Vmware Reference on Role Permissions

Defined privileges  document:

Reference:
https://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-50/topic/com.vmware.ICbase/PDF/vsphere-esxi-vcenter-server-501-privileges.pdf

vihostupdate does not work for vSphere 5

Tried to install patches to our ESXi hosts with vihostupdate and got this error...

 "This operation is NOT supported on 5.0.0 platform"

Found answer in the reference article below... need to use esxcli and have the ZIP file uploaded to a location that the hosts can access directly, ie. a vmfs volume.

Reference:
https://communities.vmware.com/people/vmroyale/blog/2011/09/15/updating-esxi-5--single-use-esxcli-how-to

How to remove cluster warning: ESXi Shell for the Host has been enabled

When taking Vmware ESXi hosts out of maintenance mode, I used to see this all the time.  You can ignore if you know that you have the shell enabled, but found this method to suppress the warning...

Reference:
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2003637

How can you tell if VAAI is enabled?

To determine if VAAI is enabled using the vSphere Client:

1. In the vSphere Client inventory panel, click the host.
2. Click the Configuration tab, then click Advanced Settings under Software.
3. Check that these options are set to 1 (enabled):
   
   DataMover.HardwareAcceleratedMove
DataMover.HardwareAcceleratedInit
VMFS3.HardwareAcceleratedLocking

What do I need to know about the Hardware Acceleration Support Status?
If you go to Host > Configuration > Storage, you can see the Hardware Acceleration Status in the panel on the right side.

For each storage device and datastore, the vSphere Client displays the hardware acceleration support status in the Hardware Acceleration column of the Devices view and the Datastores view.

The status values are Unknown, Supported, and Not Supported. The initial value is Unknown. The status changes to Supported after the host successfully performs the offload basic operations. If the offload operation fails, the status changes to Not Supported.

Reference:
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1021976

BusLogic SCSI controller not supported on Vmware VM

When a Windows virtual machine is powered on, the Tasks and Events tab of the virtual machine on the vSphere Client displays this warning under Events:

The guest operating system is and one or more virtual SCSI devices are installed in the virtual machine. does not support the BusLogic SCSI adapter that VMware ESX currently uses for virtual SCSI devices. Install the VMware driver in the virtual machine. Download the driver from "http://vmware.com/info?id=43". Click OK to continue or Cancel to cancel.
Fix is in reference below...

Reference:
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2007603

vShere 5 vCPU

Built my first VM on ESXi 5 hosts and thought this was interesting.  When  you configure the vCPU count now, you can specify # of virtual sockets and # of cores per vSocket.  Basically, vCPU = #sockets x # cores and there is no performance difference from what I been reading.  The only technical advantage I could find is that you can add virtual sockets to a running VM.

The purpose of this new way to configure vCPU seems to be for licensing trickery as stated in the reference article below...

Reference:
http://kendrickcoleman.com/index.php/Tech-Blog/vsphere-5-hardware-version-8-a-new-vcpu-config-for-licensing-trickery.html

Vmware ESXi Unsupported mode

On the console:

1. Press ALT-F1.
2. Type "unsupported" and press ENTER.  No characters will show on screen.
3. Enter ROOT password when prompted should get you into # prompt.
4. Be careful, you are in unsupported admin mode.

To Exit:

1. At #, type CLEAR and press ENTER to clear screen.
2. Type EXIT and press ENTER to exit unsupported mode.
3. Press ALT-F2 to switch back to ESXi console page.

Reference:
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1003677

VM will not power on

One of my VMs would not power up. The error it was giving was:

"Cannot open the disk '/vmfs/volumes/......vmdk' or one of the snapshot disks it depends on. Reason: Argument list too long."

I went into "Edit Settings" for the VM and found that hard disk 2 was referencing was not valid, an empty file. I removed the hard disk, and re-added the hard disk, but pointing to the correct VMDK file.

After that the VM started up just fine.

Reference:
http://vkarthickeyan.wordpress.com/2011/12/29/virtual-machine-not-powered-on/

VMware: IP address already assigned to another adapter

To resolve this issue, make the ghosted network adapter visible in the Device Manager and uninstall the ghosted network adapter from the registry:

1. Select Start > Run, type cmd.exe, and press Enter.


2. At the command prompt, run this command: "set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1"


3. Enter Start DEVMGMT.MSC and press Enter to start Device Manager.


4. Select View > Show Hidden Devices.


5. Expand the Network Adapters tree (select the plus sign next to the Network adapters entry).


6. Right-click the dimmed network adapter, and then click Uninstall.


7. Close Device Manager.

Reference:
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1179

Troubleshooting Vmware ESXi migration issues

While trying to install ESXi 4.0 U4 to my hosts, I started experiencing these errors:

• "A general system error occurred: Migration failed while copying data, Broken Pipe"


• "A general system error occurred: Failed to start migration pre-copy. Error 0xbad010d. The ESX hosts failed to connect over theVMotion network. "

attempting the put a host in maintenance mode. The VMs would not failover to another host.

