VMware vCenter: is not connected

Fri, 08 Aug 2014 09:08:15 +0000

Well, today I once again had the case where a virtual machine (in my case a Virtual Machine Template) was kinda stuck. You couldn’t remove the template (as in the entries for “Remove from inventory” was grayed out) and you couldn’t re-add the Virtual Machine’s VMX from the datastore browser either.

VI Client - Disconnected templates

Though, a simple putting the host into maintenance mode and rebooting helped that problem. Maybe there is a simpler solution for this, I just don’t know about it.

Rebooting a virtual machine via Task scheduler

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 09:03:06 +0000

Since the Scheduled Tasks in vCenter ain’t exportable, I went ahead and wrote a rather simple script, which lets me do this in Windows own Task Scheduler. What this script does, is initiate a graceful shutdown and if the VM isn’t shutdown within 60 seconds (12 * 5 seconds) it simply powers the VM off and immediately after that powers it back on.

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param( [string] $vCenter, [string] $VMname )

# Add the VI-Snapin if it isn't loaded already
if ( (Get-PSSnapin -Name "VMware.VimAutomation.Core" -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue) -eq $null )
{
 Add-PSSnapin -Name "VMware.VimAutomation.Core"
}

If ( !($vCenter) -or !($VMname) )
{
 Write-Host
 Write-Host "vm-reboot: <vcenter-server> <VMname>"
 Write-Host
 Write-Host " <vcenter-server> - DNS name of your vCenter server."
 Write-Host " <VMname> - Display name of the VM in this vCenter server."
 Write-Host
 exit 1
}

Connect-VIServer -Server $vCenter

$VM = Get-VM $VMname

# First, try shutting down the virtual machine gracefully
Write-Host "Stopping VM $( $VM )"
Write-Host " - Graceful shutdown"
Shutdown-VMGuest -VM $VM -Confirm:$false
$VM = Get-VM $VMname

$i = 0
While ($VM.PowerState -ne "PoweredOff") {
 # If that doesn't work, break out the hammer and just kill it
 if ( $i -gt 12 ) {
 Write-Host " - Forced shutdown"
 Stop-VM -VM $VMname -Confirm:$false
 }

 Start-Sleep -Seconds 5
 $VM = Get-VM $VMname
 $i++
}

If ($VM.PowerState -eq "PoweredOff") {
 Write-Host "Starting VM $( $VM )"
 Start-VM -VM $VM -Confirm:$false >$NULL
}

Disconnect-VIServer -server $vCenter -Confirm:$false

Before this implementation in PowerCLI, I needed three tasks for each VM that was to be scheduled. And when migrating vCenters (and I usually do an empty install) vCenter’s scheduled tasks are not exportable, thus you need to re-create the tasks on the new vCenter by yourself again, which for more than four virtual machines is really a pain in the ass …

Virtual-Machine on BAFM

VMware vCenter: is not connected

Rebooting a virtual machine via Task scheduler