This little host backup utility I created back in February 2012 has been receiving quite a bit of attention, and has already managed to get over 2000 downloads.
Someone recently asked the other day if it was possible to restore a configuration file to a new host (i.e. new hardware). With version 1.0 of my utility, this was not possible due to mismatches that the PowerCLI cmdlet finds (i.e. MAC addresses on NICs etc… on the new hardware when compared to the existing backup). However, the Set-VMHostFirmware cmdlet allows the use of a -Force paramter, so I set about updating the utility to allow for this.
Here is a quick list of changes in version 1.1
Allows restore to new hardware (tick the “Force restore to new hardware” checkbox). Please note that I have only very briefly tested this on virtualised ESXi hosts – it works, but I am not sure how networking configurations are applied to NICs and differing physical NIC orders – so it is best to test this thoroughly in a dev/test environment before using anywhere else!
Tested against single ESXi hosts as opposed to connecting to vCenter first.
Updated labels to neaten up a bit – connection box now shows that you can connect to single hosts or vCenter
In Part 2 of this series, I covered the steps needed in order to manually upgrade your ESX(i) 4.x hosts to ESXi 5.0.0. This is useful for smaller deployments or lab set ups where you don’t have that many hosts to upgrade. However, with larger deployments, you’re going to want to look at a way of automating this process. VMware Update Manager (VUM) is one of these ways, and in this part, I’ll explain how to use it to upgrade your hosts to ESXi 5.0.0 by using baselines.
Using VMware Update Manager to upgrade ESX(i) 4.x hosts to 5.0
There is a little bit of ground work required to set up your ESXi 5.0.0 ISO image and create a VMware Update Manager baseline in this process, but once this is done, it is quite easy to attach your new baseline to your older hosts and remediate them against this (effectively upgrading them / bringing them up to date against this new baseline). To go through this process, you will of course need a VUM server. Update Manager comes with all editions of vSphere 4 and 5, so if you don’t already have it up and running, you should seriously think about deploying it, as it will save you a lot of time with otherwise routine, time consuming tasks when it comes to upgrading/updating Hosts, VMs, and Applications.
Start off by downloading the ESXi 5.0.0 ISO image to your vSphere Client machine if you don’t already have this. Once this is downloaded, you’ll then want to go to your vSphere client home screen and choose VMware Update Manager from the home screen.
This will load the VUM interface and provide you everything you need to work with Update Manager. Select the “ESXi Images” tab along the top, then click on the link called “Import ESXi Image…” In the wizard that appears, browse for your recently downloaded ESXi 5.0.0 ISO image and select it. Follow through the wizard to Upload the ISO to your VUM server. You may receive a security warning (SSL) which you will need to ignore/accept to continue. All going well, you should reach an “Upload Successful” point and see the details of your ISO, similar to the below screenshot.
Move to the next step, and we’ll now create a Baseline out of this Image. Tick the box for “Create a baseline using the ESXi image” and give it a meaningful name and an optional description. Finish the wizard when you have named the baseline, and you’ll now have a shiny new baseline with which you can use to remediate your hosts against.
Move along to the “Baselines and Groups” tab in the main VUM area, and verify that your new baseline is showing and that the details look correct. It should show up as a “Host Upgrade” under the Component column.
For the next step, we’ll be looking to attach this baseline to the older ESX(i) hosts that need to be upgraded. To attach to all your hosts in the same cluster all at once, go to your Hosts & Clusters Inventory view, select your Cluster name, then go to the “Update Manager” tab near the end. From here, click on the “Attach” link as seen below:
Now, you’ll want to select the ESXi5 Upgrade Baseline we created in the previous steps to the selected Cluster. Simply tick the box next to your “Host Upgrade” Baseline name, then click “Attach”.
Now that your baseline has been attached, it will apply to all the ESX(i) hosts in the cluster. From the same Update Manager screen, click the “Scan” link to initiate a compliance scan. In other words, we’ll be looking to find out which hosts are not in compliance with our new ESXi 5.0.0 image, from which point we can move on to remediating (upgrading). Select the tickbox for “Upgrades“, then click “Scan” to continue. Once this is done, you should notice that all the hosts which have your baseline attached will show as Non-Compliant (unless you have manually upgraded any of these).
