VMware Communities : Document List - VMware vCenter™

Business Continuity with VMWare

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:04:24 GMT

Hi,

First of all I am thank full to Mike Laverick for his quick and correct answer. Now I wanted to know that is there any possibilty that if I have two ESX Vsphers 4 hosts containing VMs in two different sites (Protectiona and Recovery) can be replicated while I dont have any SAN or NAS, instead I have only DAS. Please let me know if it can be done through any budgeted third party solution while VMWare has no solution for it.

Regards
Naveed

Automatically backup SQL-Express database

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 15:15:12 GMT

Using the following procedures you can implement an automatic backup of your SQL-Express database:

1. Paste the following SQL-Script in an editor and save as backupsql.sql (for example):

BACKUP DATABASE VIM_VCDB /* select database for backup */
TO DISK = 'D:\backup\vcenter-db\VIM_VCDB.bak' /* select destination for backup */
WITH INIT; /* overwrite existing backup files */

2. Create a new job in "Accessories" -> "Scheduled Tasks" to execute the SQL script:

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Tools\Binn\SQLCMD.EXE" -S serverName\instance -E -i D:\backup\sqlbackup.sql

-S (this specifies the server\instance name for SQL Server)
serverName (this is the server\instance name for SQL Server)
-E (this allows you to make a trusted connection)
-i (this specifies the input command file)

Some helpful general information about backing up SQL Server can be found here:

http://www.simple-talk.com/sql/backup-and-recovery/sql-server-2005-backups/

Physical vs VM vCenter Server

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 05:30:19 GMT

Over the yeas there have been some controversy over this topic. Should vCenter Server be a physical or a virtual machine?

But it's also very important understand with VMware service require a working vCenter Server:

VMware HA require vCenter only for the initial setup
VMware VMotion and SVMotion require vCenter only to start the operation
VMware DRS/DPM can work only with vCenter
Template provisiong require vCenter

In addition, you will also need to know where your SQL server is located, cause if you loose DB connection, the vCenter Server service will stop!
For this reason in medium/small environment could be a good idea put the on the same server also the DBMS.

Physical solution: pro and cons

Pro

With VI 3.x the license server can work also if ESX are down... this coul be useful to power on the ESX and the VM
It is not susceptible to a potential VI outage
Most scalable, cause performance are limited only by server hardware

Cons

A dedicated physical server is required (it's not recommended mix it with VCB or other services)
Backup must be done using tradition tools
Difficult to manage a disaster recovery solution
Not easy solutions for Business Continuity

Virtual solution: pro and cons

Pro

vCenter Server is just an "appliance", you do not need a dedicated physical server
Faster to restore, you can use VMware HA to restart vCenter Server
Each backup solution that work for a VM work also in this case
Simple solutions for Business Continuity
If you have VMotion license you can move the VM to one ESX to another

Cons

If you do not have VMotion license than you have to power-off vCenter Server to move between ESX (see VMotion section of How work without vCenter Server )
It is susceptible to a potential VI outage
It must contend for resources along with other VMs
In VI 3.x, if license server is on vCenter Server, you can have some big problems after 14 days of downtime (see http://www.riccardoriva.com/archives/703)

P2V or V2P

The P2V conversion is very simple and can be managed by VMware Converter without problem.
The V2P conversion could be a little complicated. See: Moving Virtual Center from VM back to Physical
To move the SQL Server database see this KB:
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/7960893 - VMware Self-Service- Moving the VirtualCenter SQL Database

Reference

http://www.dailyhypervisor.com/?p=1054
Vcenter server physical or virtual
vCenter on a VM v/s vCenter directly on hardware?
Increase the availability of vCenter Server

Increase the availability of vCenter Server

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 07:33:30 GMT

Introduction

There are at least 3 solutions to have HA for vCenter Server:

use a VM for VC and use VMware HA
use vCenter Server Heartbeat product
use a MSCS solution for VC

VMware HA

http://www.vmware.com/products/high-availability/

Only usable when vCenter Server is a VM!
VMware HA require vCenter Server only for the initial setup and configuration.
Than it can work on ESX in a distributed mode, and vCenter Server is not needed to ensure the correct work of HA.
For this reason VMware HA can handle also vCenter Server restart (in this case the downtime could be some minutes...)

