VMware vSphere PowerCLI Change Log
This document lists all changes introduced in the following vSphere PowerCLI releases:
VMware vSphere PowerCLI 5.0.1
Released 09 January 2012 | Documentation
| Change Type |
Description |
| feature |
Added the Connect-CIServer cmdlet for
establishing connection to a cloud server. |
| feature |
Added the Disconnect-CIServer cmdlet for
closing connection to the cloud server. |
| feature |
Added the Get-Catalog
cmdlet for retrieving catalogs. |
| feature |
Added the Get-ExternalNetwork cmdlet for retrieving all external
networks of the cloud. |
| feature |
Added the Get-Media
cmdlet for retrieving media items. |
| feature |
Added the Get-Org cmdlet
for retrieving organizations. |
| feature |
Added the Get-OrgNetwork cmdlet for retrieving organization
networks. |
| feature |
Added the Get-OrgVdc
cmdlet for retrieving the organization's virtual
datacenters. |
| feature |
Added the Get-ProviderVdc
cmdlet for retrieving the cloud provider's virtual
datacenters. |
| feature |
Added the Get-CIRole
cmdlet for retrieving user roles available in the
cloud. |
| feature |
Added the Get-CIUser
cmdlet for retrieving cloud users. |
| feature |
Added the Get-CIVApp
cmdlet for retrieving cloud virtual appliances. |
| feature |
Added the Get-CIVAppTemplate cmdlet for retrieving cloud virtual
appliance templates. |
| feature |
Added the Get-CIView
cmdlet for retrieving cloud view objects. |
| feature |
Added the Get-CIVM cmdlet
for retrieving cloud virtual machines. |
| feature |
Added the Import-CIVApp cmdlet for importing vSphere virtual machines to the vCloud as a virtual appliance. |
| feature |
Added the Import-CIVAppTemplate for importing vSphere virtual
machines or OVF packages as virtual appliance
templates. |
| feature |
Added the Search-Cloud
cmdlet to enable searching for cloud objects of a specified
type. |
| feature |
Added the RelatedObject
parameter of the Get-View cmdlet for
retrieving related vSphere objects from Cloud
objects. |
| improvement |
Added a new configuration setting that
controls behavior upon encountering an invalid SSL
certificate when establishing secure connections. |
| improvement |
Added support for XML-formatted
parameters in the ESXCLI method. |
| improvement |
Added security improvements. |
| fixed issue |
The values of the
FreeSpaceGB and CapacityGB
properties of the object returned by Get-Datastore, are now swapped to show the correct
values. |
| fixed issue |
The ESXCLI integration is now fixed to
work for arrays. |
| fixed issue |
The LocalPath parameter
set of the Install-VMHostPatch cmdlet now
works properly. |
VMware vSphere PowerCLI 5.0
Released 24 August 2011 | Documentation
| Change Type |
Description |
| feature |
Added UID/DistinguishedName utilities (global variable $UidUtil with methods for manipulating UIDs). |
| feature |
Added support for storage I/O control for Set-Datastore, Get-VMResourceConfiguration, and Set-VMResourceConfiguration. |
| feature |
Added support for vCenter Servers in linked mode through Connect-VIServer. |
| feature |
Get-View/UpdateViewData now accept property paths containing managed objects. You can find the result in the corresponding LinkedView property.
