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2020-09-16
I manage a large VMware environment spanning several individual vCenters, and I often need to run PowerCLI [1] queries across the entire environment. I waste valuable seconds running `Connect-ViServer` and logging in for each and every vCenter I need to talk to. Wouldn't it be great if I could just log into all of them at once?
I can, and here's how I do it.
The following Powershell script will let you define a list of vCenters to be accessed, securely store your credentials for each vCenter, log in to every vCenter with a single command, and also close the connections when they're no longer needed. It's also a great starting point for any other custom functions you'd like to incorporate into your PowerCLI sessions.
# PowerCLI_Custom_Functions.ps1
# Usage:
# 0) Edit $vCenterList to reference the vCenters in your environment.
# 1) Call 'Update-Credentials' to create/update a ViCredentialStoreItem to securely store your username and password.
# 2) Call 'Connect-vCenters' to open simultaneously connections to all the vCenters in your environment.
# 3) Do PowerCLI things.
# 4) Call 'Disconnect-vCenters' to cleanly close all ViServer connections because housekeeping.
Import-Module VMware.PowerCLI
$vCenterList = @("vcenter1", "vcenter2", "vcenter3", "vcenter4", "vcenter5")
function Update-Credentials {
$newCredential = Get-Credential
ForEach ($vCenter in $vCenterList) {
New-ViCredentialStoreItem -Host $vCenter -User $newCredential.UserName -Password $newCredential.GetNetworkCredential().password
}
}
function Connect-vCenters {
ForEach ($vCenter in $vCenterList) {
Connect-ViServer -Server $vCenter
}
}
function Disconnect-vCenters {
Disconnect-ViServer -Server * -Force -Confirm:$false
}
Edit whatever shortcut you use for launching PowerCLI (I use a tab in Windows Terminal [2] - I'll do another post on that setup later) to reference the custom init script. Here's the commandline I use:
powershell.exe -NoExit -Command ". C:\Scripts\PowerCLI_Custom_Functions.ps1"
Now just use that shortcut to open up PowerCLI when you wish to do things. The custom functions will be loaded and waiting for you.
Start by running `Update-Credentials`. It will prompt you for the username+password needed to log into each vCenter listed in `$vCenterList`. These can be the same or different accounts, but you will need to enter the credentials for each vCenter since they get stored in a separate `ViCredentialStoreItem`. You'll also run this function again if you need to change the password(s) in the future.
Log in to all the things by running `Connect-vCenters`.
Do your work.
When you're finished, be sure to call `Disconnect-vCenters` so you don't leave sessions open in the background.
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