IMHO, for small/medium environment I prefer the VMware HA solution... very simple and cheap.
Be sure to have also the vCenter DB on your VM, or you have to find a HA solution also for your DB.

vCenter Server Heartbeat

http://www.vmware.com/products/vcenter-server-heartbeat/

In this case vCenter Server (the primary instance) could be a VM or a physical system. The secondary must be a VM!
Optimize availability and resiliency for VMware vCenter Server in any situation. VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat delivers the maximum uptime for your virtual datacenter infrastructure, ensuring consistent operation, even when VMware vCenter Server is threatened by unplanned or planned downtime.

MSCS or Failover Cluster

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/VC_MSCS.pdf
http://viops.vmware.com/home/docs/DOC-1111 - Reference Implementation: Clustering VirtualCenter 2.5 Using Microsoft Cluster Services

In this case vCenter Server (both the primary and the secondary node) could be a VM or a physical system!
You also need at least Windows Server 2003 (or 2008) Enterprise Edition.
Note that vCenter Server 2.5 is not supported on Windows Server 2008!

Similar to this solution is the usage of other cluster solutions, for example Veritas Cluster:
http://searchservervirtualization.techtarget.com/news/article/0,289142,sid94_gci1341780,00.html

Why not VMware FT?

Is it a good choice-using FT for virtual vCenter server redundancy?
Not yet... vCenter Server 4.0 require 2 vCPU (expecially if you have also a local DB).
FT 1.0 can work only with VM single vCPU.
For more information on FT see: VMware FT

Announcing General Availability of VMware vCenter Chargeback 1.0.1

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 21:51:52 GMT

We are excited to announce the general availability of VMware vCenter Chargeback 1.0.1 today, which includes new billing policies, a set of vCenter Chargeback APIs, and a number of other high impact features. You can download vCenter Chargeback 1.0.1 from http://www.vmware.com/download/chargeback/

What's New in vCenter Chargeback 1.0.1?

vCenter Chargeback 1.0.1 provides the following new features:

Support for Windows Authentication
This release of vCenter Chargeback supports Windows Authentication for SQL Server databases. If you are using SQL Server for the vCenter Chargeback database or for the vCenter Server database, then you can configure the application to use Windows Authentication instead of SQL Authentication.
New computing resource and billing policies added
This release of vCenter Chargeback introduces a new computing resource, vCPU, and two new billing policies, vCPU Count and Memory Size and Fixed Cost and vCPU Count and Memory Size. These policies enable you to calculate cost based on the number of virtual CPUs and the amount of memory allocated to the virtual machines.
Resource Summary section lists rolled-up usage data for all entities
The Resource Summary section of the chargeback reports show the rolled-up usage data for all the entities.
Global fixed cost history is retained
This release of vCenter Chargeback lets you to set different cost values for different time periods on the same global fixed cost. The old values are retained and not overwritten.
Ability to undo to the most recent operation on the chargeback hierarchy
The most recent operation on the chargeback hierarchy can be undone. This undo feature is available for entities that are added or moved in the hierarchy. The undo option is not available for rename and delete operations.
Ability to use the vCenter Chargeback APIs
vCenter Chargeback APIs provide an interface to programmatically use the various features of vCenter Chargeback. As an application developer, you can use these APIs to build chargeback applications or integrate vCenter Chargeback with your internal billing systems and compliance policies. Please do note that the APIs released with this version of vCenter Chargeback are only for a technical preview.

