In this post we will be going through creating local ESXi account using PowerCLI.

Recently I have had to create local account to allow a monitoring tool to pull information from all ESXi hosts.

We want to automate the user creation and assign the required permissions so that they only have the permission required for a limited time.

First we need to connect to the ESXi Host using PowerCLI

Connect-VIServer

To check what account already exist use the below.

Get-VMHostAccount

To create a new account we will use the New-VMHostAccount command

New-VMHostAccount -Id accountname -Password password -Description Account Description

Next we need to assign the required permissions. We can list the current roles using

Get-VIRole

We also need an entity to set the permission or the command will error out.

To list the entity use the

Get-Folder

Select the entity that will have the role applied. In this case we will be applying to the root object so it applies to all objects on the host and will assigning the admin role.

New-VIPermission -Entity (Get-Folder root) -Principal accountname -Role Admin

To remove the account use the below command.

Get-VMHostAccount -User account name | Remove-VMHostAccount -Confirm:$false

Once we have the commands, we can create the script to automate the account creation and role assignment to configure multiple hosts.

The scripts uses EsxiHost as the heading for the CSV if you want to use something different the script will need to be updated.

Below is the script running against my test hosts.

.\Create-LocalESXiUser.ps1 -ESXiHostList .\EsxiHosts.csv -ESXiUser useraccount -ESXipass password -ESXiNewUser accountname -ESXiUserPass accountpass -ESXiPermission Permission -ESXiUserdesc "Account Description"

This process can also be used to update the permission for a specific account.

To download the full script use the below link to github.

https://github.com/TheSleepyAdmin/Scripts/blob/master/VMware/Config/Account/Create-LocalESXiUser.ps1

In this post we will be going through deploying new SNMP configuration to a list of ESXi hosts using PowerCLI. We can add SNMP using ssh and esxcli commands but this will required SSH to be enabled and connecting to each host.

We can use Set-VMHostSNMP command to set the SNMP configuration by conecting to the host using connect-viserver which uses https to connect and does not required SSH to be enabled.

First we need to connect to the ESXi host

Connect-VIServer -Server esxihost.domain.local

use a local account like root to connect

If you get a certificate error and can’t connect you might need to update the PowerCLI Configuration or install the root cert to trust the self singed cert of the ESXi hosts.

Set-PowerCLIConfiguration -InvalidCertificateAction Ignore -Confirm:$false

Once connected we will be using the below set of command to configure the SNMP settings.

Get-VMHostSnmp | Set-VMHostSnmp

https://developer.vmware.com/docs/powercli/latest/vmware.vimautomation.core/commands/set-vmhostsnmp/#Default

First we will enabled and set the community string

Get-VMHostSnmp | Set-VMHostSnmp -Enabled:$true -ReadOnlyCommunity communityname

Next we will set the target that traps will be sent.

Get-VMHostSnmp | Set-VMHostSnmp -TargetCommunity communityname -TargetHost snmp.domain.local -TargetPort 162 -AddTarget

To test I have setup snmp on Ubutu

Now that we have set of command we can create the script. I will be doing a loop through each host and configuring the SNMP.

I also added in some if statement to check if SNMP is already enabled and to check if the target host matches the one that is set in the parameters.

The full script can be downloaded from the below github link.

https://github.com/TheSleepyAdmin/Scripts/blob/master/VMware/Config/SNMP/Set-ESXiSNMP.ps1

Below is an example of what the csv file should look like if you want to use a different heading the script will need to be updated.

Each of the values will be called as parameter to allow easy re-use below is an example of the SNMP script running against my test hosts.

Using PowerCli can be a quicker way to set and enabled SNMP on a list of hosts rather than having to SSH and use esxcli command. This can also be used to update the existing SNMP configuration to a new traps target.