I have it on good word that as of Wednesday last week the VMware turtles have gone on winter vacation to their condo in the Amazon Rain Forest. They’ll be back after the cold snap ends.

That I go on Vacation! I’ll be leaving in about 2 hours to sunny Boca Raton, Florida to spend the next two weeks with family and friends for the holidays. The blog volume will likely slow "WAY” down, but I believe I’m leaving you in the hands of some very capable guest posters: Pancil, Darky, and Robi as they like to be known.

See you on Jan 5th!

get-datacenter MyVC | get-vm | Get-NetworkAdapter | Where-Object { $_.Name -like "*1"} | Set-NetworkAdapter -NetworkName NotThatNetwork -Confirm:$false

So, say you provision all of your VM’s on one host, with one set of networks, that is completely removed from the remainder of your infrastructure. You then Cold-Migrate the new VM’s to their new homes. You now need to chance the network names to match. What you say? You have a dozen, a hundred of them to change? The above PowerShell one-liner will take care of all of that for you.

Questions? Comments? Leave em in the comments.

Do you? I do!

Really, I assure you, it will be very anticlimactic.

What happens in 3 days? You know, don’t you? Well, I’m sure you do. That said, here are 3 ways to configure a vSwitch. (Yes there are more ways than this, but alas… one has to stick with the theme.).

Using the Virtual Infrastructure Client:

Using The VI Toolkit (PowerShell)

Before:

PowerShell:

PS C:\> get-vmhost 192.168.15.253 | New-VirtualSwitch -Name Example2 -Numports 128

Name       Num Ports  Num Ports  Mtu   Key
                      Available
—-       ———  ———- —   —
Example2   128        127        1500  key-vim.host.VirtualSwitch-…

After:

Using the Remote CLI:

Before:

Rcli:

C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware VI Remote CLI\bin>perl esxcfg-vswitch.pl –vihost 192.168.15.253 –server dc01.nerv.local –add Example3

Enter username: cody.bunch

After:

Tell me about some other ways you do this in the comments.

Know what’s coming yet? No? Here are some wonderful VMware VIX things you can do while you think on it.

1. Install VMware Tools
2. Set IP
3. Snapshots
4. Reboot VM

These are all on one line. Note, the first two work, the second two at the time of this writing report “Error: Unknown error” (ESX in VIX 1.6.2 is still experimental, but I’ve an SR with these too)

Install VMware Tools

vmrun –T esx –h https://server/sdk –u user –p password –gu guestUser –gp guestPassword “[datastore] /vmfolder/vmname.vmx” installTools

Set IP

vmrun –T esx –h https://server/sdk –u user –p password –gu guestUser –gp guestPassword runProgramInGuest "[datastore] vm/vm.vmx" c:\windows\system32\netsh.exe int ip set address local static 192.168.15.25 255.255.255.0 192.168.15.1 1

Snapshots

vmrun –T esx –h https://server/sdk –u root –p pass snapshot “[datastore] vm/vm.vmx” test
vmrun –T esx –h https://server/sdk –u root –p pass deleteSnapshot “[datastore] vm/vm.vmx” test

Reboot VM

vmrun –T esx –h https://server/sdk –u someuser –p password reset “[datastore] vm/vm.vmx” soft

Let me know in the comments what you’re using VIX for.

5 Days now… Till? Guessed yet? If not, here are 5 PowerShell one-liner’s you cant live without.

1. get-vm | get-snapshot | where { $_.Created -le (Get-Date).AddDays(-7)}
2. get-vm | get-view | %{ $_.Config } | select Name,Uuid
3. get-vm | Get-CDDrive | Set-CDDrive -Connected:$false -Confirm:$false
4. get-template MyTemplate | new-vm -vmhost esxserver01 -name MyVM -OSCustomizationSpec MySpec
5. get-vmhost –name servername | set-vmhost –state maintenance

What are your favorite VI ToolKit PowerShell one-liners? Tell me in the comments.

Instead of guessing today, list the 6 things you love most about VMware/Virtualization.

Here’s mine:

1. vMotion
2. Storage vMotion
3. Enhanced vMotion Compatibility (EVC)
4. VI Toolkit for Windows (PowerShell)
5. Snapshots
6. Clone VMs (Live)

What are yours? Tell me in the comments.

 
Photo by JoaquinFuentes

Some of you will be disappointed to find out, that at the end of this, there will be only something so very mundane that you will question why I’m doing this, and my sanity!

Again, post all your guesses in the comments.