How to Login to vCenter or ESXi with PowerCLI

·         Open PowerShell ISE or the PowerCLI command line.

o   If you open through PowerShell or PowerShell ISE, you need to load the PowerCLI environment variables.

o   Open the "Initialize-PowerCLIEnvironment.ps1 script located at C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\Infrastructure\PowerCLI\Scripts.

§  (This will be here after you installed PowerCLI)

·         In order to get the PowerCLI to connect to servers on the network, you have to bypass the certificate error by putting in the following:

o   “Set-PowerCLIConfiguration –InvalidCertificateAction Ignore”

·         Then you can connect to your vCenter/ESXi server with the following command:

o   “Connect-VISever –Server “yourIPaddress/FQDN” –User “yourDomain\UserName” – Password “YourPassword”.

o   Example: Connect-VIServer –Server 1.1.1.1 –User vsphere.local\JohnDoe –Password 12345678

·         You should get a confirmation you have logged into the server and you can now start executing PowerCLI commands.