PowerCLI: One-Liners Checking Host Network Information

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Sometimes as a consultant when performing an initial look or a healthcheck on a new system you will want to confirm all hosts have the correct network information, if there is a mis-configured vmotion portgroup or something similar then this could impact HA or if there is an incorrect DNS server then this may also have issues further down the line with your service console.

The following quick one-liners display some vital information for each host, errors can be seen at a glance, rather than checking each host individually, for us to gain this information we use the wonderful Get-VMHostNetwork cmdlet and expand a few areas of interest:

  • Remember these can be narrowed down further by adding the Get-Cluster “MyCluster” | to the start of the line.
  • Also remember this information can also be exported to a csv by adding | Export-csv “C:\info.csv” to the end of the line.

To list all ESX Hosts and their Service console information:

Get-VMHost | Get-VMHostNetwork | Select Hostname, ConsoleGateway, DNSAddress -ExpandProperty ConsoleNic | Select Hostname, PortGroupName, IP, SubnetMask, ConsoleGateway, DNSAddress, Devicename

HostName PortGroupName IP SubnetMask ConsoleGateway DNS Address DeviceName
esx01 SC 192.168.2.33 255.255.255.0 192.168.2.1 192.168.2.20 192.168.1.20 vswif0
esx01 SC 2 192.168.3.43 255.255.255.0 192.168.2.1 192.168.2.20 192.168.1.20 vswif1
esx02 SC 192.168.1.12 255.255.255.0 192.168.1.254 192.168.1.20 vswif0
esx03 SC 192.168.2.34 255.255.255.0 192.168.2.1 192.168.2.20 192.168.1.20 vswif0
esx03 SC 2 192.168.3.44 255.255.255.0 192.168.2.1 192.168.2.20 192.168.1.20 vswif1

To list all ESX Hosts and their VMotion Enabled Networks information:

Get-VMHost | Get-VMHostNetwork | Select Hostname, VMkernelGateway -ExpandProperty VirtualNic | Where {$_.VMotionEnabled} | Select Hostname, PortGroupName, IP, SubnetMask, VMkernelGateway, Devicename

HostName PortGroupName IP SubnetMask VMKernelGateway DeviceName
esx01 VMkernel 192.168.3.33 255.255.255.0 vmk0
esx02 VMkernel 192.168.3.34 255.255.255.0 192.168.3.1 vmk0


6 thoughts on “PowerCLI: One-Liners Checking Host Network Information”

  2. Pingback: Documenting Environment Settings with PowerCLI

  4. Hello ,

    I really want to see:

    PortGroupName:
    IP:
    Mask:
    Gate:
    VLAN:

    Any ideas how to get VLAN and put it in same table.

    Something like that:

    $vm = get-vmhost 192.168.0.13
    $net = $vm | Get-VirtualPortGroup
    $net | Select-Object Name, VLanId | Format-Table -auto
    $net2 = $net | Select-Object Name,IP,SubnetMask,Mac | ft -auto

  5. I’m getting this error…………….
    [vSphere PowerCLI] C:\> Get-VMHost | Get-VMHostNetwork | Select Hostname, ConsoleGateway, DNSAddress -ExpandProperty ConsoleN
    ic | Select Hostname, PortGroupName, IP, SubnetMask, ConsoleGateway, DNSAddress, Devicename
    WARNING: ‘ConsoleNic’ property is obsolete. Use ‘Get-VMHostNetworkAdapter’ cmdlet instead.

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