{"id":792,"date":"2010-06-08T09:52:59","date_gmt":"2010-06-08T14:52:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jasemccarty.com\/blog\/?p=792"},"modified":"2014-06-25T18:30:33","modified_gmt":"2014-06-26T00:30:33","slug":"powercli-cmdlets-getset-vmguestnetworkinterface","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jasemccarty.com\/blog\/powercli-cmdlets-getset-vmguestnetworkinterface\/","title":{"rendered":"PowerCLI cmdlets: Get\/Set-VMGuestNetworkInterface"},"content":{"rendered":"

After my last post on Get\/Set-OSCustomizationNicMapping<\/a><\/strong>, I started looking further at what options there were to configure network settings for guests that were “already” created.<\/p>\n

It is one thing to be able to set the network adapter properties during the cloning process and something entirely different to do it after the fact.\u00a0 Maybe a mistake was made during the cloning process.\u00a0 More likely a network migration could be planned, and a completely different way of doing things would be needed.<\/p>\n

Using Invoke-VMScript<\/strong>
\nIn January, I wrote a post on how to Update VMware Windows Guest DNS and WINS through PowerCLI<\/a><\/strong> that uses the Invoke-VMScript cmdlet to run a batch file in Windows to set the DNS and WINS information.\u00a0 For those versed with netsh, it is powerful, but there are requirements<\/em>…<\/p>\n

One pretty big requirement is that the\u00a0 name of the network adapter must be known.\u00a0 On older VM’s, or possibly P2V’ed VM’s the network adapter name could be something like “Local Network Connection 2”, “Local Network Connection 3”, etc.\u00a0 Using the above mentioned script is going to fail if the connection name is not known.\u00a0 The only way around that, would be to put some logic in to determine the name to use when calling the script.\u00a0 Additionally using netsh with DNS and WINS requires the addition<\/em> of new values, and deletion<\/em> of old values.<\/p>\n

Another issue with the Invoke-VMScript method, is that it requires different scripts for Windows and Linux guests.<\/p>\n

A Different Way<\/strong>
\nSo I started to peruse the online docs for the current vSphere 4.0 Update 1 and found the Get\/Set-VMGuestNetworkInterface cmdlets.\u00a0 Just like my last post, I couldn’t really find any example scripts of anyone using it.<\/p>\n

Here is the syntax for these cmdlets:<\/p>\n

Get-VMGuestNetworkInterface<\/strong>
\nSyntax
\nGet-VMGuestNetworkInterface [[-VM] <VirtualMachine[]>] [-VMGuest <VMGuest[]>] [-Server <VIServer[]>] [-ToolsWaitSecs <Int32>] [-GuestPassword <SecureString>] [-GuestUser <String>] [-GuestCredential <PSCredential>] [-HostPassword <SecureString>] [-HostUser <String>] [-HostCredential <PSCredential>] [<CommonParameters>]<\/p>\n

Set-VMGuestNetworkInterface<\/strong>
\nSyntax
\nSet-VMGuestNetworkInterface -VmGuestNetworkInterface <VMGuestNetworkInterface[]> [-WinsPolicy <DhcpPolicy>] [-Wins <String[]>] [-DnsPolicy <DhcpPolicy>] [-Dns <String[]>] [-IPPolicy <DhcpPolicy>] [[-Gateway] <Object>] [[-Netmask] <String>] [[-Ip] <IPAddress>] [-ToolsWaitSecs <Int32>] [-GuestPassword <SecureString>] [-GuestUser <String>] [-GuestCredential <PSCredential>] [-HostPassword <SecureString>] [-HostUser <String>] [-HostCredential <PSCredential>] [-WhatIf] [-Confirm] [<CommonParameters>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

One thing that struck me as odd, was that both of these commands have the following statements as part of their documentation:<\/p>\n

… Consider that this functionality is experimental. …<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

and<\/p>\n

…Notes<\/strong>
\nSupported on ESX 3.5 and newer. …<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So which is it? Maybe @cshanklin<\/a><\/strong> can address this at some point.<\/p>\n

How Does It Really Work?<\/strong>
\nAre the Get\/Set-VMGuestNetworkInterface cmdlets really that different from Invoke-VMScript? Not really, except for the fact that VMware has taken some of the guesswork out of the process.\u00a0 These cmdlets actually call scripts in the Scripts folder located under the installation path of the vSphere PowerCLI.\u00a0 There are separate scripts for Windows OSes and Linux OSes (currently only supported on RHEL 5).<\/p>\n

The netsh scripting limitation I mentioned earlier (network connection name) is actually taken care of by these scripts.\u00a0 Additionally these scripts can be modified\/added to if desired.<\/p>\n

There are a couple things to be aware of.<\/p>\n