From time to time a distributed vRA deployment can have issues…here is a quick script to verify and validate the important components are up and functioning…without the need to log into multiple components. Here is a diagram of my distributed vRA setup

And here is the script! It has multiple functions to do the following

• Basic ping tests to each component
• Get the status of all vRA component services
• Test the Web & manager server URLs

# Script to check the status of each component of a distributed vRA deployment
# Modify the hostnames to match your environment
$vRAAppliance01FQDN = "vra01.domain.local"
$vRAAppliance02FQDN = "vra02.domain.local"
$vRAWeb01FQDN = "web01.domain.local"
$vRAWeb02FQDN = "web02.domain.local"
$vRAManager01FQDN = "manager01.domain.local"
$vRAManager02FQDN = "manager02.domain.local"
$vRADEM01FQDN = "demw01.domain.local"
$vRADEM02FQDN = "demw02.domain.local"
$vRAAgent01FQDN = "agent01.domain.local"
$vRAAgent02FQDN = "agent02.domain.local"
$vRAComponentServiceURL = "https://vra-vip.domain.local/component-registry/services/status/current"
$webVIPURL = "https://web-vip.domain.local/WAPI"
$managerVIPURL = "https://manager-vip.domain.local/VMPS2"



### DO NOT MODIFY ANYTHING BELOW THIS LINE ###



Function pingHosts {
@"
===============================================================================
Performing basic ping test to each defined component
===============================================================================
"@
$vms = @($vRAAppliance01FQDN, $vRAAppliance02FQDN, $vRAWeb01FQDN, $vRAWeb02FQDN, $vRAManager01FQDN, $vRAManager02FQDN, $vRADEM01FQDN, $vRADEM02FQDN, $vRAAgent01FQDN, $vRAAgent02FQDN)
$collection = $()
foreach ($vm in $vms)
{
 $status = @{ "ServerName" = $vm; "TimeStamp" = (Get-Date -f s) }
 if (Test-Connection $vm -Count 1 -ea 0 -Quiet)
 { 
 $status["Ping Results"] = "Up"
 } 
 else 
 { 
 $status["Ping Results"] = "Down" 
 }
 New-Object -TypeName PSObject -Property $status -OutVariable serverStatus
 $collection += $serverStatus

}
 }
 
Function testvRAServices {
@"
===============================================================================
Getting Status of all vRA component services
===============================================================================
"@
Write-Host "Checking status of vRA Component Services" -ForegroundColor Yellow
# Request Service Information from $vRAComponentServiceURL
$vRAURL = Invoke-WebRequest $vRAComponentServiceURL
# Convert the Json response
$json = ConvertFrom-Json -InputObject $vRAURL.content
# Get Service name & status
$serviceInfo = $json.content
# Loop through each service
foreach ($service in $serviceInfo) {
# Get the Service Name
$serviceName = $service.serviceName
# Get the Service status
$serviceStatus = $service.serviceStatus.serviceInitializationStatus
# If Service Status is blank report it as BLANK POSSIBLY STOPPED
 if (!$serviceStatus) {
 $serviceStatus = "BLANK - POSSIBLY STOPPED?"
 }
# If Service Status is FAILED print to screen in red 
if ($serviceStatus -eq "FAILED") {
 write-host "$serviceName $serviceStatus" -ForeGroundColor Red
 }
# Otherwise print to screen as normal (Remove this if you only want to report failed services) 
 else {
 Write-Host "$serviceName $serviceStatus"}
 }

}


Function testWebVIP {
@"
===============================================================================
Checking status of vRA Web API URL
===============================================================================
"@
Write-Host "Testing IaaS Web Service VIP URL $webVIPURL" -ForegroundColor Yellow
# Create Web Request
$HTTP_Request = [System.Net.WebRequest]::Create($webVIPURL)

