PowerCLI Powerhsell

Installation

Allow powershell to run powercli cmdlets

Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned
Install-Module -Name VMware.PowerCLI

Log into the server and start using commands

$cred=get-credential
connect-viserver -server localhost -credential $cred
get-vm

Clone VM

new-vm -name <new_machine_name> -vm <source_machine_name> -vmhost <ip or host name of the physical host, not the controller>

Delete VM

remote-vm -vm <namme_of_vm> -deletepermanently  -confirm $false

Sample Script

format is <scriptname>.ps1 <number of VMs to make>
ie clone_vm.ps1 3

param([string]$num1)
#Athenticate
$cred=get-credential
connect-viserver -server localhost -credential $cred

#Check for enough space
$neededspace=([int]$num1 * '<space needed for each VM>')
$space12=(datastore -Name <datastore name> | Select-Object FreeSpaceGB | ForEach-Object { $_.FreeSpaceGB })
if ( $space12 -lt $neededspace ){
echo "Not enought space, $space12 is available and you need $neededspace"
exit
}
#The following assumes you are creating VMs with an incrementing name based on a [a-z]+-[a-z]+-[0-9]+ format.
#Get last VM created for incremental creation
get-folder -name <folder name> | get-vm | select name > C:\powercli\outtest
$vms=(Get-Content C:\powercli\outtest | %{"$($_.Split('-')[2])"})
$base=0
foreach($line in $vms){
if ([int]$line -gt [int]$base){
$base=$line
}
}
$base = [int]$base + 1
$num453=0
Do{
$usehost=(Get-VMHost | Get-Random)
new-vm -name vm-name-$base -vm clonefromthis -VMHost $usehost -RunAsync -WhatIf
$num453=[int]$num453 + [int]1
}until ([int]$num453 -eq [int]$num1)

Add/Remove Network Interfaces

The fun with this is that you can not remove a NIC from a running VM using powercli, or at least not in the way you would think. You actually need to rebuild the config with the changes you want then apply it back. Instead of doing this I decided to just disconnect the unwanted NIC and install the desired one. Thankfully this is in a DHCP environment so no modifications needed in the guest OS.

The reason for this change was due to Windows VMs losing connectivity to domain traffic using the emulated Intel NIC. According to our MS rep, we needed to change the NICs from e1000 to vmxnet3.

connect-viserver -server localhost
$list=get-vm
foreach ($i in $list){
$type=$i | Get-NetworkAdapter | select -ExpandProperty Type
if ($type -like "e1000"){
$i | get-networkadapter -name "Network adapter 1" | set-networkadapter -connected $false -startconnected $false -confirm $false
$i | new-networkadapter -networkname VDI -StartConnected -type vmxnet3}
}