FAQ
NetApp PowerShell Toolkit
May 2017
Abstract
This document is the FAQ for NetApp PowerShell Toolkit. The document covers frequently
asked questions about the NetApp PowerShell Toolkit and its known issues
Version History
Version Date Document Version History
Version 1.0 May 2017 First Publishing
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Version History ........................................................................................................................................... 2
1 Overview ................................................................................................................................................ 3
2 Technical Specifications ...................................................................................................................... 3
3 Support .................................................................................................................................................. 4
4 Additional Resources ........................................................................................................................... 4
5 Frequently Asked Questions ............................................................................................................... 4
6 Common Issues .................................................................................................................................... 6
2 NetApp PowerShell Toolkit – FAQ © 2016 NetApp, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
1 Overview
What Is NetApp PowerShell Toolkit?
Answer: NetApp PowerShell Toolkit (PSTK) is a PowerShell module that provides end-to-end automation
and enables storage administration of NetApp Storage controllers. PSTK is a unified package containing
the PowerShell modules for ONTAP and SANtricity. The ONTAP module contains over 2100 cmdlets and
helps administering FAS, AFF, commodity hardware and cloud. The SANtricity module contains over 300
cmdlets and helps administering the E-Series and EF-Series AFF
Where Would I Download This Tool from?
Answer: PSTK is available for download on the NetApp Support site
Does PSTK require a license?
Answer: PSTK does not require any license
Are There Any Usage Restrictions?
Answer: There are no specific usage restrictions for PSTK outside the standard restrictions outlined in the
NetApp Usage and Licensing Agreement.
2 Technical Specifications
Which NetApp Platforms Does PSTK Support?
Answer: PSTK supports all of the E-Series and FAS storage systems (running in either Data ONTAP 7-
Mode or Cluster-Mode).
Which Platforms Does PSTK Run On?
Answer: PSTK is supported only on Windows® platforms and runs on Windows 7 and above and
Windows Server 2008 and above.
Which NetApp storage OS does PSTK support?
Answer: PSTK supports ONTAP 7.3.x and above and SANtricity 1.4 and above
Can PSTK be installed on a Linux, Mac, Android or iPhone?
Answer: None of these platforms is currently supported
Is there any prerequisite for the installation of PSTK?
Answer: PSTK requires Microsoft Windows PowerShell 3.0 and up and Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5.2
and up
What Is the Size of PSTK?
Answer: NetApp PSTK is fairly compact and takes up about 60MB of local storage.
3 NetApp PowerShell Toolkit – FAQ © 2016 NetApp, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
3 Support
How do I Get Support for PSTK?
Answer: PSTK is supported through community discussions. You can post your queries on ONTAP
Community Discussions and SANtricity Community Discussions.
How do We Submit Enhancement Requests?
Answer: Please submit these requests using the community discussion described above.
4 Additional Resources
Where do I find additional resources for PSTK?
Answer: Following are the resources for PSTK
• Getting Started with PSTK
• Making the most of PSTK
• PSTK Primer
• PSTK Best Practices
5 Frequently Asked Questions
How do I use import PSTK module in PowerShell?
Answer: Use cmdlet Import-Module DataONTAP
How do I find help for PSTK?
Answer: Use the following cmdlets for help
• Show-NcHelp to view the full HTML help
• Get-NcHelp to view all the available PSTK cmdlets
• Get-NcCommand to view all the available PSTK cmdlets
• Get-NcHelp -CategoryList to view the available categories in PSTK
• Get-NcCommand -Category <category> to view all the cmdlets of a particular category
• Get-Help <cmdlet_name> -full to view full help for a particular cmdlet
• Get-Help <cmdlet_name> -examples to view example for a particular cmdlet
How do I connect to a NetApp storage using PSTK
Answer: Use cmdlet Connect-NcController
Can I connect to an SVM’s management interface?
Answer: Yes. Use -Vserver parameter in cmdlet Connect-NcController
Can I connect to multiple controllers?
Answer: Yes. After connecting to multiple controllers, use -Controller parameter in every cmdlet to
execute that cmdlet against a particular controller
4 NetApp PowerShell Toolkit – FAQ © 2016 NetApp, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
How do I know which cmdlets to run against the controller and which cmdlets to run against
Vserver?
