VMware Tools – bulk update Windows VMs

Nenad Vijatov — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 10:13:23 +0000

If you need to update VMware tools on all Windows (Server 2003, XP) VMs on one or more VMware ESX server, you need to do that with command vmware-vmupgrade.exe.
From my point of view this command is insecure, so I deiced to create a bash script for this job using GREAT utility vimsh.

Script looks like this …
#!/bin/bash
#Automatic Upgrade VMware Tools — Nenad Vijatov — v.0.6

#Define variables
TEMPFILE=/root/temp_vmlist
RESULTFILE=/root/temp_vmupgrade

#Fill TEMPFILE
vmware-vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms > $TEMPFILE

#Lets filter TEMPFILE
for a in `awk ‘{if ($5 == “winNetStandardGuest” || $5 == “winNetEnterpriseGuest” || $5 == “winXPProGuest”) print $1}’ $TEMPFILE`
do
#Take action on each VM
VMSTATE=`vmware-vim-cmd vmsvc/power.getstate $a | grep Powered | awk ‘{print $2}’`
echo “VM with ID $a is powered $VMSTATE” >> $RESULTFILE
while [ $VMSTATE == "off" ]
do
echo “Powering on VM with ID $a …” >> $RESULTFILE
vmware-vim-cmd vmsvc/power.on $a
sleep 30
VMSTATE=`vmware-vim-cmd vmsvc/power.getstate $a | grep Powered | awk ‘{print $2}’`
done
echo “Upgrading VM with ID $a …” >> $RESULTFILE
vmware-vim-cmd vmsvc/tools.upgrade $a
done
#EOF

esxtop

Nenad Vijatov — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 12:30:18 +0000

Few months ago I first read about this command and I forget where … Command is like top Linux command, but with much more information.
esxtop allows you monitoring and collecting of data for all system resources about VI.

More about esxtop statistics you can find at VMware community.

Nenad Vijatov » VMware ESX

VMware Tools – bulk update Windows VMs

esxtop