• Mission: Easily and fast create a VM in VMWare via Script

• Symptoms
  • You don’t want to create VM’s via GUI as it takes long to conclude
    • OR
  • You want to accelerate VM creation to a few steps

• Prerequisites
  • Have VMware.PowerCLI module installed

In this script, where you have a [] you need to change the information for the ones appropraite to your environment. For instance:

New-VM -Name $VM_Name -NumCpu $VM_CPU -MemoryGB $VM_Memory -DiskGB $VM_Disk -GuestId windows9Server64Guest -ResourcePool [Your_Ressource_Pool]

You need to replace [Your_Ressource_Pool] to the name of your environment’s ressource pool

There are 4 places in total in this script you need to change the data. There are comments in the script of where do you need to change it.

The Script

# Connect to the host/vcenter
# If a certificate error message pops-up run Set-PowerCLIConfiguration -InvalidCertificateAction choosing the most appropriate option for you
# The Connect-VIServer command will ask you the id to connect to the host/vcenter. This ID needs to have the privileges to create VMs or else it will fail
# In this section you need to replace the [Host_OR_Vcenter_Name] inputting the host/vcenter name of your environment 
Connect-VIServer [Host_OR_Vcenter_Name]

# Enter the name of the VM
$VM_Name = Read-Host "Please enter the name of the new VM"

# Check if the name already exists in VMWare environment
# It compares the variable with the existent machines names
# !!! If the name is ok, i.e. it does not exist yet, an error message will be displayed but the script will proceed anyways
$VM_Name_Validation = Get-VM $VM_Name -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Select Name -ExpandProperty Name
if (Compare-Object $VM_Name, $VM_Name_Validation -DifferenceObject $VM_Name_Validation -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue) {
Write-Host "This name is already in use. Please rerun the script and choose another name."
Break
}

# Amount of CPUS
$VM_CPU = Read-Host "Please specify the ammount of CPU"

# Amount of RAM
$VM_Memory = Read-Host "Please specify the amount of RAM (GB)"

# Disk size
$VM_Disk = Read-Host "Please specify the disk size (GB)"

# Machine Creation
# In this section you need to replace the [Your_Ressource_Pool], [Name_of_your_datastore] and [Name_of_your_virtual_network] inputting the information from of your environment 
New-VM -Name $VM_Name -NumCpu $VM_CPU -MemoryGB $VM_Memory -DiskGB $VM_Disk -GuestId windows9Server64Guest -ResourcePool [Your_Ressource_Pool] -Datastore [Name_of_your_datastore] -NetworkName [Name_of_your_virtual_network]

# Set the SCSI controller to Paravirtual (most performant and current)
$scsiController = Get-HardDisk -VM $VM_Name | Select -First 1 | Get-ScsiController
Set-ScsiController -ScsiController $scsiController -Type "ParaVirtual"

# Network adapter settings
Get-VM $VM_Name | Get-NetworkAdapter | Set-NetworkAdapter -Type Vmxnet3 -Confirm:$False

# CPU/RAM HotAdd and EFI settings
$vmName = $VM_Name
$vm = Get-VM -Name $vmName
$spec = New-Object VMware.Vim.VirtualMachineConfigSpec
$spec.CpuHotAddEnabled = $true
$spec.MemoryHotAddEnabled = $true
$spec.Firmware = [VMware.Vim.GuestOsDescriptorFirmwareType]::efi
$vm.ExtensionData.ReconfigVM($spec)