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In a recent post New vCenter Scheduled Tasks with PowerCLI (Part 1), I provided two functions that return information related to vCenter Scheduled Tasks. This was my first step towards creating a PowerShell function that I could run to create scheduled snapshot tasks. This post will cover the create scheduled snapshot function.

NOTE: This function requires two additional functions, Get-VMScheduledSnapshots and Get-VIScheduledTasks, available here: New vCenter Scheduled Tasks with PowerCLI (Part 1).

Function New-VMScheduledSnapshot {
PARAM (
  [string]$vmName,
  [string]$runTime,
  [string]$notifyEmail=$null,
  [string]$taskName="$vmName Scheduled Snapshot"
)

# Verify we found a single VM
$vm = (get-view -viewtype virtualmachine -property Name -Filter @{"Name"="^$($vmName)$"}).MoRef
if (($vm | Measure-Object).Count -ne 1 ) { "Unable to locate a specific VM $vmName"; break }

# Validate datetime value and convert to UTC
try { $castRunTime = ([datetime]$runTime).ToUniversalTime() } catch { "Unable to convert runtime parameter to date time value"; break }
if ( [datetime]$runTime -lt (Get-Date) ) { "Single run tasks can not be scheduled to run in the past.  Please adjust start time and try again."; break }

# Verify the scheduled task name is not already in use
if ( (Get-VIScheduledTasks | ?{$_.Name -eq $taskName } | Measure-Object).Count -eq 1 ) { "Task Name `"$taskName`" already exists.  Please try again and specify the taskname parameter"; break }

$spec = New-Object VMware.Vim.ScheduledTaskSpec
$spec.name = $taskName
$spec.description = "Snapshot of $vmName scheduled for $runTime"
$spec.enabled = $true
if ( $notifyEmail ) {$spec.notification = $notifyEmail}
($spec.scheduler = New-Object VMware.Vim.OnceTaskScheduler).runAt = $castRunTime
($spec.action = New-Object VMware.Vim.MethodAction).Name = "CreateSnapshot_Task"
$spec.action.argument = New-Object VMware.Vim.MethodActionArgument[] (4)
($spec.action.argument[0] = New-Object VMware.Vim.MethodActionArgument).Value = "$vmName scheduled snapshot"
($spec.action.argument[1] = New-Object VMware.Vim.MethodActionArgument).Value = "Snapshot created using $taskName"
($spec.action.argument[2] = New-Object VMware.Vim.MethodActionArgument).Value = $false # Snapshot memory
($spec.action.argument[3] = New-Object VMware.Vim.MethodActionArgument).Value = $false # quiesce guest file system (requires VMware Tools)

[Void](Get-View -Id 'ScheduledTaskManager-ScheduledTaskManager').CreateScheduledTask($vm, $spec)
Get-VMScheduledSnapshots | ?{$_.Name -eq $taskName }
}

# Create a snapshot of the VM test002 at 9:40AM on 3/2/13
New-VMScheduledSnapshot test002 "3/2/13 9:40AM"

# Create a snapshot and send an email notification
New-VMScheduledSnapshot test002 "3/2/13 9:40AM" myemail@mydomain.com

# Use all of the options and name the parameters
New-VMScheduledSnapshot -vmname 'test001' -runtime '3/2/13 9:40am' -notifyemail 'myemail@mydomain.com' -taskname 'My scheduled task of test001'

I hope someone finds this function useful.

I work with a lot of scheduled tasks. Typically, these tasks run powershell scripts from the Windows Task Scheduler. However, when working with simple VMware tasks (like creating snapshots right before a maintenance window) I like to use the Scheduled Tasks feature from right inside vCenter. The other day I thought it would be interesting if I had a PowerShell function that I could run to create these snapshot tasks. The first step in this process is to figure out what tasks we already have…and understand where some of these properties are located using PowerCLI.

The following two functions can be used to get information on Scheduled Tasks inside vCenter. The first function Get-VIScheduledTasks will simply return a list of all scheduled tasks that exist in a vCenter environment. I picked out a handful of properties that I figured would be needed and return those by default, casting the date/time values into local time. If you need all of the properties (the native .Net view of the Scheduled Task Info objects) you can include the parameter -Full and all of the properties will be returned.

Function Get-VIScheduledTasks {
PARAM ( [switch]$Full )
if ($Full) {
  # Note: When returning the full View of each Scheduled Task, all date times are in UTC
  (Get-View ScheduledTaskManager).ScheduledTask | %{ (Get-View $_).Info }
} else {
  # By default, lets only return common headers and convert all date/times to local values
  (Get-View ScheduledTaskManager).ScheduledTask | %{ (Get-View $_ -Property Info).Info } |
  Select-Object Name, Description, Enabled, Notification, LastModifiedUser, State, Entity,
    @{N="EntityName";E={ (Get-View $_.Entity -Property Name).Name }},
    @{N="LastModifiedTime";E={$_.LastModifiedTime.ToLocalTime()}},
    @{N="NextRunTime";E={$_.NextRunTime.ToLocalTime()}},
    @{N="PrevRunTime";E={$_.LastModifiedTime.ToLocalTime()}}, 
    @{N="ActionName";E={$_.Action.Name}}
  }
}

This next function calls above function, but only returns the tasks whose action is “CreateSnapshot_Task”

Function Get-VMScheduledSnapshots {
  Get-VIScheduledTasks | ?{$_.ActionName -eq 'CreateSnapshot_Task'} |
    Select-Object @{N="VMName";E={$_.EntityName}}, Name, NextRunTime, Notification
}

Sample usage would be:

# To find all tasks that failed to execute last run
Get-VIScheduledTasks | ?{$_.State -ne 'success'}

# To find all snapshots that are not scheduled to run again:
Get-VMScheduledSnapshots | ?{$_.NextRunTime -eq $null}

I hope you find these functions useful. Be sure to check out the next post – on creating scheduled snapshots with PowerCLI!

