VMware vSphere Release Tagging (formerly: VMware ESXi Release Tagging)

This PowerShell module uses vSphere tags to apply a human-readable release name, e.g. ESXi_7.0_Update_1c, to ESXi. In the future vCenter this will be also extended to tag a vCenter object as well.
There is a blog post available with a some of screenshots.

Release Notes

Since v1.0.0 the PowerShell module has been renamed to VMware vSphere Release Tagging.
Find release information in the release overview.

Getting started

0. Open Powershell

1. Clone the repository

# git clone https://github.com/dominikzorgnotti/VMware-vSphere-Release-Tagging.git

2. Move into the cloned directory

# cd VMware-vSphere-Release-Tagging

3. Import the module from the current working directory

# Import-Module .\VMware-vSphere-Release-Tagging.psd1

• Potential errors with importing the module are mostly related to the lack of signing.
• If you are okay with this, you can work around by setting the PowerShell execution policy to Bypass (for this file).

4. Make sure you are connected to a vCenter.
   Permissions must be sufficient to add tags and a tag category at global level and set tags to all ESXi hosts.

# connect-viserver $vcenter

Tagging ESXi hosts

5. Execute the command without parameters to tag all your ESXi hosts in a vCenter

# Set-EsxiTagByRelease

Parameters

-EsxiReleaseCategoryName

The name of the tag category within vCenter that holds the created tags. It defaults to tc_esxi_release_names.

-EsxiBuildsJsonFile

As of v0.1.0 the module will try to download the release information automatically from GitHub. If you're using a proxy PowerShell v6 and newer should be able to access your system settings for that.
If you do not have Internet access, you can specify a custom URL or file path containing the required release information to the module. The required file with release information for ESXi can be found here.

Specify a custom local file location:

# Set-EsxiTagByRelease -EsxiBuildsJsonFile "c:\temp\kb2143832_vmware_vsphere_esxi_table0_release_as-index.json"

Specify a custom URL:

# Set-EsxiTagByRelease -EsxiBuildsJsonFile "https://192.168.10.2/path/kb2143832_vmware_vsphere_esxi_table0_release_as-index.json"

-Entity

v0.2.0 adds the optional ability to limit the tag application to a scope (i.e. not all hosts will be tagged).
This is provided by the the parameter -Entity which expects a VI object (e.g. get-cluster "production) as an argument. Currently, there is no support to pass on the VI object via pipeline ( | )

Apply the tags only to the ESXi hosts in the "production" cluster:

#  Set-EsxiTagByRelease -Entity (get-cluster "production")

Tagging vCenter hosts

Since v1.20 you can also tag a vCenter with a release name.

5. Execute the command without parameters to tag all your ESXi hosts in a vCenter

# Set-VcTagByRelease

Parameters

-VcReleaseCategoryName

The name of the tag category within vCenter that holds the created tags. It defaults to tc_vcenter_release_names.

-VcBuildsJsonFile

The module will try to download the release information automatically from GitHub. If you're using a proxy PowerShell v6 and newer should be able to access your system settings for that.
If you do not have Internet access, you can specify a custom URL or file path containing the required release information to the module. The required file with release information for ESXi can be found here.

Specify a custom local file location:

# Set-VcTagByRelease -VcBuildsJsonFile "c:\temp\kb2143838_vmware_vcenter_server_appliance_all_vcenter_builds_as-index.json"

Specify a custom URL:

# Set-VcTagByRelease -VcBuildsJsonFile "https://192.168.10.2/path/kb2143838_vmware_vcenter_server_appliance_all_vcenter_builds_as-index.json"

Testing

Community tested:

• Client operating system:
  • Microsoft Windows: 10.0.17763
  • Mac OS X Catalina
• vSphere:
  • vCenter Server:
    • 7.0: Update 1d, Update 2
  • ESXi hosts:
    • 6.7: EP 17
    • 7.0: Update 1c, Update 1d, Update 2
• PowerShell:
  • Core: v7.1.1, v7.1.2, v7.1.3
• PowerCli modules: 12.1, 12.2

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Michael for being the guinea pig :-)
Thanks for my fellow TAMs for testing this with various operating systems and vSphere builds!