Tag: Script

Validating Connection Result of Connect-VIServer

Validating connection result of Connect-VIServer is trick since VMware doesn’t use the standard way of throwing errors.

There are different error messages for different scenarios. We can leverage “Try Catch Finally” of PowerShell to testing connection result and output customized errors.

The essential format of testing vCenter connection is below. PowerShell cannot catch error message if you don’t add “-ErrorAction Stop” when connect vCenter.

try{
    connect-viserver vcenter-xxxx -ErrorAction Stop
}
catch [VMware.VimAutomation.ViCore.Types.V1.ErrorHandling.InvalidLogin]{
    Write-Host "Permission issue"
}
catch [VMware.VimAutomation.Sdk.Types.V1.ErrorHandling.VimException.ViServerConnectionException]{
    Write-Host "Cannot connect to vCenter Server"
}
catch
    {Write-Host "Other issue"}
finally{
    write-host "the end."
}

How to know error types of the validating connection result?

You probably have question how did I know which error types are for what? I used a very simple way that just give it a try. 🙂

# Simulating connection error
Connect-VIServer vCenter.zhengwu.org -User "xxx" -Password "yyy"

# Format output of $Error. $Error stores output of errors in PowerShell.
$error[0] | fl * -force

# You will see similar lines below
writeErrorStream      : True
PSMessageDetails      :
Exception             : VMware.VimAutomation.ViCore.Types.V1.ErrorHandling.InvalidLogin: 7/29/2019 9:27:30 AM   Connect-VIServer                Cannot complete login due to an
                        incorrect user name or password.         ---> VMware.Vim.VimException: Cannot complete login due to an incorrect user name or password. --->
                        System.ServiceModel.FaultException`1[VimApi_67.InvalidLogin]: Cannot complete login due to an incorrect user name or password.

VMware.VimAutomation.ViCore.Types.V1.ErrorHandling.InvalidLogin is the error type we want to find.

Conclusion

This is very simple way to validating connection result of Connect-VIServer. Looks like the result errors coming from different assemblies. For example, connection error is VMware.VimAutomation.Sdk.Types.V1.ErrorHandling.VimException.ViServerConnectionException. It’s hard to find out all possible errors. I’m looking for a official document but no lucky. Please let me know if you know where I can reference.

Show CDP Neighbor of Cisco UCS Uplinks

There are two ways to know which network switch ports the network uplinks of Cisco UCS Fabric Interconnects are connected to.

By CLI

  • SSH to the Cisco UCS Manager.
  • Connect to FI-A.
# connect nxos a
  • Show neighbor of network uplinks.
# show cdp neighbor interface ethernet <port num>

By PowerShell

  • Make sure Cisco PowerTool (For UCS Manager) is installed.
  • Enabling the Information Policy via UCSM GUI.
    • Go to “Equipment” -> “Policies” tab -> “Global Policies” tab -> “Info Policy” area.
    • Change to “Enabled“. (No impact to running blades)
  • Open a PowerShell window.
  • Connect to the UCS Manager.
# Connect-Ucs <UCS FQDN>
  • Show CDP neighbor details.
# Get-UcsNetworkLanNeighborEntry

Side notes

Following command can shows network switch name, network switch ports and FI ports

# Get-UcsNetworkLanNeighborEntry | Select deviceid,remoteinterface,localinterface

If you prefer to enable the “Info Policy” by PowerShell, run following command

# Get-UcsTopInfoPolicy | Set-UcsTopInfoPolicy -State enabled -Force

How To Find Non-tagged ESXi Hosts

There are plenty of scripts to find tagged ESXi hosts. But what if you want to find out all ESXi hosts not be tagged? Following is a simple script:

Compare-Object ((Get-VMHost | Get-TagAssignment).Entity | select -uniq) (Get-VMHost)

The output is similar like following:

InputObject      SideIndicator
-----------      -------------
esx1         =>  
esx2         =>  
esx3         =>

The => indicates ESXi hosts in InputObject are not tagged.

If return is nothing, it means all ESXi hosts are tagged.

