Manage Virtual Machines on vSphere

With PowerCLI, you can automate various administration tasks on virtual machines, for example retrieving information, shutting down and powering off virtual machines.

Procedure

Get-VM
$respool = Get-ResourcePool ResourcePool
Get-VM -Location $respool | Select-Object Name, PowerState > myVMProperties.txt
Get-VM VM | Start-VM
Get-VMGuest VM | fc
Stop-VMGuest VM
Stop-VM VM
Get-VM -Name VM -Location Host01 | Move-VM –Destination Host02

1	View all virtual machines on the target system. Get-VM
2	Save the name and the power state properties of the virtual machines in the `ResourcePool` resource pool into a file named myVMProperties.txt. $respool = Get-ResourcePool ResourcePool Get-VM -Location $respool \| Select-Object Name, PowerState > myVMProperties.txt
3	Start the `VM` virtual machine. Get-VM VM \| Start-VM
4	Get information of the guest OS of the `VM` virtual machine. Get-VMGuest VM \| fc
5	Shut down the OS of the `VM` virtual machine. Stop-VMGuest VM
6	Power off the `VM` virtual machine. Stop-VM VM
7	Move the virtual machine `VM` from the `Host01` host to the `Host02` host. Get-VM -Name VM -Location Host01 \| Move-VM –Destination Host02 Note If the virtual machine you want to move across hosts is powered on, it must be located on a shared storage registered as a datastore on both the original and the new host.