Welcome to 2022 readers!! This is my first post for this year. In this post I thought of sharing a new cmdlet recently added to the PowerCLI module.
VMware recently released PowerCLI 12.5. A key enhancement in this version is the addition of new cmdlets that allow vCenter Appliance service management. Let's take a closer look at these cmdlets. First we connect our PowerShell instance to the vCenter:
Let us use the cmdlet "Get-VIApplianceService", which provides list of all services on the vCenter Appliance and the status of these services:
Now, let us use the new cmdlet series to start/stop and restart a service.
In this example we will start, stop and restart "atftpd" service, which is the tftp file server service daemon :
Start-VIApplianceService:
Restart-VIApplianceService:
Stop-VIApplianceService:
This is quite a useful tool, which would reduce troubleshooting steps where otherwise one would have to start/stop/restart services either via SSH or appliance console.
One point to note, if you try to update your existing PowerCLI module using the "Update-Module" command, you might see the error below:
If you see this error, you will have to uninstall and remove your existing PowerCLI module and re-install using the "Install-Module" cmdlet. More on this here: "PowerCLI 12.5 - What's New - VMware PowerCLI Blog" .