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Saturday, August 14, 2010

Resizing a VM's Windows system OS with Set-HardDisk

With vSphere PowerCLI Update 1 there is now an automated method of increasing the system disk of a virtual machine. This essentially performs the same thing as I’ve been doing manually for a while now - the disk is resized and mounted to a ‘helper vm’ and diskpart extends the disk, the helper VM is then shutdown and the risk removed, and when the resized VM starts up the OS prompts for a final reboot after detecting the disk change.

Note that both the target and helper VM must be powered off, and credentials must be passed or the helpervm argument is ignored. The guest credentials are used on the Windows helper VM to authenticate using the VMtools mechanism to invoke a command inside a VM.


$guetsusername = "domain\username"
$guestpass = Read-Host "Guest password (administrator of the server)?" -assecurestring
$hostusername = "root"
$hostpass = Read-Host "Host Password (VI SDK access to the ESX host)?" -assecurestring
$hostcredential = new-object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential($hostusername, $hostpass)
$guestcredential = new-object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential($guetsusername, $guestpass)
$sizeGB = 30
$sizeKB = $sizeGB *1024*1024
$harddisk = Get-HardDisk -vm vm01
Set-HardDisk -HardDisk $harddisk[0] -capacityKB $sizeKB -hostcredential $hostcredential -guestcredential $guestcredential -helpervm $vm



An error occurred when trying to use domain credentials to pass to the vCenter SDK – host credentials are required, not credentials to vCenter (which seems odd).

Set-HardDisk -HardDisk $harddisk[0] -capacityKB 31457280 -hostcredential $hostcredential -guestcredential $guestcredential -helpervm helpervm
Set-HardDisk : 4/02/2010 1:25:04 PM    Set-HardDisk    919835D1-AD13-41DF-ABDE-D630E96FE722    While performing operation 'Connect to host service 'https://esx01/sdk' at port 902' the following error occured: 'Insufficient permissions in host operating system'
At line:1 char:13
+ Set-HardDisk  <<<< -HardDisk $harddisk[0] -capacityKB 31457280 -hostcredential $hostcredential -guestcredential $guestcredential -helpervm helpervm




Another error occurred when trying to resize a VM, the script used failed.  Note that I tried this manually and it also failed (must have been something particular to that VM).  It was interesting to see that from this it looks like the cmdlet uses the invoke-vmscript to run a remote script through the VMtools interface that calls the diskpart commands.
Set-HardDisk : 4/02/2010 11:22:11 AM    Set-HardDisk    919835D1-AD13-41DF-ABDE-D630E96FE722    Execution of the  script in guest OS on VM 'helpervm' failed: '
Microsoft DiskPart version 5.2.3790.3959
Copyright (C) 1999-2001 Microsoft Corporation.
On computer: HELPERVM
Disk 1 is now the selected disk.
Volume 2 is the selected volume.
The volume you have selected may not be extended.
Please select another volume and try again.
'
At line:1 char:13
+ Set-HardDisk  <<<< -HardDisk $harddisk[0] -capacityKB 31457280 -hostcredential $hostcredential -guestcredential $guestcredential -helpervm $vm



Wayne's World of IT (WWoIT), Copyright 2010 Wayne Martin. 

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow, complicated.

Try growing the VMDK file using the gui and then using Extpart from Dell. Works fine on system volumes.

twitter adder said...

Indeed something complicated, but at the same time simple!

marco.shaw said...

It is coded in such a way to make it look more complicated than it could really be... I'll post some simpler code once I confirm/test it properly.

electronic signatures said...

As you mentioned that that both the target and helper VM must be powered off, and credentials must be passed or the helpervm argument is ignored.What the consequence at most could be Also Macro.shaw can you please share link where you put up the simpler code


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I’ve worked in IT for over 20 years, and I know just about enough to realise that I don’t know very much.