Hyper-V How To: Find the right Hyper-V Cmdlet

Jamesone’s excellent PowerShell Management Library for Hyper-V includes a Hyper-V cmdlet documentation PDF file that helps you  chunk all the things you can do with Hyper-V using PS, for example, the following list of cmdlets parsed by function:

Admin functions not specific to Hyper-V

• Test-Admin Tests if the Powershell session is privileged
• Get-ScriptPath Returns the path to the script
• Choose-List Allows the user to select a item from a list view
• Choose-Tree Allows the user to select a item from a tree view
• Out-Tree Prevents items in a tree view
• New-zip Creates a new .ZIP archive file
• Add-ZIPContent Adds files to a .ZIP archive file
• Copy-ZIPContent Copies files to from .ZIP archive file
• Get-ZIPContent Gives a lists of items in a ZIP archive file

Conversion functions

• Convert-DiskIDtoDrive Converts a drive ID number into it’s associated drive letters
• Convert-VMState Converts th number for a VM state into the state’s name
  

Functions for Hyper-V Servers

• Get-VMHost Gets a list of Hosts running Hyper-V from Active directory
  

Functions for checking WMI jobs created through Hyper-v

• Test-WMIJob Checks on the state of job – can wait until it completes
  

Virtual Machine

• Choose-VM Allows the user to select VMs from a list
• Get-VM Retuns WMI objects representing VMs
• New-VM Creates a new VM
• Set-VM Sers the properties of an Existing VM
• Remove-VM Deletes a VM
• Export-VM Invokes Hyper-Vs export process
• Import-VM Invokes Hyper-Vs import process
• Ping-VM Ping FQDNs found via KVP exchange integration component
• Shutdown-VM Shuts down a VM’s OS cleanly via shutdown integration compoent
• Start-VM Starts a VM or restarts a saved one
• Stop-VM Powers down a VM without asking the OS to shutdown first
• Suspend-VM Puts the VM into a saved state
• Set-VMState Called by Start, stop and suspend VM set the requested states
• Get-VmBackupScript Gets a script for backing up one or more VMs
• Get-VMByMACaddress Discovers a VM from its MAC address
• Get-VMJPEG Gets a JPEG image of the currect VM screen
• Test-VMHeartBeat Tests the responses from the heartbeat integration component
• Get-VMSettingData Returns the Setting data object for the VM
• New-VMConnectSession Launches a VM connect session to a VM.
  

VM Memory

• Get-VMMemory Returns the amount of memory assigned to a VM
• Set-VMMemory Sets the amount of memory assigned to a VM
  

VM Processors

• Get-VMCPUCount Gets the number and weighting of Processors assigned to VMs
• Set-VMCPUCount Sets the number of Virtual Processors assigned to VMs
• Get-VMProcessor Gets active Virtual Processors and their load data
  

VM Disk Controllers

• Get-VMDiskController Gets an IDE or SCSI controller (IDE controllers can’t be changed)
• Add-VMSCSIcontroller Adds a synthetic SCSI controller to a VM
• Remove-VMSCSIcontroller Removes a synthetic SCSI controller from a VM
  

Hard disk and DVD drive objects

• Add-VMDRIVE Connects a Harddisk drive or DVD drive to a controller
• Remove-VMDRIVE removes a Hard disk drive or DVD drive from a controller
• Get-VMDriveByController Gets the drives attached to a controller
  

Hardisk and DVD disk Image object

• Add-VMDisk Mounts a DVD or Hard disk image into a Drive
• Get-VMDisk Gets a list of Virtual disk images in use
• Set-VMDisk changes the disk image attached to a drive
• Get-VMDiskByDrive Gets the VM disk image attached to a drive
• Add-VMNewHardDisk Attaches a new virtual hard disk image to a new drive
  

Virtual Hard disk image files

• Get-VhdDefaultPath Gets the Default path Used by Hyper-v for VHD files
• Get-VHDInfo Gets information about a VHD, such as its parent, size on disk
• New-VHD Creates a new VHD file
• Test-VHD Tests that a VHD can be mounted, and any parent is mountable
• Compact-VHD Compacts a dynamic VHD file to save space on the host
• Convert-VHD Changes a VHD from one type to another
• Expand-VHD Expands the size of a virtual hard disk
• Merge-VHD Merges the a child VHD with its parent to form a new disk
• Mount-VHD Makes the VHD file appear as a local disk on the host
• UnMount-VHD Reverses the mount process so the VHD can be used by a VM
  

VM Floppy Disk

• New-VFD Creates a new floppy disk image file
• Add-VMFloppyDisk Mounts the Floppy disk in the floppy drive of a VM
• Get-VMFloppyDisk Returns information about the mounted floppy disk
• Remove-VMFloppyDisk Ejects any floppy disk from the drive of a VM
  

Resource Allocation Settings data objects

• 
  New-VMRasd Creates objects used by other functions to describe VM components
  

Serial Port Objects

• 
  Get-VMSerialPort Returns information about serial
• Set-VMSerialPort Maps Serial ports on a VM to Named Pipes
  

Ethernet Cards

• Add-VMNic Adds a Nic to a VM
• Choose-VMNic Allows the user to select a NIC attached to a virtual machine
• Get-VMNic Returns information about network cards
• Remove-VMNic Removes a NIC from a VM
• Set-VMNICAddress Sets the MAC address for a NIC
• Set-VMNICSwitch Connects a NIC to a virtual Switch
• Get-VMNicport Gets the Switch port attached to a NIC
• Get-VMnicSwitch Returns the Switch a NIC is connected to
  

Ethernet Switches

• Choose-VMExternalEthernet Allows the user to choose a host network card
• New-VMExternalSwitch Creates a Virtual Switch connect to a host network card
• New-VMInternalSwitch Creates a Virtual Switch accessible to VMs and the Host
• New-VMPrivateSwitch Creates a Virtual Switch accessible to VMs
• Choose-VMSwitch Allows the user to choose a virtual switch
• Get-VMSwitch Returns information about virtual switches
• New-VMSwitchPort Defines a new port on a virtual switch
  

Key value Pairs

• Get-VMKVP Gets Key/value pair information sent to the Host by Virtual Machines
• Add-VMKVP Adds a Key/value pair to the list sent to VMs by the host
• Remove-VMKVP Removes a Key/value pair from the list sent to VMs by the host
  

Snapshots

• Apply-VMSnapshot Applies a snapshot to a VM
• Choose-VMSnapshot Allows the user to choose a snapshot
• Get-VMSnapshot Gets information about snapshots
• Get-VMSnapshotTree Formats the view of Snapshots as a tree
• New-VMSnapshot Creates a new snapshot of a VMRemove-VMSnapshot Deletes a snapshot or tree of snapshots
• Rename-VMSnapshot Renames a snapshot
• Update-VMSnapshot Deletes a snapshot, and creates a new one with same name

Did I mention the Management Library is free-as-in-beer?

Want to know more about James? See http://blogs.technet.com/tonyso/archive/2009/06/24/a-day-in-the-life-of-an-it-pro-evangelist-james-o-neill.aspx

For more Hyper-V scripts, see the Official Scripting Guys Forum.