How to add a nic via powershell to an AHV-hosted VM

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Kees Baggerman·Senior Technical Director at Nutanix – Former Citrix CTP – NVIDIA Enterprise Platform Advisor – 15+ years in EUC

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After getting a question on how to add a network interface card to an existing VM I reverted back to powershell again, this could be useful for PVS scenarios where you want to seperate out network traffic stream (streaming vs generic network traffic) which is an outdated practice but for the sake of the powershell script it was my starting point.

From that older blog, the following interfaces are available:

• REST API
• HTML5 GUI
• CLI – ACLI & NCLI
• Scripting interfaces (PowerShell)

The following definitions are from the Nutanix Bible as Steve Poitras already explained this:

As a reminder, when creating a VM via ACLI all you’d need is a few lines to create a VM, assign a nic to the VM on a specific network and do the same with a disk (create/assign).

vm.nic_create KBTestVM99 network=VDI-LAN

Here’s how I managed to do it with Powershell with some error handling on the parameters (i.e. quit the script when the VM/VLAN can’t be found):

# kees@nutanix.com
# @kbaggerman on Twitter
# https://blog.myvirtualvision.com
# Created on March 5, 2019


# Setting parameters for the connection
[CmdletBinding(SupportsShouldProcess = $False, ConfirmImpact = "None") ]
 
Param(
    # Nutanix cluster IP address
    [Parameter(Mandatory = $true)]
    [Alias('IP')] [string] $nxIP,   
    # Nutanix cluster username
    [Parameter(Mandatory = $true)]
    [Alias('User')] [string] $nxUser,
    # Nutanix cluster password
    [Parameter(Mandatory = $true)]
    [Alias('Password')] [System.Security.SecureString] $nxPassword
)
 
Function write-log {
    <#
       .Synopsis
       Write logs for debugging purposes
       
       .Description
       This function writes logs based on the message including a time stamp for debugging purposes.
    #>
    param (
        $message,
        $sev = "INFO"
    )
    if ($sev -eq "INFO") {
        write-host "$(get-date -format "hh:mm:ss") | INFO | $message"
    }
    elseif ($sev -eq "WARN") {
        write-host "$(get-date -format "hh:mm:ss") | WARN | $message"
    }
    elseif ($sev -eq "ERROR") {
        write-host "$(get-date -format "hh:mm:ss") | ERROR | $message"
    }
    elseif ($sev -eq "CHAPTER") {
        write-host "`n`n### $message`n`n"
    }
} 


# Adding PS cmdlets for Nutanix
$loadedsnapins = (Get-PSSnapin -Registered | Select-Object name).name
if (!($loadedsnapins.Contains("NutanixCmdletsPSSnapin"))) {
    Add-PSSnapin -Name NutanixCmdletsPSSnapin 
}

if ($null -eq (Get-PSSnapin -Name NutanixCmdletsPSSnapin -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue)) {
    write-log -message "Nutanix CMDlets are not loaded, aborting the script"
    break
}

 
# Connecting to the Nutanix Cluster
$nxServerObj = Connect-NTNXCluster -Server $nxIP -UserName $nxUser -Password $nxPassword -AcceptInvalidSSLCerts

if ($null -eq (get-ntnxclusterinfo)) {
    write-log -message "Cluster connection isn't available, abborting the script"
    break
}

## VM Creation
# Setting Variables
$Name = "KBTestVM100"
$VMNetwork = "VDI-LAN"

## Network Settings
# Get the VmID of the VM$
$vminfo = Get-NTNXVM | Where-Object {$_.vmName -eq $Name}
if ($vminfo -ne $Null) {
    $vmId = ($vminfo.vmid.split(":"))[2]

    # Set NIC for VM on default vlan

    $nicuuid = Get-NTNXNetwork | Where-Object {$_.name -eq $VMNetwork}
    if ($nicuuid -ne $Null) {
        $nic = New-NTNXObject -Name VMNicSpecDTO
        $nic.networkUuid = $nicuuid.uuid
        $nic.isConnected = $True

        # Adding a Nic
        Add-NTNXVMNic -Vmid $vmId -SpecList $nic | Out-Null
        Write-Log -Message "Adding a NIC in the $VMNetwork vlan for $Name"
    }
    else {
        Write-Log -Message "Can't find the vlan with the name $VMNetwork"
    }
}
else {
    write-log -message "Can't find a VM with the name $Name"
}
Disconnect-NTNXCluster *
write-log -message "Disconnecting from the cluster"

Here’s the output when running the script, the first run was succesful because the VM and the vlan could be found. The other 2 runs failed because I made up the vlan name (2nd run) and the VM name (3rd run).

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Kees Baggerman

Kees Baggerman is Senior Technical Director — Performance & Solutions Engineering R&D at Nutanix, where he leads a global team responsible for defining how enterprise applications are delivered on the Nutanix platform. A former Citrix Technology Professional and NVIDIA Enterprise Platform Advisor, he has spent 15+ years driving EUC strategy and technical direction across architecture, product, and customer success. He has been writing here since 2011 — sharing what he learns at the intersection of platform engineering and enterprise IT.

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Kees Baggerman

Senior Technical Director at Nutanix - Former Citrix CTP - NVIDIA Enterprise Platform Advisor - 15+ years in EUC

Kees Baggerman is Senior Technical Director — Performance & Solutions Engineering R&D at Nutanix, where he leads a global team responsible for defining how enterprise applications are delivered on the Nutanix platform. A former Citrix Technology Professional and NVIDIA Enterprise Platform Advisor, he has spent 15+ years driving EUC strategy and technical direction across architecture, product, and customer success. He has been writing here since 2011 — sharing what he learns at the intersection of platform engineering and enterprise IT.

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