PowerCLI Archives - Page 3 of 12

Le Onyx nouveau est arrivé ! *

Did you convert to the vSphere Web client when you installed vSphere 5.5 or 6.0 ?

Are you using PowerCLI ?

Do you sometimes use SDK API methods for those special scripts ?

If you answered yes to some of these questions, you must be missing the Onyx Project application ! Well, your patience is rewarded. In the Fling repository you will find, starting today, the new Onyx for the Web Client v1.0 package.

With the new Onyx you can watch which methods and properties all your Web Client actions are using. And with that knowledge you can easily ascend another level or two on your path to automation nirvana !

Continue reading Le Onyx nouveau est arrivé ! * →

PowerCLI and PowerShell Workflows

In PowerShell v3 the Workflow feature was introduced. But until now there haven’t been too many examples available on how to use PowerCLI in PowerShell Workflows. Today I was triggered by a thread from Mark in the PowerCLI VMTN community, to revise some of my Workflow code snippets I had laying around.

And if you didn’t have enough arguments yet to upgrade to PowerCLI v6, which brings MODULES, the Workflow feature will give you another one !

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PowerCLI and the Linux Shellshock vulnerability

With all the fuss going round about the latest Linux vulnerability you will probably get a request from your local Security Officer to produce a report which of your Linux systems are vulnerable to the Shellshock bug. And, seen there are already several known exploits, who can blame him for asking such a report.

Since a lot of these Linux boxes are running under vSphere, we can use PowerCLI to produce such a report. The Invoke-VMScript cmdlet is the vehicle I use in the following function. With the Invoke-VMScript cmdlet it is very easy to execute, what is considered the best test to check for the vulnerability.

Update2 September 29 2014: the 2nd test from the Shellshocker gives a syntax error. The test is replaced by the one found on Michael Boelen‘s website in How to protect yourself against Shellshock Bash vulnerability. Big thanks to Wil van Antwerpen for the pointer.

Update1 September 29 2014: the function was updated to include tests for most of the known Shellshock vulnerabilities. The tests were collected from the Shellshocker site.
Continue reading PowerCLI and the Linux Shellshock vulnerability →

Stats Toolbox – A vSphere Server Performance Counter tool

Finding out which performance counters are available on your vSphere server over which time interval, is not always an easy task. There is of course the Performance Manager entry in the VMware vSphere API Reference, but that is not always the easiest task. Let alone finding out what a specific counter actually represents.

For that reason I decided to create a tool, which I called the Stats Toolbox, that would query the vSphere server to get the actual list of counters it collects for each interval. In the tool I added some extra features that would make working with the performance counters easier.

During our VMworld 2014 US breakout session I demonstrated the features of the Stats Toolbox, and I received quite some positive feedback.

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Tintri Automation Toolkit – Part 2 – VM Protection and Reporting

After Part 1 – The Basics in this series, I will show in Part 2 how you can set up Tintri’s VM Protection through Replication. And to conclude this post I will show some Reporting that you can do with the Tintri Automation Toolkit.

Continue reading Tintri Automation Toolkit – Part 2 – VM Protection and Reporting →

Tintri Automation Toolkit – Part 1 – The Basics

There are numerous companies that recognized the usefulness of PowerShell, and how it can help automate their product. The PowerCLI PSSnapin from VMware is a great example.

And now Tintri, the creators of the VMstore, have joined the ranks. Tintri delivers a PowerShell module, called the Tintri Automation Toolkit, that allows administrators to automate the monitoring and management of a VMstore system. The Toolkit also nicely leverages PowerShell constructs such as object piping for enabling end-to-end VM-level automation.

These posts will not be providing a detailed description of the VMstore, and all its merits. There are ample other sources available for that. Needless to say you should definitely have a look at the Tintri website if you want to learn more about the VMstore. I listed a couple of other sources at the end of the series.

I was given the opportunity to have a preview of the of the Tintri Automation Toolkit module, and was permitted to play around with the cmdlets in the Tintri lab.

To take away all suspense, I was quite impressed!

Continue reading Tintri Automation Toolkit – Part 1 – The Basics →

PowerCLI 5.5 R2, they do listen to you !

About a week ago I was so fortunate to being able to visit the Team behind PowerCLI.

I did already meet some of the PowerCLI Dev Team members on previous occasions, but this time I was able to see the complete team on their own turf.

Sometimes you immediately feel the chemistry that is present in a Team. And you know, even before you see what they produce, that great products will come out. This Team was for me a typical example of that.

Add on top of that, a dedicated and enthusiastic Product Manager, and voila, magic is in the air.

PowerCLI might be a free product, but you wouldn’t be able to tell that from seeing how this Team, located in Sofia Bulgaria, is dedicated to bringing a new build to you on a tight schedule.

And although PowerCLI might look like a simple products from the surface, you would be amazed at seeing the brainstorming, prototyping and reviewing that hides behind each new PowerCLI build this Team rolls out.

And they did it again with the PowerCLI 5.5 R2 build.

Continue reading PowerCLI 5.5 R2, they do listen to you ! →

Event-O-Matic

One of the questions, related to working with vSphere events and tasks, that often appear in the PowerCLI Community, is how do we know which events to select for a query.

To make that task a bit easier, I wrote the Event-O-Matic script. It’s a GUI that allows you to pick a number of events, and the script will generate the PowerShell code, and place it in the clipboard. The Event-O-Matic script was mentioned during our VMworld 2013 US session VSVC4944.

Update November 9th 2022:

removed PSSnapin loaded test

Update September 7th 2013:

added at least PowerShell v3 test
added PowerCLI core pssnapin loaded test

Continue reading Event-O-Matic →

My favorite PowerShell editor is free now!

I rarely post about products, since I want to keep my blog “technical“, but there was some big news from Idera today.
As from version 4.6, their famous PowerShell Plus editor is now a free tool.

This is the editor I have been using to write, and debug, my PowerShell and PowerCLI scripts since day 1.

It would take me several pages to list the features I like and use in PowerShell Plus, but there are 2 that were ‘love at first sight’ for me; the Debug mode and the Variables pane. You can’t go without those when you are writing a script.

So why not give it a try, it’s for free now 🙂

Belgian VMUG event #17, the “Blogger Edition”

Today was a historic day for the Belgian VMUG.

The 17th edition, the so-called “Blogger Edition“, was completely sold out. All 170 attendees, a new record, had a great day and the presenters all gave a peak performance. The list of presenters was impressive to say the least.

I was honored to have been selected to do a presentation as well. Since it was in Belgium, I decided to give the subject of my session a local twist. The subject was PowerCLI and beer, you can’t live without them.

You’ll be missing the story I told during the presentation, but on request, the slides.

Update: all presentations are now available here (requires a VMUG account).

Continue reading Belgian VMUG event #17, the “Blogger Edition” →