4

I guess I just don't know the proper name of whatever I'm looking for, but this was probably asked a thousand times before.

I started PowerShell not long ago, and I'm struggling to understand where I can find the 'sub properties'(if you can call it those) of an object.

For instance, I was using the VMware PowerCLI, and was tried to figure out how I can find the IP address of a VM.

So for example, I was using the Get-VM command, and when I piped it into get member, I got the following:

PS C:\Users\eitan.rapaport> get-vm "*VRA*" | gm


   TypeName: VMware.VimAutomation.ViCore.Impl.V1.VM.UniversalVirtualMachineImpl

Name                    MemberType Definition
----                    ---------- ----------
ConvertToVersion        Method     T VersionedObjectInterop.ConvertToVersion[T]()
Equals                  Method     bool Equals(System.Object obj)
GetClient               Method     VMware.VimAutomation.ViCore.Interop.V1.VIAutomation VIObjectCoreInterop.GetClient()
GetConnectionParameters Method     VMware.VimAutomation.ViCore.Interop.V1.VM.RemoteConsoleVMParams RemoteConsoleVMIn..
GetHashCode             Method     int GetHashCode()
GetType                 Method     type GetType()
IsConvertableTo         Method     bool VersionedObjectInterop.IsConvertableTo(type type)
LockUpdates             Method     void ExtensionData.LockUpdates()
ObtainExportLease       Method     VMware.Vim.ManagedObjectReference ObtainExportLease.ObtainExportLease()
ToString                Method     string ToString()
UnlockUpdates           Method     void ExtensionData.UnlockUpdates()
CoresPerSocket          Property   int CoresPerSocket {get;}
CustomFields            Property   System.Collections.Generic.IDictionary[string,string] CustomFields {get;}
DatastoreIdList         Property   string[] DatastoreIdList {get;}
DrsAutomationLevel      Property   System.Nullable[VMware.VimAutomation.ViCore.Types.V1.Cluster.DrsAutomationLevel] ..
ExtensionData           Property   System.Object ExtensionData {get;}
Folder                  Property   VMware.VimAutomation.ViCore.Types.V1.Inventory.Folder Folder {get;}
FolderId                Property   string FolderId {get;}
Guest                   Property   VMware.VimAutomation.ViCore.Types.V1.VM.Guest.VMGuest Guest {get;}
GuestId                 Property   string GuestId {get;}
HAIsolationResponse     Property   System.Nullable[VMware.VimAutomation.ViCore.Types.V1.Cluster.HAIsolationResponse]..
HardwareVersion         Property   string HardwareVersion {get;}
HARestartPriority       Property   System.Nullable[VMware.VimAutomation.ViCore.Types.V1.Cluster.HARestartPriority] H..
Id                      Property   string Id {get;}
MemoryGB                Property   decimal MemoryGB {get;}
MemoryMB                Property   decimal MemoryMB {get;}
Name                    Property   string Name {get;}
Notes                   Property   string Notes {get;}
NumCpu                  Property   int NumCpu {get;}
PersistentId            Property   string PersistentId {get;}
PowerState              Property   VMware.VimAutomation.ViCore.Types.V1.Inventory.PowerState PowerState {get;}
ProvisionedSpaceGB      Property   decimal ProvisionedSpaceGB {get;}
ResourcePool            Property   VMware.VimAutomation.ViCore.Types.V1.Inventory.ResourcePool ResourcePool {get;}
ResourcePoolId          Property   string ResourcePoolId {get;}
Uid                     Property   string Uid {get;}
UsedSpaceGB             Property   decimal UsedSpaceGB {get;}
VApp                    Property   VMware.VimAutomation.ViCore.Types.V1.Inventory.VApp VApp {get;}
Version                 Property   VMware.VimAutomation.ViCore.Types.V1.VM.VMVersion Version {get;}
VMHost                  Property   VMware.VimAutomation.ViCore.Types.V1.Inventory.VMHost VMHost {get;}
VMHostId                Property   string VMHostId {get;}
VMResourceConfiguration Property   VMware.VimAutomation.ViCore.Types.V1.VM.VMResourceConfiguration VMResourceConfigu..
VMSwapfilePolicy        Property   System.Nullable[VMware.VimAutomation.ViCore.Types.V1.VMSwapfilePolicy] VMSwapfile..

As you can see, nothing mentions anything about IP.

I was researching this online, and have found that I should run the following command:

Get-VM | Select Name, @{N="IP Address";E={@($_.guest.IPAddress[0])}}

Which leads me to my question. How can I find the properties under a certain member/property of a command? How could I research the 'sub properties' of 'guest' in that example?

halfer
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Eitan Rapaport
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3 Answers3

3

Okay, found it.

In that instance it would be get-vm "*VRA*" | select -ExpandProperty guest | gm

halfer
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Eitan Rapaport
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1

I've been dealing with this for the last two days, so I figured I'd share my solution:

First, I'm saving the VM object to a variable to make it easy to access without searching every time.

$vm = Get-vm -Name steve

To get all the properties of the VM Object

$vm | Select-Object *

If you just want to get the Name you can access it like this:

$vm.Name

If you want to get the Properties of the Guest Object (which is a property of the VM object):

$vm.Guest | Select-Object *

You can access the Properties of the Guest Object through the VM Object like this:

$vm.Guest.VmName

Want the IP addresses of the guest?

$vmip = $vm.Guest.IPAddress

And, because this took me a while to figure out, if that returns ipv4 and ipv6, and you want to filter out the ipv6:

$vmip = $vm.Guest.IPAddress  | ?{$_ -notmatch ':'}
Mike A
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0

Another method of introspection in PowerShell is to just get the class name and then look it up in the API.

PS C:\> $Files = Get-ChildItem *.* -File
PS C:\> $Files[0].GetType().FullName
System.IO.FileInfo

You can then search for that class with either C# or PowerShell to find the API listing.

You can do a similar thing with the VMWare PowerCLI doc. The "all types" list on the left is a list of all the classes used by the module.

Bacon Bits
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