Anyway, the fix was #2 under resolution in the link below. Basically, set Migrate.Enabled setting on all hosts to 0, then back to 1. After done on all hosts, the vMotion started working again.

Weird.

Reference:
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1036083

Enabling SSH on ESXi Hosts

1. Open vSphere client
2. Select ESXi host, then the Configuration tab.
3. Select Security Profile
4. Click on Properties
5. In the Services popup dialog, select SSH and press the Options button
6. Change settings, then click OK when done.

Reference:
http://www.thomasmaurer.ch/2011/08/enable-ssh-on-esxi-5-via-vsphere-client/

VMware Troubleshooting Guides

These are kind of neat...

Reference:
http://www.ntpro.nl/blog/archives/1733-Mind-Map-For-Troubleshooting-vSphere-Network-Issues.html

VMware virtual machine NIC not working

For a Windows 2003 VM running on ESX appears to be ok, but cannot access the network. The NIC appears to be connected and server is functional, but pings fail.

If you check Windows event viewer, you will see an IPSec error like this:

Event ID 4292: The IPSec driver has entered Block mode. IPSec will discard all inbound and outbound TCP/IP network traffic that is not permitted by boot-time IPSec Policy exemptions.

To fix, disable the IPSec service and reboot the VM.

If that does not work, as specified in the MS KB below, you will have to rebuild the registry policy.

To resolve this issue, delete the following registry subkey and then rebuild the policy:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\IPSec\Local

Delete the local policy registry subkey. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
2. In Registry Editor, locate and then click the following subkey:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\IPSec\Policy\Local
3. On the Edit menu, click Delete.
4. Click Yes to confirm that you want to delete the subkey.
5. Quit Registry Editor

Rebuild a new local policy store. To do this, follow this step:

1. Click Start, click Run, type regsvr32 polstore.dll, and then click OK.

References:
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1000797

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/870910

Connecting ESX host to iSCSI LUN on Netapp v3140

Reference: http://blog.scottlowe.org/2006/12/15/iscsi-from-netapp-to-esx-server/

Adding Sysprep to VIC server

Reference: http://vmetc.com/2009/08/18/how-to-add-sysprep-to-vmware-vcenter-for-vm-customizations-vmware-converter-also/

Hung VM or VM fails to power on with swap file errors

1. Login to each ESX host (via Putty or similar app)
2. Run

   ps -efwww | grep vm_guest_name

   on each host to determine which host has the hung VM process.
3. If you get something like this: (This is the process that has your file open in ESX)
   
   root 1092 1 0 10:33 ? 00:00:00 /usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmkload_app /usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware-vmx -ssched.group=host/user -# name=VMware ESX Server;version=3.5.0;licensename=VMware ESX Server;licenseversion=2.0 build-82663; -@ pipe=/tmp/vmhsdaemon-0/vmx6a6188c22e804baf; /vmfs/volumes/48729e6e-7cf3b2df-6ca0-001ec9b1b30a/vm_guest_name/vm_guest_name.vmx
   
   
4. Kill the process using: kill -9 pid, where pid is 1092 in example above.
5. You should be able to power on the VM now.

ESX Logs

1. Login to ESX host (via Putty or similar app)
2. Review files in /var/logs

Expanding a VM-Windows partition

1. Power off the VM
2. Expand VMDK file to final size: One method is to use VIC, Edit settings, select Hard Disk, then change New Size.
3. The other is to login to ESX host and use command line tool /usr/sbin/vmkfstools –X #G pathtofile/file.vmdk, where #G is the final disk size and file.vmdk is the vmdk of the virtual server.
4. Edit settings of VM and mount the Gparted-livecd-*.iso to the VM.
5. Go into Options tab and change Boot Options to for entry into BIOS setup screen and make CD-ROM boot before the hard disk.
6. OK to close VM Properties.
7. Power on VM
8. Once within GParted tool, use the defaults until into the GUI
9. Click on current partition
10. Select Resize
11. Drag arrow to expand partition
12. Click Resize
13. Click Exit and Shutdown VM
14. Edit settings again to remove the Gparted ISO
15. Power on VM
16. Login via VIC console and Windows will find new hardware.Reboot the VM to complete process.

Reference: http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=994

Notes from VMware VSphere Tour

In no particular order

• Fault Tolerance (FT) can only be enabled for 1-CPU VMs and must used shared storage.
• Data Recovery (DR) images cannot be backed up to tape.
• With Netapp storage, the have Snap Manager for Virtual Infrastructure (SMVI) that plugs into vCenter APIs to backups for VMs.