Answer: Each cmdlet is associated with a Family (cluster or vserver). To view the Family for the cmdlets
use Cmdlets Get-NcHelp or Get-NcCommand. If the family is ‘cluster’ for a cmdlet, then the cmdlet must
be directed to the cluster. If the family is ‘vserver’ for a cmdlet, then the cmdlet must be directed to the
vserver. If the family is ‘cluster,vserver’ for a cmdlet, then the cmdlet can be directed to both cluster and
vserver.
How do I gather basic info of controller?
Answer: Use cmdlets of category ‘system’. Use cmdlet Get-NcCommand -Category system to list
available cmdlets in this category
How do check the users of the controller?
Answer: Use cmdlet Get-NcUser
Can I send CLI commands to the controller from PSTK?
Answer: Yes. Use cmdlet Invoke-NcSSH
Can I call ONTAPI commands from PSTK?
Answer: Yes. Use cmdlet Invoke-NcSystemApi
How to format the output of cmdlet Invoke-NcSSH?
Answer: PSTK invokes SSH to execute CLI commands on the controller and can not act of formatting the
output. Use regular expressions to match the pattern against the output and create a custom object to
hold the output
Why does the size returned by Get-NcAggr, Get-NcVol and Get-NcLun differing while it displays
on console and when it is exported to a CSV or stored in a local variable?
Answer: When these cmdlets outputs the size to console, it will be formatted. But when it is stored in a
local variable or exported to csv format, the the size is returned in bytes. Use cmdlet ConvertTo-
FormattedNumber to format the size as per your requirement
Does PSTK supports conversion of Dynamic VHD?
Answer: No. Only Fixed VHD is supported
How do I create a credential object?
Answer: Use the following cmdlets to create a credential object
$password = ConvertTo-SecureString -AsPlainText -Force <password>
$credential = new-object [Link] <username>, $password
Use $credential as the credential object to pass to the -Credential parameter in any cmdlet that supports
this parameter
Can I download an older version of PSTK ?
Answer: No. You can download only the latest version of PSTK. The latest version always maintains
100% backward compatability
5 NetApp PowerShell Toolkit – FAQ © 2016 NetApp, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
6 Common Issues
While installing PSTK on Windows 10, I get an error saying “the application requires PowerShell
3.0 or above
Answer: Run the PSTK installer with admin privileges
While converting virtual hard disks using cmdlets ConvertTo-NcVmdk and ConvertTo-NcVhd, I get
an error saying “source and destination offsets are not WAFL block-aligned”
Answer: The size of the disk must be a multiple of 4Kb. Resize the size of disk to a multiple of 4Kb using
cmdlet Resize-VHD
While converting a dynamic VHD to VMDK using cmdlet ConvertTo-NcVmdk, I get an error saying
“specified argument was out of the range of valid values. File is not a fixed-size VHD”
Answer: PSTK does not support dynamic VHD conversion. Convert the dynamic VHD to fixed using
cmdlet Convert-VHD
While converting virtual disks whose size is greater than 128MB using cmdlets ConvertTo-NcVhd
and ConvertTo-NcVmdk on ONTAP 9.0 and up, I get an error mentioning conversion failure
Answer: Follow the following steps to resolve this known issue
• Take a snapshot of the volume where the VHD or VMDK resides
• Pass the snapshot as a parameter to the cmdlet ConvertTo-NcVhd or ConvertTo-NcVmdk
• Delete the snapshot created after the conversion succeeds
Few of the cmdlets are throwing errors on older version of ONTAP saying “Unable to find API”,
although the synatax for the cmdlet is proper
Answer: Some newer cmdlets are meant only for ONTAP 9.2 and they wont work for the earlier release of
ONTAP. Please check the release notes for more information
While using filenames with non-ASCII characters in a volume, they are not handled correctly by
the cmdlets
Answer: Use “UTF-8” instead
6 NetApp PowerShell Toolkit – FAQ © 2016 NetApp, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
© 2012 NetApp, Inc. All rights reserved. No portions of this document may be reproduced without prior written consent of NetApp,
Inc. Specifications are subject to change without notice. NetApp, the NetApp logo, Go further, faster, AutoSupport, Data ONTAP,
and MetroCluster are trademarks or registered trademarks of NetApp, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Windows is a
registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation. Mac is a registered trademark of Apple Inc. All other brands or products are
7 NetApp PowerShell Toolkit –orFAQ
trademarks © 2016
registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated NetApp, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
as such.
