VMware PowerCLI - Backup ESXi 4.0 firmware

The following script contains a simple function to use the VMware vSphere PowerCLI to connect to a vCenter and/or ESXi 4.0 host and backup the 'firmware' - the configuration of the ESX host. I don’t think this functionality is exposed directly through the PowerCLI, so a call to the very useful Get-View function is used to get the VI SDK object to call the appropriate method.

From what I can tell all this command does is generate a config dump on the server and return the HTTP URL to access the file download, which I’m then using the .Net web client object to download the file and store as the filename returned with a unique date suffix.

This certainly isn’t original, all I did was look at the vicfg-backup.pl perl RCLI script and (badly) translate to PowerCLI from there.

#
# Description:
#  Backup the firmware configuration on an ESXi 4.0 host
#
# Limitations:
#  -
#
# Assumptions, this script works on the assumption that:
#  The caller provides credentials with permissions to connect to the specified host
#
# Arguments:
#  esxServer, the ESX host to connect to, eg. esx01
#  vcServerName, The vCenter Server to connect to, eg vc01
#  outputDir, The directory to write the backup file to, defaults to %temp%
#  username, The username to use when connecting to the vCenter server (if specified), defaults to %username%
#  password, The password to use for the connection to vCenter, secure string prompt by default
#
# Usage:
#  PowerShell . .\BackupFirmware.ps1 -esxServer 'esx01'
#  PowerShell . .\BackupFirmware.ps1 -esxServer 'esx01' -vcServer vc01 -u domain\username
#
# References:
#  http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vc-sdk/visdk400pubs/ReferenceGuide/vim.host.FirmwareSystem.html
#
# Changes:
#  04/07/2009, Wayne Martin, initial version

#$ErrorActionPreference = "Continue"


param (
    $esxServer = "",
    $vcServerName = "",

    $outputDir = $env:Temp,

    $username = $env:username,
    $password = ""
)

if ($password -eq "" -and !($pass)) {
    write-output "No password specified from the command-line"
    $pass = Read-Host "Password?" -assecurestring
    $credential = new-object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential($username,$pass)    
}

if ($esxServer -eq "" -OR ($vcServerName -eq "" -and $esxServer -eq "")) {
    Write-Output "Please specify either a standalone host, or a host and a cluster"
    Exit 2
}

$viServer = $null


function BackupConfiguration([string] $vcServerName, [string] $esxServer, [string] $outputDir){
    $hostSystem = get-view -ViewType HostSystem -Filter @{"Name" = $esxServer}    # Find the .Net view of the specified host

    $hostConfigManager = $hostSystem.get_ConfigManager()      # Get the config manager
    $hostfirmwareSystem = $hostConfigManager.get_firmwareSystem()     # Find the MOR of the host firmware system

    $hostfirmware = Get-View $hostfirmwareSystem        # Get the VMware.Vim.HostFirmwareSystem object from the MOR

    $backupDownload = $hostfirmware.BackupFirmwareConfiguration()     # Call the backup method to generate the config bundle

    $backupDownload = $backupDownload.Replace("*", $esxServer)      # Replace '*' with the server name

    Write-Output "Backup saved to $backupDownload on the ESX host"
    $fileName = $backupDownload.SubString($backupDownload.LastIndexOf("/")+1)    # Extract the filename to reuse
    $fileType = $fileName.SubString($fileName.LastIndexOf("."))      # Find the extension (.tgz in this case)

    $Now = [DateTime]::Now.ToString("yyyyMMddTHHmmss")          # Unique identifier for the filename
    $file = $fileName.SubString(0, $fileName.Length - $fileType.Length)     # File name without extension
    $outputFile = $outputDir + "\" + $file + "_" + $Now + $fileType     # Construct the full filename path\bundle_date.tgz

    $wc = new-object system.net.WebClient        # use the .Net web client
    $wc.DownloadFile($backupDownload, $outputFile)       # Download the file from the URL returned

    if (test-path -path $outputFile) {         # Does the output file exist?
        Write-Output "$outputFile downloaded"
    } else {
        Write-Output "Error: $outputFile was not downloaded from $backupDownload"
    }

}

if ($vcServerName -ne "") {
    $viServer = Connect-VIServer -server $vcServerName -Credential $credential
} elseif ($esxServer -ne "") {
    $esxServer = Connect-VIServer -server $esxServer       # connect to VC
}


$results = ""
$results = BackupConfiguration $vcServerName $esxServer $outputDir

$results

if ($vcServerName -ne "") {
    Disconnect-VIServer -confirm:$false
}

Wayne's World of IT (WWoIT), Copyright 2009 Wayne Martin.