Book Image

PowerCLI Essentials

By : Chris Halverson
Book Image

PowerCLI Essentials

By: Chris Halverson

Overview of this book

Have you ever wished you could automatically get a report with all the relevant information about your VMware environments in exactly the format you want? Or that you could automate a crucial task that needs to be performed on a regular basis? Powerful Command Line Interface (PowerCLI) scripts do all these things and much more for VMware environments. PowerCLI is a command-line interface tool used to automate VMware vSphere environments. It is used to handle complicated administration tasks through use of various cmdlets and scripts, which are designed to handle certain aspects of VSphere servers and to help you manage them. This book will show you the intricacies of PowerCLI through real-life examples so that you can discover the art of PowerCLI scripting. At the start, you will be taught to download and install PowerCLI and will learn about the different versions of it. Moving further, you will be introduced to the GUI of PowerCLI and will find out how to develop single line scripts to duplicate running tasks, produce simple reports, and simplify administration. Next, you will learn about the methods available to get information remotely. Towards the end, you will be taught to set up orchestrator and build workflows in PowerShell with update manager and SRM scripts.
Table of Contents (13 chapters)
PowerCLI Essentials
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Report-VMHostConfigStatus


VMware created a method to maintain and keep a VMHost at a certain compliance level using a component called Host Profiles. Host Profiles maintain a record within vCenter to a base configuration using a Reference Host, and PowerCLI can be used to configure this reference host.

Running a simple PowerCLI command allows the creation of a basic profile:

New-VMHostProfile –Name TestProfile –Description "PowerCLI basic Profile" –ReferenceHost VMHost1

It takes a few moments and a TestProfile is created within the vCenter environment. Default settings store domain authentication and the network and storage settings. It leaves the rest of the profile open for changes and alterations. As a consultant at numerous organizations, many companies feel the host profiles are overkill to a basic implementation script of certain configurations. So, with that in mind, let's think of implementing this type of script and name it Report-VMHostConfigStatus.ps1.

Starting with the inputs

Thinking...