VMware Communities : All Content - VI: VMware ESX® 3.0

Assigning CPU to a VM Guest question

wila — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 22:48:50 GMT

Hi Adam,

Well it all depends...
You are not saying what the old physical box is doing.. it might have 4 dual core processors, but is it using all that raw power?
Is it not just having one core work hard and 7 cores sit there doing nothing?
Unless your workload is running something like a database server, then that is a likely scenario.
Without knowing the kind of workload your old server is running any answer is good (or bad for that matter)

Re. your questions.

Would there be any issues adding more processors to the VMGuest boxes? Other then shuting down the guest, editing the profile and rebooting the VM?

As you already installed Windows 2000 on a SMP VM, that should be OK.

The Summary notes that I would have 8 Processor. Can I assign (or is it a good practice to assign 4 or more cpus to a single vm)?

I would not setup more a 4 vCPU's and unless you are running database servers, I would start out with 1 vCPU.
You might also want to consider breaking up the workload by having 2 VM's instead of 1 VM, it may even make your guest easier to manage.

wanting to know how the VMWare would present the CPUs to the Guest?

ESX 3.0.x can only present the cores as if they are physical CPU's.
IIRC then ESX 3.5 U4 can be made to use multi-core, by a hack in the vmx, but it is unsupported and I don't have a link for it now, sorry.
ESX 4.x can present multiple cores on its vCPU's to the guest, but you might bump into issues with support for Windows 2000 as it is a very old OS by now. See also: http://planetvm.net/blog/?p=817 That issue might have been resolved with Update 1 which was released recently, but I'm posting it here just so you know.

good luck testing!

--
Wil
_____________________________________________________
VI-Toolkit & scripts wiki at http://www.vi-toolkit.com

new esx server to be joined to HA cluster - what version of ESX?

lmonaco — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 14:38:45 GMT

Sounds like you are dealing with some old versions there. Matter of fact not even supported by VMware anymore. Make sure the version of vCenter you have can support your 3.5 hosts.

Upgrade Proliant DL380 to dual Processor

BBock — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 22:36:14 GMT

I agree, Vmotion would be an issue, but luckily we won't be needing Vmotion between those two servers.

My concern is more about the immediate issues. Will the system come backup if I just plugin a new processor or a second or even two new ones.

Snapshot and Clone options are grey out???

VMarpole — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 21:40:17 GMT

After looking to the setting on this VM, I realized that the disk was configured to be persistent. And this VM uses VM version: 3 and the rest of VMs use version 4. The setting interface a bit different.

I assumed this was created or migrated before from previous VM version.

Thanks Martin for pointing to that direction.

regards,

VMarpole

Virtual Appliance

xooops — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 13:37:41 GMT

I think there is no support for esx 4

best regards, Sven

How many RAM dimms on a ESX 3.0.1 Server

Maelito77 — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:36:01 GMT

Fantastic! VMROYALE you rock!
I found the info I wanted right there.
Thanks, ii

Newbie Question: 'Adding a Hard Disk' to exsiting VMGuest

weinstein5 — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:38:41 GMT

Welcome to the Forums - Wince you want to create a brand new disk you will want to select Create New Virtual Disk - this will create a new virtual disk file for the VM you will then go into disk manager and partition the new space in the VM.

Basically selecting a different datastore will be used if you want a diak larger than 4 GB -

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Unexpected shutdown caused datastore to become inaccessable - VM's show up as Unknown (inaccessible) in Vsphere

oneitguy — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:11:59 GMT

All of the storage devices/location pertaining to the Datastore are located on internal raid drives. We checked the raid array which is in OPTIMAL state and already power-cycled the ESXi server.

IP conflict

ThompsG — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 07:45:00 GMT

Morning,

From the inventory screen if you click at the top level (Host & Clusters) you will be able to click the Virtual Machines tab.

If you right click the silver bar that contains Name, Status, etc you can select IP Address. If you then click the field IP Address you will be able to sort your VMs and hopefully see the troublesome IP address.

Hope this helps in some small way.

Kind regards,

Glen

Networking issue

AWo — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:52:30 GMT

Can you ping the guest by IP and FQDN?
Try to connect to the DB with Access or Excel via ODBC. If that works, networking connectivity to your SQL server is O.K.

AWo
VCP / VMware vEXPERT 2009
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Templates greyed out after upgrade to ESX 3.5 / VC 2.5

akfoote — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:54:20 GMT

Also worked. Great tip.

Thanks

kevinfoote

how to expand vmdk disk to larger size

powerzhu — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 07:07:46 GMT

I come across this article http://www.partition-tool.com/resource/resize-vmware-virtual-disk-tutorial.htm

It is very clear how to expand vmdk disk and partition.

High CPU usage after adding RDM

VirtuallyTaken — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 06:13:23 GMT

Spoke to vmware and they said to put the 'Virtualized MMU' to disable, ie. 'Forbid use of these features'. I had done that but the problem stayed for the next 2 days and then mysteriously disappeared.

Now, all the other Windows 2000 servers across different clients are showing the same issue. I have done the same as what VMware had recommended but this time the issue didnt mysteriously disappear. Its been over a week now. I have logged another call with Vmware to see what they say.

