Query ESXi Hosts Serial Numbers

I was asked by our IT department to provide serial numbers of our lab servers. Fortunately this can be done remotely with esxcfg-info CLI command and can be automated with William Lam (@lamw) PowerCLI function Get-Esxcfginfo. I just had to find the right entry in the xml file returned by the function.

Here is the script I used:

<#
.SYNOPSIS Remoting collecting esxcfg-info from an ESXi host using vCenter Server
.NOTES Author: William Lam
.NOTES Site: www.virtuallyghetto.com
.NOTES Reference: http://www.virtuallyghetto.com/2016/06/using-the-vsphere-api-to-remotely-collect-esxi-esxcfg-info.html
.PARAMETER Vmhost
 ESXi host
.EXAMPLE
 PS> Get-VMHost -Name "esxi-1" | Get-Esxcfginfo
#>

Function Get-Esxcfginfo {
 param(
 [Parameter(
 Position=0,
 Mandatory=$true,
 ValueFromPipeline=$true,
 ValueFromPipelineByPropertyName=$true)
 ]
 [VMware.VimAutomation.ViCore.Impl.V1.Inventory.InventoryItemImpl[]]$VMHost
 )

 $sessionManager = Get-View ($global:DefaultVIServer.ExtensionData.Content.sessionManager)

 # URL to the ESXi esxcfg-info info
 $url = "https://" + $vmhost.Name + "/cgi-bin/esxcfg-info.cgi?xml"

 $spec = New-Object VMware.Vim.SessionManagerHttpServiceRequestSpec
 $spec.Method = "httpGet"
 $spec.Url = $url
 $ticket = $sessionManager.AcquireGenericServiceTicket($spec)

 # Append the cookie generated from VC
 $websession = New-Object Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.WebRequestSession
 $cookie = New-Object System.Net.Cookie
 $cookie.Name = "vmware_cgi_ticket"
 $cookie.Value = $ticket.id
 $cookie.Domain = $vmhost.name
 $websession.Cookies.Add($cookie)

 # Retrieve file
 $result = Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $url -WebSession $websession -ContentType "application/xml"
 
 # cast output as an XML object
 return [ xml]$result.content
}

Connect-VIServer -Server xxx.gcp.local -User administrator@vsphere.local -password VMware1! | Out-Null

$hosts = Get-VMHost

foreach ($ESXhost in $hosts)
{
$xmlResult = $ESXhost | Get-Esxcfginfo
Write-Host $ESXhost.name ($xmlResult.host.'hardware-info'.value[3].'#text')
}

Disconnect-VIServer * -Confirm:$false