Get-datastore not working at all

[kooper]

Hi all

Apologies if something similar has been posted elsewhere, but I'm getting pretty desperate.

We're trying to get some datastore readings back from a VCenter (VSphere?) instance, able to get everything back except for anything datastore related. I'm not sure if it could be due to permissions, but seeing as I'm able to get any other reading back, I kind of doubt it. If it is permissions that would actually make my life considerably simpler, but on to the info:

Using PowerCLI, I'm able to connect to a VCenter isntance. If I do, say, get-inventory, that works fine. if I do get-datastore however, I get this:

Get-Datastore : 11/06/2012 10:04:24    Get-Datastore        Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
At line:1 char:14
+ get-datastore <<<<
    + CategoryInfo          : NotSpecified: (:) [Get-Datastore], VimException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : Core_BaseCmdlet_UnknownError,VMware.VimAutomatio   n.ViCore.Cmdlets.Commands.GetDatastore

I've tried different combos of this as well, like:

get-vmhost -name <NAME_OF_ESX_SERVER> | get-datastore

I've also tried using Python, error being more or less similar to the above.

At this point, I'm inclined to say that the datastore stats just aren't available for whatever reason, but as to why I have no idea. I'm not the admin on the VMWare side of things, I'm just trying to implement some monitoring for it.

Can anyone perhaps suggest anything we might need to try? Should the user I use to connect with perhaps be granted admin or admin-like rights? Should I try a different command? Different version of PowerCLI (using PowerCLI Component 5.0 build 544967)?

The ESX version I believe is VMware ESXi 4.1.0 build-381591.

Any help at all will be greatly appreciated.

[LucD]

That problem has been reported before, see here.

Can you try with an older PowerCLI version (4.1.x) ?

[kooper]

I'll give that a go quick, should hopefully know in a couple of minutes. Thanks for the help so far, appreciate it.

[kooper]

OK, version 4 at least doesn't give me any errors when I run get-datastore. Problem is it still doesn't return anything, though not sure if I'm supposed to run get-datastore with any additional parameters though.

I'll do some more digging around, thanks for the help with this.

[LucD]

Without extra parameters, the Get-Datastore cmdlet should return all datastores you are entitled to see.

Could be a permission problem of the account you are using.

Can you see the datastores from the vSphere client with that account ?

[kooper]

Not too sure, unfortunately don't have access to a vSphere client just yet. I'll get in touch with the admin and ask if he could maybe temporarily give the account I'm testing with admin rights just to see if we get some more stats back. If it works, the admin could probably just give us special rights for certain objects I'm guessing.

I'll post back any updates once we've gotten something more, but in the meantime I think you solved my main problem :smileyhappy:

Thanks again for the quick and thorough help, really appreciate it.

[kooper]

Quick update, still no luck so far unfortunately :smileysad:

I checked with the VM admin, the user I'm using definitely has full admin access. When I run get-datastore however, I still get absolutely nothing at all.

Could it be that these readings have been disabled somehow, or that the rights are just so strict that not even an admin user has access to it? Apologies if I sound ignorant, but I'm not too clued up with the VMWare side of things.

Whatever the case may be, I'm now relatively sure that the problem isn't on the client side of things.

[Yasen Kalchev]

Hi,

Can you provide the error details of the cmdlet exception using following commands:

$error[0].Exception | select *

$error[0].Exception.InnerException | select *

It may help us find out the reason for this strange behavior.

Thanks,

Yasen

[kooper]

Hi Yasen

Thanks for the reply. Not sure if I did this correctly, but no exceptions from the look of things:

[vSphere PowerCLI]  Connect-VIServer vcenter.myserver.com

Name                           Port  User
----                           ----  ----
vcenter.myserver.com           443   mydomain\myuser

[vSphere PowerCLI]  get-datastore
[vSphere PowerCLI]  $error[0].Exception | select *
[vSphere PowerCLI]  $error[0].Exception.InnerException | select *
[vSphere PowerCLI]

Just to make sure I'm connected and able to query at least something:

[vSphere PowerCLI]  get-inventory

Name                           Type                 Id
----                           ----                 --
Hosts & Clusters               Folder               Folder-group-d1
***************                Datacenter           Datacenter-d...
********                       Datacenter           Datacenter-d...
datastore                      Folder               Folder-group...
host                           Folder               Folder-group...
vm                             Folder               Folder-group...
datastore                      Folder               Folder-group...
*******_host                   Folder               Folder-group-h3
*******_vm                     Folder               Folder-group-v4
*****                          Folder               Folder-group...
*******                        Cluster              ClusterCompu...
****                           VirtualMachine       VirtualMachi...
*********                      VirtualMachine       VirtualMachi...
**********                     VirtualMachine       VirtualMachi...
Windows                        Folder               Folder-group...
Resources                      ResourcePool         ResourcePool...
***********************        VMHost               HostSystem-h...
***********************        VMHost               HostSystem-h...
***********************        VMHost               HostSystem-h...
System Support                 Folder               Folder-group...
********                       Folder               Folder-group...
*************                  VirtualMachine       VirtualMachi...