Cheers

VM naming question

weinstein5 — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 19:54:39 GMT

Depends - if there is no virtual center and the VMs are created on different ESX hosts and different LUNs on the SAN then yes you can end with VMs with the same name - This also can happen if you do have virtual center and the two esx hosts are in different datacenters -

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SVMotion with RDM's

mike.laspina — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 19:08:10 GMT

Hi,

SVmotion does not move RDMs. In the best case it does create a compatible mode vmdk to point to the RDM however if the RDM LUN is not SAN mapped at the host receiving the VM with the same LUN number the VM will fail to access the RDM until that is corrected.

There are too many security problems with RDM mapping changes and this is one of the reasons I don't use RDMs.

Best bet is to use vConverter to move it to a VMFS based store and avoid RDMs. They do not provide much advantage unless your using SAN based snapshots for point in time recovery.

Regards,

Mike

http://blog.laspina.ca/
vExpert 2009

SCP .vmdk file from ESX 2.5 to ESX 3.5

kdiddy970 — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 18:46:13 GMT

I had this issue with 3.5u2 ESX hosts and 2.5 VC and connecting VIC directly to the host worked.

HOWTO: Installing ESX Server from a USB flash drive

lzhao — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:54:54 GMT

Hi Paul,

I have the exact same problem when I boot ESX 3.5 from USB on a HP server. But I have probem to download your hdstg2.img patch. I hope you can help to get this patch

Thanks in advance,

linli Zhao, lao.chao@gmail.com

Unable to install 64 client on esx 3

Anton V Zhbankov — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 10:09:37 GMT

You need to enable Intel-VT in server BIOS to run 64bit guests.

Check if your CPU is capable of VT.

---
MCSA, MCTS, VCP, VMware vExpert '2009
http://blog.vadmin.ru

VMotion between Opteron 275 and Opteron 2435

TobiasKracht — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:58:16 GMT

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&externalId=1992&sliceId=1&docTypeID=DT_KB_1_1&dialogID=47530542&stateId=0%200%2048070194

StarWind Software R&D
http://www.starwindsoftware.com

Unable to open SCSI device '/vmfs/devices/generic/vmhba1:5:0:0' (scsi0:1):@&!@@(msg.fileio.generic)Generic error. Failed to configure scsi0

TobiasKracht — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 11:20:16 GMT

Try to attach tape device directly to VM using SPTI.

StarWind Software R&D
http://www.starwindsoftware.com

LUN Space

Rohail2004 — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 14:19:48 GMT

we really dont use snapshot.

“Raw Device Mappings” option not available when adding a hard disk to an existing VM.

FirstByte — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:32:23 GMT

Try this:

1- Either you have no storage presented and available to your hosts to add as a RDM, or if you do,
2- Add another virtual SCSI controller first, then try adding the RDM virtual disk

See if that helps

Cheers
Darren

Any one tried esx3 on an intel modular server system?

nejcs01 — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:06:02 GMT

Hi,

has anyone connected external SAS storage like Promise Vtrak e310s to the IMS?
I'm trying to set up a shared disk (on one LUN) that would be accessed by two vSphere servers, but it looks like the first one freezes when booting the other one. It looks like one kicks the other out when they try to acccess the LUN.

In Promise, I have checked "Enable LUN Masking" and have made appropriate LUN mappings to Initiators. I took care that all LUN ID's are different on all the servers, though I think it is irrelevant.

Does anybody has any suggestion?

Regards,
Nejc

(Q) Understanding Real Terms of CPU virtualization?

oreeh — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:34:17 GMT

FYI: this thread has been locked since it is a duplicate

Oliver Reeh
VMware Communities User Moderator

Port Group physical vs. virtual ?

LyleRyan — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 05:06:50 GMT

In preparing for my 3.5 VCP exam, I was confused by this too.

It's now clear to me that the range of VLAN IDs encompases 4096 possibilities. But the Configuration Maximum for 3.5 of "Number of port groups (VLANs) = 4096" is still unclear.

A port group doesn't have to be in a VLAN (if I'm correct) so the range of VLAN IDs doesn't seem to fully explain things here.

Also, on page 65 of "Mastering VMware Infrastructure 3", McCain says, in part:

An ESX Server host cannot have more than 4096 ports

An ESX Server host cannot have more than 512 virtual switch port groups

"Because ESX Server hosts cannot have more than 4,096 ports....(be careful creating vSwitches with 1016 ports)"

Could the Configuration Maximum be saying both things? The range of valid VLAN IDs has 4096 possibilities and each host can not have any more than 4096 ports?

Thanks for any advice on this....Lyle

Solaris 10 New Install hanging on Configuring Devices

ericni — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 06:32:10 GMT

I run Solaris no problem these days, my problem was based on mounting the DVD image and installing off the DVD image itself. Once mounted properly with the correct amount of space and memory, it worked fine.

Eric

Make a difference

what is Vmkernel swap file

BrendonHiggins — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 22:12:47 GMT

Old post but still useful - thanks

Bren

Hard Disk Failure

kbegg — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:04:37 GMT

Hello,

The resolution to this problem was to delete (and restore from backup) the file that was causing the backup to fail.

Not sure what caused this, but all is well again.

Regards,

Keith

sysprep with VC 2.5

krismcewan — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:00:52 GMT

the location to place your sysprep file on a 2008 vCenter server is

C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\sysprep

A VMware Consultant in Scotland for Taupo Consulting
www.taupoconsulting.co.uk

If you think I'm right or helpful award me some points please

Ethernet frames dropped - NP2 hardware - ESX Server 3.0.2

BedBB — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:04:19 GMT

Hi Boris,

At the time the updated version of the Hosts to ESXServer to 3.5 and
the problem was solved. Our version ESXServer was 3.0 ....

