Using dr-ip-customizer.exe to bulk customize protected virtual machines in VMware SRM 5.x

I’ve noticed that I’ve received quite a few calls over the past year from clients asking me about how to properly use the dr-ip-customizer.exe executable on an SRM server to export an example CSV file, edit the file and re-import into their SRM environment to customize the IP addresses for the Protected Site and Recovery Site.  I personally don’t work with SRM that much and tend to forget the details so this post will serve as something I can reference to in the future.

First off, the following is a blog post that goes through the steps for the export and import of a CSV file that can be used to customize your SRM protected servers:

http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2011/08/buil-ip-customization-in-srm-5.html

The most common call I get when people use this VMware blog post is that they receive the following error when trying to generate an example.csv file for them to edit:

C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager\bin>dr-ip-customizer.exe -cfg ..\config\vmware-dr.xml -o c:\example.csv -cmd generate -vc someVC.domain.com

Input argument error: unknown option -c

Usage:

  -h [ --help ]               Display usage info.

  --cfg arg                   Path to application XML configuration file.

  --cmd arg                   Command to execute:

                                apply: Applies the network customization

                                       settings from the input CSV file to the

                                       recovery plans on the SRM servers.

                                generate: Generates a basic CSV file for the

                                          all virtual machines in the recovery

                                          plans on the SRM servers.

                                drop: Removes vm recovery settings from VMs

                                      specified by the input CSV file.

  --csv arg                   Path to the CSV file.  Read as input for the

                              "apply" and "drop" commands.

  -o [ --out ] arg            Output CSV file to use for the "generate"

                              command.  Will overwrite any existing contents.

  --vc arg                    VMware vCenter Server hostname.  Can instead be

                              specified in the application configuration file

                              at "/Config/VCSERVER". For "apply" and "drop"

                              commands, use the same server that was used to

                              generate the input CSV. The VM Ids are different

                              at each site.

  -i [ --ignore-thumbprint ]  Ignore the server thumbprint confirmation prompt.

  -e [ --extra-dns-columns ]  Must be specified if the input CSV file contains

                              extra columns for DNS information.

  -v [ --verbose ]            Enable verbose output.

C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager\bin>

I’m not exactly why but I think the editor of used in the blog post could have automatically changed the “--“ to “—“:

The correct syntax for syntax is actually with two dashes / hyphens:

dr-ip-customizer.exe --cfg ..\config\vmware-dr.xml -o c:\example.csv --cmd generate --vc someVC.domain.com

A sample example.csv file will be generated that looks like this:

What I find with this example.csv file are the following:

1. Still needs quite a bit of manual work (creating lines)

2. It’s too bad this does not export settings you’ve configured from the GUI

With this example spreadsheet, you’ll need to duplicate the row for the Protected and Recovery site vCenter, change the Adapter ID to 1 and then configure your NIC configuration settings as shown below:

Once you’ve completed editing the spreadsheet, proceed to import it with the following command:

dr-ip-customizer.exe --cfg ..\config\vmware-dr.xml --csv c:\example.csv --cmd apply --vc someVC.someDomain.com