# Get a response
$HTTP_Response = $HTTP_Request.GetResponse()

# Get the HTTP code
$HTTP_Status = [int]$HTTP_Response.StatusCode

If ($HTTP_Status -eq 200) { 
 Write-Host "IaaS Web Service is OK!" -ForegroundColor Green
 # Close HTTP request
$HTTP_Response.Close()
}
Else {
 Write-Host "IaaS Web Service is not responding. Restart IIS on Web01. If that does not resolve then Reboot Web01" -ForegroundColor Red
}
 }
 
Function testMgrVIP {
@"
===============================================================================
Checking status of vRA Manager API URL
===============================================================================
"@
Write-Host "Testing IaaS Manager Service VIP URL $managerVIPURL" -ForegroundColor Yellow
# Create Web Request
$HTTP_Request = [System.Net.WebRequest]::Create($managerVIPURL)

# Get a response
$HTTP_Response = $HTTP_Request.GetResponse()

# Get the HTTP code
$HTTP_Status = [int]$HTTP_Response.StatusCode

If ($HTTP_Status -eq 200) { 
 Write-Host "IaaS Manager Service is OK!" -ForegroundColor Green
 # Close HTTP request
$HTTP_Response.Close()
}
Else {
 Write-Host "IaaS Manager Service is not responding. Ensure all vRA services are running on manager01. If that does not resolve then Reboot manager01" -ForegroundColor Red
}
 } 
 

 pingHosts; testvRAServices; testWebVIP; testMgrVIP

The function pingHosts is a basic ping test to each defined vRA component

The function testvRAServices was an interesting one to write as I’m not overly familiar with working with APIs so it was a learning experience. I wanted to be able to report the status of all vRA services listed on the VAMI administration UI of a vRA appliance (https://vra:5480). The URL that the services are listed on is https://vra-vip.domain.local/component-registry/services/status/current so using the powershell Invoke-WebRequest you get back the page information.

Line 56 in the script puts the page contents into a variable we can work with. You can see that the information we want is stored in Content (ServiceStatus) in Json format so you need to take that Json and convert it to  to powershell readable text using the ConvertFrom-Json function (ConvertFrom-Json converts a JSON-formatted string to a custom object (PSCustomObject) that has a property for each field in the JSON string) Line 58 does this

We then put each service into the $serviceinfo variable and loop through them to get the service name and service status.

Side note here: Originally I was querying $json.content.serviceStatus to get the details i wanted but i noticed I wasnt getting a full list of services, i was getting some blank content and also some duplicate service names. This is how i was doing it

$vRAURL = Invoke-WebRequest "https://vra-vip.vlab.local/component-registry/services/status/current" 
$json = ConvertFrom-Json -InputObject $vRAURL.content 
$serviceInfo = $json.content.serviceStatus | Select serviceName,serviceInitializationStatus $serviceInfo 

Here is that that returns. As you can see its not the full list and there is a duplicate entry so its not much use

I dug a little into the API and it seems that it does indeed contain inconsistent information. Here is an excerpt with some issues where the actual service name is content-management but the serviceStatus reports the name as advanced-designer-service

So to get an accurate list i queried the serviceName field to get the name and the serviceStatus.serviceInitializationStatus to get the service status. Unfortunately doing it this way doesnt allow creating a nice formatted table (at least i havent figured out how to do it yet!) but i did get it to print out each service & status on the same line.

Line 68: In my lab i use a vRO appliance so the internal vRO service on the vRA appliance is stopped. The service status comes back blank so i added a check to report blank service status as “BLANK – POSSIBLY STOPPED?”.

Line 72: I also added a check to print any failed services in red so they stand out.

The testWebVIP and testManagerVIP functions use the powershell System.Net.WebRequest to get the HTTP status code for a given URL. If the status code comes back as 200 then everything is ok. If not there is an issue with your IaaS components

So there you have it. A quick way to verify the status of all of the important vRealize Automation components and services. In my example below the iaas-service is in a failed state (The driving reason for creating this script! 🙂 )