Please refer to “Using the Compare-Object Cmdlet” for detail.

Automatic vSphere Capacity Report in PPT

Reporting is important to management. To be a IT Pro, you may need to run regular reports for management. Some reports may be generated time consume. vRealize Operations Manager is an alternative to create customized reports. It’s a powerful product to organize data and create PDF or CSV files on scheduled intervals. I recommend have a look if you have planned to implement performance, capacity and alarm system for virtual environment.

What if budget is constrained? Is there a way to create such kind of reports? The answer is “Yes”. I worked out an automatic workflow to create the reports. I will not provide step-by-step guide in this post since it’s advanced integration of multiple products, everyone may have different way to do that. You can even create everything by script if you have strong programming skill. I’m not, I only look for the easiest way to achieve the goal.

Here is a scenario for  example: I want to run a monthly report for vSphere CPU and memory count and present to management by PowerPoint. I want to show management the historical trend of CPU and memory data. The traditional way is collect data in vCenter, organize and create charts in PowerPoint slides. So the whole workflow is: vCenter -> PowerPoint

If you want to automate the whole process you need to introduce few things more: PowerCLI, CSV and Excel. You need to develop a PowerCLI script to grab CPU and memory data on vCenter Server, then export the data to a CSV table by PowerShell command export-csv. Then import the table to an Excel file by Office feature Query Data. It loads the CSV table dynamically, you can even specific what data can be queried by filter.

Once the table is present in Excel, you need to create a chart accordingly. It’s trick when you paste the chart to PowerPoint Slide. You need to use Paste Special to paste the chart as Microsoft Excel Chart Object. The pasted chart can be updated automatically when you open the PowerPoint file.

The last step is created a scheduled task to run the PowerCLI script. Make sure you read my blog Extremely slow when run PowerShell script by scheduled tasks before create the task.

You can also configure the Excel file to automatically update table by CSV file.

How to Integrate PowerCLI 6.5 with PowerShell and PowerShell ISE

I wrote an article to introducing how to integrate PowerCLI with PowerShell and PowerShell ISE. VMware just released PowerCLI 6.5 R1, it includes lot  of new features and modules. And somehow my way doesn’t work. Following is new way to integrate PowerCLI 6.5 with PowerShell and PowerShell ISE in Windows 10.

PowerShell and PowerShell ISE both have it own $profile. So we need to do two times.

Before we start

Please make sure your PowerShell execution policy is not restricted. You can get the setting by run  following command:

Get-ExecutionPolicy

PowerShell Integration

  1. Open PowerShell window. Run following command to confirm profile file is not existing. 
    Test-Path $profile

    If return is ‘False’, go to step 2.
    If return is ‘True’, Backup the file and go to step 3.

  2. Run following command if the  profile file  doesn’t existing. 
    New-Item -Path $profile -type file -force | Out-Null

Test-Path $profile

    The return above should be ‘True’. Profile file is created.

  3. Run following command to include VMware PowerCLI modules in  PowerShell. 
    Add-Content -Path $profile -value "# Load Windows PowerShell cmdlets for managing vSphere `r`n. 'C:Program Files (x86)VMwareInfrastructurePowerCLIScriptsInitialize-PowerCLIEnvironment.ps1'"

    The blue text above maybe different in your environment base upon where your PowerCLI is installed.

PowerShell ISE Integration

PowerShell ISE process is same to PowerShell, only different is all the operation should be completed in PowerShell ISE window.

Reboot is not required in my environment. But anyhow please reboot if you see any issue.

The processes above integrate PowerCLI 6.5 with PowerCLI and PowerCLI ISE for  current user only. If you want to integrate for all users on the machine, you need to refer to this article.

How to integrate PowerCLI with PowerShell and PowerShell ISE

I wrote a post about how to integrate PowerCLI with PowerShell manually. I rebuilt my computer few days ago, need to integrate PowerCLI again. I used to scripting by PowerGUI, but something always lead to PowerGUI lost menu, it frustrated me a long time. I cannot figured out what’s the root cause. So I wondered is it possible use PowerShell ISE instead of PowerGUI?

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