🔧 [Quick Share] Got your own VM automation script or tool? Drop it here!

Dan Zeng

When managing virtual machines (VMs) on a daily basis, do you often find yourself doing repetitive tasks?
Things like resource checks, snapshot management, backup verification, status monitoring, bulk start/stop operations, or automated migration...

Have you written any custom scripts or small tools that help you automate these tasks? 🧠💡
Whether it's in Bash, PowerShell, Python, Ansible, or using advanced API integrations, feel free to share your work and ideas — let’s learn from each other!

Sylas Beaumont

My go-to is a one-liner: Get-VM | Where-Object {$_.State –eq 'Off'} | Start-VM. Bulk operations FTW!

delphine sterling

Shut Down Multiple VMs (Proxmox + Bash)

#!/bin/bash
# Shut down VMs with ID 101, 102, 103
for id in 101 102 103; do
  qm shutdown $id
done

delphine sterling

List All VM Status (KVM/libvirt + Bash)

#!/bin/bash
# List all virtual machines and their current status
virsh list --all

Everett Kensington

Here’s a small PowerShell snippet I use to automatically create daily VM snapshots in VMware:
Auto Snapshot Script for VMware VMs

$vmName = "MyVM"
$snapshotName = "DailyBackup_" + (Get-Date -Format "yyyyMMdd_HHmm")
Connect-VIServer -Server vcenter.company.local -User admin -Password "P@ssw0rd"
New-Snapshot -VM $vmName -Name $snapshotName -Description "Daily automated snapshot"
Disconnect-VIServer -Confirm:$false

Reid Montague

Yes, I do a lot of those tasks daily, and automation really saves time.
For example, I’ve written a few small scripts:

PowerShell scripts to check VM CPU/memory usage and send alerts if usage is too high.

Bash scripts for snapshot cleanup — it automatically finds and deletes snapshots older than 7 days.

Python scripts using the vSphere API to bulk start/stop VMs during maintenance windows.

I’ve also been experimenting with Ansible playbooks for backup verification, which makes it easier to confirm all recent backups are valid without manually checking each one.

Automation not only reduces repetitive work but also helps avoid human errors.

Adrian Prescott

Usually the command line built into the virtual platform is used.