To run PowerCLI cmdlets on vSphere and perform administration or monitoring tasks, you must establish a connection to an ESXi host or a vCenter Server system.

You can have more than one connection to the same server. For more information, see Managing Default Server Connections in PowerCLI.

If your login credentials contain non-alphanumeric characters, you might need to escape them. For more information, see Processing Non-alphanumeric Characters in PowerCLI.

Prerequisites

  • If the certificate of the server you want to connect to is not trusted, verify that your PowerCLI invalid server certificate action settings are configured properly. For more information, see Configuring PowerCLI Response to Untrusted Certificates.

  • If you use a proxy server for the connection, verify that it is configured properly, so that the connection is kept alive long enough for tasks to finish.

    Note: If you do not want to use a proxy server for the connection, run Set-PowerCLIConfiguration -ProxyPolicy NoProxy.

Procedure

  • ♦ Run Connect-VIServer with the server name and valid credentials. 
    Connect-VIServer -Server vc1.example.com -Protocol http -User 'MyAdministratorUser' -Password 'MyPassword'