How to use VMware vSphere PowerCLI to find the MAC addresses of a virtual machine

In the search engine queries that bring people to my blog, I see that some people are looking for a PowerCLI script that finds the MAC addresses of one or more virtual machines.

So I decided to modify my previous Get-VmByMacAddress function that searched the virtual machines by MAC address, to do it the other way around. The new Get-VmMacAddress function uses the Get-View cmdlet to search the virtual machines and is very fast. In my environment with almost 600 MAC addresses, it takes less than 1.5 seconds to retrieve all the MAC addresses.

The Get-VmMacAddress function in Listing 1 contains comment-based help. Examples how to use the function can be found inside the function code. Or you can use the Get-Help cmdlet to get the Get-VmMacAddress help, after you have defined the function in your PowerCLI session.

function Get-VmMacAddress {
  <#
  .SYNOPSIS
    Retrieves the MAC addresses of virtual machines on a vSphere server.

  .DESCRIPTION
    Retrieves the MAC addresses of virtual machines on a vSphere server.
    In addition it retrieves also the IP addresses and the connection state.

  .PARAMETER VM
    Specify virtual machines whose MAC addresses you want to retrieve.

  .EXAMPLE
    Get-VmMacAddress
    Retrieves the MAC addresses of all the virtual machines.

  .EXAMPLE
    Get-VmMacAddress -VM VM0123,VM0456
    Retrieves the MAC addresses of the virtual machines named VM01234 and VM0456.

  .EXAMPLE
    "VM0123","VM0456" | Get-VmMacAddress
    Retrieves the MAC addresses of the virtual machines named VM01234 and VM0456.

  .COMPONENT
    VMware vSphere PowerCLI

  .NOTES
    Author:  Robert van den Nieuwendijk
    Date:    12-09-2011
    Version: 1.0
  #>

  [CmdletBinding()]
  param(
    [parameter(ValueFromPipeline = $true,
               ValueFromPipelineByPropertyName = $true)]
               [string[]] [ValidateNotNull()] $VM=".*"
  )

  process {
    ForEach ($VirtualMachine in $VM) {
      # Get the virtual machine
      $VMsView = Get-View -ViewType VirtualMachine -Property Name,Guest.Net -Filter @{"Name"="$VirtualMachine$"}
      if ($VMsView) {
        $VMsView | `
          ForEach-Object {
            $VMview = $_
            $VMView.Guest.Net | `
              Select-Object -property @{N="VM";E={$VMView.Name}},
                MacAddress,
                IpAddress,
                Connected
          }
      }
    }
  }
}

Listing 1. The Get-VmMacAddress function