Linking VMs to copies of the PVS Collection Target Device template.

This is all about taking a Target Device Template that exists within a Provisioning Server (PVS) Farm Collection and copying it to create target devices from a bunch of VMs.

If you have been following I took a MasterVM on a Hyper-V server and I copied that into a number of differently named / unique virtual machines (this includes local cache VHD and settings).  And then I cycled through powering them on, getting their assigned MAC address and powering them off.

I now want to add those VMs into PVS as Target Devices.

From the last step in my script I have this array of VM Names and MAC addresses; $arrUpdatedVms

One hairy bit of this is adding the PVS cmdlets into the session.  I do this as multiple steps but it could be a one-liner as well.

$installutil = $env:systemroot + '\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v2.0.50727\installutil.exe'
& $installutil "$env:ProgramFiles\Citrix\Provisioning Services Console\McliPSSnapIn.dll"
Add-PSSnapin McliPSsnapin

Now, I want to iterate through the array and add each VM to the Collection, and I want to duplicate the settings of the Collection Template to save myself work later on.

(one note – this checks for the variable $copyTemplate to match “yes” – this just gives me a choice)

write-progress -Id 1 "Addding the VMs to the PVS collection" -Status "Executing"
foreach($e in $arrUpdatedVms){
    $vm = $e.Split(",")
    $deviceName = $vm[0]
    $deviceMac = $vm[1]
    "siteName=$siteName, collectionName=$collectionName, deviceName=$deviceName, deviceMac=$deviceMac"
    if($copyTemplate -match "yes"){
        #Optimally a Template was created that defines the vDisk and other settings. 
        & Mcli-Add Device -r siteName=$siteName, collectionName=$collectionName, deviceName=$deviceName, deviceMac=$deviceMac, copyTemplate=1
    }
    else{
        #adding the device
        & Mcli-Add Device -r siteName=$siteName, collectionName=$collectionName, deviceName=$deviceName, deviceMac=$deviceMac
    }
}
write-progress -Id 1 "Addding the VMs to the PVS collection" -Completed $TRUE

Don’t blink, this is a pretty fast loop to go through all the VMs.  Especially compared to the copy operation.