Tag: PowerShell
Rebuilding Distributed Switch on New vCenter Instance Using a Backup
As you may have seen, I recently had a vCenter fail and after working with VMware Support it was determined that the vCenter should be rebuilt from scratch. Rebuilding the vCenter and adding the hosts that were in it was fairly easy. However, restoring their networking was another story. The hosts retained their previous network configuration, but I was unable…
Rebuilding a Failed vCenter Results in More Problems
At work, I had a vCenter fail and, after working with VMware support for hours, I was told to rebuild the vCenter from scratch. I downloaded the vCenter ISO for the same version as the other vCenters that are linked (7.0.3.01700) and launched the installer. I went through the wizard and selected to join it to the existing SSO Domain.…
PowerShell Script to Login to Multiple vCenter Servers
Do you have multiple vCenter servers that you interact with on a daily basis? Do you like to use PowerShell to manage them? I was opening a PowerShell window, and doing a connect-viserver for each and having to enter my PW over and over again. First, I tried to use the New-VICredentialStoreItem command to store my PW, but with security…
Schedule Service Restarts with PowerShell
Have you ever had a service randomly stop on you over and over again?! In my homelab environment, I use a company called Itarian to patch my servers, control them remotely, etc. One thing I found is that the main Itarian service, ITSMService, keeps crashing! You can see below, a few of the servers are grey. I wrote a quick…
Upgrading VMware Tools on each ESXi Host via ESXCLI
Have you ever wanted to upgrade the version of VMware Tools on your hosts but you’re having an issue with Update Manger/Lifecycle Manager? I ran into this problem recently. I was attempting to upgrade my hosts to the latest version of VMware Tools and even though the remediation completed successfully via Lifecycle Manger finished successfully, each host still reported at…
VMware Explore Las Vegas 2023, Here I Come!
After going to VMware Explore last year (2022), I wanted to find a way to go again this year. I asked my employer, but as my company is going through some leadership changes, there is no budget for traveling to conferences right now. So I had to get creative! I reached out to Vembu. As they sponsor my blog, I…
New Windows 2022 Domain Controller
The Domain Controller in my home lab currently runs on a Windows 2012 server. It is time to UPGRADE! So I went and downloaded a Windows Server 2022 ISO and deployed a new VM running Windows Server 2022 Std Edition. Lets build a Windows Server 2022 Domain Controller and retire my Windows 2012 DC. Next, it was time to install…
Manage your Windows Failover Cluster with PowerShell
If you’ve ever tried to manage your Windows Failover Cluster using Failover Cluster Manager, you know how much of a pain it can be when you need to do maintenance and have to move roles to the standby node. Moving most of the roles are easy, but when it comes time to move the quorum drive/role, it’s not so easy.…
List Scheduled Tasks for Remote Servers
Recently, I was asked to find out of a certain service account was being used in scheduled tasks on any server. Being a PowerShell guy, I turned to the Get-ScheduledTask cmdlet. I tried querying a list of scheduled tasks by Author. I created a variable $VMs and used it to filter any Powered on Windows VM. I then checked each…
Save Credentials to File in PowerShell
Have you ever wanted to schedule a script to run overnight but need to pass secure credentials? You may do it once in open-text, but after that you say to yourself… There has to be a more secure way! Well, you were right! See how I saved my credentials to a file to use later. Remember, you need to remember…