In vSphere 7.0 functionality was introduced to be able to manage a cluster of ESXi hosts with a single image. In addition to being a bit easier to configure than the prior Update Manager Baselines, this feature also integrates with Hardware Support Managers to be able to update host firmware. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
PowerCLI 12.1 introduced the ability to remediate against these single images, using syntax like:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Get-Cluster img-test | Set-Cluster -Remediate -AcceptEULA<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nThis and other vLCM cmdlets are discussed in this blog post: https:\/\/blogs.vmware.com\/PowerCLI\/2020\/10\/new-release-powercli-12-1-vlcm-enhancements.html<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThis is a very simple command and works very well to programmatically interact with the clusters if you have many to remediate. However, sometimes we need to remediate hosts in a more controlled order, or as part of a larger workflow. For example, perhaps we need to notify an operations management product or team before a host goes into maintenance to prevent after hour pages or service desk issues being logged. This can be done, but requires a few extra cmdlets. The code block below provides sample commands to remediate a specific host in a cluster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
$clusterid = (Get-Cluster 'Img-Test').ExtensionData.MoRef.Value\r\n$vmhostid = (Get-VMHost 'h178-vesx-04.lab.enterpriseadmins.org').ExtensionData.MoRef.Value\r\n\r\n# Initialize hosts to updates, hostids can be specified comma separated.\r\n$SettingsClustersSoftwareApplySpec = Initialize-SettingsClustersSoftwareApplySpec -Hosts $vmhostid -AcceptEula $true \r\n\r\n# Apply the specification object to the cluster\r\n$taskId = Invoke-ApplyClusterSoftwareAsync -Cluster $clusterid -SettingsClustersSoftwareApplySpec $SettingsClustersSoftwareApplySpec\r\n\r\n# The apply task runs async so we need to watch tasks for it to complete.\r\n$task=Get-Task |?{$_.Id -eq \"CisTask-$taskId\"} \r\n\r\n# Loop until the task finishes\r\nWhile ($task.State -eq \"Running\") {\r\n \"sleeping...\"\r\n Start-Sleep -Seconds 60 \r\n $task=Get-Task |?{$_.Id -eq \"CisTask-$taskId\"} \r\n}<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nIn the example above we get the ID value of the cluster and host, these are the values like domain-c3146330<\/code> and host-3146220<\/code> and are the values required by the cmdlets we are using. <\/p>\n\n\n\nWe then create a spec to apply. The parameters are described here: https:\/\/developer.vmware.com\/apis\/vsphere-automation\/latest\/esx\/api\/esx\/settings\/clusters\/cluster\/softwareactionapplyvmw-tasktrue\/post\/<\/a>. I was originally confused by the -commit<\/code> parameter until I found this documentation. I had assumed the property was similar to a git commit message and was passing in random strings of text. The property is optional, so in the above example I do not pass in the argument at all. However, if you’d like to find the current\/expected value, you can get it from the cluster object like this: (Invoke-GetClusterSoftwareCompliance -Cluster 'domain-c3146214').commit<\/code><\/p>\n\n\n\nNext we pass our clusterid and above spec to the ‘Invoke’ function. The command returns a task ID, so we are capturing the output to a variable so we can use it later. The Invoke command runs asynchronously, so we will use this ID to check on the status until the task completes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the end we are checking for the task to complete. The Get-Task<\/code> cmdlet has an -ID<\/code> parameter, but in my testing I would get an error of The identifier CisTask-525d3596-4a7a-60ab-df10-ab97999b8511:com.vmware.esx.settings.clusters.software resulted in no objects.<\/code> when I tried to pass the ID to Get-Task<\/code>. Using where-object instead worked reliably, so I used it instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\nHopefully this helps if you have the need to remediate a single host in a cluster using a vLCM Image.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In vSphere 7.0 functionality was introduced to be able to manage a cluster of ESXi hosts with a single image. In addition to being a bit easier to configure than the prior Update Manager Baselines, this feature also integrates with … Continue reading