So yes, that is quite a specific title for a blog post. The path leading to it wasn’t as succinct, but it was an enjoyable journey.
Firstly, VMware provides a fine Powercli container built on top of Photon OS , but being me I thought Hey I wonder if I can get the same thing with a Red Hat Universal Base Image (UBI)? And so, my journey began.
I decided i’d use the VMware Dockerfile as the starting point, but I want to build it using buildah and run it using podman – because I’d like to know (you can see a pattern here) .
The original Dockerfile is accessible here, or here’s a local copy.
FROM photon:3.0
LABEL authors="renoufa@vmware.com,jaker@vmware.com"
ENV TERM linux
WORKDIR /root
# Set terminal. If we don't do this, weird readline things happen.
RUN echo "/usr/bin/pwsh" >> /etc/shells && \
echo "/bin/pwsh" >> /etc/shells && \
tdnf install -y powershell-6.2.3-1.ph3 unzip && \
pwsh -c "Set-PSRepository -Name PSGallery -InstallationPolicy Trusted" && \
pwsh -c "$ProgressPreference = \"SilentlyContinue\"; Install-Module VMware.PowerCLI -RequiredVersion 11.5.0.14912921" && \
pwsh -c "$ProgressPreference = \"SilentlyContinue\"; Install-Module PowerNSX -RequiredVersion 3.0.1174" && \
pwsh -c "$ProgressPreference = \"SilentlyContinue\"; Install-Module PowervRA -RequiredVersion 3.6.0" && \
curl -o ./PowerCLI-Example-Scripts.zip -J -L https://github.com/vmware/PowerCLI-Example-Scripts/archive/03272c1d2db26a525b31c930e3bf3d20d34468e0.zip && \
unzip PowerCLI-Example-Scripts.zip && \
rm -f PowerCLI-Example-Scripts.zip && \
mv ./PowerCLI-Example-Scripts-* ./PowerCLI-Example-Scripts && \
mv ./PowerCLI-Example-Scripts/Modules/* /usr/lib/powershell/Modules/ && \
find / -name "net45" | xargs rm -rf && \
tdnf erase -y unzip && \
tdnf clean all
CMD ["/bin/pwsh"]
I’ve made a few changes, some cosmetic due to the way I like to layout my docker file, but the outcome is similar. My Dockerfile is below or you can find it over at my github account. Using the default RHEL7 UBI (sadly Microsoft don’t have powershell for RHEL8 as yet) I was able to build the image at around 567 Mb, whereas the Photon OS image is around 362 Mb. Not a bad result given how little effort (none) i’ve put into making it as small as possible.
FROM registry.access.redhat.com/ubi7/ubi:latest
LABEL authors="geoffocallaghan@gmail.com"
WORKDIR /root
RUN curl https://packages.microsoft.com/config/rhel/7/prod.repo -o /etc/yum.repos.d/microsoft.repo && yum install -y powershell unzip
RUN pwsh -c 'Set-PSRepository -Name PSGallery -InstallationPolicy Trusted; \
$ProgressPreference = "SilentlyContinue"; \
Install-Module VMware.PowerCLI -RequiredVersion 11.5.0.14912921; \
Install-Module PowerNSX -RequiredVersion 3.0.1174; \
Install-Module PowervRA -RequiredVersion 3.6.0'
RUN curl -o ./PowerCLI-Example-Scripts.zip -J -L https://github.com/vmware/PowerCLI-Example-Scripts/archive/03272c1d2db26a525b31c930e3bf3d20d34468e0.zip \
&& unzip PowerCLI-Example-Scripts.zip \
&& rm -f PowerCLI-Example-Scripts.zip \
&& mv ./PowerCLI-Example-Scripts-* ./PowerCLI-Example-Scripts \
&& mv ./PowerCLI-Example-Scripts/Modules/* /opt/microsoft/powershell/6/Modules/ \
&& find / -name "net45" | xargs rm -rf
CMD ["/bin/pwsh"]
As you can see in the Dockerfile, i’m simply installing powershell from the microsoft repository on top of the RHEL7 UBI image and then (via powershell) installed the PowerCLI, PowerNSX and PowervRA modules from the upstream powershell gallery.
Building it with buildah is trivial.
buildah build-using-dockerfile -t rcli .
And to run it via podman (trivial example)
[gocallag@orac8 rhel7]$ podman run -it rcli pwsh
PowerShell 6.2.3
Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
https://aka.ms/pscore6-docs
Type 'help' to get help.
PS /root> Get-VM # plus a couple of tabs to force auto-completion of the command
Get-VM Get-VmfsDatastoreInfo Get-VMHostPatch
Get-VMByToolsInfo Get-VMGuest Get-VMHostPciDevice
Get-VMCCommand Get-VMHost Get-VMHostProfile
Get-VMCEdge Get-VMHostAccount Get-VMHostProfileImageCacheConfiguration
Get-VMCEdgeNic Get-VMHostAdvancedConfiguration Get-VMHostProfileRequiredInput
Get-VMCEdgeNicStat Get-VMHostAttributes Get-VMHostProfileStorageDeviceConfiguration
Get-VMCEdgeStatus Get-VMHostAuthentication Get-VMHostProfileUserConfiguration
Get-VMCEdgeUplinkStat Get-VMHostAvailableTimeZone Get-VMHostProfileVmPortGroupConfiguration
Get-VMCFirewallRule Get-VMHostBirthday Get-VMHostRoute
Get-VMCLogicalNetwork Get-VMHostDiagnosticPartition Get-VMHostService
Get-VMCOrg Get-VMHostDisk Get-VMHostSnmp
Get-VMCPSettings Get-VMHostDiskPartition Get-VMHostStartPolicy
Get-VMCSDDC Get-VMHostFirewallDefaultPolicy Get-VMHostStorage
Get-VMCSDDCCluster Get-VMHostFirewallException Get-VMHostSysLogServer
Get-VMCSDDCDefaultCredential Get-VMHostFirmware Get-VMmaxIOPS
Get-VmcSddcNetworkService Get-VMHostFirmwareVersion Get-VMQuestion
Get-VMCSDDCPublicIP Get-VMHostHardware Get-VMResourceConfiguration
Get-VMCSDDCVersion Get-VMHostHba Get-VMStartPolicy
Get-VmcService Get-VMHostImageProfile Get-VMToolsGuestInfo
Get-VMCTask Get-VMHostMatchingRules Get-VMToolsInfo
Get-VMCVMHost Get-VMHostModule Get-VMToolsInstallLastError
Get-VMEncryptionInfo Get-VMHostNetwork Get-VMToolsUpgradePolicy
Get-VMEvcMode Get-VMHostNetworkAdapter
Get-VmfsDatastoreIncrease Get-VMHostNtpServer
You’re likely, possibly, most likely not wondering if I have anything planned for this container. The answer is yes, but it will be the subject of later posts. I’m a big fan of the ability to run Powercli via powershell on linux, and doing it via a container is a very neat packaging solution. Sure, i’ve could’ve used the VMware container (kudos to them for creating it), but I now know more than I did this morning and that’s the result I was aiming for.
