Category Archives: Citrix

Moving PVS VMs from e1000 to VMXNET3 network adapter

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A client needed to remove the e1000 NIC from all VMs in a PVS pool and replace it with the VMXNET3 adapter. PVS VMs are registered by MAC address – replacing the NIC means a new MAC, and PVS has to be updated to allow the VM to boot.

I needed a script to remove the old e1000 NIC, add a new VMXNET3 NIC, and register the new NIC’s MAC with PVS. I knew I would easily accomplish the VM changes with PowerCLI, but I didn’t know what options there were with Citrix. I found what I needed in MCLIPSSNapin, a PowerShell snap-in installed on all PVS servers. The snap-in gives you Powershell control over just about anything you need to do on a PVS server.

I didn’t want to install PowerCLI on the production PVS servers, and I didn’t want to install PVS somewhere else or try manually copying files over. I decided I needed one script to swap out the NICs and dump a list of VMs and MAC address to a text file. Then a second script to read the text file and make the PVS changes.

First, the PowerCLI script. We put the desktop pool into maintenance mode with all desktops shut down. It takes about 10 seconds per VM to execute this script.

Param(
	[switch] $WhatIf
,
	[switch] $IgnoreErrors
,
	[ValidateSet("e1000","vmxnet3")]
	[string] 
 	$NICToReplace = "e1000"
)

# vCenter folder containing the VMs to update
$FOLDER_NAME = "YourFolder"

# vCenter Name
$VCENTER_NAME = "YourvCenter"

#The portgroup that the replacement NIC will be connected to
$VLAN_NAME = "VLAN10"

#If you want all VMs in $FOLDER_NAME, leave $VMFilter empty. Otherwise, set it to a pipe-delimited list of VM names
$VMFilter = ""
#$VMFilter = "DESKTOP001|DESKTOP002"

$LOG_FILE_NAME = "debug.log"

Connect-VIServer $VCENTER_NAME

$NICToSet = "e1000"

if ( $NICToReplace -eq "e1000" )
{
	$NICToSet = "vmxnet3"
}
elseif ( $NICToReplace -eq "vmxnet3" )
{
	$NICTOSet = "e1000"
}


function LogThis
{
	Param([string] $LogText,
      	[string] $color = "Gray")
 Process
 {
    write-host -ForegroundColor $color $LogText 
    Add-Content -Path $LOG_FILE_NAME $LogText
 }
}

if ( Test-Path $LOG_FILE_NAME )
{
    Remove-Item $LOG_FILE_NAME
}

$errStatus = $false
$warnStatus = $false
$msg = ""

if ( $VMFilter.Length -eq 0 )
{
	$vms = Get-Folder $FOLDER_NAME | Get-VM
}
else
{
	$vms = Get-Folder $FOLDER_NAME | Get-VM | Where{ $_.Name -match $VMFilter }
}

foreach ($vm in $vms)
{
	$vm.Name
	$msg = ""


	if ( $vm.NetworkAdapters[0] -eq $null )
	{
		$errStatus = $true
		$msg = "No NIC found on " + $vm.Name
		LogThis $msg "Red"

	}
	else
	{
		if ( ($vm.NetworkAdapters | Measure-Object).Count  -gt 1)		{
			$errStatus = $true
			msg = "Multiple NICs found on " + $vm.Name
			LogThis $msg "Red"

		}
		else
		{
			if ( $vm.NetworkAdapters[0].type -ne $NICToReplace )
			{
				$warnStatus = $true
				$msg = "NIC is not " + $NICToReplace + ", found" + $vm.NetworkAdapters[0].type + " on " + $vm.Name
				LogThis $msg "Yellow"				
			}

				LogThis $vm.Name,$vm.NetworkAdapters[0].MacAddress

		}

	}



}

if ( $errStatus = $true -and $IgnoreErrors -ne $true)
{
	LogThis "Errors found, please correct and rerun the script." "Red"
 
}
else
{
	if ( $warnStatus = $true )
	{
		LogThis "Warnings were found, continuing." "Yellow"
	}
	foreach ( $vm in $vms )
	{
		if ( $WhatIf -eq $true )
		{
			$msg = "Whatif switch enabled, would have added " + $NICToSet + " NIC to " + $vm.Name
			LogThis $msg
		}
		else
		{
			$vm.NetworkAdapters[0] | Remove-NetworkAdapter -confirm:$false
			$vm | New-NetworkAdapter -NetworkName $VLAN_NAME -StartConnected -Type $NICToSet -confirm:$false
		}
	}

	if ( $VMFilter.Length -eq 0 )
	{
		$vms = Get-Folder $FOLDER_NAME | Get-VM
	}
	else
	{
		$vms = Get-Folder $FOLDER_NAME | Get-VM | Where{ $_.Name -match $VMFilter }
	}

	LogThis("Replaced MAC addresses:")
	foreach ( $vm in $vms )
	{
		LogThis $vm.Name,$vm.NetworkAdapters[0].MacAddress
	}
	
	
}

The script offers a -Whatif switch so you can run it in test mode without actually replacing the NIC. It writes all its output to $LOG_FILE_NAME. First it logs the VMs with their old MAC, then the replaced MAC. The output looks something like this:
VD0001 00:50:56:90:00:0a
VD0002 00:50:56:90:00:0b
VD0003 00:50:56:90:00:0c
VD0004 00:50:56:b8:00:0d
VD0005 00:50:56:b8:00:0e
Replaced MAC addresses:
VD0001 00:50:56:90:57:1b
VD0002 00:50:56:90:57:1c
VD0003 00:50:56:90:57:1d
VD0004 00:50:56:90:57:1e
VD0005 00:50:56:90:57:1f

