Powershell on A.J. Elsinga

PowerShell Friday: Load PowerCLI from your own script

Fri, 22 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

When you want to start your PowerCLI scripts or just use the cmdlets for VMware, you can start VMware vSphere PowerCLI from your start menu. From the window you get you can use all PowerCLI cmdlets that you need or your own scripts.

PowerShell Friday: Backup, source control, versioning

Thu, 21 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

You finally created that script that saves you a lot of time. Suddenly it doesn’t work anymore. Now the panic slowly kicks in. Where did you put that backup? Did you backup it? Or did you forget?

PowerShell Friday: Retrieving IP addresses for VMs

Fri, 08 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

As I explained in the article about ExtensionData each VM object has a lot of information stored. If you want to know the IP addresses of a particular VM you can use PowerCLI to get those properties.

PowerShell Friday: ExtensionData

Fri, 26 Feb 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Did you know that VMware stores a lot of information about your virtual machines? And that you can retrieve all that data with PowerCLI?

PowerShell Friday: Christmas Special

Thu, 24 Dec 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Tomorrow is Christmas, so this post is a day early, but I wanted to give you something you can play with when you’re done eating, drinking and getting merry. That’s the reason I won’t be giving you PowerShell or PowerCLI scripts that have anything to do with work.

You can do a lot more with PowerShell than you might think. Anything you can imagine you can create with PowerShell. It doesn’t matter if it is playing some music, displaying ASCII art, or something completely far-stretching mind boggling.

PowerShell Friday: Adding Memory with PowerCLI

Fri, 18 Dec 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Just before the holidays we’ve got a small PowerCLI onliner for you. Nothing fancy, but still useful.

PowerShell Friday: Adding CPU's with PowerCLI

Fri, 11 Dec 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Sometimes you need to add CPUs to your virtual machines. Adding CPU’s is easy on a virtual machine. Of course you can do this from the vSphere Client, where you can select the number of CPUs and the number of cores per CPU. If you only need to change one virtual machine this isn’t a problem. When you have to change 50 virtual machines it gets somewhat tiresome.

PowerShell Friday: Snapshots

Fri, 04 Dec 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Virtual machine snapshots are useful for sysadmins, since they preserve the state of a virtual machine’s virtual disk and, optionally, virtual memory before upgrading an application for example. VM Snapshots are also taken by a lot of backup applications for VMs at the start of the backup and then removed at the end of the backup. Since the original vmdk is frozen and all changes are written to the snapshotfile it can get big real fast, especially on machines that do a lot of write actions. Next to the size there is also a performance component to the use of snapshots. That’s why it is wise to manage your snapshots on a regular basis.

PowerShell Friday: stopping VMs

Fri, 27 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

This weeks PowerShell Friday is about stopping VMs with PowerCLI.

PowerShell Friday: Starting VMs

Fri, 20 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

With PowerCLI you can manage and automate your VMware infrastructure from the command line. After you connect to vCenter you can do all kinds of nifty stuff. For example it is very easy to start virtual machines. You can use the complete name of the VM, or you can use a wildcard or use the cmdlet in a pipe. The cmdlet for starting VMs itself is easy to remember:

PowerShell Friday: Connecting to vCenter

Fri, 13 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

For our first cmdlet on PowerShell Friday we are going to connect to vCenter.

PowerShell Friday: quick start with PowerShell & PowerCLI

Fri, 06 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

PowerShell Friday: Getting Started with PowerShell and PowerCLI

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

PowerShell was release on November 14, 2006 and is now (or should be?) one of the major components in an admins life. If you’re just getting started on Windows or are new to the whole scripting and automation scene, this one is especially for you.

Connect ISO to VM the PowerCLI way

Mon, 09 May 2011 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

I recently bought a new server for my home lab, or at least, it was the start of my home lab. After my ESX host crashed two years ago I didn’t took the time to rebuild it.

More PowerShell stuff

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Last year I started to write a small program in Perl to document the virtual infrastructures we encounter at client locations. But since it’s all PowerShell it was time to start to write the same thing in PowerShell.

Browsing through your VC database like a drive

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

Yesterday I was browsing through the PowerShell scripts posted in the VI Toolkit community on the VMware site.

Searching for a VM

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

One of the problems that most people have with virtualizing vCenter is that they don’t know where the vCenter VM is when there are problems.

Creating portgroups with PowerShell

Wed, 24 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

I must be a workaholic. I was browsing my laptop for some movie and I came across a folder with all kinds of plugins for VirtualCenter. Things like addPortgroup and other stuff.

VMware and PowerShell

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

I’m from the pre-WIMP era, like in pre Windows, Icons, Mouse, Pointers. There wasn’t anything like a graphical user interface. Even when they emerged like Norton Commander and PC Tools I still did most of my work from the commandline. Stuff like 4DOS enriched my life so I could get the most out of the commandline.

PowerShell and Exchange 2007

Tue, 28 Nov 2006 23:00:00 +0000

For all IT folks who despise the graphic interface for managing tasks and prefer to automate everything: Your life is getting better!

PowerShell is the way to go.

I’m not going to go into detail… others can do that better and have already done so. Below are a few links.

PowerShell/Exchange http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=5840051