Hey everyone,

VMware PowerCLi is a very powerful tool for generating custom reports about your vSphere environment, and automating many of your daily tasks as well.

In this article I will be listing most of the very useful PowerCLi commands and scripts that I use very often, but you need first to be familiar with PowerShell and PowerCLi from VMware to be able to use them; if you aren’t, don’t worry, just search for ‘VMware PowerCLi”, download it, and read about it and how to use it.

Set VM-Notes to multiple VMs: 

Purpose: automating a task

This simple script automates the process of defining/updating the Notes of multiple VMs instead of using the vSphere Web Client and wasting your time. This script will read the vm names from a csv file that you will be creating, just set the column header to “VMname” for the VM name; and “Notes” to the column of notes/description. copy the following text and save it in a text file with “ps1” extension to be able to run it as a script:

Get-Content -Path “<SPECIFY-HERE-THE -CSV-FILE\FILE.CSV” | ConvertFrom-Csv -Header VMName,Notes | %{

Get-VM -Name $_.VMName | Set-VM -Notes $_.Notes -Confirm:$false

}

 

Count the virtual disks of each VM

Purpose: generate a custom report.

Get-VM -name * |Select Name,@{N=’vDisk’;E={($_.ExtensionData.Config.Hardware.Device | where{$_ -is [VMware.Vim.VirtualDisk]}).Count}}

 

Here’s an example and the result:

 

Count vNICs of the VMs

Purpose: generate a custom report.

Get-VM -name *|Select Name,@{N=’vNIC’;E={($_.ExtensionData.Config
.Hardware.Device | where{$_ -is [VMware.Vim.VirtualEthernetCard]}).Count}}

Result:

 

Get full information about the VMs

Purpose: generate a custom report.

Get-VM -name * |Select Name,@{N=’vDisk’;E={($_.ExtensionData.Config.Hardware.Device | where{$_ -is [VMware.Vim.VirtualDisk]}).Count}},@{N=’vNIC’;E={($_.ExtensionData.Config.Hardware.Device | where{$_ -is [VMware.Vim.VirtualEthernetCard]}).Count}}, Notes, Guest, NumCpu, CoresPerSocket, MemoryGB, ResourcePool, UsedSpaceGB, ProvisionedSpaceGB

Example:

you can export the info (more reasonable and readable) to a CSV file by adding the following suffix to the previous command (or any command in general):

| export-csv “<FILEPATH.CSV>”

example:

Get-VM -name * |Select Name,@{N=’vDisk’;E={($_.ExtensionData.Config.Hardware.Device | where{$_ -is [VMware.Vim.VirtualDisk]}).Count}},@{N=’vNIC’;E={($_.ExtensionData.Config.Hardware.Device | where{$_ -is [VMware.Vim.VirtualEthernetCard]}).Count}}, Notes, Guest, NumCpu, CoresPerSocket, MemoryGB, ResourcePool, UsedSpaceGB, ProvisionedSpaceGB | export-csv “c:\vm-info.csv”

 

List host HBA fiber channel adapters and their WWN addresses

Purpose: generate a custom report.

Get-VMHostHBA -Type FibreChannel | Select VMHost,Device,@{N=”WWN”;E={“{0:X}” -f $_.PortWorldWideName}}

 

Get information about distributed switch port groups, and VLAN ID associated with each one

Purpose: generate a custom report.

for a single VDS:

Get-VDSwitch -Name <VDS-NAME> | Get-VDPortgroup | select -Property name, @{N=”VLANId”;E={$_.Extensiondata.Config.DefaultPortCOnfig.Vlan.VlanId}}

Result

To get the same information, but for all of the vDS switches that you have; run the command as following:

Get-VDSwitch  | Get-VDPortgroup | select -Property name, @{N=”VLANId”;E={$_.Extensiondata.Config.DefaultPortCOnfig.Vlan.VlanId}}

 

Get ESXi host NICs and vmkernel adapters details

Purpose: generate a custom report.

Get-VMHostNetworkAdapter | select VMhost, Name, IP | format-table
-autosize

The “format-table” suffix is used make the table columns fit the data, it;s very handy.

Example:

 

Get the VM name and the cluster that it belongs to

Purpose: generate a custom report.

Get-VM | Select Name, @{N=”Cluster”;E={Get-Cluster -VM $_}}

Example

 

Get VM network information

Purpose: generate a custom report.

This command will be listing the VM name, vNIC, and the port group attached to.

Get-VM | Get-NetworkAdapter | Select-Object @{N=”VM”;E={$_.Parent.Name}},@{N=”NIC”;E={$_.Name}},@{N=”Network”;E={$_.NetworkName}} | ft -AutoSize

Example

 

Get datastore name along with the canonical name.

Purpose: generate a custom report.