If you are ready to begin the upgrade process for your hosts, click on the yellow “Remediate” button on this screen.
You’ll now be taken to the Remediation Wizard / Selection screen. Tick (Select) which hosts you would like to remediate (upgrade) and ensure the correct Host Upgrade Baseline is selected, then continue on to the next step.
There are a few options that you will need to configure in this wizard based on your environment. Preferences such as Host and Cluster Remediation options can be set up, which control how your cluster and hosts should handle the remediation tasks. For example, Power State to put your VMs into, or Cluster features to keep enabled or disable. You can also define a schedule for remediation in this wizard if you wish. Here is a quick rundown of the steps in this wizard that I went through, along with a couple of screenshots of the options I went with in my lab upgrade.
1. Selection screen
2. Read and Accept the EULA
3. Choose whether to remove third-party installed software that is incompatible with the upgrade or not.
4. Optionally, set up task name and description for the upgrade remediation task. Select Immediately, or specify a time to begin the task.
5. Choose how you would like to handle VMs for the remidiation. Note that these options also apply to hosts in clusters. I left mine at “Do not change VM Powerstate” as I have DRS set to fully-automated. Therefore VMs running on this host will be vMotioned off when the host enters maintenace mode, and I won’t need to worry about moving them myself.
6. Select how the cluster should be handled during remediation. For example you can disable DPM during remediation. It will be re-enabled after the task is complete.
7. Check summary and finish the wizard.
Host remediation options
Cluster remediation options
Checking through the summary and finishing off the wizard
Once you finish the wizard, your selected hosts will begin the upgrade (Remediation) process. Depending on the options you chose, your VMs should automatically be vMotioned off the current host being upgraded as it enters maintenance mode. If you’d like to follow along with one of the hosts, have a look at the server console to see how progress is made. Working with a cluster of hosts, you should be able to use this method to upgrade hosts systematically in an automated fashion. One of the benefits of this method is obviously along the lines of time saving, but also the fact that you can have zero downtime if it is done correctly. As each host is upgraded to ESXi 5.0.0, VMs can vMotion back to upgraded hosts, allowing you to shift the VM workload around hosts that need to go down for maintenance. Lastly, don’t forget to ensure your licensing is sorted out after the upgrades are complete.
In the next part, we’ll take a look at other tasks involved with an upgrade to vSphere 5.0.
On my quest to learn more about PowerCLI, I have been playing around with some more cmdlets in my lab. As a simple task, I have figured out how to tell ESX or ESXi hosts to enter and exit maintenance mode. Here’s how we do this. First of all ensure you are connected to your vCenter server instance using Connect-VIServer ServerName.
So now that we know the basics of setting the state of a VMware host, how about we get slightly more technical and perform one of the above operations on a bunch of hosts in one go? Powershell / PowerCLI is all about automation after all! Note that in the following script, I have also include a simple “if / else” statement to prompt the user running the script manually as we are about to send all ESX(i) hosts into maintenance mode! Use this at your own risk of course, it is just for demonstration purposes. You may want to modify to select hosts to enter maintenance mode on certain criteria. For example, all hosts in a particular cluster, or all hosts with a certain property. Here is the script I would use to perform the operation on all the ESX(i) hosts found in vCenter:
$VCServer = “yourvcservername”
Connect-VIServer $VCServer
$confirm = Read-Host “Are you sure you want all hosts to enter maintenance mode? (type yes to continue) “
if ($confirm -eq "yes")
{
Get-VMHost | Set-VMHost -State "Maintenance"
}
else
{
"Script aborted (you didn't confirm by typing yes)"
}
Once the script is executed, you should get a progress indicator whilst hosts are being dealt with. Afterwards you’ll get some output from each host listing its relevant Connection Status and statistics. Like so:
In the above example, we set some variables, and use some basic logic checking with an IF ELSE statement and an equal to (-eq) operator. We also see how to perform a few operations on ESX or ESXi hosts. I hope this helps anyone starting out with PowerCLI. Please do leave any comments, suggestions or improvements in the comments section!