|
| feature |
Added ability to retrieve vCenter users and groups through the Get-VIAccount cmdlet. |
| feature |
Added the Get-VMHostAuthentication and Set-VMHostAuthentication cmdlets for joining hosts into active directory. (for versions 4.1 and later) |
| feature |
Added support for creating virtual machines and hard disks on datastore clusters and defining anti-affinity rules for them. (requires vCenter Server 5.x ) |
| feature |
Added the Get-DatastoreCluster cmdlet for retrieving datastore clusters. |
| feature |
Added the Get-VMHostProfileRequiredInput cmdlet for verifying whether the provided information is sufficient to apply a host profile.. |
| feature |
Added the Move-VApp cmdlet for moving virtual appliances. |
| feature |
Added the Get-VIProperty cmdlet for retrieving extended object properties. |
| improvement |
Added Type parameter to Get-Folder. |
| improvement |
Added Name parameter to Get-NetworkAdapter. |
| improvement |
Get-Datastore returns NasDatastore and VmfsDatastore types, that contains specific properties:
NasDatastore has RemoteHost, RemotePath, and UserName properties.VmfsDatastore has FileSystemVersion property. |
| improvement |
Added Id and Name parameters to more Get-* cmdlets. |
| improvement |
Added IsLocal property to ScsiLun objects. |
| improvement |
Added support for cloning templates through New-Template. |
| improvement |
Improved the PowerCLI console prompt. |
| improvement |
Enabled auto-completion for values of enumeration-typed parameters. |
| improvement |
Improved the output formatting of Invoke-VMScript. |
| improvement |
Optimized retrieving objects by ID through Get-* cmdlets. |
| improvement |
Extended the OBN (specifying objects by name) support. |
| improvement |
Made improvements to New-VM:
- Added support for creating a virtual machine on a DRS cluster by specifying only a cluster for the
ResourcePool parameter.
- The
ResourcePool parameter accepts ResourcePool, VMHost, VApp, and Cluster objects and specifies the location where to create the virtual machine. The VMHost parameter is no longer mandatory.
|
| improvement |
Added support for the SSPI passthrough feature of VIX. Guest operating system credentials are not required anymore. (requires vCenter Server 5.0 or later). |
| improvement |
Added vCenter Server support for Get-VMHostModule and Set-VMHostModule. (requires vCenter Server 5.0 or later) |
| improvement |
Added Windows 2008 and Windows 7 support for the Get-VMGuestNetworkInterface, Set-VMGuestNetworkInterface, Get-VMGuestRoute, New-VMGuestRoute, Set-VMGuestRoute, and Remove-VMGuestRoute cmdlets, and for the guest-related features of Set-HardDisk. |
| improvement |
Added vCenter Server support for copying, moving, and inflating virtual hard disks. (requires vCenter Server 5.0 or later) |
| improvement |
Added vCenter Server support for Get-EsxCli. (requires vCenter Server 5.0 or later) |
| improvement |
Made Copy-VMGuestFile enhancements.
- Pipelining items returned by the
Get-Item cmdlet is allowed when copying from local to guest operating system.
- Wildcards are allowed only at the end of the source path. If you are copying files from the guest operating system of a virtual machine to a local directory, the
Source parameter supports wildcards only on vCenter Server 5.0 and later.
|
| improvement |
Import-VApp and Export-VApp support OVA format.
|
| improvement |
Enhanced Import-VApp to import compressed and chunked files. |
| bug fix |
On 64-bit operating systems, Invoke-VMScript works only in 32-bit mode. (requires vCenter Server 5.0 or later) |
| bug fix |
Invoke-VMScript does not work if the guest operating system is installed on a drive other than C: or D:. |
| bug fix |
Running Invoke-VMScript against outdated VMware Tools might make the console non-responsive. |
| bug fix |
Invoke-VMScript might become non-responding. |
| bug fix |
Set-PowerCLIConfiguration does not set a persistent proxy policy. |
| bug fix |
Set-VM cannot modify the DrsAutomationLevel property of the virtual machine if the current value of the property is Disabled. |
| bug fix |
Set-VM accepts only values that are powers of 2 for the Numcpu parameter. |
| bug fix |
On Linux Red Hat 5, Set-VMGuestNetworkInterface cannot set static DNS addresses. |
| bug fix |
