PS | How to get HA restarted VM's Org and OrgvDC info with VM Name

Overview

You will see many blogs giving solution for fetching the VM names which are restarted by HA in event of esxi host failures using Get-VIEvent powercli command. But the extracted VM Name too is not in well format to use as it is. You have to use excel and text to column and then extract the VM Name etc. For me, I have vCD also so at the time of ESXi host failures and HA events, I not only need to fetch the VM Name but also Org and OrgvDC info to share it with my customer. It becomes more lengthy for me and I need to make it quick. So it is extended solution for such kind of scenario. Hope you will find it useful.

Let's see how I could do it using powershell.

Script

#Start here

Write-Host "This script will help you out to have VM name restarted by HA due to esxi host failuers" -ForegroundColor Yellow

Function Get-HAVM{
$Date=Get-Date
$HAVMrestartold=1
$raw = Get-VIEvent  -maxsamples 10000000 -Start ($Date).AddDays(-$HAVMrestartold) -type warning | Where {$_.FullFormattedMessage -match "restarted"} |select CreatedTime,FullFormattedMessage |sort CreatedTime -Descending
$raw.vm.name
Remove-Item -Path C:\Temp\vmlist.csv
$raw.vm.name | Out-File C:\Temp\vmlist.csv
}
Get-HAVM
$allvms = Get-Content -Path C:\Temp\vmlist.csv
$vms = Get-VM -Name $allvms
$myView = @()
foreach ($vm in $vms){
$Report = [PSCustomObject] @{
 VM_Name = $vm.Name
 Org_Name = $vm.Folder.Parent.Parent.Name
 OrgvDC_Name = $vm.Folder.Parent.Name
}
$MyView += $Report
}
$myView | Out-GridView

#End here

Any doubt? Comment box is yours :)

Let's give it more power

If you have smtp configured in your environment then simply you can mail it from the same script using Send-MailMessage command but for that you might have to do some tweak in above script. 

Hint is, You have to save final report. Change in the last line of above script like

$myView | Out-File C:\Temp\vmsrestartedbyHA.csv

then use below command

Send-MailMessage -From 'gautam.johar@vcnotes.in' -To 'my.reader@home.com', 'myreader2@home.com' -Subject 'HA Event is triggered and VM list is attached' -Body "Please find the attachment" -Attachments C:\Temp\vmsrestartedbyHA.csv -Priority High -DeliveryNotificationOption OnSuccess, OnFailure -SmtpServer 'smtp.vcnotes.in'

Change wherever applicable.

If you are good enough in PowerShell then you can have many ways to enhance the ideas. For me this is basic script which is working fine for me.

Side Note

I created this script to run perfectly in PowerShell ISE so run in that please or if you have any error in running it in simple powershell cli terminal then you might need to fix the visible errors.

Good Luck!

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vROPS | CPU Addition Automation

Hello Friends,

In my previous post, I explained the cpu addition automation with PowerShell. Now, I got a request to explain the steps from vROPS as well. As I said that who has vROPS then it is better than doing it from PowerShell. vROPS is undoubtedly Enterprise level solution and I would say PS here is a trick to do it.

Here you go...

Pre-requisite

• CPU hot add must be enable for the VM(s) which you want to automate for. How to do it?
• User account you are using, must have sufficient access rights
  

 Procedure

1. Login vROPS with admin privilege account.
2. Click on Alerts from top Menu. Which one? See below image-

3. Expand the Alert Settings and Click on "Alert Definition" and then click on Green + icon as shown below.

 4. Fill the form ;)

Name : Give any suitable name. I gave "_increase cpu count".
Base Object : Select Virtual machine under vcenter adapter here. Type virt and it will auto highlight.
Alert Impact :
Impact: Efficiency (Because continuous CPU spike will decrease the efficiency)
Criticality : Critical (You can select any as per your requirement)
Alert type and sub-type : Application:Performance
Wait Cycle : 1
Cancel Cycle : 1

5. Add Symptom definitions

1. Click on + icon to create a new one if you don't have already.
2. Now select CPU|usage% or CPU|Workload% metric as per your requirement. I chose CPU|Workload% as it make more sense in vROPS version 10.1.2.
3. Drag it to right or double click on the metric.

it looks like as -

• 3.1. Give it a name
• 3.2. click on drop down and select "Immediate" or "Critical" as you wish
• 3.3. When metric is greater than, I put here 99. It means that when CPU|Workload% will be higher than 99%, it will trigger the action. 
• 3.4. Once done, click on save. You will be back on alert definition page.
• 3.5. Add recommendation if you want.
• 3.5.1. Click on + icon
• Select Adapter type "vCenter Adapter"
• Select Action "Set CPU count for VM"

Once done then click on save. Your new and fresh Alert Definition has been created here.

