new post: powercli-list-linux-vms-and-datacenter-locations

content/posts/2022/powercli-list-linux-vms-and-datacenter-locations/index.md

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+---
+title: "Using PowerCLI to list Linux VMs and Datacenter Locations" # Title of the blog post.
+date: 2022-01-13T13:53:08-06:00 # Date of post creation.
+# lastmod: 2022-01-13T13:53:08-06:00 # Date when last modified
+description: "A quick bit of PowerCLI to generate a report showing Linux VMs and their datacenter locations." # Description used for search engine.
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+series: Tips
+tags:
+  - vmware
+  - powercli
+comment: true # Disable comment if false.
+---
+
+I recently needed to export a list of all the Linux VMs in a rather large vSphere environment spanning multiple vCenters (and the entire globe), and I wanted to include information about which virtual datacenter each VM lived in to make it easier to map VMs to their physical location. 
+
+I've got a [`Connect-vCenters` function](/logging-in-to-multiple-vcenter-servers-at-once-with-powercli/) that I use to quickly log into multiple vCenters at once. That then enables me to run a single query across the entire landscape - but what query? There isn't really a direct way to get datacenter information out of the results generated by `Get-VM`; I could run an additional `Get-Datacenter` query against each returned VM object but that doesn't sound very efficient.
+
+What I came up with is using `Get-Datacenter` to enumerate each virtual datacenter, and then list the VMs matching my query within:
+
+```powershell
+$linuxVms = foreach( $datacenter in ( Get-Datacenter )) {
+  Get-Datacenter $datacenter | Get-VM | Where { $_.ExtensionData.Config.GuestFullName -notmatch "win" -and $_.Name -notmatch "vcls" } | `
+  Select @{ N="Datacenter";E={ $datacenter.Name }},
+  Name,
+  Notes,
+  @{ N="Configured OS";E={ $_.ExtensionData.Config.GuestFullName }},  # OS based on the .vmx configuration
+  @{ N="Running OS";E={ $_.Guest.OsFullName }}, # OS as reported by VMware Tools
+  @{ N="Powered On";E={ $_.PowerState -eq "PoweredOn" }},
+  @{ N="IP Address";E={ $_.ExtensionData.Guest.IpAddress }}
+}
+$linuxVms | Export-Csv -Path ./linuxVms.csv -NoTypeInformation -UseCulture
+```
+
+This gave me a CSV export with exactly the data I needed.