With the recent publication of my Get-InventoryPlus function, I can now get the path to all vSphere objects. So the obvious next step was to create a function, that would be able to use that information and retrieve any vSphere object by it’s path.

The function was first demonstrated during the 24th VMUGBe in Mechelen.

The Script

function Get-VIObjectByPath{
<#
.SYNOPSIS
  Retrieve a vSphere object by it's path.
.DESCRIPTION
  This function will retrieve a vSphere object from it's path.
  The path can be absolute or relative.
  When a relative path is provided, the StartNode needs
  to be provided
.NOTES
  Author:  Luc Dekens
.PARAMETER StartNode
  The vSphere Server (vCenter or ESXi) from which to retrieve
  the objects.
  The default is $Global:DefaultVIServer
.PARAMETER Path
  A string with the absolute or relative path.
  The path shall not contain any hidden folders.
.EXAMPLE
  PS> Get-VIObjectByPath -Path '/Datacenter/Folder/VM1'
.EXAMPLE
  PS> Get-InventoryPlus -StartNode $node -Path $path
#>

  param(
    [VMware.Vim.ManagedEntity]$StartNode = (
      Get-View -Id (Get-View -Id ServiceInstance).Content.RootFolder
    ),
    [String]$Path
  )

  function Get-NodeChild{
    param(
      [VMware.Vim.ManagedEntity]$Node
    )
  
    $hidden = 'vm','host','network','datastore','Resources'
    switch($Node){
      {$_ -is [VMware.Vim.Folder]}{
        if($Node.ChildEntity){
          Get-View -Id $Node.ChildEntity
        }
      }
      {$_ -is [VMware.Vim.Datacenter]}{
        $all = @()
        $all += Get-View -Id $Node.VmFolder
        $all += Get-View -Id $Node.HostFolder
        $all += Get-View -Id $Node.DatastoreFolder
        $all += Get-View -Id $Node.NetworkFolder
        $all | %{
          if($hidden -contains $_.Name){
            Get-NodeChild -Node $_
          }
          else{
            $_
          }
        }
      }
      {$_ -is [VMware.Vim.ClusterComputeResource]}{
        $all = @()
        $all += Get-View -Id $Node.Host
        $all += Get-View -Id $Node.ResourcePool 
        $all = $all | %{
          if($hidden -contains $_.Name){
            Get-NodeChild -Node $_
          }
          else{
            $_
          }
        }
        $all
      }
      {$_ -is [VMware.Vim.ResourcePool]}{
        $all = @()
        if($Node.ResourcePool){
          $all += Get-View -Id $Node.ResourcePool
        }
        if($Node.vm){
          $all += Get-View -Id $Node.vm
        }
        $all
      }
      {$_ -is [VMware.Vim.DistributedVirtualSwitch]}{
        Get-View -Id $Node.Portgroup
      }
    }
  }

  $found = $true

  # Loop through Path
  $node = $StartNode
  foreach($qualifier in $Path.TrimStart('/').Split('/',[StringSplitOptions]::RemoveEmptyEntries)){
    $nodeMatch = @($node) | %{
      Get-NodeChild -Node $_ | where{$_.Name -eq $qualifier}
    }
    if(!$nodeMatch){
      $found = $false
      $node = $null
      break
    }
    $node = $nodeMatch
  }

  New-Object PSObject -Property @{
    Path = $Path
    Found = $found
    Node = $node
  }
}

Annotations

Line 26-28: The default StartNode is the RootFolder of the default vSphere server ($Global:DefaultVIServer)

Line 32-87: A inline Helper function that will return all children of a node. When a of the childnode is one of the hidden folders, the helper calls itself recursively. This to avoid returning one of the hidden folders.

Line 38: Depending on the Type of the node, different properties need to be used to find the children of a node.

Line 46-48: A Datacenter node points to four hidden folders. Each of these hidden folders in turn points to a number of other objects of a specific type.

Line 93: To avoid that the Split method returns an empty object when the Path is just the root (/), the [StringSplitOptions]::RemoveEmptyEntries option needs to be used.

Line 105-109: The result is returned as a custom object. The properties of this custom object allows easy access to the results: was the node found, what was the path and what is the actual VIObject.

Sample Usage

Simple

In it’s simplest form, you just provide a path with the Path parameter.

Get-VIObjectByPath -Path '/Folder11'

The result is an object with a number of properties:

• Path: the path that was passed into the function
• Found: a Boolean, indicating if the node was found
• Node: the actual vSphere object

Inventory Check

We can use the output of the Get-InventoryPlus function, record the result, and then check if all the vSphere objects that were reported are still there. Kind of an iCheck

The inventory was created with the following lines

Get-VIObjectByPath -NoValue 'na' | 
Export-Csv -Path c:\Temp\inventory.csv -NoTypeInformation -UseCulture

The resulting CSV file looks something like this

The following script will read the inventory, and use the Get-VIObjectByPath function to check if each of the nodes in the inventory is still there.

function Test-NodePath{
  param(
    [String]$Path
  )

  $nodeObj = Get-VIObjectByPath -Path $Path
  if($nodeObj.Found){$true}else{$false}
}

foreach($entry in (Import-Csv C:\Temp\inventory.csv -UseCulture)){
  $path = $entry.Path

  Write-Host "$($Entry.Type) $($entry.Name)"

  if($entry.Path -ne 'na'){
    Write-Host -ForegroundColor Yellow "`tPath " -NoNewline
    Write-Host "$($Entry.Path)" -NoNewline

    if(Test-NodePath -Path $entry.Path){
      Write-Host -ForegroundColor Green "`tok"
    }
    else{
      Write-Host -ForegroundColor Yellow "`tnok"
    }
  }

  if($entry.BluePath -ne 'na'){
    Write-Host -ForegroundColor Cyan "`tBluePath " -NoNewline
    Write-Host "$($Entry.BluePath)" -NoNewline

    if(Test-NodePath -StartNode $rootFolder -Path $entry.BluePath){
      Write-Host -ForegroundColor Green "`tok"
    }
    else{
      Write-Host -ForegroundColor Yellow "`tnok"
    }
  }
}

The result is displayed on the PS console (yes, I know this must have killed a lot of puppies), and looks like this.

Looks like the junior admin removed a VM !

Enjoy!