Send-MailMessage -Body is blank or partial

PowerShell Help
1

Hi There,

I’m really new with PowerShell, and I’m trying to do what seems like a very simple task but for the life of me cannot wrap my head around the behavior.

All I am trying to do is connect to one of our VCenter servers, query the datastore information and send the output to us via email.

  • $datastore = get-datastore
  • Send-MailMessage -To mailbox@ourdomain.com -From vcenter@server.local -Subject Test -BodyAsHTML -Body "$datastore" -SmtpServer exchangeserver@server.local -Credential DOMAIN\UserID
I get the email but it only lists the one column (datastore names) and puts only that in the body of the email. If I just type $datastore by itself, I get all the data including the free space/available space which is what I want. All of my Google searches keeps hinting around something to do with HTML vs. plain-text as they relate to tables etc... but adding or removing the "-BodyAsHTML" does not impact this.

Can anyone see what I’m missing from my 2 lines here? Any help would be appreciated.

 

Thanks!

 

2

You specify the parameter -BodyAsHtml. Does the cmdlet get-datastore outputs html formatted data? If not you should convert the output of the cmdlet to valid html.

3

[quote quote=188878]You specify the parameter -BodyAsHtml. Does the cmdlet get-datastore outputs html formatted data? If not you should convert the output of the cmdlet to valid html.

[/quote]

Hi! Thanks for the suggestion. I’m not 100% certain on the proper syntax of that commandlet or really more so where to insert it. I seemed to have received the same output in the email using the covertto-html command or not.

To answer your question - It doesn’t look like the output of get-datastore is in HTML at all, so I might just be going down a bunny trail thinking it had something to do with HTML or not. Thanks again for the suggestion!

4

I think you have two options. Either you omit the parameter -BodyAsHtml of Send-MailMessage and send the data as plain text or you figure out how to use the cmdlet ConvertTo-Html. You should always read the complete help including the examples for every cmdlet you’re about to use to learn how to use it.

5

Thanks for the suggestion. I’ll go figure out how to use the cmdlet. That should help.

6

You might have not noticed that - you can omit the parameter -BodyAsHtml and send the data as plain text. Do you really need it formatted as html?

7

You are returning an object, so it would simpler to use ConvertTo-HTML to convert it into a table. Passing credentials is only required if the SMTP server is not setup as anonymous, but if it does require credentials it need to be a credential object. Lastly, a kitten is killed every time you don’t use splatting for long commands in Powershell :slight_smile:

$datastore = Get-DataStore
$datastoreHtml = $datastore | ConvertTo-Html


$secpasswd = ConvertTo-SecureString "PlainTextPassword" -AsPlainText -Force
$creds = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential ("DOMAIN\UserID", $secpasswd)

$sendParams = @{
    To         = 'mailbox@ourdomain.com'
    From       = 'vcenter@server.local'
    Subject    = 'Test'
    BodyAsHTML = $true
    Body       = ($datastoreHtml | Out-String)
    SmtpServer = 'exchangeserver@server.local'
    Credential = $creds
}

Send-MailMessage @sendParams

Also, there is a free e-book in the Free Resources link on the left, which can assist you in understanding ConvertTo-HTML.

8

I have found that when I do not use splatting as Rob suggests, I get odd results with the Send-MailMessage command in PowerShell. Just something to look at if you do not choose to follow the recommendation and experience inconsistencies.

9

Thank you Sir! I really appreciate your help with this. This worked perfectly. Now that I have this, I can tweak it to use it in other ways. I appreciate you giving me what I need along with resource suggestion. Much more helpful than the old Linux-Forum “GO RTFM” response I’ve been getting.