I finally have the chance to really get started working with and learning PowerShell.  There has been a big push at work to master this skill quickly.  I have worked with a few different scripting languages over my career and I also seem to end up focusing on one at a time.  Now it was really time to get heads down with PowerShell.  I have started to create my own PowerShell toolkit and thought I would share some of the basic scripts that I have just starting building as the basis of my toolkit.  I am going to spend the next couple of blog posts posting some of the scripts that I have built and as my confidence and skill level increase you should really see the scripts develop.  I would like to give a shout out to Scott Herold and his work with TheVESI project.  I have download this fantastic tool and have been using this to create my scripts.  Kudos to Scott and TheVESI team for a job well done.  If you have not had a chance to take a look that this I highly recommend it.  So let’s start putting together our toolkit shall we?

First script is the most basic scripts, starting a VM. 

#PowerShell script to start a VM
#Stephen Beaver
#Tripwire
#April 2009
#FORCE TO LOAD VMWARE POWERSHELL PLUGIN
Add-PSSnapIn VMware.VimAutomation.Core
$VMachineName = $Args[0]
if ($VMachineName -eq $null){
Write-Host
Write-Host “Please specify a Virtual Machine name eg….”
Write-Host ” powershell.exe startvm.ps1 VM1″
Write-Host
Write-Host
exit
}
Connect-VIServer
$VMachineName = $Args[0]
# This next line will restart the without a prompt before the action is taken
Start-VM -VM $VMachineName -Confirm:$false
# Comment the line above and use the line below to be prompted
#Start-VM -VM $VMachineName -Confirm:$true

Next Stopping a VM
#PowerShell script to stop a VM
#Stephen Beaver
#Tripwire
#April 2009
#FORCE TO LOAD VMWARE POWERSHELL PLUGIN
Add-PSSnapIn VMware.VimAutomation.Core
$VMachineName = $Args[0]
if ($VMachineName -eq $null){
Write-Host
Write-Host “Please specify a Virtual Machine name eg….”
Write-Host ” powershell.exe stopvm.ps1 VM1″
Write-Host
Write-Host
exit
}

Connect-VIServer
# This next line will restart the without a prompt before the action is taken
Stop-VM -VM $VMachineName -Confirm:$false
# Comment the line above and use the line below to be prompted
#Stop-VM -VM $VMachineName -Confirm:$true

Restarting a Virtual Machine

#PowerShell script to restart a VM
#Stephen Beaver
#Tripwire
#April 21 2009
#FORCE TO LOAD VMWARE POWERSHELL PLUGIN
Add-PSSnapIn VMware.VimAutomation.Core
$VMachineName = $Args[0]
if ($VMachineName -eq $null){
Write-Host
Write-Host “Please specify a Virtual Machine name eg….”
Write-Host ” powershell.exe vm_cddrive_remove.ps1 VM1″
Write-Host
Write-Host
exit
}
Connect-VIServer
# This next line will restart the without a prompt before the action is taken
#Restart-VMGuest -VM $VMachineName -Confirm:$false
# Comment the line above and use the line below to be prompted
Restart-VMGuest -VM $VMachineName -Confirm:$true

So as you see not too much is really needed to get started. Until next time

Happy Scripting!!!

powershell, Scripting, TheVESI, virtualization, vmware, VMware Tool Kit

This entry was posted on Monday, April 27th, 2009 at 8:58 am and is filed under Virtual Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.