Tag Archives: vmware

VMware VMRC Console Links with PowerCLI Core on macOS and Linux

I got thinking the other day about how much I hate logging into vSphere Web Client/vSphere Client. In a large environment with different SSO domains, you end up wasting 10 mins logging in. So, thinking about work while trying to sleep, I made a note to look into launching VMRC from PowerCLI Core on my Mac.

Being a Mac user, I will pretty much do anything in my power not to have to jump to a windows box, and as it turns out, the Open-VMConsoleWindow cmdlet is not supported within PowerShelll Core.

Not supported on PowerShell Core
Not supported on PowerShell Core

Yes, I could jump to another machine, but seriously, that is a pain, so I did a search thinking’s Python might be the only way also, would be helpful as I need to knuckle down and up my game on the Python front. I have a hard time creating anything in Python when there is no real requirement, apart from skilling up ….

Understand

To start the process, I did a Google search and came across an article by Roman Dodin, unfortunately, his post is no longer available. The VMRC link looks something like:-

vmrc://ezra@lab.local@vc01.lab.local:443/?moid=vm-320 (vCenter)

vmrc://ezra@lab.local@esx01.lab.local:443/?moid=320 (ESXi)

Link construction is made up of the following:-

  • user or user@domain
  • vCenter/ESXi IP or FQDN
  • Virtual Machine MoRef ID

With that info, what I thought was going to be more complex ended up being super easy, you can craft the URL yourself and use PowerShell.

Design

So recently, I have been building up a “Toolkit” which essentially is a PowerShell module with many cmdlets to make my day to day tasks a whole lot easier, and this function will fit perfectly.

As I have made the function to go into my Toolkit module, there are a couple of things to bear in mind.

  • My credentials are stored in a variable called $Creds
  • A connection is already established with a ESXi Host or vCenter server.

To keep things nice a simple, I had two requirements for the function:-

  1. Must accept pipeline input
    Get-VM test01 | Open-VMRC
  2. Must accept VM name parameter
    Open-VMRC test01

With the knowledge of the link construction I will use following variables:-

$vm = “test01”                  # VM Name
$vmID = 320                     # MoRef ID
$vcsa = “vc01.lab.local”        # vCenter or ESXi Host
$creds = Get-Credentials        # Credentials for access 
$url =                          # Crafted URL depending on target

Steps

To get things started, I needed to find a way to launch the URL. I’m sure there are a few ways to tackle this, I choose to use theStart-Process cmdlet.

Start-Process -Path "vmrc://ezra@lab.local@esx01.lab.local:443/?moid=320"

To meet the pipeline requirement, we can enable the pipeline input to be assigned to the $vm variable. We start the function using the code below.

[CmdletBinding()]
    param
    (
        [Parameter(Mandatory=$true, ValueFromPipeline=$True)] $vm
    )

Next, we need to assign the $vcsa variable the currently connected VI Server session which is stored in a global variable.

$vcsa = $global:DefaultVIServer.Name

We need a VM object so we can get the MoRef ID. Lets now check if $vm is a PowerShell object or a string, if a string assign a VM object.

if ($vm.GetType().Name -eq "String")
  {
      $vm = Get-VM $vm
  }

Now we have the VM object, we can get the MoRef ID property we require for the URL.

$vmID = $vm.id.Split("-")[-1]

And finally, we have to check the VM object to see if we are connected to a vCenter server or an ESXi host then assign the $url variable the appropriate value.

if ($vm.id -like "*vm*")
    {
        $url = "vmrc://" + $creds.username + "@" + $vcsa + ":443/?moid=vm-" + $vmID
    }
    else
    {
        $url = "vmrc://" + $creds.username + "@" + $vcsa + ":443/?moid=" + $vmID
    }

Time to launch using the Start-Process cmdlet.

Start-Process -Path $url

Solution

Many improvements can be made, but for a quick win, it ticks the box. I really hope you have gained something from this article. The complete code can be found on GitHub.

Website code examples
https://github.com/ezrahill/ezrahill.co.uk
2 forks.
1 stars.
0 open issues.

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VCAP6-DCV Deployment Studies

I am currently working towards obtaining the VCIX6-DCV certification from VMware. Currently I hold the VCAP5-DCD certification and in order to gain the VCIX6-DCV certification I need to pass the VCAP6-DCV Deployment exam.

While starting the study process I searched the web looking for books on the subject but none are yet to be published. What I did find was couple of blogs mentioned below that are working through the exam blueprint to create study guides which I hope will be a massive help going forwards.

This post will serve as a goto place for all the study resources used on my journey to VCIX6-DCV.

Blogs

Tim Smith – VCAP-DCV Deploy – Study Guide Series
Mordi Shushan – vPentathlon VCAP6-DCV Deploy

Community

Google+ Community

Linux P2V CentOS 4/5/6 VMware Converter

Recently I have been working on a project that had quite a few physical Linux servers, mainly of the the CentOS distribution. I have done the odd one here and there in the past but never really documented the process and with me attempting to update my blog more frequently what better place to document it.

First I will give a brief overview of the process then will detail the how-to. This post is for physical to virtual (P2V), I did have to tackle a few virtual to virtual (V2V) that were based on KVM to VMware which I will also document.

Overview

The version of Converter used during this project was 5.5.0 build 1362012 and CentOS versions 4.9, 5.1 and 6.5 x64. The sole use of converter may work on your combination of Converter, ESX and CentOS but in my case I had to create a new initial RAM disk as the converted VM would kernel panic due to disk configuration changes.

  1. Document kernel version
  2. Use VMware Converter to convert machine
  3. Create a new initial RAM disk
  4. Configure Network Connection
  5. Install VMware Tools

Continue reading Linux P2V CentOS 4/5/6 VMware Converter