Regards

Bed

vmhba and vmnic error messages

Texiwill — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:20:19 GMT

Hello,

Moved to ESX v3 forum.

I would verify that there are no hardware failures by checking the system itself. Perhaps you lost a NIC?

iso:/soft sounds like a mount point. Did you NFS mount something? If so perhaps the server is gone or the NIC to which the NFS server is connected went bad, etc.

Best regards,
Edward L. Haletky VMware Communities User Moderator, VMware vExpert 2009, Virtualization Practice Analyst
Now Available: 'VMware vSphere(TM) and Virtual Infrastructure Security: Securing the Virtual Environment'
Also available 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise'
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vCPU scheduling

weinstein5 — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 03:36:56 GMT

With the current release of ESX 3.5 the vCPU scheduling has improve in that the vmkernel will schedule each vCPU when it has space available - with ESX 3.0 the scheduling is similar to esx 2.x - the vmkernel will not schedule any vCPU of a multi vCPU VM if it can not schedul all vCPUs - so if you have a vm with 4 vCPU running on an ESX 3.0 host with 4 logical CPUs - you will have performance problems with that VM - look at the real time performance graphs and check what the CPU Ready measurement are - this is a measure of time the VM waits for the vmkernel to schedule the vCPUs - so if there is a problem schedulling you will have a high ready time -

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Upgrading from 3.0.0

Yunthor — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 22:47:05 GMT

Good morning,

I have ESX 3.0.0 right now and have looked on the patch page for how to get it to 3.0.3. I cannot find anything. When I search for how to upgrade 3.0.0, I see things like "It is easy. It is just a patch." Where can I obtain the patch to get to 3.0.3? Do I need to go 3.0.0>1>2>3 and apply all patches as I go?

Thanks.

Different ESX builds in the same host

weinstein5 — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 19:42:32 GMT

There is no problem running different builds of the same software release in the same cluster -

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(hpmgmt) hp-OpenIPMI will not uninstall

sgstuart — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 01:35:31 GMT

Hi Mike,

Thank you for your response. I do not have an HP Fibre Channel Agent. However, I decided to give your stuff a whirl. First hpasm does not exist, states unrecognized service.
The lsmod line gives me

ipmi_devintf
ipmi_si_drv
ipmi_msghandler

The lsof line did nothing (at least nothing apparent)
The pegasus service was/is already stopped
The modprobe line did nothing (at least nothing apparent)

I ran the chkconfig line
The hpsmhd service does not exist
and there is no cma.conf file under /opt/compaq (there is only a utils folder with a IrqRouteTable file in it)

Thanks,
Steven Stuart

High Performance computing on ESX 3.5 U3

lmonaco — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 09:53:06 GMT

My only suggestion would be not to oversubscribe on CPU, otherwise you will run into high %RDY times.

NFS disk growth

mike.laspina — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:21:21 GMT

Hi,

This blog entry explains some of the reasons for the high disk consumption rate.

http://blog.laspina.ca/ubiquitous/controlling-snapshot-noise

http://blog.laspina.ca/
vExpert 2009

The server could not interpret the client's request

dschingis — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:31:41 GMT

Hello all

I have the same problem in my envirement.

Server VC001 is a W2k3 std EN, VC Server 2.5.0 Build 174768
Server SQL001 is a W2k3 std EN, SQL 2005SP2

Often i got on logon VIC "The server could not interpret the client's request". Restart VC Service, now it runs, but i got it over and over.

Space on Harddisk is also no problem, the are enough space on every drive (vc and sql).

And i also have often the problem that weblogin does not work, because "web service unavailable". But i configured like written in this kb article.

Did anybody havean idee for both Problems? Maybe the same issue?

Greetings
Jochen

VMotion IP address settings question

ChOCi — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 08:37:17 GMT

"also u must have the same gateway on all the hosts...."

Isn't that stating the obvious??

Paul Sheard
Leeds Uk

License Server using wrong IP address

micho1492 — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 19:31:54 GMT

Hi christian,

I was trying to change "this_host" in the license file by an Ip address as you recommended but, I got an error, should I use a specific format for this?? Also, I couldn't find that in the documentation.

Any help would be really appreciated.

Thanks.

VMOTION error

blvsupport — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 19:26:27 GMT

I guess i will close the case

Adding Additional RDM's to MSCS Cluster

MikePoe — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:55:24 GMT

Andre,

Thanks for your reply. I should point out this issue is only occuring in our 3.02 environment, in the 3,.5 world it works as expected. Tried the supplied link but still no change after making the neccessary edits to VC; however, managing the hosts directly and bypassing VC, as outlned in the link below, did allow visibility into the RDM's on both nodes and provide a workaround, which will suffice for this effort. Thanks for everyone's feedback!

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1007104

VM shutdown timeout when out of network

AndreTheGiant — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 11:35:04 GMT

No idea... it only seems to be VMware HA with a isolation response.

Andre

ESX 3.02 upgrade to 3.5 with RDM

AndreTheGiant — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 17:10:41 GMT

My RDM option is grayed out when I try to add new drive.. why is that?

Only mean that you do not have free LUNs to add as RDM disk.