[vSphere PowerCLI]

EDIT: Just to add, I tried different combos of get-datastore as well, all just coming back with nothing. Commands varied from something like this (can't remember the exact syntax in each case):

get-datastore -vmhost vmhost1.mydomain.com

get-vmhost vmhost1.mydomain.com | get-datastore (not sure about this one, could've been different)

Could it be that the config on the VMWare side is just something out of the ordinary? I'm well and truly stumped here.

[kooper]

I might just be grasping at straws at this stage, but could this perhaps have something to do with it?

[vSphere PowerCLI] Get-VMHost | Get-VMHostStorage

Id                             SoftwareIScsiEnabled
--                             --------------------
HostStorageSystem-storageSy... False
HostStorageSystem-storageSy... False
HostStorageSystem-storageSy... False

[LucD]

I'm afraid that just says that software ISCSI is not enabled.

[kooper]

Hi LucD

Thanks for that. It doesn't seem like I'm going to come right with the datastore readings unfortunately. I was thinking of just getting a temporary test VSphere environment going in order to see if I can duplicate this behaviour somehow, but I do not have the required resources unfortunately.

I'll pass this back to the VM admin to chase up on his side for now.

[will47]

I'm seeing the same issue (exact same error). My colleague (who has more privileges) does not get the error, so I'm thinking it is a permissions problem, even though the error message doesn't indicate it.

[puyopuy]

Hi guys,

I got the same error and I'm using PowerCLI version 5.0.1.  I can see datastores from the vSphere client. If I execute Get-datastore with admin privileges, I won't have this problem.  Just wonder what exactly roles/privileges is required?

Thanks

puyo

[LucD]

Can you check what exeception was returned ?

See Yasen's instructions in this thread.

[puyopuy]

Here is the error message:

Get-Datastore : 8/01/2013 11:00:22 AM    Get-Datastore        Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
At .\MigrateDatastore.ps1:103 char:16
+   Get-Datastore <<<<  | Foreach-Object {write-host($_.Name)}
    + CategoryInfo          : NotSpecified: (:) [Get-Datastore], VimException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : Core_BaseCmdlet_UnknownError,VMware.VimAutomation.ViCore.Cmdlets.Commands.GetDatastore

ErrorId           : Core_BaseCmdlet_UnknownError
ErrorCategory     : NotSpecified
TargetObject      :
RecommendedAction :
SessionId         :
ConnectionId      : /VIServer=prod\[e-mail]:443/
Severity          : Error
Message           : 8/01/2013 11:00:22 AM    Get-Datastore        Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
Data              : {ParameterValues}
InnerException    : System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
                       at VMware.VimAutomation.ViCore.Impl.V1.Service.DatastoreServiceImpl.GetDatacenterDatastoreList()
                       at VMware.VimAutomation.ViCore.Impl.V1.Service.StorageServiceImpl.<GetDatastoreStream>d__0.MoveNext()
                       at VMware.VimAutomation.ViCore.Cmdlets.Commands.GetDatastoreWorker.DoWork(List`1 moList)
                       at VMware.VimAutomation.ViCore.Util10Ps.BaseCmdlet.CmdletWorker.DoWork(List`1 moList)
                       at VMware.VimAutomation.Sdk.Util10Ps.BaseCmdlet.CmdletWorker.StartWork(Object obj)
TargetSite        :
StackTrace        :
HelpLink          :
Source            :

Message        : Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
Data           : {}
InnerException :
TargetSite     : System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary`2[System.String,VMware.VimAutomation.ViCore.Interop.V1.VIObjectInterop] GetDatacenterDatastoreList()
StackTrace     :    at VMware.VimAutomation.ViCore.Impl.V1.Service.DatastoreServiceImpl.GetDatacenterDatastoreList()
                    at VMware.VimAutomation.ViCore.Impl.V1.Service.StorageServiceImpl.<GetDatastoreStream>d__0.MoveNext()
                    at VMware.VimAutomation.ViCore.Cmdlets.Commands.GetDatastoreWorker.DoWork(List`1 moList)
                    at VMware.VimAutomation.ViCore.Util10Ps.BaseCmdlet.CmdletWorker.DoWork(List`1 moList)
                    at VMware.VimAutomation.Sdk.Util10Ps.BaseCmdlet.CmdletWorker.StartWork(Object obj)
HelpLink       :
Source         : VMware.VimAutomation.ViCore.Impl

[LucD]

Are you running this from a PowerShell v3 engine ?

Do a

$psversiontable

The current PowerCLI version does not support PowerShell v3, can you try to run the script from a PowerShell v2 installation.

There are some known issues, and starting with

powershell -version 2.0

doesn't always seem to help.

[puyopuy]

PowerCLI C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\Infrastructure\vSphere PowerCLI> $psversiontable

Name                           Value
----                           -----
CLRVersion                     2.0.50727.5466
BuildVersion                   6.1.7601.17514
PSVersion                      2.0
WSManStackVersion              2.0
PSCompatibleVersions           {1.0, 2.0}
SerializationVersion           1.1.0.1
PSRemotingProtocolVersion      2.1

I don't think this is environment issue.  If ESX administrator granted me top permission (admin), I won't have this error.  I think this error relate to  permission/roles settings but I'm not sure what.

Thanks for your help anyway

[edge10]

did you end up getting this to work?