function Get-Updates ($VMHost)  {
$VMMServer = Get-VMMServer "SCVMM IP Adress"

$SCOMServer = "SCOM Server FQDN"

                New-PSDrive -Name:Monitoring -PSProvider:OperationsManagerMonitoring -Root:\ | Out-Null
                New-ManagementGroupConnection -ConnectionString:$SCOMServer | Out-Null
                Set-Location "Monitoring:\$SCOMServer"

function StartMaintenance       {
$SCOMAgent = Get-Agent | Where-object {$_.Name –match “$VMHost”}
                Write-Host "Setting $VMHost to unavailable for placement"
                Set-VMHost -VMHost $VMHost -AvailableForPlacement $FALSE | Out-Null
                Write-Host "Placing host $VMHost into maintenance mode."
                $SCOMAgent.HostComputer | New-MaintenanceWindow -StartTime (Get-Date) -EndTime ([DateTime]::Now).AddMinutes(180) -Comment "Windows Updates"
                Disable-VMHost $VMHost -MoveWithinCluster | Out-Null
$Maintenance = Get-VMHost -VMMServer $VMMServer $VMHost | Select OverallState
                if ($Maintenance -match "MaintenanceMode")      {
                Write-Host "Host is in Maintenance Mode"
                }
                Else {
                        Write-Host "Host did not successfully go into Maintenance Mode, retrying"
                        StartMaintenance
                }
                }

function EndMaintenance {
$SCOMAgent = Get-Agent | Where-object {$_.Name –match “$VMHost”}
                Write-Host "Placing host $VMHost back into service."
                Enable-VMHost $VMHost | Out-Null
                Set-VMHost -VMHost $VMHost -AvailableForPlacement $TRUE | Out-Null
                $SCOMAgent.HostComputer | Set-MaintenanceWindow -EndTime ([DateTime]::Now).AddMinutes(1) -Comment "Finished Windows Updates"
                                                }          

function CheckForReboot {
$baseKey = [Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey]::OpenRemoteBaseKey("LocalMachine",$VMhost)
$key = $baseKey.OpenSubKey("Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Component Based Servicing\")
$subkeys = $key.GetSubKeyNames()
$key.Close()
$baseKey.Close()
                If ($subkeys | Where {$_ -eq "RebootPending"})  {
                Write-Host "Reboot is required: Restarting $VMHost"
                Restart-Computer -ComputerName $VMHost -Force
                sleep 180
                                                                                                                }
                Else    {
                Write-Host "No Reboot required."
                                }
                        }

function MigrateOfflineVMs  {
$OfflineVMs = Get-VM -VMMServer $VMMServer -VMHost $VMHost | Select Status
$Hosts = Get-VMHost -VMHostGroup "FlexCloud"
                if ($OfflineVMs -match "PowerOff")      {
                Write-Host "There are offline VMs, migrating to another host"
                        $VMs = Get-VM -VMHost $VMHost | Where-Object {$_.Status -eq "PowerOff"}
                        ForEach ($VM in $VMs)   {
                        $HostRatings = Get-VMHostRating –VMHost $Hosts –VM $VM -IsMigration | Sort-Object –descending Rating
                        if ($HostRatings[0].Rating –ne 0)       {
                        $BestHost = Get-VMHost –ComputerName $HostRatings[0].Name
                write-host “Moving $VM to $BestHost”
                Move-VM –VM $VM –VMHost $BestHost | Out-Null
                                                                                                }
                                                                        }
                                                                                        }
                Else    {
                Write-Host "There are no VMs on this server currently."
                                }
                        } 

function CheckHostStatus        {
$HostState = Get-VMHost $VMHost
                if (($HostState.ComputerState -match "Responding") -and ($HostState.ClusterNodeStatus -match "Running") -and ($HostState.VirtualServerState -match "Running") -and ($HostState.VirtualServerStateString -match "Running") -and ($HostState.CommunicationStateString -match "Responding") -and ($HostState.CommunicationState -match "Responding")) {
                Write-Host "Host is responding"
                                                                                }
                Else    {
                Write-Host "Host is not operational!!!"
                sleep 120
                CheckHostStatus
                                }
                                }

function CheckWUInstall {
$WUInstallStatus = Get-Content "C:\Users\USERNAME\Desktop\Scripts\Logs\$VMHost.log" | Select-Object -Last 1
If ($WUInstallStatus -match "No Updates are available, nothing to do!") {Write-Host "No Updates are available, nothing to do!"}
else {InstallUpdates}
} 

function InstallUpdates {
                psexec \\$VMHost -s -c \\SHARESERVER\SHARE\wuinstall.exe /install /accepteula > "C:\Users\USERNAME\Desktop\Scripts\Logs\$VMHost.log"
                CheckForReboot
                CheckHostStatus
                CheckWUInstall
                        }    