For more information on product features or to try the product yourself, please visit:

Product overview: http://www.vmware.com/products/vcenter-chargeback
vCenter Chargeback 1.0.1 Release Notes: http://downloads.vmware.com/support/vcbm10/doc/vcbm_1_0_1_release_notes.html
Free 60-day evaluation: http://www.vmware.com/go/try-vcenter-chargeback

If you're looking to develop a chargeback application or integrate vCenter Chargeback with your internal billing systems, please join us on Wed Nov 4th, 9 am PST for a VMware Coffee Talk on vCenter Chargeback APIs, with technical discussions and Q&A led by the vCenter Chargeback R&D team.

We hope you enjoy this latest release!

vCenter CapacityIQ 1.0 Evaluator's Guide

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:53:35 GMT

Generating vCenter Chargeback report for an hour

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 12:48:05 GMT

Welcome to vCenter Chargeback forum. If you are a new user, and want to evaluate Chargeback - you need not wait for a full day or so to generate your first report. Please read through this post and generate a fully functional cost report within an hour of installation!

vCenter Chargeback ships with various billing period options using which the chargeback user can schedule and generate reports for Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly, Half yearly & Yearly. Given this there is no "ready to use" option available to generate a report for an hour, but the user can generate a report for an hour using "custom" billing period option while scheduling the report.

Please refer the attached CustomBillingPeriod_1.jpg, where a report is scheduled to generate every day for the duration 09:15 AM to 10:15AM. In this picture, the input parameters highlighted in circle determines when the report generation needs to be triggered or fired. Whereas the input parameters inside the highlighted rectangle decides the report duration, which will be computed based on the firing time.

Attached image CustomBillingPeriod_2.jpg shows another "one hour" report for the day that is 15days before then the firing time.

I hope the above small tip helps.

Thanks & Regards
Diwakar

VMware vCenter AppSpeed Evaluator’s Guide

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 20:44:52 GMT

vSphere Host Profiles Deep Dive

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 07:20:14 GMT

Few different new vSphere features have been exhaustively discussed since it was launched back in May’09. I have seen a number of discussions and papers about Fault Tolerance, Storage Thin Provisioning and vDistributed Switches however not much has been said about Host Profiles.

Host Profiles greatly simplify host configuration management in scale-out deployments through user-defined configuration policies. You can use profile policies to eliminate per-host manual host configuration and efficiently maintain configuration consistency and correctness across the entire datacenter(*).

A Host Profile policies can capture the blueprint of a known, validated "golden" configuration and use this to configure networking, storage settings, security settings, and so on for multiple hosts. Host profile policies also monitor compliance to standard host configuration settings across the datacenter.

Using Host Profiles
Profile configurations can be managed via GUI (viClient), vSphere APIs or PowerCLI. Some software and hardware vendors already started to integrate their products with Host Profiles to enhance functionalities such as periodic scans to uncover inconsistencies and provide reporting for Change Management (ITIL) compliance.

Some material have already been published so I won’t recreate. I’m listing some good links and references.

VMware vSphere 4 - Host Profiles Feature from Xtravirt (Paul Davey)
Host Profiles Official VMware Demo
vSphere Host Profiles by Jason Nash (video)
Managing host profiles with vSpherePowerCLI! by Yavor Boychev (video)
Backup/Restore a Host Profile by Graig from the Malaysian VMware Community

Licensing
To be able to use Host Profiles your vSphere environment must be licensed with Enterprise Plus package that also allows you to use vNetwork Distributed Switch, and Third Party Multipathing. It is clear to me based on this post from Eric Siebert that Host Profiles is not one of the hottest features on VMware’s plate however administrators are considering upgrading their licenses to Enterprise Plus. I believe Host Profiles will be soon on the hots when all the hype about other features is over.

This post from Maish Saidel-Keesing explains licensing and pricing in detail.

Limitations
*(*)*Host Profiles will not work work properly in a cluster containing ESX and ESXi hosts due to core differences, such as Service Console and Port Networks. The recommendation is that you create different clusters for each type of hosts and maintain a separate host profiles. This drawback by itself could represent a big challenge in Host Profiles adoption however VMware has already stated that only ESXi will be supported and gain new features in the future.

Other limitations:

Only a single profile can be applied per cluster
Logging on the host

is to the file “pyVmomiserver.log”

Host must be in maintenance mode before a profile can be applied.