Andre

RDM VMotion

msemon1 — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:41:28 GMT

You cannot VMotion RDM's in physical compatiblity, mode only virtual compatibility mode. For RDM's with physical compatability mode I think you have to use a SAN tool to copy or move RDM to different LUN.

Mike

cpqacuxe & SUN disk Web access.

mfj11107 — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 11:37:31 GMT

Hello!,

I try to explicate this with my poor english....(patience friends :))

I have a trouble.

When my operating system "running" with ESX Server 3.0.0....and "cpqacuxe" installed, I can see the SUN disk with IE (Web, port 2301).

But my problem start with upgrade ESX Server to 3.5.0....then, i can,t see the disk on Web, but i can operate with it on terminal sesion.

The conexion is with two fibre targets (qlogic).

Everybody Knows how can i do? (concrete version of cpqacuxe¿?....i don´t know)

Infinite thanks!

Reuse of RDM drive in another VM

Anton V Zhbankov — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 09:19:13 GMT

Yes, you can use it. But first you should unmap it from old VM.

---
MCSA, MCTS, VCP, VMware vExpert '2009
http://blog.vadmin.ru

BIOS and Firmware Upgrades

AndreTheGiant — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 15:13:32 GMT

Hardware upgrade require vendor's patch.
On most system you can do also from CLI (but put the ESX in maintenance mode before upgrade firmware), for example for Dell you can use linux package from CLI or use IT Assistant for a central management.

Andre

ESX 3.02 to 3.5 upgrade question

Ramji — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 07:40:14 GMT

you need not initially shut down the VM instead if you are is cluster environment take esx to maintanance mode so that all the vm's will automatically move to other esx servers .Then you can upgrade the esx server.

Regards

R.Ramji

DNS question

Ramji — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 05:09:56 GMT

Changing the DNS address in ESX is required for functionalities like Vmotion etc and for workig of esx server.But VM case is different in vm if the vm is in dhcp it might get the dns from dhcp server it self in that case we might not need to add it manually. If it is manual we might change it accordingly .

Regards

R.Ramji

Converter - How does it work?

me81 — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 22:50:35 GMT

Thanks Troy

SCCM in VMware

msemon1 — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 21:41:20 GMT

I Have setup SCCM R2 on Windows 2008 SP2 with SQL 2008 SP1. We are just currently testing, however, no problems so far. Have not stressed it yet.

Mike

VLAN question

cybulsk — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 18:26:53 GMT

esxcfg-vswitch works as well depending on what you need to know. The
real question is do you want to know, what VLAN's are available on the
trunk to the host? or what VLANs are configured on the portgroups on the
host? These are really two completely different questions. One could
create port groups assigned to any vlan they want but depending on the
trunk configuration it may or may not work.

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ESX 3.0.2 ftPerl high cpu usage

a2alpha — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:20:10 GMT

Thanks for this, i'll give it a go.

Dan

Need documentation on registering a vm to a host

TobiasKracht — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 12:35:26 GMT

You have to options how-to register VM: browse to datastore to vmx file, right click on it, and choose add to inventory or run in CLI command
vmware-cmd.pl -H <host> -U <username> -P <password> <cfg> register

where <cfg> is the full path to the vmx

StarWind Software R&D

Extend ESX OS partition size ?

drdemonx — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 02:55:02 GMT

Hello,

I have two partitions both are the same - clones of each other - both running Centos4x

My ESX version is 2.5.4

I went through the process to expand their partitions using the following command:

vmkfstools -X 15g /vmfs/vmhba0:0:0:6/New server.vmdk

(they used to be 10gb in size).

Now when I power on the servers in Virtual Center I get an error:

"A general system error occured: operation failed to change the VM to the expected power state"

What do I need to do to get them to boot?

Thanks!

Mike

Cannot see lun from iscsi target on nas

uilli — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 16:48:40 GMT

Hi,
I have 2 thecus n5200pro, one currently has 2 iscsi volumes that I can see in esx.
I'm trying to add another iSCSI volume that I created on the other nas. I can see the target in storage adapters, but when I try to add the lun in the add storage menu, nothing comes up.
could the problem be that the path of the new iscsi target is the same one as the other target (as shown in the picture)
http://i439.photobucket.com/albums/qq115/uilli/iscsi.jpg

Download ESX Server 3.0.1?

mfj11107 — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 09:01:07 GMT

Thanks friends!!

Slow network copy between P2V'd VMs on same host

alpferd — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 14:54:02 GMT

Yeeeeeeeeeeaah!!!! solved!

http://rhymingpanda.com/weblog/2007/03/13/20_22_12/index.html

Set the tcp segmentation offload to off:
$ sudo ethtool -k eth0 \\ rx-checksumming: off \\ tx-checksumming: off \\ scatter-gather: off \\ tcp segmentation offload: off$ sudo ethtool -K eth0 tso off \\

I set this on all VMs and network speed is back!!!!

HeartbeatStatus contantly being updated and guest crashing

Stu_McHugh — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 09:35:14 GMT

I have had a vm crash a few times now and trying to look into why it happens. It could be a simple Windows error but I'm thinking it more to do with ESX.

I'm running ESX 3.0.2 with two guests and the troublesome one being a Windows 2003 server running SQL 2005. I've looked at the hostd logs and there are nurmerous errors complaining about the heartbeatstatus. The Vmware tools are up to date.

