How to change the IP address of an exported stand-by machine using a log-on Powershell Script (4034407)

When booting a virtual standby export, the standby machine will be presented with new virtual hardware and in the case of the network card a new MAC address.  This causes windows to initialize the hardware and default to a DHCP assigned IP address.  Some customers may need to be able to revert to the static IP addresses their standby servers were initially configured with in an automated fashion at the time the machine boots.

Warning: All scripts provided in this article are meant to be used as examples and are not supported by AppAssure. For more information on AppAssure scripting support, click here.

A possible solution to this issue, is preparing a powershell script which runs at boot time. This script checks if the server is configured with the desired IP address and if it is not, changes the network settings (IP address, net mask, gateway, DNS, adapter name) to the desired ones. Please note that currently the script is supposed to work on systems with just one network card present; it can be extended to systems featuring multiple nics on an as needed basis.

We propose the following sequence of operations:

1. Enable Running Scripts on the Machine to be prepared. From an elevated PowerShell console, please run: get-executionpolicy If the result is restricted, please run set-executionpolicy remotesigned 
2. Edit the IPchange.Ps1 script by replacing the values in the <#Input Info;#> section with the desired ones. 
3. Run the script manually on a test machine to make sure that it performs as desired. 
4. On the machine that is exported via virtual stand-by, schedule the script to run as a task triggered at system start up using the script in the following KB: https://support.quest.com/kb/118189 Make sure to select option 3 – At Startup in the “Select the Schedule Type” section to schedule the task to run at boot time. 
5. Use the script in the following KB https://support.quest.com/kb/118051 to check if the task has been scheduled. 
6. If for some reason you want to delete the task, please run unregister-scheduledtask –taskname Make sure to enclose the task name between double quotes if it contains spaces. 

Here is the sample IPchange.ps1 script:

<#Input Info;#>
$adaptername = “Main Network Card”;
$ipaddress = “10.23.20.150″;
$mask = “255.255.0.0″;
$dnsaddress = “10.23.20.151″;
$gateway = “10.23.0.1″;

<#Get Active NIC;#>
$nic = Get-WmiObject win32_networkadapterconfiguration -Filter ‘ipenabled = “true”‘;

if ($nic.ipaddress -ne $ipaddress)
{

<#Change IP settings;#>
$nic.EnableStatic($ipaddress,$mask);
$nic.SetGateways($gateway,1);
$nic.SetDNSServerSearchOrder($dnsaddress);

<#Change Adapter Name;#>
$adapter = Get-WMiObject win32_networkadapter -Filter “index= $($nic.index)”;
$adapter.NetConnectionID = $adaptername;
$adapter.Put();
ipconfig /registerdns > $null;
}