t like to load thinks that are already loaded 🙂
    The function also shows how to check if a PSSnapin is Loaded or not, and it also shows the basic on how to construct a simple function.

    Thanks for you input.

    A. Mikkelsen

  3. Pablo

    Michael – great to hear you enjoy PowerCLI…What did you think of the course ?

    Regards,
    Pablo Roesch
    VMware
    vSphere SDK / API Product Marketing

    ps. We are running a contest for best ESXi Script (Script-O-Mania) – Chance to win $2500.00 for first prize…

  4. A. Mikkelsen Post author

    Hi Pablo (Sorry for the late reply – vacation :-)),
    I thought that the cource was OK for a user starting out using Powershell to administrate his/hers VMware enviromment.
    But for an user experienced in using PS to manage his/hers VMware enviromment the cource lacked a bit.

    This said I still got sometihing out of it.
    I had time to play with the new CMDLETS and test a few things.

    A. Mikkelsen

  5. A. Mikkelsen Post author

    Thanks,
    I’ll add some more soon.
    The cource was not a official VMware course, but one created by an instructor from Swicherland.
    I think that Magirus also offeres this course in other countries.

    A. Mikkelsen

  6. Pingback: www.vExperienced.co.uk » VCAP study notes – section 8.1, PowerCLI

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *