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VMware Fusion system requirements
by lunarg on October 11th 2019, at 13:55

Not straightforward to find on the website (but with a little bit of Googling, here it is): an overview of the system requirements for VMware Fusion. All versions are listed:

https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2005196

 
VMware vCenter Server Converge Tool
by lunarg on October 9th 2019, at 15:19

A very nice article explaining how to migrate from an external Platform Service Controller to an embedded one:

https://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2019/02/understanding-the-vcenter-server-converge-tool.html

A note about versioning: use the same version of the converge tool as the version of your vCenter and PSC. Otherwise the converge will most likely fail (as it did when using 6.7 tool on a 6.5 environment).

 
Rescan SCSI bus on linux
by lunarg on September 18th 2019, at 12:02
When adding a new disk to a live system (e.g. a linux VM), the new disk may not always show up. Additionally, when resizing a disk through the hypervisor, the VM may not always immediately have the new size available for use. Luckily, you can trigger a rescan of the SCSI bus through the sysfs system.

For this to work, you'll need to have shell and root access to the server/VM.

Modern linux kernels automatically detect the addition of a disk, but in case it doesn't, you can trigger a rescan of a specific (virtual) SCSI controller:

echo "- - -" > /sys/class/scsi_host/hostX/scan

Replace hostX with the number of the SCSI controller, where host0 is the first, host1 is the second, et  ...
 
VCSA: resizing the database disk
by lunarg on September 9th 2019, at 16:54
On VCSA, the database is stored on a separate disk. It could happen that this disk runs out of room, causing Vcenter to no longer function properly. One way to resolve this is by running database clean up as mentioned in KB 2110031. However, if this is not possible, or you don't want to clear out the data, you can also resize the disk.

For this to work, you'll need root access and access to the bash-shell, either on the console or through SSH.

Before resizing, identify the physical disk to be resized. For VCSA 6.5 and 6.7, this should normally be Disk 8 (device node in linux = /dev/sdh), but your setup may vary, so it's best to double-check this.

In VCSA 6.5 and 6.7, the database is locat  ...
 
PowerCLI: handling snapshots
by lunarg on September 9th 2019, at 12:45
Handling snapshots (creating, deleting, restoring) is rather intuitive when you already have some experience with PowerCLI. As a reference, here are some one-liners. As always with Powershell, there's more than one way to achieve a goal... The examples used here assume a VM named "SRV01". Adjust as needed.

Create a snapshot:

Get-VM SRV01 | New-Snapshot -Name "My snapshot"

Remove all snapshots (disabling confirmation request in the process):

Get-VM SRV01 | Get-Snapshot | Remove-Snapshot -Confirm:$false

To handle a specific snapshot, you could do something like this:

$vm = Get-VM SRV01$snap = Get-Snapshot -VM $vm -Name "My snapshot"# do something with the sn  ...
 
Manually install the VMWare vConverter agent on a machine
by lunarg on February 8th 2019, at 10:02

If for some reason the deployment of the VMWare vConverter agent fails, you can also copy the installer to the machine you wish to P2V and manually install it.

On the machine VMWare vConverter is installed, navigate to the location where it's installed (by default: C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware vCenter Converter Standalone), and look for the file VMware-Converter-Agent.exe. Copy over this file over to the target machine and run it to install the agent. Accept the defaults, including the TCP-port (unless your setup requires you to change it). Once finished, a service will have been installed and you will be able to connect to it using vConverter.

 
VMWare VCSA/PSC: disable password expiration for the root account from the CLI
by lunarg on February 2nd 2019, at 15:44
You can disable password expiration from the command-line when logging on using SSH or by enabling the Bash shell. Note that you will need root privileges (i.e. root account) to make this change.

If shell access is not enabled, you need to enable it first:

Log on to the appliance management portal: https://ip-or-fqdn:5480/.

In the Navigator, click on Access. On the right side (Access Settings), click on the Edit button.

Tick the box next to Enable SSH Login for remote access, or if you rather prefer making the change through the VMRC, check the box Enable BASH Shell. Then click OK. The change is effective immediately.

Log on to the shell using either SSH (using PuTTY or another applicat  ...
 