It states 'Updating current heartbeatStaus: 3" and then "oldHeartbeatStatus = 1 newHeartbeatStatus = 3"

Does anyone know what this means or can anyone offer any adivise?

system configuration not saved during last shut down error on service console

Ravi1987 — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 09:19:35 GMT

Thanks For your Answer .

It seems my filesystem was currupted . i reinstalled the esx server carefully while enabling the keep vmfs data safe ( option) . now everything is fine.

VMware ESX DRS cluster Question ?

weinstein5 — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 05:07:48 GMT

I agree with Troy and Matt - and would also add even if it did try to vmotion a vm it would not be able to because the way you have described the cluster there would not even be any resources available to accomplish the vmotion since vmotion does require some available resources to complete successfully --

If you find this or any other answer useful please consider awarding points by marking the answer correct or helpful

VM failure - how can we view the VM log and troubleshoot this

Wimo — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 14:21:58 GMT

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=10213

If you google the bug number you will find this plus some other forum threads.

vmnic question

rickblythe — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:43:12 GMT

This is dependent on the load balancing method used.

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40/vsp_40_esx_server_config.pdf

search for load balancing

Rick Blythe
Social Media Specialist
VMware Inc.
http://twitter.com/vmwarecares
http://twitter.com/vmwarekb

"Cannot create temporary redo log directory" when performing VCB operation with BackupExec

dkpatrick — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:33:36 GMT

Thanks! I decided it WAS a permission problem. I was planning on giving
all the users Administrator roles since when I ran as Administrator the
error message went away. I will look into what you've suggested as a
more elegant solution.

upgrade question

awliste — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:13:35 GMT

You should always unplug your storage when doing any kind of upgrade. Prevents unnecessary overwrite in the event of inadvertant 'format this' selection (eg, you weren't paying enough attention and just reformatted your SAN. Like I've done. Once. And now, I always unplug... )

Good luck man. You'll like 3.5.
- abe

Using VCB to backup mapped drives and iSCSI drives

Anton V Zhbankov — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:03:35 GMT

AFAIK RDM disks should be in virtual mode, and VCB just cannot backup iSCSI drives that are connected via software initiator from inside the guest OS

---
MCSA, MCTS, VCP, VMware vExpert '2009
http://blog.vadmin.ru

unable to remove orphaned and inaccessible vm from inventory.

ICT-Freak — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 09:53:05 GMT

Excellent post kjb007! This sollution worked like a charm

Stop: 0x0000007B Inaccessible_boot_device Error

SwePantera — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 19:05:47 GMT

Is it possible to download a pre-made copy that I can boot from, or does all do the same job to create a CD manually?

problems opening a port in the firewall in ESX Server 3.0.2

vmroyale — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 21:06:33 GMT

This means that the caagent (Backup Agent) uses the 6051 port and not the 6050, is that correct??

I'm not sure. The application might start with 6051 and then use 6050 later - I just don't know how the product works. Have you seen the "Simple steps to use CA Arcserve bakcup agent on ESX 3.x" document? That may help as well.

Good Luck!

Workaround for "Unable to get Console path for Mount"

Magik — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 20:48:16 GMT

I can confirm this behavior is still a problem in ESX 3.5 U4. Thank you for the workaround.

I renamed an NFS datastore then attempted to mount a new datastore with the old/original name, but it failed with the error. Mounting an NFS datastore as a completely random name succeeds then you can rename it to the old/original name.

An interesting thing occurs when you are working with clusters. When you go through the process above and have 1 host in the cluster with the proper datastore name then add a datastore with a completely random name, but the same mount path, the result will be the correct datastore name as on the first host. The random name is lost in the process. I guess that part is a good thing.

Thanks, Rick

esx 3.0 : web-ui or not web-ui

zack2k9 — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 19:05:17 GMT

Hi Weinstein ,

I usually work with vmware server 1.0.x and to manage the start/stop/create/snapshot of my VMachines I usually use vmware-server-console (for linux). I was looking for something similar for the ESX server.

I read the pdf, It seems that I can perform the same tasks via UI, good

thank you very much for help!

have a good we,

Zack

Copy image to replicate existing image

TobiasKracht — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:39:44 GMT

How to clone VM - http://janand.wordpress.com/2009/03/30/3-step-vmdk-hot-cloning/

Or make a snapshot and convert it to VM using VCB

StarWind Software R&D

VMNIX: Warning: VMDev: 755: Access denied repeated error in vmkwarning log

phowarth — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 15:14:38 GMT

I'm getting this message over and over in the vmkwarning log. Anybody seen this?

Pete

Oracle / Windows 200x best configuration

Mac506 — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 14:43:27 GMT

I have been asked to look into updating a Oracle instance on a VM.

What are some best configurations for the Oracle.

The host is a 16GB RAM with a 3.8 Duel CPU system with a SAN Storage.

What would the recommendations for Maximum Guests sharing the host to keep the optimal configuration.

Thanks

Move VC database, SQL Express to SQL 2005?

avi1979 — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 11:03:18 GMT

I have faced the same issue after the SQL database migration to the new SQL Serve and resolve the issue.

I think the VC is still trying with the old password. The password will be encrypted in the Registry key. To resolve this you need to reset the password using the below steps.