Scan the logfile for any problems in the top section. The data after “Replaced MAC addresses:” is what the PVS server needs. Copy this over to the PVS host. Now we need to use MCLIPSSnapin, but first we have to register the DLL. I followed this Citrix blog for syntax:
“C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v2.0.50727\installutil.exe” “C:\Program Files\Citrix\Provisioning Services Console\McliPSSnapIn.dll”

I copied the VM names and new MAC addresses to a text file vmlist.txt and put it on my PVS server, in the same folder as the following PowerShell script. It runs very quickly, it takes only a few seconds even if you are updating hundreds of VMs.

Add-PSSnapIn mclipssnapin
$vmlist = get-content "vmlist.txt"
foreach ($row in $vmlist)
{
	$vmname=$row.Split(" ")[0]
	$macaddress=$row.Split(" ")[1]
	$vmname
	$macaddress
	Mcli-Set Device –p devicename=$vmname –r devicemac=$macaddress
}

Now, replace the PVS pool’s image with one that is prepared for a VMXNET3 adapter and boot the pool. Migration complete!

Extending Citrix Cache Drives in vSphere

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I have a large client running a Citrix XenDesktop farm on top of vSphere. The environment is using PVS to PXE boot desktops. The VM shells were created with a 2GB cache drive. However, the environment has grown and we needed to extend the drive to 3GB.

PowerShell and PowerCLI to the rescue! First, we need to extend the size of the VMDK from 2 to 3GB. The client wanted me to do this in a controlled manner, so I pointed my script to the AD OU containing computer accounts for a specific pool of desktops. I do realize I could have passed a few more of the variables as parameters. 

Param(
    [switch] $WhatIf=$true
)

$LOG_FILE_NAME = "output.txt"

function LogThis($buf)
{
    write-host $buf
    Add-Content -Path $LOG_FILE_NAME $buf
}

if ( Test-Path $LOG_FILE_NAME )
{
    Remove-Item $LOG_FILE_NAME
}

Add-PSSnapin VMware.VimAutomation.Core
Import-Module ActiveDirectory
Connect-VIServer YOURVCENTER.foo.com
$computers = get-adcomputer -Filter * -SearchBase "OU=Some OU2,OU=Some OU,DC=foo,DC=com"
foreach ( $computer in $computers )
{
   LogThis( $computer.Name )
   $vm = Get-VM $computer.Name -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
   if ( $vm -eq $null)
   {
        LogThis( "Could not locate VM in vCenter" )
   }
   else
   {
        foreach ( $hd in (Get-HardDisk $vm) )
        {
             #$hd.CapacityKB -lt "2097153"    #2097152 is 2048K
             if ( $hd.CapacityKB -lt "2097513" )
             {
                  if ( $WhatIf -eq $true )
                  {
                     LogThis("Running in whatif mode - would have extended disk.")
                  }

                  else
                  {   
                        Set-HardDisk -HardDisk $hd -CapacityKB 3145728 -Confirm:$False
                  }
             }
            else
            {
                LogThis("No disk extension required.")
            }
        }
   }
   LogThis("`r`n")

}

Next, I needed a way to expand the partition for Windows. I thought about some kind of script to disconnect the VMDK, mount it to another VM and extend it that way, but it seemed too destructive. So I looked at diskpart instead. I first thought I was going to use a GPO to trigger a startup script, but apparently you can’t use those with Citrix PVS. The VM thinks it’s the identity of the master on boot – your WMI filters don’t work.

Instead, I went with remote Powershell invocation of diskpart.exe

Param(
    [switch] $WhatIf
)

Add-PSSnapin VMware.VimAutomation.Core
Import-Module ActiveDirectory
Connect-VIServer MYVCENTER.foo.com
$computers = get-adcomputer -Filter * -SearchBase "OU=OU2,OU=OU,DC=foo,DC=com"

$LOG_FILE_NAME = "diskpart_output.txt"

function LogThis($buf)
{
    write-host $buf
    Add-Content -Path $LOG_FILE_NAME $buf
}

if ( Test-Path $LOG_FILE_NAME )
{
    Remove-Item $LOG_FILE_NAME
}

foreach ( $computer in $computers )
{
     LogThis( $computer.Name )
     if ( $WhatIf -eq $true )
     {
        LogThis("Would have performed remote script")
     }
     else
     {
        invoke-command -computername $computer.Name -ScriptBlock { $script = $Null;$script = @("select disk 0","select partition 1","extend","exit");$script | Out-File -Encoding ASCII -FilePath "c:\windows\temp\Diskpart-extend.txt";diskpart.exe /S C:\windows\temp\Diskpart-extend.txt}
     }
  
}

The Invoke-Command line deserves some explanation

The diskpart commands I want to run are:
select disk 0
select partition 1
extend
exit

I create an empty variable and write the diskpart commands out to it. Then I use Out-File to save the diskpart commands to a text file in C:\windows\temp. Then I call diskpart.exe with an /S command switch, which executes the commands in the script. Because I used the -ComputerName parameter, all of my code is remotely executed on the desktop.

Hope this post saves you some time.