Virtual NUMA Topology in vSphere 6.5 (link)
by lunarg on January 29th 2019, at 12:03

Found this article online about how vSphere virtualizes NUMA and how this is relevant to the configuration of vCPUs in your VMs:

https://www.opvizor.com/decoupling-of-cores-per-socket-from-virtual-numa-topology-in-vsphere-6-5

 
Selective deletion of tasks, events, and historical performance data in vSphere 5.x and 6.x
by lunarg on January 11th 2019, at 10:04

In the event of migrating your old vCenter Server to a new version (or from Windows to the appliance), it may become necessary to first clear out old historical data. Not only will this speed up the migration process considerably, it will also prevent certain issues which may block the migration from completing successfully.

VMWare provided a KB with database scripts which allow you to selectively purge historical data and decreasing the database size: KB 2110031.

 
PowerCLI: Starting/stopping SSH service on ESX hosts
by lunarg on December 20th 2018, at 11:17
Starting or stopping the SSH service on multiple ESXi hosts can be a tedious job when having to do this via the vSphere (Web)Client. Fortunately, you can also use PowerCLI to start/stop services quickly. With a little scripting, you can expand this to start/stop services on a set of hosts, a cluster, or the entire vCenter.

First, start PowerCLI and make a connection to the vCenter. For automation, you can use something like this (note that you have to add code for credentials, if needed):

if (-not (Get-PSSnapin VMware.VimAutomation.Core -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue)) { Add-PSSnapin VMware.VimAutomation.Core | Out-Null }Connect-VIServer vcenter.domain.local

Once that's done, you can ga  ...
 
Updating the vCenter Server Appliance via ISO and CLI
by lunarg on October 26th 2018, at 13:29

You can easily update your vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) offline by downloading a product patch ISO and via the CLI.

Download the latest patch from VMware Patch Download Center. Select VC from the Search by Product drop-down menu, then select the correct version (i.e. 6.0 or 6.5). Download the patch ISO and attach it to the VCSA.

Log in to the shell (using SSH or VMRC) and initiate the update:

  1. Stage the ISO updates:
    software-packages stage --iso --acceptEulas
  2. Optionally, you can view the list of packages to be updated:
    software-packages list --staged
  3. To install the updates, run:
    software-packages install --staged

After the update has finished, you will have to reboot the VCSA.

 
VMWare: mark all optical drives as client
by lunarg on September 27th 2018, at 11:38
It is best practice not to have an ISO mounted on a VM if it is not necessary. This is especially the case with VDI: if you forget to set the optical drive back to client, each of your desktops will have the ISO mounted as well, which can create a hassle with dependencies on the datastore where the ISO is located.

With PowerCLI, you can quickly resolve the matter with this one-liner:

Get-VM | Get-CDDrive | Where {$_.ISOPath -ne $null} | Set-CDDrive -NoMedia -Confirm:$false

For VDI, note that this will not work for replicas and master images containing snapshots, as the dependency remains intact if a snapshot exists where the ISO was still mounted. In that case, it is better to clone the m  ...
 
VMware vConverter: A File I/O Error Occurred while accessing ''
by lunarg on July 3rd 2018, at 14:58
When using VMware vConverter Standalone 6.1 or newer, performing a P2V may fail very early in the process with the following error:

Error
FAILED: A file I/O error occurred while accessing ''.

You can work around the issue by enabling Use proxy mode on the Destination System page at the conversion wizard. As an alternative workaround, perform the P2V directly to a ESX host.

The reason for the error has to do with the ESX host's certificate not being trusted when performing a P2V to a vCenter.

If the Use proxy mode does not resolve your issue, please check whether the FQDN of the ESX host is resolvable on the machine running vConverter. Even when using strictly IP addresses, the FQDN still  ...
 
ESX: enter/exit maintenance mode via CLI
by lunarg on January 17th 2018, at 11:29

You can use either esxcli or vicfg-hostops to enter/exit maintenance mode.

esxcli

  • Enter: esxcli system maintenanceMode set --enable true
  • Exit: esxcli system maintenanceMode set --enable false

vicfg-hostops

  • Enter: vicfg-hostops --operation enter
  • Exit: vicfg-hostops --operation exit

Note that you can use vicfg-hostops --operation info to check whether the host is finished with entering maintenance mode or is still busy.

PowerCLI

After connecting to the host or vCenter server:

  • Enter: Get-VMHost <name-of-host> | Set-VMHost -State Maintenance
  • Exit: Get-VMHost <name-of-host> | Set-VMHost -State Connected
 
Server returned 'request expired' less than 0 seconds after request was issued
by lunarg on January 17th 2018, at 11:10
When attempting to register the vSphere Replication appliance to the PSC, you may encounter this error:

Error
Server returned 'request expired' less than 0 seconds after request was issued, but it shouldn't have expired for at least 600 seconds.