1. Go to Command promopt.

2. Change to the VC folder. Ideally located at C::\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\VirtualCenter Server

3. Run Vpxd.exe -p

4. It will prompt for the new password

5. Enter the new password

6. Start the Service, it will work

HP MSA 20

ChristianWickham — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 06:13:19 GMT

kimono wrote:

The MSA1500cs/MSA20 combo was one of the worst pieces of hardware I ever dealt with.

Which now has been superceded by the MSA-2000, different kettle of fish all over again.

I completely agree. We also have a MSA1500cs with MSA 20 shelves and 750Gb SATA disks - this is the slowest, most unreliable, most unflexible and frustratingly annoying systems that I have ever had the displeasure to work with.
Maximum logical disk size is 2Tb, so with 750Gb disks - 3 in a RAID5 set, and immediately we loose 250Gb of capacity. Then when it is formatted, we loose another 120Gb per Logical disk. What a waste!

vCpu on DELL R900

Troy Clavell — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 18:27:30 GMT

no reboot necessary.

Extending a non-boot volume on VI3/VM Guest Windows 2003 SP2 Enterprise

AndreTheGiant — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:59:14 GMT

3. Use diskpart to extend the volume with the existing D: and the un-allocated new 200GB?

Diskpart can only be used to extend a volume with free space existing on the same disk.

So step 1. is increase the vmdk file with other 200 GB.

Or step 3. is convert both disk to dynamic and create a RAID0 or a concatenation between the two disks.

Andre

Export all the host, VM and LUN info

Troy Clavell — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:32:14 GMT

Have you looked at RVTools?

no network after adding third quad port ethernet card

ImmyM — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 11:15:36 GMT

resolved myself - nics got renumbered for some daft reason.

Predefine Message Not Found

MALIK ADEEL IMTIAZ — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 08:24:07 GMT

Dear Sir / Madam,

I just need your expert opinion regarding, possibly a CITRIX connection issue when we connect with our application. Actually, in the morning there was no issue while connecting through CITRIX, but in noon, users were unable to connect and it was showing the attached message. Afterwards, again, users were connected successfully, but after 2-3 hrs, again the same issue occurred and till now its not yet resolved. Can you please share your thoughts with us in this regard.

My Citrix Server is on ESX 3.0

Screen shot is attached for your kind reference.

Your response would be of help in this regard.

Malik Adeel Imtiaz
Principle System Engineer
NetSol Financial Suite
NetSol Technologies
Lahore Cantt Pakistan
54792

FAILED: Unable to obtain the IP address of the helper virtual machine

kirtus — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:51:11 GMT

This answered my question/solved my problem, thanks!

VICenter V2P Suggestion?

mikeyhoward — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 15:41:58 GMT

If you have no issues with your Virtual VC then I see no reason to make it physical. Having it virtual on your ESX cluster has good benefits, not least HA.

p2v to esx convert

TobiasKracht — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 14:45:02 GMT

As I understood you cannot import VM into ESX after P2V converting?

StarWind Software R&D

SNMP MIBS ESX Server

alexaaaaaaaa — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 10:14:09 GMT

Hi all!

I use ESX 3.02 and planned to upgrade to Vsphere.

I want to monitore ESX health with SNMP now in 3.02 and later in 4.0.

I can see that ESX has a MIB. I am not interested in traps SNMP sent buy alarms.

I want to query ESX or Vcenter MIB to know CPU/memory/network usage and I/O disk?

Is it possible in 3.02 and 4.0?

Thanks

Alexa

Networking in ESX

AndreTheGiant — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 12:49:21 GMT

but what command do you use to create a service console on this new vswitch

The command is esxcfg-vswif
http://vmware-land.com/esxcfg-help.html

Andre

unable to NFS file system

virtuon — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 18:00:34 GMT

Also

~~root@host1 root~~# esxcfg-nas -l
test is Test from 192.168.0.13 mounted

it shows it is mounted

UMDS is redownloading all host updates

hollandwl — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 10:22:37 GMT

The -D switch tells it to download, the -R coupled with -s and -t switches tell it to re-download between a certain date range... well, at least it's supposed to, but it doesn't work.

UMDS needs a major overhaul to:

1. Let me choose which versions to download patches for. I don't have, never have had, and never will have ESX 3.0, so why should I download those patches. There should be a config file setting to set the versions you want something akin to: Vesions=35,40

2. Rather than downloading everything or specifying a date range to re-download:

Download a listing of available patches for the versions I have specified
Compare that listing to what is in my local repository
Download only the differences

3. Provide a way to cleanup a repository to remove patches that are no longer needed.

It cannot be good for VMware to have everyone repeatedly downloading multiple gigabytes of patches from them all the time.

Failed Snapshot removal

VirtualRed — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 07:55:17 GMT

I logged a support call and the response from VMware on this issue was as follows;

Snapshot timeouts and failures.

Virtual machine snapshot deletion can fail for several reasons. However, the
removal/deletion is called 'after' the 3rd party backup has completed. If a
snapshot removal fails to respond to VC in the expected time, the VC will
throw a 'timeout'. This will leave a "ConsolidatedHelper" snapshot on the VM
and must be removed before another backup starts.

