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PowerCLISuggestions.md

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Suggestions to make things even Betterer

Overview:

We compiled some feedback on potential improvements for things ranging from specific cmdlet flexibility and speed to the overall PowerCLI experience (not here in particular order, yet). If there are other means by which to discuss such feedback in the future, let us do that (not sure this fit into forums / Slack, due to the amount of potential discussion that might ensue).

For PowerCLI in general:

  • support natural PowerShell interactive behavior (tab-completion of possible values based on inventory items in the environment, contributing to discoverability): add tab-completion support to parameter values
    • by registering, for cmdlets where it makes sense, argument completers that provide completion results
    • base/core examples (that might get most use)
      • -Name param on things like Get-Datastore, Get-Datacenter, Get-Cluster, Get-VM, Get-VMHost, Get-VirtualSwitch, Get-VDSwitch, Get-Template
    • go through basic examples from RegisterArgumentCompleter_samples.ps1
    • and, like the following, to-be-tab-completed example: New-VM -Name mattTest_toDelete -Template (Get-Template *2k16<tab>) -ResourcePool (Get-Cluster o<tab>) -Location (Get-Folder v<tab>) -Datastore (Get-DatastoreCluster *gold<tab>) -WhatIf
    • can be more advanced/contextual, so can take additional pipeline context into consideration. Like, tab-completing only the VDPG names on given VDSwitch: Get-VDSwitch myVDSwitch0 | Get-VDPortGroup db<tab>
    • other examples of where such things are useful:
      • -NetworkName on Set-NetworkAdapter
      • -Name on Get-VIRole, Get-VIPermission
      • others: example parameters for which argument completion is useful and that appear in several cmdlets: -Location, -Datastore, -VM, -VMHost, -Role, -Privilege, -Tag, -Template
    • examples of where this type of behavior is already in place in other, non-VMware PowerShell modules:
      • Get-Process -Name <tab> -- this will tab through the names of the currently running processes on the given machine, after determining those process names at -press time
      • Get-Service -DisplayName <tab> -- this will tab through the display names of the services registered on the given machine, after determining those service display names registered at -press time
      • <most cmdlets with -Path param> -Path <tab> -- tabs through the filesystem values in the given location (in current working directory in this case)
      • More examples that get, dynamically, the current values that correspond to the given cmdlet noun and parameter combination:
        • Get-Alias -Definition <tab>
        • Get-Variable -Name r<tab>
        • Get-EventLog -LogName <tab>
        • Get-Command -Module VMwar<tab>
        • ..et cetera

Thoughts on speed (or slowness) of (what might cause, ways to improve, if any, by environment adjustments):

  • Get-Stat can be pretty sluggish -- any work being done on speed improvements?
  • Get-ScsiLun -- ~25s for something like: Get-Datastore mydstore0 | Get-ScsiLun
  • Get-VMHostStorage -- 30+ seconds per VMHost, depending on the number of SCSI LUNs

Other cmdlet addition/improvement thoughts:

Add ability to manage VMHost VMNIC <--> vDSwitch uplink relationship

  • can currently do so via the API, of course, but being able to do so via a cmdlet will be quite useful
  • vNugglets.VDNetworking module now provides a cmdlet for such things: Set-VNVMHostNetworkAdapterVDUplink

Update Open-VMConsoleWindow to work on PowerShell Core

  • this is one of the quite useful cmdlets that a Linux colleague leverages from time to time (on PowerShell Core, of course)
  • we made a Open-VMConsoleWindow_Expanded.ps1 parameterized script that provides this functionality for the moment

Some useful new parameters to add:

  • add -Name param to Get-Task, for more natural getting of task objects (without additional Where-Object statement)

  • add one or more of -Name, -Key, -Label parameters to Get-VMHostService, for getting those services by name/key, instead of a subsequent Where-Object to get just the target service(s)

    • like:
     ## current state
 Get-VMHost myhost0.dom.com | Get-VMHostService | Where-Object {$_.Label -eq "SSH"}

 ## Proposed behavior -- more consumer friendly
 Get-VMHost myhost0.dom.com | Get-VMHostService -Name SSH
 Get-VMHost myhost0.dom.com | Get-VMHostService SSH

  • to help promote good security practices/behavior, add -Credential parameter to New-VICredentialStoreItem (and any cmdlets that do not already support it in place of username/password on command line, if there are others)

    • to give option to not enter password in clear on command line (and, to possibly supplant the not-so-great use of -User and -Password)

  • add -WaitForshutdown type of parameter to Stop-VMGuest so that we easily have code wait for VM to reach powered-off state without write custom "wait" code (or, maybe a Wait-VMState kind of cmdlet to allow for waiting for VM powerstate?)

