Managing VMware ESXi services with PowerCLI

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Dan Franciscus

Dan Franciscus is a systems engineer and VMware Certified Professional (VCP) specializing in VMware, PowerShell, and other Microsoft-based technologies. You can reach Dan at his blog or his Twitter at @dan_franciscus.

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ESXi hosts run a proprietary kernel but allows SSH access that includes various Linux commands. Thus, it certainly helps if sysadmins understand Linux in order to manage and troubleshoot the servers. Fortunately, for VMware admins who are experts only in Windows, PowerCLI can be an option when it comes to many ESXi tasks.

PowerCLI service cmdlets

Getting the status of ESXi services

To show the status of services on an ESXi host, we can use the Get-VMHostService cmdlet. This cmdlet has only three unique parameters: -VMHost, -Server, and -Refresh. The -Refresh parameter refreshes data on the service before printing it to the console.

In the example below, I am just showing the current service status on the ESXi host VMHost-1:

C:\ > Get-VMHostService -VMHost VMHost-1 -Refresh
Key                  Label                          Policy     Running  Required
---                  -----                          ------     -------  --------
DCUI                 Direct Console UI              on         True     False
TSM                  ESXi Shell                     off        False    False
TSM-SSH              SSH                            off        False    False
lbtd                 Load-Based Teaming Daemon      on         True     False
lwsmd                Active Directory Service       off        False    False
ntpd                 NTP Daemon                     on         True     False
pcscd                PC/SC Smart Card Daemon        off        False    False
sfcbd-watchdog       CIM Server                     on         True     False
snmpd                SNMP Server                    on         True     False
vmsyslogd            Syslog Server                  on         True     True
vmware-fdm           vSphere High Availability A... on         True     False
vprobed              VProbe Daemon                  off        False    False
vpxa                 VMware vCenter Agent           on         True     False
xorg                 X.Org Server                   on         False    False

Starting, stopping and restarting ESXi services

In the next example, I will show how to use PowerCLI to start and stop ESXi services. First, we need to place the VMhost and service we want to manage into a variable in PowerShell.

Here, I want to start the SSH service, so I use Get-VMHostService to specify the host and service:

C:\Windows\System32> $VMHostService = Get-VMHostService -VMHost VMHost-1 -Refresh | Where {$_.Key -eq 'TSM-SSH'}

Now, I simply use the $VMHostService variable with Start-VMHostService to start the SSH service:

C:\Windows\System32> Start-VMHostService -HostService $VMHostService

If I would like to restart the SSH service, I just specify the Restart-VMHostService cmdlet along with the same PowerShell variable:

C:\Windows\System32> Restart-VMHostService -HostService $VMHostService -Verbose
VERBOSE: 10/9/2017 4:33:25 PM Restart-VMHostService Started execution
Perform operation?
Perform operation Restart host service. on SSH?
[Y] Yes  [A] Yes to All  [N] No  [L] No to All  [S] Suspend  [?] Help (default is "Y"): a
Key                  Label                          Policy     Running  Required
---                  -----                          ------     -------  --------
TSM-SSH              SSH                            off        True     False
VERBOSE: 10/9/2017 4:33:27 PM Restart-VMHostService Finished execution

Modifying ESXi services

To modify the policy on a specific service, we use Set-VMHostService. Again, we will specify the same ESXi SSH service, but instead of the default policy of not having the service running, we will enable it to be On, meaning it will start the service upon boot.

C:\Windows\System32> Get-VMHostService -VMHost VMHost-1 -Refresh | Where {$_.Key -eq 'TSM-SSH'} | Set-VMHostService -Policy On
Key                  Label                          Policy     Running  Required
---                  -----                          ------     -------  --------
TSM-SSH              SSH                            on         True     False

Automating bulk changes to ESXi services

One of the great features of PowerShell, and thus PowerCLI, is the ability to automate a time-consuming task. For instance, if we would like to set all ESXi services on all of our hosts in the cluster so the Active Directory service is On, we can do this with one line of PowerShell.

First, we connect to our vCenter from PowerCLI:

C:\Windows\System32> Connect-VIServer vcenter

Now, we pipe the results of Get-VMHostService using a wildcard to find all VMHosts in the cluster to Set-VMHostService using -Policy On:

C:\Windows\System32> Get-VMHostService -VMHost * -Refresh | Where {$_.Key -eq 'lwsmd' } | Set-VMHostService -Policy On

Within seconds, all VMHosts in the cluster have the Active Directory service running.