Set-VMGuestNetworkInterface cannot set the WinsPolicy property to dhcp. |
| bug fix |
Get-VMGuestNetworkInterface throws an error if there is a disconnected network adapter. |
| limitation |
Parameters CommandsToSwitchPath, BlocksToSwitchPath, NoCommandsSwitch, and NoBlocksSwitch of Set-ScsiLun do not work against vCenter Server 4.0 and later. |
VMware vSphere PowerCLI 4.1 Update 1
Released 1 Dec 2010 | Documentation
| Change Type |
Description |
| feature |
Added support for the ESX CLI functionality through the Get-EsxCli cmdlet. |
| feature |
Added support for ESX Top statistics through the Get-EsxTop cmdlet. |
| feature |
Enhanced Get-VirtualSwitch, Get-VirtualPortGroup, Get-VMHost, Get-VM, New-NetworkAdapter, Set-NetworkAdapter, and Get-VMHostNetworkAdapter to add support for distributed switches and distributed switch port groups. |
| feature |
Added support for SCSI controllers through the New-ScsiController, Get-ScsiController, and Set-ScsiController cmdlets, and the new Controller parameter of New-HardDisk and Set-HardDisk. |
| feature |
Added support for querying and modifying vCenter Server alarms through the Get-AlarmDefinition, Set-AlarmDefinition, Get-AlarmAction, New-AlarmAction, Remove-AlarmAction, Get-AlarmActionTrigger, New-AlarmActionTrigger, and Remove-AlarmActionTrigger cmdlets. |
| feature |
Added the Get-AdvancedSetting, Set-AdvancedSetting, New-AdvancedSetting, and Remove-AdvancedSetting cmdlets for managing advanced vCenter Server settings and Cluster HA advanced options. |
| feature |
Added the Wait-Tools cmdlet that allows you to wait for VMware Tools of the specified virtual machines to load before proceeding. |
| feature |
Added support for querying disk and disk partition information of hosts through the Get-VMHostDisk and Get-VMHostDiskPartition cmdlets. |
| feature |
Added support for formatting host disk partitions through the Format-VMHostDiskPartition cmdlet. |
| feature |
Added support for querying the primary HA cluster nodes through the Get-HAPrimaryVMHost cmdlet. |
| feature |
Added support for zeroing out a virtual machine hard disk through a new ZeroOut parameter to Set-HardDisk cmdlet. |
| improvement |
Added the DeletePermanently parameter to Remove-HardDisk for deleting hard disk files from the datastore. |
| improvement |
Enhanced the Get-VICredentialStoreItem, New-VICredentialStoreItem, and Remove-VICredentialStoreItem cmdlets to store encrypted passwords. |
| improvement |
Added the Menu parameter to Connect-VIServer for storing a list of the last visited servers. |
| improvement |
Enhanced the restoring ESXi configuration functionality of the Get-VMHostFirmware and Set-VMHostFirmware cmdlets to provide the bundle path as a directory. This allows you to restore multiple hosts in one command. |
| improvement |
Added support for converting hard disks from Thin to Thick and vice versa through the DiskStorageFormat parameter of Move-VM. |
| improvement |
Added HA Slot size information in the objects returned by the Get-Cluster cmdlet. |
| improvement |
Added ability to power off non-responding virtual machines by using the Stop-VM cmdlets. |
| improvement |
The Invoke-VMScript, Copy-VMGuestFile, Set-VMGuestNetworkInterface, Get-VMGuestNetworkInterface, New-VMGuestRoute, Get-VMGuestRoute, and Remove-VMGuestRoute cmdltes now do not require host credentials on ESX 4.0 and newer. |
| bug fix |
Add-PassthroughDevice cannot add more than fifteen SCSI passthrough devices to a virtual machine. |
| bug fix |
If a ManagedObjectReference object that points to StorageResourceManager is specified for the Id parameter of Get-View, the cmdlet returns no result. |
| bug fix |
Get-VMGuestNetworkInterface does not work when the network is disconnected. |
| bug fix |
Get-VMGuestNetworkInterface throws an error if there is a disconnected network adapter. |
| bug fix |
On Windows operating systems, the Persistence property of the objects returned by Get-VMGuestRoute is incorrect. |
| bug fix |
Invoke-VMScript does not work if the guest operating system is installed on a drive different than C: and D:. |
| bug fix |
Running Invoke-VMScript against outdated VMware Tools might cause the console to stop responding. |
| bug fix |
Invoke-VMScript might become non-responding.