Over the last couple of days, I have posted a handful of PowerCLI scripts to check a vSphere environment. These checks have looked at general cluster level reporting, networking and virtual machines. Today I’m posting a couple of checks that look at datastores. I hope you find these checks useful.

In my environment, local disks contain the text boot or local. The following code will return a list of non-shared datastores that do not follow this naming convention. This could indicate local disk that doesn’t follow a standard naming convention.

Get-View -ViewType Datastore -Property Name, Summary |
?{$_.Summary.MultipleHostAccess -eq $false -And $_.Name -notmatch "boot|local"} |
Select Name, @{N="Datastore Type";E={$_.Summary.Type}}, 
@{N="Capacity (GB)";E={[math]::round( $_.Summary.Capacity/1GB , 0)}} |
Sort-Object Name

The following script will return a list of datastores reporting as not accessible. I’ve seen this happen after removing datastores from hosts where array based snapshots had been previously presented. Typically an HBA re-scan will clear up this issue.

Get-View -ViewType Datastore -Property Name, Summary |
?{$_.Summary.Accessible -eq $false} | 
Select-Object name, @{N="Datastore Type";E={$_.Summary.Type}},
@{N="Capacity (GB)";E={[math]::round( $_.Summary.Capacity/1GB , 0)}} | 
Sort-Object Name

I try to keep the VMFS block size and version consistent on all shared storage in my environment. The following code will show VMFS datastores if inconsistent block sizes or VMFS versions are not using the most common configuration detected in the environment.

$vmfsDs = Get-View -ViewType Datastore -Property Name, Summary, Info, Host | 
?{$_.Summary.Type -eq 'VMFS' -and $_.Summary.MultipleHostAccess -eq $true} | 
Select-Object Name, @{N="VMFS Version";E={$_.Info.Vmfs.Version}}, 
@{N="Block Size (MB)";E={$_.Info.Vmfs.BlockSizeMB}},
@{N="Host Count";E={@($_.Host).Count}}

if ( ($vmfsDs | Select-Object -Property "Block Size (MB)" -Unique | Measure-Object).Count -gt 1 -or
  ($vmfsDs | Select-Object -Property "VMFS Version" -Unique | Measure-Object).Count -gt 1) { 
  $standardVmfsBlockSize = (($vmfsDs | Group-Object -Property "Block Size (MB)") | Sort-Object Count -Descending | Select-Object -First 1).Name
  $standardVmfsVersion = (($vmfsDs | Group-Object -Property "VMFS Version") | Sort-Object Count -Descending | Select-Object -First 1).Name
  $vmfsDs | ?{$_."Block Size (MB)" -ne $standardVmfsBlockSize -or $_."VMFS Version" -ne $standardVmfsVersion } |
  Sort-Object Name 
}

I hope someone else finds these checks useful.

I’ve recently posted a series of vSphere checks based on PowerCLI. The following couple of checks apply to virtual machines.

The following check looks for virtual machines where the ‘toolsUpgradePolicy’ is set to manual. I like to change this value to ‘upgradeAtPowerCycle’ which causes virtual machines (which are already running tools) to check for an update tools automatically at reboot.

Get-View -ViewType VirtualMachine -Property Name, "Config.Tools.toolsUpgradePolicy","Guest.ToolsVersionStatus" -Filter @{"Config.Tools.toolsUpgradePolicy"="manual"} | 
Select Name, @{N="Tools Status";E={$_.Guest.ToolsVersionStatus}},@{N="Upgrade Policy";E={$_.Config.Tools.toolsUpgradePolicy}} |
Sort Name

The following check is one that has caused some discussion with my peers. I can’t find a specific KB article that references this issue, but rumor has it that a Windows virtual machine on a port group with 10GbE uplinks requires a minimum of 1GB of RAM to provide heap space for the network card driver in the guest. To keep this script simple, it simply checks for the fastest link speed uplink on a host, and if greater than 10,000 verifies that all of the virtual machines have at least 1GB of RAM. Since this is rumor I can’t prove that the issue exists — or only exists for Windows guests — all virtual machines on hosts that have 10Gbps uplinks appear on this report. If you have any proof on this issue, or just want to throw in your two cents, please feel free to leave a comment.

$vmLessThan1GB = @()
Get-View -ViewType HostSystem -Property Name, "Config.Network.Pnic" | %{
	$thisHost = $_
	$thisHostMaxSpeed = ($_.config.network.pnic | Select @{Name="SpeedMB"; Exp={ $_.LinkSpeed.SpeedMb } } | sort SpeedMB -Descending | Select -First 1).SpeedMB
	if ($thisHostMaxSpeed -ge 10000) {
		
		$vmLessThan1GB += Get-View -ViewType virtualmachine -Property Name, "Config.Hardware.MemoryMB", "Runtime.Host.Value" -Filter @{"Runtime.Host"="^$($thisHost.MoRef.Value)$"} | 
			?{$_.Config.Hardware.MemoryMB -lt 1024} | 
			Select Name, @{N="VM RAM (MB)";E={$_.Config.Hardware.MemoryMB}}, @{N="VM Host Name";E={$thisHost.Name}}, @{N="Max NIC Speed";E={$thisHostMaxSpeed}}
	}
}
$vmLessThan1GB | Sort Name