Objectives 5.1 are broke down as the following
- Install and configure vSphere PowerCLI
- Use basic and advanced PowerCLI Cmdlets to manage a vSphere deployment
- Analyze a sample script, then modify the script to perform a given action
- Use PowerCLI to configure and administer Auto Deploy (including Image Builder)
- Create a report from a PowerCLI script
Install and configure vSphere PowerCLI
I will be using the latest version of vSphere PowerCLI as of the time of writing which is version 6.3 Release 1 running on a Windows box. Supported OS for this release include Windows 2012 R2, Windows 2008 R2 SP1, Windows 10, Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 SP1. Also make sure Powershell and .Net 4.5 are installed. The install itself is straightforward.
Run the installer and pick which modules you want to install
I then need then set the execution policy of Powershell to RemoteSigned to be able to run scripts and load configuration files. I need to open PowerCLI and run
>Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned
For the exam its unclear how much configuration is required for PowerCLI. As PowerCLI is started up the default modules are loaded from the Initialize-PowerCLIEnvionment.ps1 script located in the install directory script folder.
To add a custom script to run after this script, copy the script into this folder and call it Initialize-PowerCLIEnvionment_Custom.ps1. On startup the Initialize-PowerCLIEnvionment.ps1 will automatically run another script with this name should one exist.
Use basic and advanced PowerCLI Cmdlets to manage a vSphere deployment
I will go over some example Cmdlets but it would be impossible to show them all, people have wrote books on the subject and it difficult to know what you will be asked to do in the exam. Auto Deploy configuration via PowerCLI falls into the remit so I would expect that to be included. Pluralsight have an advanced management course on the subject that can be found here. The VMware documentation can be found here. Regardless of the questions that might get asked, if you can use PowerCLI you can save a lot of time in the exam instead of waiting for the Web Client to respond / refresh.
First I need to connect to vCenter
>connect-VIServer -Server lab-vc01.vjenner.com -User Administrator@vsphere.local -Password Password123!
The following powers on a VM - migrates it to another host then initiates a guest shutdown
>Get-VM Lab-DB01 | Start-VM
>Get-VM Lab-DB01 -Location lab-esxi01.vjenner.com | Move-VM -Destination lab-esxi02.vjenner.com
>Stop-VMGuest Lab-DB01
To put a host into maintenance and exit I run
>Set-VMHost -VMHost lab-esxi-01.vjenner.com -State “Maintenance” -RunAsync
>Set-VMHost -VMHost lab-esxi-01.vjenner.com -State “Connected” -RunAsync
To set a varible for the host object I run
>$vmhost = Get-VMHost -Name lab-esxi-01.vjenner.com
To clone out a template from a VM I can run
>New-Template -VM Lab-DB01 -Name Windows_Template -Location “Template Folder” -Datastore lab-vmfs-01
To create a snapshot I can run
>New-Snapshot -VM Lab-DB01 -Name PreUpgradeSnapshot
To create a new distributed switch under my Production datacenter I run the following
>New-VDSwitch -Name PowerCLIvDS -Location Production
I then need to add the host to the vDS
>AddVDSwitchVMHost -VDSwitch PowerCLIvDS -VMHost lab-esxi02.vjenner.com
I then can add an uplink but to do this I first create a variable that captures the host I want with the NIC I want to use as an uplink.
>$hostPhysicalNic = Get-VMhost -Name lab-esxi-02.vjenner.com | Get-VMHostNetworkAdapter -Name vmnic7
Once I have the variable I run the following
>Add-VDSwitchPhysicalNetworkAdapter -VMHostNetworkAdapter $hostPhysicalNic -DistributedSwitch PowerCLIvDS
To create a new customization and deploy a VM from template I can run the following, first I create the customization
>New-OSCustomizationSpec -Type NonPersistent -Name Spec -OSType Windows - Workgroup vJenner.com -OrgName vJenner.com -Fullname -vJenner -ProductKey 1111.1111.1111.1111.1111 -ChangeSid -TimeZone “Central European” -NamingScheme VM
Then to add a static IP address I run
>Get-OSCustomizationNicMapping -Spec Spec | Set-OSCustomizationNicMapping -Ipmode UseStaticIP -IPaddress 192.168.0.246 -SubnetMask 255.255.255.0 -DefaultGateway 192.168.0.1 -DNS 192.168.0.200
Then to deploy a VM with this customization I run
>New-VM -Name PowerCLI04 -VMHost lab-esxi-01.vjenner.com -OSCustomizationSpec Spec -Template Win2012Template
Analyze a sample script, then modify the script to perform a given action
See VMware’s documentation for examples of scripts here, I will illustrate some of these examples.
