Category: PowerShell
PowerShell Scripting with SCCM
Until now, I’ve done my SCCM patching with the NO REBOOT option set and servers were rebooted manually. Because of this, we were getting further and further behind due to servers requiring multiple reboots each month. In order to resolve this, we decided to go about using the Auto-Reboot option in SCCM and letting SCCM reboot however many times is…
Using vSphere Tags to Check for Pending Reboot State
You may have seen my blog post on the Test-PendingReboot PowerShell module. I’ve been using it a lot lately and had the thought to use vSphere Tags to check pending reboot state. In my environment, we normally check for pending reboot states before patching. If a server is in a pending reboot state, it won’t receive the patches from SCCM,…
The Pending Reboot Nightmare… PowerShell to the Rescue!
My company has been having issues dealing with servers in a pending reboot state for quite a while. Part of it stems from using SCCM to deploy patches and having the patch deployment set to suppress the reboot and our Operations Team reboots the servers manually. Well, some months require multiple reboots and we get stuck in the rabbit hole…
PowerShell Script To Get vMotion Events
Recently, I had the need to get a list of vMotion events to pass to management. I attempted to use the Get-VIEvent cmdlet for this, but found it wasn’t easy to only pull logs from one specific cluster. I attempted to use the -Entity option and direct it to the cluster I wanted, but that didn’t work well. So I…
Create an ISO file with PowerShell!
I received a request at work to transfer 5+gb from the internal network, to a server in the DMZ. Our DMZ networks are locked down, so I cannot copy the files directly. I have the trial version of UltraISO that I’ve used for tasks like this in the past, but it’s limited to 300mb in the trial version. Previously, we’ve…
Handy PowerShell command to stop Task Manager Process!
Have you ever needed to stop multiple processes at once? I use a product by Devolutions called Remote Desktop Manager. If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you probably already know that. When I launch the VMware vCenter Web Client via RDM, I do so via Chrome and it opens the Client Integrated Plugin. The problem is, when I…
Script to disable protocols older than TLS 1.2 and turn off RDP
My InfoSec team came to us asking we disable anything older than TLS 1.2 and turn off RDP on our servers in the DMZ. We don’t allow RDP in the DMZ anyway, and they found that leaving RDP on when not using it poses a security risk. To do this, it involved multiple registry changes. With several servers to do…
PowerCLI Script to Check Host Over-commitment Percentage & Ratios
At my previous employer, we had a Dev/QA vSphere environment that was very over provisioned. The environment had lots of CPUReady issues with VMs having to wait for CPU time, which caused things to be slow, etc. We knew this but the application teams didn’t understand. I ended up writing a PowerCLI script to check the CPU overcommitment and sent…
Script to backup your vCenter DRS Rules
I was thinking yesterday, I have a script that I run on a monthly basis to backup my vDS configs… Shouldn’t I also have something that does the same for my DRS rules? So, I wrote a script that I can schedule to run on a weekly/monthly basis to backup my DRS rules. I have multiple vCenter servers, so I…
PowerCLI Script to create new vDS Portgroups
We deployed new hosts into one of our office locations. Because these hosts would have different number of uplinks as well as use a LAG group instead of normal dvUplinks, we decided to create a new vDS Switch. Then, we needed to re-create all the portgroups as well. I figured, instead of manually adding 15-20 portgroups, I’ll automate it. I…