Learning PowerCLI - Second Edition

Book Image

Learning PowerCLI - Second Edition

By : Robert van den Nieuwendijk

Book Image

Learning PowerCLI - Second Edition

By: Robert van den Nieuwendijk

Overview of this book

VMware vSphere PowerCLI, a free extension to Microsoft Windows PowerShell, enables you to automate the management of a VMware vSphere or vCloud environment. This book will show you how to automate your tasks and make your job easier. Starting with an introduction to the basics of PowerCLI, the book will teach you how to manage your vSphere and vCloud infrastructure from the command line. To help you manage a vSphere host overall, you will learn how to manage vSphere ESXi hosts, host profiles, host services, host firewall, and deploy and upgrade ESXi hosts using Image Builder and Auto Deploy. The next chapter will not only teach you how to create datastore and datastore clusters, but you’ll also work with profile-driven and policy-based storage to manage your storage. To create a disaster recovery solution and retrieve information from vRealize Operations, you will learn how to use Site Recovery Manager and vRealize Operations respectively. Towards the end, you’ll see how to use the REST APIs from PowerShell to manage NSX and vRealize Automation and create patch baselines, scan hosts against the baselines for missing patches, and re-mediate hosts. By the end of the book, you will be capable of using the best tool to automate the management and configuration of VMware vSphere.

Learning PowerCLI Second Edition

Learning PowerCLI Second Edition

Credits

About the Author

About the Author

About the Reviewer

About the Reviewer

www.PacktPub.com

www.PacktPub.com

Customer Feedback

Customer Feedback

Preface

Free Chapter

Introduction to PowerCLI

Introduction to PowerCLI

Downloading and installing PowerCLI

Participating in the VMware Customer Improvement Program

Modifying the PowerShell execution policy

Creating a PowerShell profile

Connecting and disconnecting servers

Using the credential store

Retrieving a list of all of your virtual machines

Retrieving a list of all of your hosts

Learning Basic PowerCLI Concepts

Learning Basic PowerCLI Concepts

Using the Get-Command, Get-Help, and Get-Member cmdlets

Using providers and PSDrives

Using arrays and hash tables

Creating calculated properties

Using raw API objects with ExtensionData or Get-View

Extending PowerCLI objects with the New-VIProperty cmdlet

Working with vSphere folders

Working with Objects in PowerShell

Working with Objects in PowerShell

Using objects, properties, and methods

Expanding variables and subexpressions in strings

Using here-strings

Using the pipeline

Using the PowerShell object cmdlets

Creating your own objects

Using COM objects

Managing vSphere Hosts with PowerCLI

Managing vSphere Hosts with PowerCLI

Adding hosts to a VMware vCenter Server

Enabling and disabling maintenance mode

Working with host profiles

Working with host services

Configuring the host firewall

Using vSphere Image Builder and Auto Deploy

Using esxcli from PowerCLI

Removing hosts from a VMware vCenter Server

Managing Virtual Machines with PowerCLI

Managing Virtual Machines with PowerCLI

Creating virtual machines

Registering virtual machines

Using OS customization specifications

Importing OVF or OVA packages

Starting and stopping virtual machines

Modifying the settings of virtual machines

Converting virtual machines into templates

Moving virtual machines to another folder, host, cluster, resource pool, or datastore

Updating VMware Tools

Upgrading virtual machine compatibility

Using snapshots

Running commands in the guest OS

Configuring Fault Tolerance

Opening the console of virtual machines

Removing virtual machines

Managing Virtual Networks with PowerCLI

Managing Virtual Networks with PowerCLI

Using vSphere Standard Switches

Using host network adapters

Using standard port groups

Using vSphere Distributed Switches

Using distributed virtual port groups

Configuring host networking

Configuring the network of virtual machines

Managing Storage

Managing Storage

Rescanning for new storage devices

Creating datastores

Retrieving datastores

Setting the multipathing policy

Configuring vmhba paths to an SCSI device

Working with Raw Device Mappings

Configuring storage I/O control

Configuring Storage DRS

Upgrading datastores to VMFS-5

Removing datastores

Using VMware vSAN

Using vSphere storage policy-based management

Managing High Availability and Clustering

Managing High Availability and Clustering

Creating vSphere HA and DRS clusters

Retrieving clusters

Modifying the cluster settings

Moving hosts to clusters

Moving clusters

Using DRS rules

Using DRS recommendations

Using resource pools

Using Distributed Power Management

Removing clusters

Managing vCenter Server

Managing vCenter Server

Working with roles and permissions

Managing licenses

Configuring alarms

Retrieving events

Patching ESXi Hosts and Upgrading Virtual Machines

Patching ESXi Hosts and Upgrading Virtual Machines

Downloading new patches into the Update Manager repository

Retrieving patches in the Update Manager repository

Using baselines and baseline groups

Testing inventory objects for compliance with baselines

Retrieving baseline compliance data

Initializing staging of patches

Remediating inventory objects

Managing VMware vCloud Director and vCloud Air

Managing VMware vCloud Director and vCloud Air

Connecting to vCloud Air servers and vCloud Director servers

Retrieving organizations

Retrieving organization virtual datacenters

Retrieving organization networks

Retrieving vCloud users

Using vCloud virtual appliances

Managing vCloud virtual machines

Using the vCloud Director API with Get-CIView

Disconnecting from vCloud Director servers

Using Site Recovery Manager

Using Site Recovery Manager

Connecting to SRM servers

Downloading and installing the Meadowcroft.SRM module

Pairing SRM sites

Retrieving the SRM user info

Managing protection groups

Protecting virtual machines

Retrieving protected virtual machines

Unprotecting virtual machines

Managing recovery plans

Disconnecting from SRM servers

Using vRealize Operations Manager

Using vRealize Operations Manager

Connecting to vRealize Operations Manager servers

Retrieving vRealize Operations Manager resource objects

Retrieving recommendations

Retrieving statistic keys

Retrieving statistical data

Retrieving local user accounts

Using the vRealize Operations Manager API

Disconnecting from vRealize Operations Manager servers

Using REST API to manage NSX and vRealize Automation

Using REST API to manage NSX and vRealize Automation

Connecting to REST API servers

Managing NSX logical switches

Managing NSX logical (distributed) routers

Managing NSX Edge services gateways

Connecting to vRA servers

Managing vRA tenants

Retrieving vRA business groups

Managing vRA reservations

Managing vRA machines and applications

Reporting with PowerCLI

Reporting with PowerCLI

Retrieving log files

Creating log bundles

Performance reporting

Exporting reports to CSV files

Generating HTML reports

Sending reports by e-mail

Reporting the health of your vSphere environment with vCheck

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Reporting the health of your vSphere environment with vCheck

In this section of the book, I want to introduce a PowerCLI script that every vSphere admin should use. The vCheck script written by Alan Renouf can check your vSphere environment for various configuration issues and report them in HTML format. The vCheck script reports several issues, such as VMs having CD-ROMs connected, VMs with CPU or memory reservations configured, VMs ballooning or swapping, VMs with less than 100 MB free space on a disk, VMs with an old hardware version, and VMs that do not have VMware Tools installed. These are just a few examples. The script reports many more issues.

The script is written in a modular way, and it uses a plugin for every check it performs. It is very easy to write plugins and add them to the script. There are plugins created to check other technologies such as Microsoft Exchange, vCloud Director, vCloud Air, System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM), and Cisco UCS. Reading the vCheck...