    • for when waiting for updated PowerState property on a VM, for subsequent VM config operations

Other thoughts:

  • investigate benifits of cmdlet for applying SDRS recommendations -- similar to Apply-DrsRecommendation

  • add ability to get effective VIPermissions for a principal via Get-VIPermission

    • so as to be able to find where userX has access at all, not just explicit VIPermissions granted (like, for a member of an AD group)
    • say, via a switch param like -Effective, so that this useful permissions retrieval, which would likely be more resource intensive, is not the default behavior

  • add consideration for DefaultIntraVmAffinity property on datastoreclusters

    • this is the property of a datastorecluster that controls behavior that, if enabled, tries to keep all of a given VM's disks on the same datastore in the given datastorecluster
    • add ability to set it via Set-DatastoreCluster
    • add some top-level property to VMware.VimAutomation.ViCore.Impl.V1.DatastoreManagement.DatastoreClusterImpl objects, so one need not dig down to ExtensionData.PodStorageDrsEntry.StorageDrsConfig.PodConfig.DefaultIntraVmAffinity property to get current value

  • add ability to retrieve the types of events like the way Get-StatType gets types of stats available for entities

    • maybe via addition of Get-VIEventType kind of cmdlet
    • and then the ability to provide such types as a parameter to Get-VIEvent to retrieve only desired types of events, like:
     ## Proposed capability to get only ssh disable events
 Get-VIEvent -EventType esx.audit.ssh.disabled
    • accepting event type parameter is currently only achieved by advanced functions that may support it, like Get-VIEventAdvanced.ps1

  • add FullPath type of property to returned VMware.VimAutomation.ViCore.Impl.V1.Inventory.FolderImpl objects

  • add ability to have a Cluster object be a search root (via -Location param) for getting templates via Get-Template, in the same way that Get-VM accepts a cluster object for -Location; removes need to have Get-VMHost in the mix when just wanting to check a cluster for the presence of a template

     ## current state
 Get-Cluster myCluster0 | Get-VM myVM0
 Get-Cluster myCluster0 | Get-VMHost | Get-Template myTemplate0 ## <-- behavior to improve

 ## Proposed behavior -- more consumer friendly -- can use Get-Template in same way as Get-VM
 Get-Cluster myCluster0 | Get-Template myTemplate0

  • easy win: update default table view (say, in the corresponding *.format.ps1xml) to be more informative for object VMware.VimAutomation.ViCore.Impl.V1.Host.Storage.VMHostStorageInfoImpl (display more than a single property of the object in default table view)

    • this is the returned object from things like Get-VMHostStorage, often used for rescanning HBAs
    • would be useful for consumer to have more information by default on what is the VMHost to which the given VMHostStorageInfo object pertains (currently, only the SoftwareIScsiEnabled property is displayed in the default table view)
     ## current state
 Get-Cluster myCluster0 | Get-VMHost | Get-VMHostStorage
 
 SoftwareIScsiEnabled
 --------------------
 False

 ## Proposed behavior -- more consumer friendly:  more informative default table view, displaying a couple of other existing properties of the returned object
 Get-Cluster myCluster0 | Get-VMHost | Get-VMHostStorage
 
 VMHost                SoftwareIScsiEnabled ScsiLun
 ------                -------------------- -------
 myhost0.dom.com                      False {naa.60060160...}

  • VCSA VAMI API: if not already available, add ability to check for / apply / install appliance updates and patches; already available?

    • currently have seen Set and Get for the "Update repository configuration", but have found no other items in APIExplorer