On the appliance, look in the log file /opt/vmware/hms/logs/hms.log: if you see messages similar to the following, the time of the replication appliance and the PSC may not be in sync.

/opt/vmware/hms/logs/hms.log
2017-01-14 06:57:00.694 ERROR com.vmware.vim.sso.client.impl.SoapBindingImpl [main] (..client.impl.SoapBindingImpl) | SOAP faultjavax.xml.ws.soap.SOAPFaultException: The time now Wed Jan 18 12:27:31 MST 2017 does not fall in the request   ...
 
PowerCLI: quickly start a service (such as SSH) for all hosts
by lunarg on December 14th 2017, at 14:03

Sometimes, you need to temporarily start a service (such as SSH) to perform some maintenance task. PowerCLI can help you with this:

To start the SSH server on each host of a vCenter:

Get-VMHost | Get-VMHostService | ? {$_.Key -eq "TSM-SSH"} | Start-VMHostService

To stop the SSH server:

Get-VMHost | Get-VMHostService | ? {$_.Key -eq "TSM-SSH"} | Stop-VMHostService -Confirm:$false

As always, you can make adjustments to the oneliner to select another service to start/stop, or further limit the selection of hosts to a cluster or a group of hosts (e.g. filtered by name).

 
PowerCLI: quickly set log partition for ESX hosts
by lunarg on December 14th 2017, at 14:00
If you're making changes to the datastore, setting up a new cluster and have a lot of hosts, and wish to set up system logging, you can do so very quickly using PowerCLI.

First, add all the hosts to the vCenter like you normally would. Then, connect to the vCenter server and run this cmdlet:

Get-VMHost | % { $vm = $_ $vm | Get-AdvancedSetting "Syslog.global.logDirUnique" | Set-AdvancedSetting -Value "True" -Confirm:$false $vm | Get-AdvancedSetting "Syslog.global.logDir" | Set-AdvancedSetting -Value "[DataStore01] ESXiLogs" -Confirm:$false}

The cmdlet above will set the system log location to a folder on DataStore01 and enables unique log di  ...
 
PowerCLI: get a list of VMs, their folder and datastore
by lunarg on December 12th 2017, at 12:35
When performing large storage migrations, it may be useful to get a list of VMs and the datastore and/or folder they are located in. PowerCLI can provide this very quickly:

Get-VM | Select Name,@{N="Datastore";E={[string]::Join(',',(Get-Datastore -Id $_.DatastoreIdList | Select -ExpandProperty Name))}},@{N="Folder";E={$_.Folder.Name}}

You can further pipe this to other cmdlets (such as Where-Object to filter even more), or export it to a CSV.

You can also go into more detail and determine the location of each virtual disk (VMDK) of each VM:

Get-VM | Get-View | % { $name = $_.Name $_.Layout.Disk | % { New-Object PSObject -Property @{ Nam  ...
 
Create an UEFI-bootable ESXi 6.5 USB installer on Mac
by lunarg on October 9th 2017, at 14:42
To create an UEFI-bootable USB installer for ESXi 6.5 (or newer) on a Mac, follow the steps below.

First, you'll need an USB flash drive. Any recent drive will be large enough (you'll need at least 512MB). Also, download the latest ESXi installer ISO from My VMWare. You probably need a My VMWare account.

With the prereqs in place:

Insert the USB flash drive in the Mac and start up Disk Utility.

Erase the USB flash drive and choose to format it:Partition map = MBR

Filesystem = FAT32

Give it a descriptive name of your choosing.

After erasing the drive, we still have to mark the one partition on it as "active". Disk Utility does not support this and needs to be done using Termi  ...
 
Determine whether View Connection Server is standalone or replica?
by lunarg on September 28th 2017, at 14:36

If for any reason you need to determine whether a specific instance of VMWare View Connection Server is installed as a standalone server or a replica server, you can do so by looking into the registry.

In HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\VMware, Inc.\VMware VDM, the value ServerInstanceType will indicate which type the CS is:

1 = standalone/first CS
2 = replica CS

Note that this doesn't really matter, as the only difference between them is whether they set up a new ADAM instance or connect to an existing one. After the installation of VCS, they are identical.

 
 
showing posts tagged with 'vmware'
 
 
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