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

ESXi 4.0 Tech Support Mode

To use Tech Support Mode:

1. Log in to your ESXi host at the console.


2. Press Alt+F1 to switch to the console window.


3. Enter unsupported to start the Tech Support Mode login process. Note that no text will appear on the console window.


4. Enter the password for the root user. Tech Support Mode is now active.


5. Complete tasks in Tech Support Mode.


6. Enter the command clear to clear the screen of any residual data from step 5. This may be required by your local security policies.


7. Enter the command exit to exit Tech Support Mode.


8. Press Alt+F2 to return the server to DCUI mode.

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

Deleting a Windows Service

Had a service that I could not get rid of and found that you can use SC.EXE (resource kit tool) to remove the service from the Services control panel. The EXE was removed from the file system, but it was still being referenced.

Run this below to delete the service, where service name is not the service display name, see service name in properties of the specific service.

sc.exe delete

Reference:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/251192

Unable to startup Netbackup Admin Console

Ran into something today on a new Netbackup Master server I was setting up. I could not startup the Admin Console on the Master server itself. I have the Netbackup client service running as a service account. If I switched the Netbackup Client service to run as Local System, the Admin Console started to work again.

Solution was to add my domain service account into the Debug Programs User Rights Assignment in the Local Security Policy applet.

Win 7 Password Reset Disk

Reference:
http://howto.cnet.com/8301-11310_39-20109198-285/how-to-create-a-windows-7-password-reset-disk/

Active/active SQL 2005 Cluster problem

Our SQL 2005 cluster experienced a power blip due to computer room issue. Quorum and SQL3 instance were on physical SVR1 and SQL4 instance was on physical SVR2. The outage took out Active Directory and most of the network in the computer room. The cluster has shared disks on a Netapp connected via iSCSI. All equipment went down and came back up on their own.

When power came back up, SVR1 was offline in the cluster and all services were online on SVR2.

I rebooted SVR1 and it rejoined the cluster and was able to move the Quorum and SQL3 back to SVR1.

This is when we noticed a issue with the SQL4 instance. Applications on a .NET webserver that use SQL4 databases, could not connect to their databases. The developers (non-admin users) could not connect via SSMS 2008 to their databases on SQL4. I (admin on SQL servers) can connect to SQL4 with either SSMS 2005 and SSMS 2008.

To get the applications working, I failed over SQL4 to SVR1 and now everyone and all apps can connect to SQL4.

Any ideas what is wrong? I suspect a problem with SVR2, but not sure what since it appears to be functioning within the cluster ok and cluster groups have no problem failing over and starting up on that physical node.

UPDATE: Apps show this error when trying to connected to SQL4 on SVR2:

Error:
(A network-related or instance-specific error occurred while establishing a connection to SQL Server. The server was not found or was not accessible. Verify that the instance name is correct and that SQL Server is configured to allow remote connections. (provider: SQL Network Interfaces, error: 26 - Error Locating Server/Instance Specified))

UPDATE 2: SQL Browser service was not starting on SVR2, duh. Fixed by removing SQL from node, evicting from cluster, then re-adding server to cluster, and adding node to SQL 2005 instances using SQL 2005 Setup.