Category Archives: VDS

Updated Script to remediate VDS/SvMotion issue

Following my recent post where I showed how we could search for and fix any VMs which had an issue after being Storage vMotioned and attached to a VDS I received a couple of emails from people with a few issues.

Firstly the script was written using the VDS PowerShell fling (Check it out, its cool), some people were not able to use this fling in production systems as it is not officially supported by VMware.

Secondly the fling only supported VDS and not the Nexus 1kv, some customers had this issue with the N1KV so needed a resolution.

The good news…

I have re-written the script to no longer use the fling but instead use the raw API’s, this means all you now need is PowerCLI 5.0.1 and you can run the below script in the same way as before to check and remediate for issues.

Thanks goes to Luc who came up with an easy way to check for free ports on the VDS here.

Remember this does not fix the issue completely, only a patch from VMware will do that but it does however tell you if you have the issue and plug the gap temporarily.

Just as a reminder, here is how the script is used:

Using the script

To check the VMs we can easily pipe a list of VMs into our function which can be seen below.  This can be all VMs in a Cluster, all VMs on a particular host or any other list of VMs you can think of, for my examples below I have shown all VMs attached to a vCenter

image

As you can see from the above screenshot, all VMs are fine apart from VM12 which currently has the problem described in Duncan’s article,  now to fix the issue.

We can use the same script with a –Fix parameter which allows us to fix the issue, when fixing the issue the script will move each of the VMs network connections to a new port on the same portgroup and then move it back again to its original port.   If no free ports are available the script will expand your portgroup temporarily and then decrease the ports when finished.

image

As you can see from the above screenshot, the issue has now been resolved for this VM by using the function with the –Fix parameter and further running of the script in test mode will show all are now fine.

The Script

Function Get-FreeVDSPort ($VDSPG) {
	$nicTypes = "VirtualE1000","VirtualE1000e","VirtualPCNet32","VirtualVmxnet","VirtualVmxnet2","VirtualVmxnet3"
	$ports = @{}

	# Get all the portkeys on the portgroup
	$VDSPG.ExtensionData.PortKeys | Foreach {
		$ports.Add($_,$VDSPG.Name)
	}

	# Remove the portkeys in use  Get-View
	$VDSPG.ExtensionData.Vm | Foreach {
	    $VMView = Get-View $_
		$nic = $VMView.Config.Hardware.Device | where {$nicTypes -contains $_.GetType().Name -and $_.Backing.GetType().Name -match "Distributed"}
	    $nic | where {$_.Backing.Port.PortKey} | Foreach {$ports.Remove($_.Backing.Port.PortKey)}
	}

	# Assign the first free portkey
	if ($ports.Count -eq 0) {
		$null
	} Else {
		$ports.Keys | Select -First 1
	}
}

Function Set-VDSPGNumPorts ($VDSPG, $NumPorts) {
	$spec = New-Object VMware.Vim.DVPortgroupConfigSpec
    $spec.numPorts = $NumPorts
	$spec.ConfigVersion = $VDSPG.ExtensionData.Config.Configversion
    $VDSPG.ExtensionData.ReconfigureDVPortgroup($spec)
}

