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PowerCLI – script to deploy multiple random VMs

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There are probably tons of scripts out there to deploy VMs in a vSphere environment, but I was in the mood for scripting this evening and decided to create my own PowerCLI script to automatically deploy multiple random VMs to my home lab. The point was to create random “content” for something exciting I have been working on 🙂

 

 

[download id=”19″]

 

$i = 1
[int]$NumberToDeploy = 10 # Number of VMs to deploy
[string]$NamingConvention = "homelab-VM-" # Prefix for VM names
[string]$folderLoc = "Discovered virtual machine" # Name of VM folder to deploy into

while ($i -le $NumberToDeploy) {
	$NumCPUs = (Get-Random -Minimum 1 -Maximum 3) #NUM CPU of either 1 or 2.
	$MemoryMB = ("16","32","64") | Get-Random # Get a random VM Memory size from this list (MB)
	$DiskSize = ("256","512","768" ) | Get-Random # Get a random disk size from this list (MB)
	$targetDatastore = Get-Datastore | Where {($_.ExtensionData.Summary.MultipleHostAccess -eq "True") -and ($_.FreeSpaceMB -gt "10240")} | Get-Random
	$targetVMhost = Get-VMHost | Where { $_.ConnectionState -eq "Connected" } | Get-Random # Selects a random host which is in "connected State"
	$targetNetwork = ("VM Network","VM Distributed Portgroup") | Get-Random
	$GuestType = (	"darwinGuest","dosGuest","freebsd64Guest","freebsdGuest","mandrake64Guest",
					"mandrakeGuest","other24xLinux64Guest","other24xLinuxGuest","other26xLinux64Guest",
					"other26xLinuxGuest","otherGuest","otherGuest64","otherLinux64Guest","otherLinuxGuest",
					"rhel5Guest","suse64Guest","suseGuest","ubuntu64Guest","ubuntuGuest",
					"win2000AdvServGuest","win2000ProGuest","win2000ServGuest","win31Guest","win95Guest",
					"win98Guest","winLonghorn64Guest","winLonghornGuest","winNetBusinessGuest",
					"winNetDatacenter64Guest","winNetDatacenterGuest","winNetEnterprise64Guest",
					"winNetEnterpriseGuest","winNetStandard64Guest","winNetStandardGuest","winNetWebGuest",
					"winNTGuest","winVista64Guest","winVistaGuest","winXPPro64Guest",
					"winXPProGuest") | Get-Random
	$VMName = $NamingConvention + $i

	if ((Get-VM $VMName -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue).Name -eq $VMName) {
		Write-Host "$VMName already exists, skipping creation of this VM!" -ForegroundColor Yellow
		}
	else {	
		Write-Host "Deploying $VMName to $folderLoc ..." -ForegroundColor Green
		#Create our VM
		New-VM -Name $VMName -ResourcePool $targetVMhost -Datastore $targetDatastore -NumCPU $NumCPUs -MemoryMB $MemoryMB -DiskMB $DiskSize `
		-NetworkName $targetNetwork -Floppy -CD -DiskStorageFormat Thin -GuestID $GuestType -Location $folderLoc | Out-Null
		}
	$i++
}

 

This script will automatically deploy a variable number of Virtual Machines, based on a certain naming convention you specify. It’ll also randomly choose VM settings. Here is what it does:

 

  • Deploy any number of VMs by changing the total number of VMs to deploy (specify in script as $NumberToDeploy)
  • Deploys each VM to a random ESXi host which is in a connected state
  • Deploys each VM to a random shared datastore (i.e. a datastore with multiple hosts connected)
  • Sets a random vCPU count to each VM (specify options in the script as $NumCPUs)
  • Sets a random Memory size for each VM (specify options in the script as $MemoryMB)
  • Create a virtual disk as thin provisioned on each VM with a random disk size (specify disk size options in the script as $DiskSize)
  • Adds each VM to a random VM network (specify VM network options in the script as $targetNetwork)
  • Specifies a random GuestOS type for each VM deployed
  • Creates each VM in a specified VM & Templates folder (specify in script as $folderLoc)

 

All options are already set to defaults in the script as is stands, but don’t forget to change important options unique to your environment like the $folderLoc (folder to deploy VMs into), and the list of VM networks ($targetNetwork). Other items are automatically determined (datastore and host to deploy to for example).

Also note that some of the built-in guestOS types might not be supported on some ESXi hosts. In these cases, the script just skips creating that VM and moves onto the next. You may see a red error message for the failed VM in these cases. For a full list of GuestID types, check out this page.

Auto BCC emails to anyone in Salesforce

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This is a bit of a different post today. Relevant if you use Salesforce to send out emails (which I do often in my day to day job). It also has some other great uses too – auto filling text fields, checkboxes / radio buttons on websites.

What you’ll need to get it working is to either be using Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox as your browser. Grab the extension or addon called “Autofill” by thdoan. Here is a direct link to the Chrome version:
https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/nlmmgnhgdeffjkdckmikfpnddkbbfkkk. Once that is installed in your browser, you’ll need to figure out the “id” of the text field that you want auto filled. In my case I wanted to automatically fill out an email address field in my Salesforce emails. I started a new email, then right-clicked the page to select “Get Page Source”. After some searching through the source of the page, I managed to find an “id” of value “p5” for the BCC email address textfield. To help, I just searched the source for “bcc” to start with to get to that section of the source. Once you have the id of the control or field you want to autofill, it is quite easy to set up the rest.

Open the extension / addon settings, select the button for a new rule (the little plus sign). In the new rule “Type” dropdown, select “Text” for a text field. The name will be your “id” you have located. So for my BCC field, I entered a name of “p5”. The “value” will be the text I want to populate this field automatically. So I entered the email address as the value. You can leave the “site” field blank if you want, but this restricts the rule to whatever you specify here. In my case I entered eu1.salesforce.com so that this rule would only ever apply to URLs I am working with that work on this domain / site. This is quite useful, as if I had to ever come across another site with a text field id value of “p5” it would suddenly populate with the email address I specified as a value – so in my case it is useful to specify a site. You can also use Regular Expressions in this field for more flexibility. Once you are done, just click “Save” at the bottom.

The next time you load up a page with that textfield id, autofill should work its magic and fill it in with you. You don’t even need to click the field. There are tons of other uses that this addon / extension can provide, so have a look at the default options that are provided to get some ideas.