Let's automate it now-

1. Check your current active policy. How? Check below

2. Now go to "Policy Library" and find active policy name in the list.
3. Select it and click on edit
4. Directly go to "Alert/Symptoms:Definition" and search for your "Alert Definition" which we created in above steps. It will look like below-

5. Click on Automate column and select "Local". You will see green tick icon as shown in above image.

That's it!

Now what you have done is, You have enabled automated action to add CPU count (it will add +1) whenever any VM's CPU workload% will be more than 99%.

To see automated task's action, you can go to:

Administration → History → Recent Tasks. Below is the example of successful automated task

Above is standard way to automate it and it should work in most of the scenarios.

Caution : If you are targeting few VMs then make sure you are not applying automation on "Current Default Policy" otherwise CPU addition will trigger on all your VMs in vCenter server.

Solution : Create a new policy → Create new Group and add target VMs in this group → Apply new Policy on new Group. In this way, only those VMs will be automated which you will add in the group

Known issues in this Automation:

Problem 1 :  Input Parameter 'CpuCount' not in range, positive number range;passed value 0

It means while increasing cpu count, vROPS detected that new cpu value passed was 0. It means let's say current value is 2 and we or vrops asked it to be 0. That is why it is failing.
Solution:
1. Check the VMware tool version, It should be running and up to date
2. Check the host CPU's core maximum capacity. How many max cores it can assign to any VM
3. Check esxi host's CPU family and other compatibility. Check this guide

Problem2 : Automation is not triggering
Solution : It has only one reason that automation is not enabled in Policy.

If you have any other issues than above ones then feel free to comment out. I will try my best to help you out.

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Automation | Add vCPU in VM if usage is more than 90%

Hi Guys,

I got this question from one of the VMware group so I thought to add it in my blog and then share. Automation of CPU addition is not tough but adding it with condition can be little challenging. You can do it with vROPS very easily but if you don't have vROPS then I have solution for you.

Pre-requisite is to enable hot add for CPU.

Below is the base code- 

Connect-VIServer vcenter_ip #to connect vcenter
$VM = Get-VM VM_Name #to get the vm name
#to convert the value in GHz. Default value comes in MHz
$maxcpu = ($vm.Extensiondata.Summary.Runtime.MaxCpuUsage)/1024
#to convert number of cpu into GHz speed. Here you need to replace 2.80 as per physical host's core speed at your end
$cpus = ($vm.Extensiondata.summary.config.NumCPU)*2.80
# to have percentage value
$cpulimit = $cpus*90/100
#below is the hot add cpu command
if ($maxcpu -gt $cpulimit){
get-vm $vm | Set-VM -NumCpu 2 -Confirm:$false #Current value is 1 and it will change it to 2
}

Now the question is how to automate it,

you can create a loop so that it can run infinite. I have created below function

Connect-VIServer vcenter_ip
Function AutoAddCPU{
$VM = Get-VM VM_Name
#to convert the value in GHz
$maxcpu = ($vm.Extensiondata.Summary.Runtime.MaxCpuUsage)/1024
#to convert number of cpu into GHz speed
$cpus = ($vm.Extensiondata.summary.config.NumCPU)*2.80
$cpulimit = $cpus*90/100

if ($maxcpu -gt $cpulimit){
get-vm $vm | Set-VM -NumCpu 2 -Confirm:$false
}
AutoAddCPU
}
AutoAddCPU #this is not a mistake. Use it as it is.

Now the problem is, how will it monitor that particular VM continuously.

Simple solution, use task scheduler from where you can access vcenter server. Add above script in task scheduler and then run it once, it will run forever.

Another problem is, what if that server or jump server restart then it will break the script. Solution is to create task scheduler to run this script at every system startup.

There must be many questions here. For example, you might need to monitor many VMs at the same time, you want to monitor the cpu usage if goes above than 95% and more....

This is the base solution I have provided and can be customized or enhance as per individual need.

If you have such requirement too then feel free to write me back. Will be glad to assist. 

If  anyone wants the same thing from vrops then let me know, I will create one post on that as well. Using vrops is more authentic and efficient way to do it.

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PowerShell | Filter HA events from vCenter server

Hello Guys,

It is well explained on web but I want to have it on my blog so that I don't keep roaming on web to find the same again. After all, it is my notes. isn't it? ;)

Command is simple as below

Get-VIEvent -MaxSamples 100000 -Start (Get-Date).AddDays(-1) -Type Warning | Where {$_.FullFormattedMessage -match "restarted"} |select CreatedTime,FullFormattedMessage | sort CreatedTime –Descending

Hope it helped you as well.

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PS | Script to detect and delete the Orphaned Files

Hi Guys,

Someone recently asked about the script which can detect the orphaned files in a datastore and can remove it with full control and condition was, it should not show the files which are not modified since last x number of days rather it should show the files which are not connected with any VM.