                StartMaintenance
                MigrateOfflineVMs
                InstallUpdates
                CheckHostStatus
                EndMaintenance
                C:
}

Credit goes to this post as getting a proper output of the paths and percentage is a real pain with the Failover Clustering CMDLets.

function Get-LargestVMs {
function Get-LargeVMs ($Path) {
   $Size = get-vm -vmmserver "IP" | Where-Object {$_.vmcpath -like "*$Path*"} | Select Name,TotalSize,Hostname | Sort-Object TotalSize -Descending | Select-Object -First 5 | Out-String
   Write-Host $Size
}

$objs = @()

$csvs = Get-ClusterSharedVolume -Cluster "Cluster"
foreach ( $csv in $csvs )
{
   $csvinfos = $csv | select -Property Name -ExpandProperty SharedVolumeInfo
   foreach ( $csvinfo in $csvinfos )
   {
      $obj = New-Object PSObject -Property @{
         Path        = $csvinfo.FriendlyVolumeName
         PercentFree = $csvinfo.Partition.PercentFree
      }
      $objs += $obj
   }
}

$objs | foreach {
if ($_.PercentFree -ge "70")  {
   Write-Host "################################################"
   Write-Host $_.Path
   Write-Host "Current percent free is"$_.PercentFree
   Write-Host "################################################"
   Get-LargeVMs $_.Path
}
else {
}
}
}

function CheckHostStatus	{
$HostState = Get-VMHost $VMHost
		if (($HostState.ComputerState -match "Responding") -and ($HostState.ClusterNodeStatus -match "Running") -and ($HostState.VirtualServerState -match "Running") -and ($HostState.VirtualServerStateString -match "Running") -and ($HostState.CommunicationStateString -match "Responding") -and ($HostState.CommunicationState -match "Responding")) {
		Write-Host "Host is operational"
										}
		Else    {
		Write-Host "Host is not fully operational"
		sleep 120
		CheckHostStatus
				}
							}

There are 2 pieces of software used in this as a workaround for a known issue with remotely calling the Microsoft Update Session API, WUInstall and PSexec.

Here is the code below:

Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.SystemCenter.VirtualMachineManager

Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.EnterpriseManagement.OperationsManager.Client

$VMMServer = Get-VMMServer "SCVMM IP Adress"    #<- Had issues with authentication while using the FQDN

$SCOMServer = "SCOM Server FQDN"

$VMHosts = Get-VMHost -VMMServer $VMMServer | Where-Object {$_.name -ge "Hostname"}

                New-PSDrive -Name:Monitoring -PSProvider:OperationsManagerMonitoring -Root:\ | Out-Null
                New-ManagementGroupConnection -ConnectionString:$SCOMServer | Out-Null
                Set-Location "Monitoring:\$SCOMServer"

function StartMaintenance       {
$SCOMAgent = Get-Agent | Where-object {$_.Name –match “$VMHost”}
                Write-Host "Placing host $VMHost into maintenance mode."
                $SCOMAgent.HostComputer | New-MaintenanceWindow -StartTime (Get-Date) -EndTime ([DateTime]::Now).AddMinutes(60) -Comment "Running Windows Updates"
                Disable-VMHost $VMHost | Out-Null
                                                        }

function EndMaintenance {
$SCOMAgent = Get-Agent | Where-object {$_.Name –match “$VMHost”}
                Write-Host "Placing host $VMHost back into service."
                Enable-VMHost $VMHost | Out-Null
                $SCOMAgent.HostComputer | Set-MaintenanceWindow -EndTime ([DateTime]::Now).AddSeconds(5) -Comment "Finished Windows Updates"
                                                }

function InstallUpdates {
                psexec \\$VMHost -s -c \\shareserver\share\wuinstall.exe /install /accepteula > "C:\Users\logon\Desktop\Scripts\Logs\$VMHost.log"
                        }