Possible reasons for snapshot failure.
1) Busy VM I/O.
Exchange Server, Databases, Domain Controller etc. Microsoft Knowledge
Base article 888794 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/888794)
These VMs do not react well to have their I/O quiesed during snapshotting.
Disable LGTO_SYNC driver http://kb.vmware.com/kb/5962168

Install the Microsoft VSS driver
http://www.vmware.com/support/vi3/doc/vi3_vcb15_rel_notes.html#vss_quiescing
VSS Quiescing Consolidated Backup now uses VSS for quiescing on ESX Server
3.5 Update 2 hosts when backing up Windows Server 2003, Vista, and Windows
Server 2008 virtual machines. To use this feature, VSS components must be
installed on the virtual machine as part of updated VMware Tools. The VSS
components in the tools perform application-level quiescing on Windows
Server 2003 and file system-level quiescing on Windows Vista and Windows
Server 2008 virtual machines.

Consolidated Backup continues to uses SYNC driver for quiescing on pre-ESX
Server 3.5 Update 2 hosts.

2) Space on volume.
If a snapshot has grow too large during the backup, it can fail to remove
because extra space is needed on removing 'layered' snapshots. This can
happen if there is existing snapshots prior to another backup call.

3) Busy vmfs volumes.
If several Vms on the same volume are trying to remove their snapshots at
the same time, then 'reservation' conflicts can occur and halt the removal.
VMware backup recommendations suggest staggering VM backup schedules to
avoid to many snapshots on the same luns.

4) Service Console Busy
If the mgmt services memory on the ESX server is low, this can inhibit
the snapshot removal process and either fail the removal or cause a long
delay resulting in the timeout response from VC.
i)You can increase the Service Console memory to 800MB. Requires reboot.
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1003501
ii)You can increase the VC timeout to 600. Edit>Client Settings. Use
Custom Value seconds 600
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1004790

5) SAN latency issues
If luns are not responding or scsi commands are slow to reply, the ESX
may fail to snapshot removal.

6) Scripted
Customized scripts that do not allow for scheduling, multiple vmfs
snapshotting, or deletion. Edit the Remote Command Timeout in Client>Setting
on the VC GUI to 600.

I would not quickly dismiss using VCB, as it is only a backup enabler. If
any solution, be it manual or 3rd party leverages the ESX Snapshot
mechanism, it has to concede/conform to the known snapshoting limitations.

I have yet to investigate these suggestions further to try and determine the casue of the problem.

Workaround USB over IP

Stefb2008 — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 17:33:58 GMT

Hi,

did you ever get any success in running ISDN USB devices with a USB over IP hub ?

Thanks

Windows 2003 64bit version

AndreTheGiant — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 15:57:43 GMT

Yes.

The URL of HCL results is:
http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php?action=search&deviceCategory=software&advancedORbasic=advanced&maxDisplayRows=50&key=&productId=-1&gos_vmw_product_release ]=5&datePosted=-1&partnerId[=-1&os_bits=64&os_use]=16&os_family[=4&rorre=0

Andre

SNMP config

Rohail2004 — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 12:33:58 GMT

thanks, but just quick quesiton.

when I vi to snmp.conf so the file is empty, should i add remommunity and then add my SNMP hosts where they can accept msgs?

Boot configuration

AndreTheGiant — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 04:23:58 GMT

cat /boot/grub/grub.conf

default 0
timeout=3

title VMware ESX 4.0
        root (hd0,0)
        uppermem 409600
        kernel /vmlinuz ro root=UUID=6f3f1da8-d5f0-42b8-aa2c-6d57ad880437 mem=400M quiet
        initrd /initrd.img
title Troubleshooting mode
        root (hd0,0)
        uppermem 409600
        kernel /trouble/vmlinuz ro root=UUID=6f3f1da8-d5f0-42b8-aa2c-6d57ad880437 mem=400M trouble quiet
        initrd /trouble/initrd.img

Andre

IBM DS3400 and LUNs for ESX3.0

Scissor — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 23:23:26 GMT

harryc wrote:

2) There are a number of tradeoffs, and several approaches. I tend twords segregating loads as much as possible both for debugging and political considerations. 6 spindles on a SAN with cache should be more than enough performance for a file server. I would use 6 drives for a total of 1.8Tb (don't go over 2Tb on the DS series),

Why do you recommend not creating an array over 2 TB on the DS series?

Do you have any information on RAID6 vs RAID5 performance on the DS3400?

Vmware Tools upgrade does not mount on Windows 2003 Guest VM

r.engel — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 22:23:32 GMT

Thanks Rubeck - is this a known issue with ESX 3.0.3?

Some VM Windows 2003 servers mount the media without any issues, others just simply don't do it.

We are running Active Directory on our virtual environment, where Vmwaretools hasn't been upgraded yet (due to the fact that we are still running ESX 3.0.2 Update 1 hosts).

I'm conscious of 'time' issues with these servers, as we have experienced this problem with VM Guests recently having vmware tools upgraded and the time/clock was out of synch.

(which prevent domain logons), until w32 time was restarted the server had the incorrect time.. Strange.

vCPU charts versus perfmon (yet...)