I did little effort and could find that such task is already done brilliantly by someone on Internet.

What I tested -

I removed one vmdk file from VM and then ran the script it exactly shows the vmdk which I removed and then run the command to delete it but it tried to delete entire folder. Go through below line, it will be clear.

Below is the script-

#Start here

function Remove-OrphanedData {
[CmdletBinding(SupportsShouldProcess=$true)]
param(
[parameter(Mandatory=$true,ValueFromPipeline=$true)]
[PSObject[]]$Datastore,
[switch]$Delete
)
begin{
$fldList = @{}
$hdList = @{}
$fileMgr = Get-View FileManager
}
process{
foreach($ds in $Datastore){
if($ds.GetType().Name -eq "String"){
$ds = Get-Datastore -Name $ds
}
if($ds.Type -eq "VMFS" -and $ds.ExtensionData.Summary.MultipleHostAccess){
Get-VM -Datastore $ds | %{
$_.Extensiondata.LayoutEx.File | where{"diskDescriptor","diskExtent" -contains $_.Type} | %{
$fldList[$_.Name.Split('/')[0]] = $_.Name
$hdList[$_.Name] = $_.Name
}
}
Get-Template | where {$_.DatastoreIdList -contains $ds.Id} | %{
$_.Extensiondata.LayoutEx.File | where{"diskDescriptor","diskExtent" -contains $_.Type} | %{
$fldList[$_.Name.Split('/')[0]] = $_.Name
$hdList[$_.Name] = $_.Name
}
}
$dc = $ds.Datacenter.Extensiondata
$flags = New-Object VMware.Vim.FileQueryFlags
$flags.FileSize = $true
$flags.FileType = $true
$disk = New-Object VMware.Vim.VmDiskFileQuery
$disk.details = New-Object VMware.Vim.VmDiskFileQueryFlags
$disk.details.capacityKb = $true
$disk.details.diskExtents = $true
$disk.details.diskType = $true
$disk.details.thin = $true
$searchSpec = New-Object VMware.Vim.HostDatastoreBrowserSearchSpec
$searchSpec.details = $flags
$searchSpec.Query += $disk
$searchSpec.sortFoldersFirst = $true
$dsBrowser = Get-View $ds.ExtensionData.browser
$rootPath = "[" + $ds.Name + "]"
$searchResult = $dsBrowser.SearchDatastoreSubFolders($rootPath, $searchSpec)
foreach($folder in $searchResult){
if($fldList.ContainsKey($folder.FolderPath.TrimEnd('/'))){
foreach ($file in $folder.File){
if(!$hdList.ContainsKey($folder.FolderPath + $file.Path)){
New-Object PSObject -Property @{
Folder = $folder.FolderPath
Name = $file.Path
Size = $file.FileSize
CapacityKB = $file.CapacityKb
Thin = $file.Thin
Extents = [string]::Join(',',($file.DiskExtents))
}
if($Delete){
If ($PSCmdlet.ShouldProcess(($folder.FolderPath + " " + $file.Path),"Remove VMDK")){
$dsBrowser.DeleteFile($folder.FolderPath + $file.Path)
}
}
}
}
}
elseif($folder.File | where {"cos.vmdk","esxconsole.vmdk" -notcontains $_.Path}){
$folder.File | %{
New-Object PSObject -Property @{
Folder = $folder.FolderPath
Name = $_.Path
Size = $_.FileSize
CapacityKB = $_.CapacityKB
Thin = $_.Thin
Extents = [String]::Join(',',($_.DiskExtents))
}
}
if($Delete){
if($folder.FolderPath -eq $rootPath){
$folder.File | %{
If ($PSCmdlet.ShouldProcess(($folder.FolderPath + " " + $_.Path),"Remove VMDK")){
$dsBrowser.DeleteFile($folder.FolderPath + $_.Path)
}
}
}
else{
If ($PSCmdlet.ShouldProcess($folder.FolderPath,"Remove Folder")){
$fileMgr.DeleteDatastoreFile($folder.FolderPath,$dc.MoRef)
}
}
}
}
}
}
}
}
}

Remove-OrphanedData -datastore Name_of_datastore

#It will give you below kind of output

Now, if you want to delete this then use below command

Remove-OrphanedData -datastore Name_of_datastore -delete

But before deleting it, let's see what it will be delete. See below pic. I have added a switch -whatif in last after -delete switch.

It will delete entire folder not only single file.

Now, It is up to you that whether you want to remove the entire folder by adding only -delete switch or if you want to delete only vmdk file not entire folder and that will be manual action.

In my case, deletion gave error while deleting the entire folder, might be due to in-use vmx file or so...

Any doubt, let's discuss.

That's it for now. Enjoy the learning!

Thank you,

vCloudNotes

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