function CheckForReboot {
$baseKey = [Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey]::OpenRemoteBaseKey("LocalMachine",$VMhost)
$key = $baseKey.OpenSubKey("Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Component Based Servicing\")
$subkeys = $key.GetSubKeyNames()
$key.Close()
$baseKey.Close()
                If ($subkeys | Where {$_ -eq "RebootPending"})  {
                Write-Host "Reboot is required: Restarting $VMHost"
                Restart-Computer -ComputerName $VMHost -Force
                sleep 120
                                                                                                                }
                Else    {
                Write-Host "No Reboot required."
                                }
                        }

function CheckVMStatus  {
$VMStatus = Get-VM -VMMServer $VMMServer -VMHost $VMHost | Select Status
                if ($VMStatus -match "HostNotResponding")       {
                Write-Host "SCVMM has not updated the status of the Virtual Machines yet"
                sleep 120
                CheckVMStatus
                                                                                                                }
                Else    {
                Write-Host "Powering on Virtual Machines"
                Get-VM -VMMServer $VMMServer -VMHost $VMHost | Start-VM | Out-Null
                                }
                        }

function CheckHostStatus        {
$Status = Get-Service -Computername $VMHost VMMS -erroraction silentlycontinue | select status
                if ($Status -match "Running")   {
                Write-Host "Host is Up"
                Write-Host "Waiting for SCVMM to populate VM state"
                CheckVMStatus
                                                                                }
                Else    {
                Write-Host "Host is still rebooting"
                sleep 120
                CheckHostStatus
                                }
                                                        }
Foreach ($VMHost in $VMHosts)   {
                StartMaintenance
                InstallUpdates
                CheckForReboot
                CheckHostStatus
                EndMaintenance
                                }

What you get:

i5 Quad 2.8ghz CPU
8gb RAM(Max 16gb)
1tb Hard Drive
6 SATA Ports
Realtek 100/1000 NIC(Now supported during stock installation!)

UPDATE:

I previously didn’t have a host within my own network, only the vCenter server. Upon having this issue happen again “Cannot connect to host” when deploying templates or migrating data, I found out that this was caused by TCP port 902 not being opened on my firewall. As previously posted, I have another machine outside of my network, so in order for that to work, I have to set my managed IP to my ISP provided IP. The hosts inside the network also rely on this and not the internal IP, once I made a rule to forward that port to my ESXi host, everything worked as normally. I’m sure I thought I fixed the issue, because the first time I tried fixing the FQDN issue, I had uninstalled/reinstalled vCenter and removed the vCenter agent, I can only think that the vpxa.cfg was never updated with the managed IP address.

pfSense provides a VMware ready image, I actually had to use Converter to send it over to my host for it to import correctly, otherwise adding it to inventory would bring up a bad machine.

Once that is done, you’ll want to set up a vSwitch with no assigned NIC like the following:

Because the end VM will have 2 NICs on 2 different networks and 2 MAC addresses, get a pen down and write which is which, as you’ll need to know during the configuration to set up WAN and LAN connections.



Now we’re at the point where we need to get into the OS. After this prompt it will then ask you which device em0 or em1 will be the WAN NIC, then the LAN NIC, and their associated configurations.

One problem I found after this configuration is that I could not load the web frontend, apparently with this version, 2.0RC1, there is a bug with the default gateway. I had to press 8 for the Shell Prompt, and enter route add default x.x.x.x. This could either be an issue all around, or with the setup I had, as I was on a x.x.x.144/29 address scheme. After that, I was able to log into pfSense and add the gateways through the web interface, you can either do it when viewing the NIC’s settings or under System -> Routing:

Sometimes, you may need to add a route, under System -> Routing between the WAN and LAN for some reason. I’ve taken it out previously and things have worked, but when they break bad, sometimes I have to add it back, not sure why this would be necessary since the system should already know or atleast put this information in by default.

DNS is located under System -> General Setup and I simply added Google’s DNS server, 8.8.8.8.

Now there are a few gotchas, one is a major performance boost, the other is a major annoyance. First, disabling hardware checksum offload under System -> Advanced -> Networking provides a huge performance boost.

Lastly, the major annoyance is that sometimes, for unknown reasons, the LAN goes offline, resolving it is as simple as ifconfig em1 down then ifconfig em1 up. Other than that, it’s a great product, hopefully every bug I had will eventually be squashed.