Erik Zandboer — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 19:17:19 GMT

Hi,

First of all check the number of vCPUs. Make sure that the processor HAL matches (2 or more vCPUs -> multi HAL, single vCPU uniprocessor HAL). Try and check how the perfmon relates to the vCPU usage you see in the VI client. I have seen P2Vs (windows 2000 machines) who show no real perfmon troubles, but one of the cores simply shoots to 100% in the VI client. If you see a mismatch (vCPU versus perfmon CPU), you want to start looking further. If you are a graphical guy, check out the other CPU related values you read from the VMs (realtime span). If you do not know what to make of it, check out:

http://www.vmdamentals.com/2009/01/30/performance-tab-numbers-demystified-by-erik-zandboer/

If you are a commandline guy, check out esxtop. Start with CPU ready and busy times. This should give an indication. It might simply be a limit put on the vCPU, a share-mismatch compared to the other VMs vCPU shares, a process gone wild or badly progammed (eg running in protected mode). You should always be able to get to the bottom of the problem using these tools.

I would suggest to pick a misbehaving VM, and zoom in on that one. Share its settings with us (also the resource pool it might reside in), any limits, reservations set, number of vCPUs etc. Then grab the CPU ready, busy times etc.

Visit my blog at http://www.vmdamentals.com/

VMotion failed -- Failed to start migration pre-copy. Help!

NathanEly — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 13:46:10 GMT

Although I was not the one with the problem originally, I had the same issue and discovered a problem with networking settings. Specifically, it was an IP conflict with the vmotion IP address and another host on the network. As soon as I fixed it, it worked immediately.

transferring install image to hard drive failure

snowmizer — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 13:20:45 GMT

I was able to get this resolved by recreating the CD. Even though I could read the CD in another machine the server I was working with couldn't so I recreated a new CD.

Thanks for all of the replies.

High CPU on ESX 3.5 Host

NTurnbull — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 10:16:50 GMT

Oh and increasing your vMotion performance http://www.simonlong.co.uk/blog/2009/01/05/vmotion-performance/ from Simon Long

Thanks,
Neil

VMware Communities : All Content - VI: VMware ESX® 3.0

Assigning CPU to a VM Guest question

new esx server to be joined to HA cluster - what version of ESX?

Upgrade Proliant DL380 to dual Processor

Snapshot and Clone options are grey out???

Virtual Appliance

How many RAM dimms on a ESX 3.0.1 Server

Newbie Question: 'Adding a Hard Disk' to exsiting VMGuest

Unexpected shutdown caused datastore to become inaccessable - VM's show up as Unknown (inaccessible) in Vsphere

IP conflict

Networking issue

Templates greyed out after upgrade to ESX 3.5 / VC 2.5

how to expand vmdk disk to larger size

High CPU usage after adding RDM

VM naming question

SVMotion with RDM's

SCP .vmdk file from ESX 2.5 to ESX 3.5

HOWTO: Installing ESX Server from a USB flash drive

Unable to install 64 client on esx 3

VMotion between Opteron 275 and Opteron 2435

Unable to open SCSI device '/vmfs/devices/generic/vmhba1:5:0:0' (scsi0:1):@&!*@*@(msg.fileio.generic)Generic error. Failed to configure scsi0

LUN Space

“Raw Device Mappings” option not available when adding a hard disk to an existing VM.

Any one tried esx3 on an intel modular server system?

(Q) Understanding Real Terms of CPU virtualization?

Port Group physical vs. virtual ?

Solaris 10 New Install hanging on Configuring Devices

what is Vmkernel swap file

Hard Disk Failure

sysprep with VC 2.5

Ethernet frames dropped - NP2 hardware - ESX Server 3.0.2

vmhba and vmnic error messages

vCPU scheduling

Upgrading from 3.0.0

Different ESX builds in the same host

(hpmgmt) hp-OpenIPMI will not uninstall

High Performance computing on ESX 3.5 U3

NFS disk growth

The server could not interpret the client's request

VMotion IP address settings question

License Server using wrong IP address

VMOTION error

Adding Additional RDM's to MSCS Cluster

VM shutdown timeout when out of network

ESX 3.02 upgrade to 3.5 with RDM

RDM VMotion

cpqacuxe & SUN disk Web access.

Reuse of RDM drive in another VM

BIOS and Firmware Upgrades

ESX 3.02 to 3.5 upgrade question

DNS question

Converter - How does it work?

SCCM in VMware

VLAN question

ESX 3.0.2 ftPerl high cpu usage

Need documentation on registering a vm to a host

Extend ESX OS partition size ?

Cannot see lun from iscsi target on nas

Download ESX Server 3.0.1?

Slow network copy between P2V'd VMs on same host

HeartbeatStatus contantly being updated and guest crashing

system configuration not saved during last shut down error on service console

VMware ESX DRS cluster Question ?

VM failure - how can we view the VM log and troubleshoot this

vmnic question

"Cannot create temporary redo log directory" when performing VCB operation with BackupExec

upgrade question

Using VCB to backup mapped drives and iSCSI drives

unable to remove orphaned and inaccessible vm from inventory.

Stop: 0x0000007B Inaccessible_boot_device Error

problems opening a port in the firewall in ESX Server 3.0.2

Workaround for "Unable to get Console path for Mount"

esx 3.0 : web-ui or not web-ui

Copy image to replicate existing image

VMNIX: Warning: VMDev: 755: Access denied repeated error in vmkwarning log

Oracle / Windows 200x best configuration

Move VC database, SQL Express to SQL 2005?

HP MSA 20

vCpu on DELL R900

Extending a non-boot volume on VI3/VM Guest Windows 2003 SP2 Enterprise

Unable to open SCSI device '/vmfs/devices/generic/vmhba1:5:0:0' (scsi0:1):@&!@@(msg.fileio.generic)Generic error. Failed to configure scsi0