|
| bug fix |
New-OSCustomizationSpec clones only the first object if an array of objects is provided. |
| bug fix |
vSphere vClient shows an error message Error reading password when opening specifications that have been created by using New-OSCustomizationSpec with empty passwords. |
| bug fix |
Set-HardDisk fails to resize the hard disk, if the helper virtual machine cannot access the datastore where the target hard disk is located. |
| bug fix |
Set-HardDisk fails to resize the hard disk, if the helper virtual machine is powered on. |
| bug fix |
Set-PowerCLIConfiguration cannot set a persistent proxy policy. |
| bug fix |
Set-VM cannot modify the DrsAutomationLevel property of the virtual machine if the current value of the property is Disabled. |
| bug fix |
Set-VM accepts only values that are powers of 2 for the NumCpu parameter. |
| bug fix |
Sizes of snapshots are not calculated correctly for some vSphere API versions. |
| bug fix |
On Linux RedHat 5, Set-VMGuestNetworkInterface cannot set static DNS addresses. |
| removed feature |
Removed the Set-VMGuestRoute cmdlet due to low usability and stability reasons. |
VMware vSphere PowerCLI 4.1
Released 13 July 2010 | Documentation
| Change Type |
Description |
| feature |
Enhanced Get-StatType to retrieve the available counters for real time statistics. |
| feature |
Enhanced New-FloppyDrive to create floppy image files. |
| feature |
Added the New-VIProperty and Remove-VIProperty cmdlets for customizing cmdlets output objects. |
| feature |
Added the ExtensionData property for exposing the View object that corresponds to an output object. |
| feature |
Added the Get-VMHostRoute, New-VMHostRoute, Set-VMHostRoute, and Remove-VMHostRoute cmdlets for retrieving, adding, and removing routes from the host route table. |
| feature |
Enhanced New-VM and Set-VM to allow specifying the virtual machine version. |
| feature |
Added the Get-ErrorReport cmdlet for generating error reports. |
| feature |
Added the Get-VMHostPatch cmdlet for retrieving host patches. |
| feature |
Enhanced New-VM, New-NetworkAdapter, Set-NetworkAdapter, Set-VMHostNetworkAdapter, and Remove-VMHostNetworkAdapter to support adding and removing virtual machines and network adapters from virtual distributed switches (vDS). |
| improvement |
Enhanced Get-View to support VIObject as a positional parameter. |
| improvement |
Added support for passing object IDs to properties of the ManagedObjectReference type. |
| improvement |
Improved the pipeline support for Get-ScsiLun. |
| improvement |
Added the PersistentId property to enhance identifying virtual machines in ESX and vCenter Server. |
| improvement |
Added the ProvisionedSpaceGB and UsedSpaceGB properties for creating storage reports for virtual machines. |
| improvement |
Added the Mtu parameter to the Set-VMHostNetworkAdapter and New-VMHostNetworkAdapter cmdlet for supporting jumbo frames for VMHostNetworkAdapter objects. |
| improvement |
Added the InnerException property to allow including the full exception chain in the error records. |
| improvement |
Improved the OBN support for New-VirtualSwitch. |
| improvement |
Enhanced Set-VMHostNetwork to allow changing the VMKernel gateway device for a host. |
| improvement |
Enhanced Get-Stat to allow retrieving instance statistics. |
| improvement |
Optimized the performance of Get-Snapshot. |
| improvement |
Optimized the performance of the Datatastore Provider operations. |
| improvement |
Enhanced Set-HardDisk and Remove-HardDisk to support managing hard disks that are attached to powered on virtual machines. |
| improvement |
Introduced the Ctrl + C key combination for terminating the completion of the Connect-VIServer cmdlet. |
| improvement |
All Task objects now display the local time. |
| bug fix |
Add-PassthroughDevice does not modify the objects passed to the PassthroughDevice parameter. |
| bug fix |
