PowerCLI - List All View Connected Users and VM HostNames

[nmckaskle]

I am trying to find a means of listing all the View sessions, not the vCenter sessions, the user sessions of all users connected to a View guest, their user ID, their hostname, and other information. I can't find anywhere in the powershell documentation where I would do this. Does anyone know where to look? This is for VMWare 6.x.

[LucD]

Try something like this

$query = New-Object "Vmware.Hv.QueryDefinition"

$query.queryEntityType = 'SessionLocalSummaryView'

$qSrv = New-Object "Vmware.Hv.QueryServiceService"

$qSRv.QueryService_Query($global:DefaultHVServers[0].ExtensionData,$query) |

Select -ExpandProperty Results |

Select -ExpandProperty NamesData |

Select-Object -Property UserName,DesktopType,DesktopName,MachineOrRDSServerDNS

[nmckaskle]

This gets the error straight out the gate "Cannot find type [Vmware.Hv.QueryDefinition]: verify that the assembly containing this type is loaded."

Not sure what I'm missing exactly.

[LucD]

Did you import the Horizon View module?

Import-Module -Name VMware.VimAutomation.HorizonView

[nmckaskle]

Thanks, that last line says cannot index into a null array. Trying to figure it out at the moment. This is a completely new branch of Powershell for me.

[LucD]

Is $qSRv.QueryService_Query($global:DefaultHVServers[0].ExtensionData,$query) returning anything?

[nmckaskle]

Nothing, that's the problem line, not sure why it isn't returning anything. I am suspecting it has more to do with needing a vCenter connection first?

[nmckaskle]

Tried setting up a connection in the script, that did nothing to solve the error though but the connection works.

[nmckaskle]

I tried adding this further up:

$ViewAPI = $global:DefaultHVServers[0].ExtensionData

Then tried using that variable the same way, but it said object not set to instance, meaning it's null. Weird. Why is that null?

[nmckaskle]

Pretty much stuck here since there is literally nothing out there about this $global:DefaultHVServers[0].ExtensionData and it resulting in a null value.

[LucD]

You did do a Connect-HVServer before?

[nmckaskle]

I had no idea about that command. I did Connect-VIServer.

[LucD]

You need to do that, the script uses $global:DefaultHVServers[0] , which get filled in after the Connect-HVServer

[nmckaskle]

Makes sense, it's like I run into one thing after another: "connect-hvserver : The remote server returned an unexpected response: (400) Bad Request"

I'm using:

connect-hvserver -Server servername -Domain domainname -User username -Password password

I look up this error but it's like nobody has ever talked about this online until now.

[LucD]

Try adding the -Verbose switch, see if that provides any additional information.

Can you try the Connect-HVServer with just the Server parameter, the cmdlet should prompt you for the missing parameters.

Does the hostname you pass on the Server parameter resolve correctly (do a nslookup)?

And you are trying to connect to a Horizon View Connection Server?

[nmckaskle]

I assume I'm supposed to connect to the vcenter server where we manage the View environment?

[LucD]

If you want to retrieve further info from the VM, yes.

When you're only querying the Horizon environment, the Connect-HVServer should be enough.

[nmckaskle]

I'm not connecting from a view associated VM though. Not sure how it would know where the view environment is. I'm trying to run this command on a Windows 2012 R2 server since that is how I want it to run in the end once I figure all this out.

[nmckaskle]

Verbose is giving me no additional info. This is strange. Not sure why there isn't more documentation on this or if there is, I can't find it with Google.

[LucD]

When you do the Connect-HVServer the Server parameter specifies to which Connection Server.

And you don't need to be on a View desktop, just a desktop where you have PowerCLI installed.

[nmckaskle]

I just learned the name of our connection servers, I wasn't aware that these are separate, but then again I'm not the main VMware engineer.

[richardbrown198]

Hi All,

how can we get the count of connected users into a variable i.e. $connectUsers returns 2550 sessions as opposed to listing all the sessions.

Using the above measure-object and count always returns 1000 which isnt right

[__invited__way2]

The limit of 1000 seems to be a resultsize issue with the query. I see that all the time with AD but don't see how to override in VMware.

More info here:

https://www.retouw.nl/powercli/get-hvmachine-only-finds-1000-desktops/

[dgrinnell]

Thank you this worked! Very Helpful.

I added this into a loop for every 15 Seconds it lists my users .. and i sorted MachineOrRDSServerName. Again Very Helpful!

$i =1

while ($i -le 2)  {$qSRv.QueryService_Query($global:DefaultHVServers[0].ExtensionData,$query) | select -ExpandProperty Results | select -ExpandProperty NamesData | Select UserName,MachineOrRDSServerName |sort MachineOrRDSServerName | ft;

sleep 15 ;

write-output “————”

;clear-host

write-output “VDI User Sessions”

write-output “————”

Write-Host `n

}

[dgrinnell]

I just added a count as well, so w/ looping the count and sessions I don't need to be in Horizon all the time.

($qSRv.QueryService_Query($global:DefaultHVServers[0].ExtensionData,$query) |select -ExpandProperty Results | select -ExpandProperty NamesData | Select UserName,MachineOrRDSServerName |sort MachineOrRDSServerName).count

Thanks!!

[jayty]

Do you know the property name to show the Session State? So we can see the state of each VM in the table as well? I tried using Session, SessionState and none of them worked.

[__invited__way2]

Changing to:

PowerCLI C:\> $rslt = $qSRv.QueryService_Query($global:DefaultHVServers[0].ExtensionData,$query)

Gets a result:

PowerCLI C:\> $rslt

Id StartingOffset RemainingCount Results

-- -------------- -------------- -------

                0              0 {VMware.Hv.SessionId, VMware.Hv.SessionId, VMware.Hv.SessionId, VMware.Hv.SessionId...

Then:

$rslt | Select -ExpandProperty Results | Select -ExpandProperty NamesData | Select-Object -Property UserName,DesktopType,DesktopName,MachineOrRDSServerDNS

Returns info.

Now if I could make it return based upon connection server...

[__invited__way2]

Anyone know how to get the connection state of the guests? This gets a count of both connected and disconnected.

Import-Module -Name VMware.VimAutomation.HorizonView

Connect-HVServer connectionserver

$query = New-Object "Vmware.Hv.QueryDefinition"

$query.queryEntityType = 'SessionLocalSummaryView'

$qSrv = New-Object "Vmware.Hv.QueryServiceService"

$rslt = $qSRv.QueryService_Query($global:DefaultHVServers[0].ExtensionData,$query)

$rslt | Select-Object -ExpandProperty Results |

Select-Object -ExpandProperty NamesData |

where-Object {$_.SecurityGatewayDNS -like "view.company.org"} |

Select-Object -Property UserName,MachineOrRDSServerName,MachineOrRDSServerDNS,SecurityGatewayAddress |

Measure-Object |

Select-Object count