Function Test-VDSVMIssue {
	Param (
		[parameter(Mandatory=$true,ValueFromPipeline=$true,ValueFromPipelineByPropertyName=$true)]
        [PSObject[]]$VM,
		[switch]$Fix
	)
	Process {
		Foreach ($VMachine in $VM){
			Foreach ($NA in ($VMachine | Get-NetworkAdapter)) {
				$VMName = $VMachine.Name
				If (($NA.ExtensionData.Backing.GetType()).Name -eq "VirtualEthernetCardDistributedVirtualPortBackingInfo") {
					$PortKey = $NA.ExtensionData.Backing.Port.PortKey
					$vSwitchID = $NA.ExtensionData.Backing.Port.SwitchUUID
					$Datastore = (($VMachine.ExtensionData.Config.Files.VmPathName).split("]")[0]).Replace("[","")
					$filename = "$($datastore):\.dvsData\$vSwitchID\$PortKey"
					if (-not (Get-PSDrive $datastore -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue)) {
						$NewDrive = New-PSDrive -Name $Datastore -Location (Get-Datastore $Datastore) -PSProvider VimDatastore -Root '\'
					}
					$filecheck = Get-ChildItem -Path $filename -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
					if ($filecheck) {
						Write-Host -ForegroundColor Green "$VMName $($NA.Name) is OK"
					} Else {
						Write-Host -ForegroundColor Red "Problem found with $VMName $($NA.Name)"
						If ($Fix) {
							Write-Host -ForegroundColor Yellow "Fixing issue..."
							$VDSPG = Get-VirtualPortGroup -Distributed -Name $NA.NetworkName
							$DVPort = $null
							Write-Host -ForegroundColor Yellow "..Finding free port on $($NA.NetworkName)"
							$DVPort = Get-FreeVDSPort $VDSPG
							$Move = $True
							if (-not $DVPort) {
								Write-Host -ForegroundColor Yellow "..No free ports found on $($VDSPG.Name), adding an additional port"
								If (($VDSPG.ExtensionData.Config.Type -ne "lateBinding") -and ($VDSPG.ExtensionData.Config.Type -ne "earlyBinding")) {
									Write "Unable to add a port to $($NA.NetworkName) since dvportgroup is configured as $($VDSPG.PortBinding)"
									Write-Host -ForegroundColor Red "Problem still exists with $VMName please resolve manually"
									$Move = $false
								} Else {
									$CurrentPorts = $VDSPG.NumPorts
									$NewTotalPorts = $VDSPG.NumPorts + 1
									Set-VDSPGNumPorts -VDSPG $VDSPG -NumPorts $NewTotalPorts
									$PGAdded = $true
									$VDSPG = Get-VirtualPortGroup -Distributed -Name $NA.NetworkName
									$DVPort = Get-FreeVDSPort $VDSPG
								}
							}
							If ($Move){
								Write-Host -ForegroundColor Yellow "..Moving $($NA.Name) to another free port on $($VDSPG.Name)"
								$NA | Set-NetworkAdapter -PortKey $DVPort -DistributedSwitch $VDSPG.VirtualSwitch -Confirm:$false | Out-Null
								Write-Host -ForegroundColor Yellow "..Moving $($NA.Name) back to port $PortKey"
								$NA | Set-NetworkAdapter -PortKey $PortKey -DistributedSwitch $VDSPG.VirtualSwitch -Confirm:$false | Out-Null
								Write-Host -ForegroundColor Yellow "..Checking changes were completed"
								$filecheck = Get-ChildItem -Path $filename -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
								if ($filecheck) {
									Write-Host -ForegroundColor Green "$VMName $($NA.Name) is now fixed and OK"
								} Else {
									Write-Host -ForegroundColor Red "Problem still exists with $VMName please resolve manually"
								}
								If ($PGAdded) {
									Write-Host -ForegroundColor Yellow "..Removing the added port on $($VDSPG.Name)"
									Set-VDSPGNumPorts -VDSPG $VDSPG -NumPorts $CurrentPorts
									$PGAdded = $false
								}
							}
						}
					}
				} Else {
					Write-Host -ForegroundColor Green "$VMName is not connected to a dvSwitch so this issue is not relevant."
				}
			}
		}
		Get-PSDrive | Where { ($_.Provider -like "*VimDatastore") -and ( $_.Name -notlike "*vmstore*")} | Foreach {
			Remove-PSDrive $_ | Out-Null
		}
	}
}

# Example code to check all VMs attached to vCenter for the issue:
# Get-VM | Test-VDSVMIssue

# Example code to fix all VMs attached to vCenter:
# Get-VM | Test-VDSVMIssue -Fix

# Example code to fix all VMs in Cluster01 for the issue:
# Get-Cluster01 | Get-VM | Test-VDSVMIssue

# Example code to fix all VMs in Cluster01:
# Get-Cluster01 | Get-VM | Test-VDSVMIssue -Fix

vSphere Distributed Switch PowerCLI cmdlets

For a long time now when presenting at VMworld or VMUGS I have asked the question – What would you like to see from PowerCLI next ?  The standard answer I get at most of these is vSphere Distributed Switch (VDS) cmdlets !

Luc Dekens did a great job with his series of posts showing how you could create your own VDS advanced functions, these allow you to add the functions to your PowerCLI session and work with VDS, find them here and take a look, they are a great example of how you can expand PowerCLI to support areas not yet written.

So what’s new ?

VMware have now released some PowerCLI cmdlets as a fling which work with VDS and allow you to do most of the common VDS tasks in your vSphere environment.  Please note that this is a fling and therefore not officially supported by VMware.  Having said that we are definitely keen for you to download these and try them out – please make sure you leave feedback as this will help with future versions !

Requirements

Currently there are some strict requirements around these cmdlets:

  • Windows required XP or Windows Server 2003 or 2008 is required  (Windows 7 and Vista are not supported currently)
  • VMware PowerCLI 4.1.1 or later is needed

Continue reading