PowerCLI automatically removes the accidentally disconnected default servers from the $global:defaultVIServers variable. |
| bug fix |
Get-VIObjectByVIView populates the properties of the returned VMHostNetwork objects. |
| bug fix |
Get-VMGuestNetworkInterface runs successfully on Windows virtual machines even when the name of the guest network adapter is different than Area Connection. |
| bug fix |
On Windows operating systems, Get-VMGuestRoute updates properly the Persistence property of the returned objects. |
| bug fix |
New-NetworkAdapter updates properly the MAC address property of the returned object on ESX Server 4.0 and ESXi Server 4.0 . |
| bug fix |
Set-OSCustomizationSpec updates properly the Domain property of an OS customization specification object. |
| bug fix |
Set-VMGuestNetworkInterface updates properly the RouteInterfaceId property of the returned object, when the WinsPolicy parameter set to dhcp. |
| bug fix |
Set-VMHost updates properly the VMSwapfileDatastoreId property of the returned object, when the VMSwapfilePolicy and VMSwapFileDatastore parameters are set to $true. |
| bug fix |
The tab completion of the commands in the Datastore Provider is optimized. |
| bug fix |
The vSphere PowerCLI installer does not stop responding on specific machine configuration environments. |
VMware vSphere PowerCLI 4.0 Update 1
19 November 2009 |
Documentation
| Change Type |
Description |
| feature |
Added the Get-NicTeamingPolicy and Set-NicTeamingPolicy cmdlets for managing the failover and load-balancing policies of VirtualSwitch and VirtualPortGroup objects. |
| feature |
Added the Copy-VMGuestFile cmdlet for copying files in and out of guest operating system. |
| feature |
Added the Restart-VM cmdlet for restarting virtual machines. |
| feature |
Added the Start-VMHost, Restart-VMHost, Suspend-VMHost, and Stop-VMHost cmdlets for managing the power state of hosts. |
| feature |
Added the Get-VMGuestNetworkInterface, Set-VMGuestNetworkInterface, Get-VMGuestRoute, New-VMGuestRoute, Remove-VMGuestRoute, and Set-VMGuestRoute cmdlets for managing guest networks. |
| feature |
Added the Get-UsbDevice and Remove-UsbDevice cmdlets for retrieving and removing USB devices. |
| feature |
Added the Get-OSCustomizationNicMapping, New-OSCustomizationNicMapping, and Set-OSCustomizationNicMapping cmdlets for managing NIC customization settings. |
| feature |
Added the Get-VMQuestion and Set-VMQuestion cmdlets for handling virtual machine questions. |
| feature |
Added the Get-VMHostHba, Set-VMHostHba, Get-iScsiHbaTarget, New-iScsiHbaTarget, Remove-iScsiHbaTarget, Set-iScsiHbaTarget, and Set-VMHostStorage cmdlets for working with host storages and iSCSI HBA devices. |
| feature |
Added the Move-Template cmdlet for moving templates and enhanced Move-Inventory to support moving templates. |
| feature |
Added the Get-VIPrivilege, Get-VIRole, New-VIRole, Remove-VIRole, Set-VIRole, Get-VIPermission, New-VIPermission, Remove-VIPermission, and Set-VIPermission cmdlets for managing the access control system. |
| feature |
Added the Get-VApp, Export-VApp, Import-VApp, New-VApp, Remove-VApp, Set-VApp, Start-VApp, and Stop-VApp cmdlets for managing virtual appliances. |
| feature |
Added the Get-DrsRecommendation and Apply-DrsRecommendation cmdlets. |
| feature |
Added the Install-VMHostPatch cmdlet for upgrading hosts. |
| feature |
Added the Add-PassthroughDevice, Get-PassthroughDevice, and Remove-PassthroughDevice cmdlets for managing PCI and SCSI passthrough devices. |
| feature |
Enhanced New-VM to support creating virtual machines with thin provisioned disks. |
| feature |
Enhanced New-VM to support cloning of powered-on virtual machines. |
| feature |
Enhanced Invoke-VMScript to support BAT (Windows) and BASH (Linux) scripts. |
| feature |
Enhanced Set-HardDisk to support resizing of virtual disks and guest partitions. |
| feature |