Get-Datastore | Select Name,@{N=’CanonicalName’;E={$_.Extensiondata.Info.Vmfs.Extent[0].DiskName}}

Example

 

Get VM info, IP address, and more

Purpose: generate a custom report.

but it won’t  be useful unless .you export it to a CSV file

Get-VM | Select -property Name, @{N=”Cluster”;E={Get-Cluster -VM $_}},@{N=’IP’;E={$_.guest.IPAddress[0]}} , “Guest”, Notes, NumCpu,CoresPerSocket, MemoryGB, ProvisionedSpaceGB , UsedSpaceGB
Get-VM | Select -property Name, @{N=”Cluster”;E={Get-Cluster -VM $_}},@{N=’IP’;E={$_.guest.IPAddress[0]}} , “Guest”

#foreach($vm in Get-VM){
# $vm.Guest.IPAddress[0] |
# Select -property Name, @{N=”Cluster”;E={Get-Cluster -VM $_}}, @{N=’IP’;E={$_.guest.IPAddress[0]}} , “Guest”, ProvisionedSpaceGB , UsedSpaceGB, Notes, NumCpu, CoresPerSocket, MemoryGB
#}
#foreach($vm in Get-VM){
# $vm.Guest.IPAddress[0] |
# Select @{N=’Name’;E={$vm.name}},@{N=’IP’;E={$_}}, @{N=”Cluster”;E={Get-Cluster -VM $_}}, @{N=”Operating System”;E={Guest}}, @{N=”Notes”;E={Notes}}, @{N=”CPU Count”;E={NumCpu}}, @{N=”Core Count”;E={CoresPerSocket}}, @{N=”RAM”;E={MemoryGB}}, @{N=”Provisioned Capacity”;E={ProvisionedSpaceGB}}, @{N=”Used Space”;E={UsedSpaceGB}}
#}

# ProvisionedSpaceGB , UsedSpaceGB, Notes, NumCpu, CoresPerSocket, MemoryGB
#, UsedSpaceGB
#Guest
#Notes
#NumCpu
#CoresPerSocket

#MemoryGB

Example

To export the result to CSV, use the following example:

PS E:\> .\get-ipv4+details.ps1 | Export-Csv “d:\vm.csv”

The result should look like this:

 

Get VMware tools version and status

Purpose: generate a custom report.

get-vm | select -property @{N=”Name”; E={$_.name}}, ToolsVersion,ToolsVersionStatus

Example

 

Check the ESXi host domain authentication health status

Purpose: generate a custom report.

Get-VMHostAuthentication | select -Property @{N=”Host”;E={$_.vmhost.Name}}, Domain, DomainMembershipStatus

Example

 

Join ESXi host(s) to AD domain

Purpose: automate a task.

Get-VMHostAuthentication -VMHost <VMHost> | Set-VMHostAuthentication -JoinDomain -Domain <Domain> -User <Username> -Password <Password>

To apply this to all of your hosts, run the command as following. Bear in mind that the username used for joining to domain must be written in the same format as below:

Get-VMHostAuthentication -VMHost * | Set-VMHostAuthentication -JoinDomain -Domain “homelab.local” -User “user01@homelab.local”  -Password <Password>

 

Refresh/rescan HBA adapters of ESXi hosts

Purpose: automate a task.

Get-VMHostStorage -VMHost <HOSTNAME or ” * ” for all hosts> -Refresh -RescanAllHba -RescanVmfs

Example

 

Set DNS and NTP server IP addresses to all ESXi hosts

Purpose: automate a task.

save this syntax to a “ps1” file to run it as a script

# PowerCLI Script to Configure DNS and NTP on ESXi Hosts
# PowerCLI Session must be connected to vCenter Server using Connect-VIServer

# Prompt for Primary and Alternate DNS Servers
$dnspri = read-host “Enter Primary DNS”
$dnsalt = read-host “Enter Alternate DNS”

# Prompt for Domain
$domainname = read-host “Enter Domain Name”

#Prompt for NTP Servers
$ntpone = read-host “Enter NTP Server One”
$ntptwo = read-host “Enter NTP Server Two”

$esxHosts = get-VMHost

foreach ($esx in $esxHosts) {

Write-Host “Configuring DNS and Domain Name on $esx” -ForegroundColor Green
Get-VMHostNetwork -VMHost $esx | Set-VMHostNetwork -DomainName $domainname -DNSAddress $dnspri , $dnsalt -Confirm:$false
Write-Host “Configuring NTP Servers on $esx” -ForegroundColor Green
Add-VMHostNTPServer -NtpServer $ntpone , $ntptwo -VMHost $esx -Confirm:$false
Write-Host “Configuring NTP Client Policy on $esx” -ForegroundColor Green
Get-VMHostService -VMHost $esx | where{$_.Key -eq “ntpd”} | Set-VMHostService -policy “on” -Confirm:$false

Write-Host “Restarting NTP Client on $esx” -ForegroundColor Green
Get-VMHostService -VMHost $esx | where{$_.Key -eq “ntpd”} | Restart-VMHostService -Confirm:$false

}
Write-Host “Done!” -ForegroundColor Green

 

Set ESXi shell session time-out

Purpose: automate a task.

In the following example, the timeout is set to 900 seconds, adjust that value to suit your needs. The value is in seconds.

#List UserVars.ESXiShellInteractiveTimeOut for each host
Get-VMHost | Select Name,
@{N=”UserVars.ESXiShellInteractiveTimeOut”;E={$_
| Get-AdvancedSetting -Name
UserVars.ESXiShellInteractiveTimeOut
| Select -ExpandProperty Value}}

# Set UserVars.ESXiShellTimeOut to 900 on all hosts
Get-VMHost
| Foreach { Get-AdvancedSetting -Entity $_ -Name
UserVars.ESXiShellInteractiveTimeOut | Set-AdvancedSetting
-Value 900 }

 

Set/modify DNS servers configured on ESXI hosts

Purpose: automate  a task.

Note: this wont work if the host is already a domain member, the host needs to leave the domain first, run this command, and then re-join it to domain again.

Get-VMHost | get-vmhostnetwork | Set-VMHostNetwor k -DnsAddress 192.168.1.50, 192.168.1.151

 

I hope you find this helpful.

 

Thank you,