To create a VM from a XML file first create a xml file with the settings for the VM. I created a very basic on that only specifies the name and size of the vDisk.
Save this to the PowerCLI machine and I run the following
>[xml]$s = Get-Content C:\OSFiles\newvm.xml
>$s.CreateVM.VM | foreach {New-VM -VMHost $vmHost1 -Name $_.Name -DiskGB $_.HDDCapacity -Datastore lab-vmfs-04}
I can then expand the xml file to include a host, set the disk to be thin provisioned and set the CPU and memory settings.
I then need to amend the script to match the entries in the xml file.
If I want to set a VM share resources using a script I can do the following. First I check what shares have already been assigned
>Get-VMResourceConfiguration -VM Lab-01
>Get-VMResourceConfiguration -VM Lab-DB01 | fc -Property DiskResourceConfiguration
I then run the following to set the memory shares to Low and CPU shares to High
>Get-VM Lab-DB01 | Get-VMResourceConfiguration | Set-VMResourceConfiguration -MemSharesLevel Low -CpuSharesLevel High
Then I set the disk shares, I need to set some variables here once I have those set I run the below command
>$vm1 - Get-VM Lab-DB01
>$vm1disk = Get-HardDisk $vm1
>Get-VMResourceConfiguration $vm1 | Set-VMResourceConfiguration -Disk $vm1disk -DiskSharesLevel custom -NumDiskShares 300
Use PowerCLI to configure and administer Auto Deploy (including Image Builder)
PowerCLI is critical for using Auto Deploy, its here you have to create image profiles and create deploy rules to build your hosts. I have covered this in a previous exam objective, see here. At that point I didnt cover the Image Builder which I will illustrate it here. Image Builder can be used to update an existing image profile to include new or updated vibs, this can be from VMware from a new release of ESXi or from a 3rd party vendor that has updated one of their vibs.
First I connect to vCenter using PowerCLI and see what image profiles I have previously configured, I have one configured called LabProfiles6.0 which is using the ESXi 6.0 GA release image.
>Get-EsxImageProfile
For this example I have downloaded a newer version of ESXi and add it as a software depot.
>Add-EsxSoftwareDepot C:\OSFiles\ESXi-6.0.0.20160301001s.zip
I then want to clone out my existing image profile to a new one that I want to use for the updated profile.
>New-EsxImageProfile -CloneProfile LabProfiles6.0 -Name LabProfiles6.0Update
For this example I want to add the updated esx-base, first I to find the build number
>Get-EsxSoftwarePackage -name esx-base
I then need to use the build number and add it to the following command
>Add-EsxSoftwarePackage -ImageProfile LabProfiles6.0Update -SoftwarePackage “esx-base 6.0.0-1.31.3568943”
I can then export this profile to a .zip file if I want to or use it for a deployment rule.
You can also connect directly to the vendor software depot and export the updated package that way, VMware’s is available at https://hostupdate.vmware.com/software/VUM/PRODUCTION/main/vmw-depot-index.xml.
First add the remote depot
>Add-EsxSoftwareDepot https://hostupdate.vmware.com/software/VUM/PRODUCTION/main/vmw-depot-index.xml
Then check what profiles are available and find the version you want to export
>Get-EsxImageProfile -name “ESXi6*”
Find the version to export and run
>Export-EsxImageProfile -ImageProfile ESXi6.0.0-20160301001s-standard -FilePath C:\OSFiles\ESXi-6.0.0.20160301001s
A remote software depot can be used for the image builder the same way as a local depot.
Create a report from a PowerCLI script
PowerCLI commands can be exported into different formats for creating reports, the following commands are the export options.
- Export-Csv
- Export-Clixml
- ConvertTo-Csv
- ConvertTo-Html
- ConvertTo-Xml
To export all VM information to a CSV file I can run
>Get-VM | Export-CSV C:\OSFiles\Export.csv -NoTypeInformation
Output looks like this
To export all host information within a cluster to HTML I can run
>Get-Cluster “Compute Cluster 1” | Get-VMHost | ConvertTo-Html | Out-File C:\OSfiles\Hostincluster.html
Output looks like this
To get a list of powered on VMs and to limit the output to CSV I can run the following
>Get-VM | Where { $_.PowerState -eq “PoweredOn”} | Select Name, NumCPU, MemoryMB, PowerState, VmHost | Export-CSV C:\OSFiles\Export4.csv
Output looks like this