PowerShell useage with Nutanix

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Using PowerShell with Nutanix

PowerShell CMDlets

The below will cover the Nutanix PowerShell CMDlets, how to use them and some general background on Windows PowerShell.

Basics

Windows PowerShell is a powerful shell (hence the name ;P) and scripting language built on the .NET framework.  It is a very simple to use language and is built to be intuitive and interactive.  Within PowerShell there are a few key constructs/Items:

CMDlets

CMDlets are commands or .NET classes which perform a particular operation.  They are usually conformed to the Getter/Setter methodology and typically use a <Verb>-<Noun> based structure.  For example: Get-Process, Set-Partition, etc.

Piping or Pipelining

Piping is an important construct in PowerShell (similar to its use in Linux) and can greatly simplify things when used correctly.  With piping you’re essentially taking the output of one section of the pipeline and using that as input to the next section of the pipeline.  The pipeline can be as long as required (assuming there remains output which is being fed to the next section of the pipe). A very simple example could be getting the current processes, finding those that match a particular trait or filter and then sorting them:

Get-Service | where {$_.Status -eq “Running”} | Sort-Object Name

Piping can also be used in place of for-each, for example:

# For each item in my array
$myArray | %{ 
  # Do something 
}

Key Object Types

Below are a few of the key object types in PowerShell.  You can easily get the object type by using the .getType() method, for example: $someVariable.getType() will return the objects type.

Variable

$myVariable = “foo”

Note: You can also set a variable to the output of a series or pipeline of commands:

$myVar2 = (Get-Process | where {$_.Status -eq “Running})

In this example the commands inside the parentheses will be evaluated first then variable will be the outcome of that.

Array

$myArray = @(“Value”,”Value”)

Note: You can also have an array of arrays, hash tables or custom objects

Hash Table

$myHash = @{“Key” = “Value”;”Key” = “Value”}

Useful commands

Get the help content for a particular CMDlet (similar to a man page in Linux)

Get-Help <CMDlet Name>

Example: Get-Help Get-Process

List properties and methods of a command or object

<Some expression or object> | Get-Member

Example: $someObject | Get-Member

Core Nutanix CMDlets and Usage

Download Nutanix CMDlets Installer The Nutanix CMDlets can be downloaded directly from the Prism UI (post 4.0.1) and can be found on the drop down in the upper right hand corner:

Prism CMDlets Installer Link
Figure 8-3. Prism CMDlets Installer Link
Load Nutanix Snappin

Check if snappin is loaded and if not, load

if ( (Get-PSSnapin -Name NutanixCmdletsPSSnapin -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue) -eq $null )
{
Add-PsSnapin NutanixCmdletsPSSnapin
}

List Nutanix CMDlets

Get-Command | Where-Object{$_.PSSnapin.Name -eq “NutanixCmdletsPSSnapin”}

Connect to a Acropolis Cluster

Connect-NutanixCluster -Server $server -UserName “myuser” -Password (Read-Host “Password: ” -AsSecureString) -AcceptInvalidSSLCerts

Get Nutanix VMs matching a certain search string

Set to variable

$searchString = “myVM”
$vms = Get-NTNXVM | where {$_.vmName -match $searchString}

Interactive

Get-NTNXVM | where {$_.vmName -match “myString”}

Interactive and formatted

Get-NTNXVM | where {$_.vmName -match “myString”} | ft

Get Nutanix vDisks

Set to variable

$vdisks = Get-NTNXVDisk

Interactive

Get-NTNXVDisk

Interactive and formatted

Get-NTNXVDisk | ft

Get Nutanix Containers

Set to variable

$containers = Get-NTNXContainer

Interactive

Get-NTNXContainer

Interactive and formatted

Get-NTNXContainer | ft

Get Nutanix Protection Domains

Set to variable

$pds = Get-NTNXProtectionDomain

Interactive

Get-NTNXProtectionDomain

Interactive and formatted

Get-NTNXProtectionDomain | ft

Get Nutanix Consistency Groups

Set to variable

$cgs = Get-NTNXProtectionDomainConsistencyGroup

Interactive

Get-NTNXProtectionDomainConsistencyGroup

Interactive and formatted

Get-NTNXProtectionDomainConsistencyGroup | ft

Resources and Scripts:

NOTE: some scripts above are not maintained and should be used for reference only.

You can find more scripts on the Nutanix Github located at https://github.com/nutanix