Enhanced Set-VMHostFirmware to support uploading of firmware packages. |
| feature |
Enhanced Copy-HardDisk, New-HardDisk, and Set-HardDisk to support extending, cloning, inflating, and reallocating virtual hard disks. |
| feature |
Enhanced New-VMHostAccount and Set-VMHostAccount to support granting and revoking shell access. |
| feature |
Created default drives for the Datastore Provider and Inventory Provider. Added support for working with files and directories in datastores. |
| improvement |
Extended the VMHost output object to contain extra information. |
| improvement |
Enhanced Update-Tools to upgrade VMware Tools without restarting the Windows guest operating system. |
| improvement |
Extended the Snapshot output object to contain extra information. |
| improvement |
Enhanced Set-VMHost to support evacuation of virtual machines. |
| improvement |
Enhanced Get-HardDisk to support RDM disks. |
| improvement |
Improved the performance of Get-VM. |
| improvement |
Extended the VIServer object to include server version information. |
| improvement |
The vmware.vim assembly loads automatically. |
| improvement |
Added support for working with multiple servers. Disconnect-VIServer disconnects the last connected server. |
| improvement |
Enhanced Set-VM to support converting virtual machines to templates. |
| improvement |
Enhanced New-VM and Set-VM to support virtual machine swap file policy modification. |
| improvement |
Added IPv6 support in some of the cmdlets. |
| improvement |
Added the Get-VMHostAvailableTimeZone cmdlet and enhanced Set-VMHost to support managing the host time zones. |
| modification |
Deprecated Get-VIToolkitDocumentation, Get-VIToolkitCommunity, Get-VIToolkitConfiguration, and Get-VIToolkitVersion and added Get-PowerCLIDocumentation, Get-PowerCLICommunity, Get-PowerCLIConfiguration, and Get-PowerCLIVersion. |
| modification |
Deprecated the Get-CustomField, New-CustomField, Remove-CustomField, and Set-CustomField cmdlets and replaced the deprecated functionality with the Get-CustomAttribute, New-CustomAttribute, Remove-CustomAttribute, Set-CustomAttribute, Get-Annotation, and Set-Annotation cmdlets. |
| modification |
Deprecated the NIC information in the VMHostNetworkInfo object and added the Get-VMHostNetworkAdapter cmdlet for retrieving NIC information. |
| bug fix |
After a virtual machine is powered on,(Get-Datastore).FreeSpaceMB returns the actual datastore free space without requiring that the datastore be refreshed first. |
| bug fix |
The output of Get-LogType cmdlet can be pipelined to the Get-Log cmdlet. |
| bug fix |
When running Get-ScsiLunPath, the SCSI device can be specified by name. |
| bug fix |
Get-VMHostAdvancedConfiguration returns correct output when run against vCenter Server and ESX. |
| bug fix |
New-HardDisk can create new virtual hard disks on a virtual machine that has no other hard disks. |
| bug fix |
New-VMHostNetworkAdapter accepts object names as arguments for the VirtualSwitch parameter. |
| bug fix |
If a user tries to remove a nonexisting CD drive or a CD drive that belongs to a powered-on or suspended virtual machine, a terminating error is thrown and the following message is displayed: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. |
| bug fix |
If a user tries to remove a nonexisting floppy drive or a floppy drive that belongs to a powered-on or suspended virtual machine, a terminating error is thrown and the following message is displayed: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. |
| bug fix |
Update-Tools does not stop responding if the mouse, VGA, and network drivers are not signed. |
| bug fix |
The output of the dir command run within the Inventory Provider is made easy to read. |
| bug fix |
Files can be copied in or out of the Datastore Provider using the Copy-DatastoreItem commandlet. |
| security enhancement |
PowerCLI assemblies are digitally signed. |
|