PowerCLI Schedule a restart job for one or multiple VM’s

I created the following script to schedule some restart jobs overnight. The goal for this script was to add some parameters so you don’t have to edit the script file itself to schedule it for another VM or a group of VM’s.

####################################################################
#
# Restart-VMs.ps1
# 
# -vCenter vCenter Server or Servers to connect to. 
#  Example -vCenter "vc01","vc02"
# -vmName the VM or VMs to restart. 
#  Example -vmName "VM1" or -vmName "VM1","VM2"
#
# Example:
#.\Restart-VMs.ps1 -vCenter vc01.ict-freak.local -vmName "VM1","VM2"
#
# Version 1.0 May 2010 Arne Fokkema www.ict-freak.nl @afokkema
#
#####################################################################


param(
    [parameter(Mandatory = $true)]
    [string[]]$vCenter,
    [parameter(Mandatory = $true)]
    [string[]]$vmName
)

$VIServer = Connect-VIServer $vCenter
If ($VIServer.IsConnected -ne $true){
    Write-Host "error connecting to $vCenter" -ForegroundColor Red
    exit
}

foreach($vm in $vmName){
        Write-Host "Going to restart $vm"
        Restart-VMGuest -VM (Get-VM $vm) -Confirm:$false
}

Disconnect-VIServer -Confirm:$false

Let’s start to run the script from the PowerCLI console first:

I started the script without setting any of the parameters. Since these two parameters are necessary  to run the script, you will be asked to enter the parameters, before you can continue.

Now it’s time to schedule the script in Windows Server 2008. Just create a simple scheduled task with the following settings:

The first line below is the Program/script: setting. The second line is the Add arguments setting.

C:\WINDOWS\system32\windowspowershell\v1.0\powershell.exe

-PSConsoleFile "C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\Infrastructure\vSphere PowerCLI\vim.psc1" " &  "C:\Scripts\Restart-VMs.ps1" -vCenter vc01 -vmName "VM1","VM2"

When you are going to use this script, be absolutely sure you are allowed to restart the VM’s you scheduled.