Things not covered by Host Profiles are:

Licensing
vDS policy configuration (you can do non-policy vDS)
iSCSI
Multipathing

Some information provided by Forbes Guthrie post.

My Personal Experience using Host Profiles
(Could Host Profiles be more intelligent?) I came across an interesting situation that I rather prefer to think it is a bug to be fixed than a natural behavior. In my production environment I created a Host Profile based on a ESX host (A) and the only difference to ESX host (B) was the NIC Teaming order.

When I applied the profile onto ESX host (B) vCenter informed that the only vSwitch and all port groups in use would be deleted and recreated, including the Service Console and vKernel.

I initially thought it is not possible so I manually changed the NIC Teaming order on ESX host (B) and when I requested to Check Compliance on host ESX (B) it was compliant.

In Summary a simple NIC teaming order change will cause Host Profiles to delete ESX vSwitch and all port groups efore creating it again with the correct configuration.

Few other administrators have been trough the same issue and the simply additional NIC to a vswitch would result in deleting vswitch in recreating vswitch0. However this ends with a communication error between vCenter and the ESX host because the management network is not available anymore (due to deleting vswitch0).

Final Considerations
I have found in many circumstances that use of Host Profiles will co-exist with unattended installations (scripted) helping administrators to achieve consistency over and further than datacenter
boundaries with minimal effort.

Not really related to Host Profiles but would be nice to see vApps understanding host configuration and deciding if that specific configuration or Host Profile applied to the host is adequate for grouped VMs to run.

Host Profiles is a powerful tool to maintain consistency amongst a large number of ESX hosts and will certainly benefit organizations who can afford the salty price of the Enterprise Plus package.

Other useful resources
Meet the Engineer Series: VMware Host Profiles

Andre Leibovici
http://virtualcloud.wordpress.com/

This document was generated from the following thread: vSphere Host Profiles Deep Dive

Coffee Talk Webinar - ChargeBack API Nov 4th - INTL Toll Free Numbers

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 01:09:29 GMT

INTL TOLL FREE NUMBER FOR Nov 4th Coffee Talk Live Webinar
Agenda:
http://blogs.vmware.com/developer/2009/10/show-me-the-money-with-vcenter-charge-back-apis-live-webinar-nov4th.html
Participant Passcode: 166373
Toll free: 1-888-253-4037
Toll: 1-719-867-0591
Tie: 650-3330
International toll free - Argentina: 0800 666 1931
International toll free - Australia: 1 800 093 472
International toll free - Austria: 0800 293 550
International toll free - Bahamas: 1 800 389 0426
International toll free - Belgium: 0 800 72 931
International toll free - Brazil: 0800 891 9644
International toll free - Chile: 123 0020 6921
International toll free - China, Northern Region: 10 800 714 0940
International toll free - China, Southern Region: 10 800 140 0915
International toll free - Colombia: 01 800 518 0429
International toll free - Costa Rica: 0800 015 0438
International toll free - Czech Republic: 800 142 882
International toll free - Denmark: 80 886 982
International toll free - Dominican Republic: 1 800 205 1059
International toll free - France: 0 800 902 640
International toll free - Germany: 0 800 181 3124
International toll free - Greece: 00 800 161 2205 1059
International toll free - Hong Kong: 800 968 149
International toll free - Hungary: 06 800 182 46
International toll free - India: 000 800 1006 285
International toll free - Indonesia: 001 803 017 1059
International toll free - Ireland: 1 800 553 535
International toll free - Israel: 1 80 924 5906
International toll free - Italy: 800 870 025
International toll free - Japan: 00531 16 0573
International toll free - Latvia: 8000 2437
International toll free - Lithuania: 8 800 3 02 01
International toll free - Luxembourg: 800 2 5741
International toll free - Malaysia: 1 800 812 410
International toll free - Mexico: 001 800 514 1067
International toll free - Monaco: 800 93 275
International toll free - Netherlands: 0 800 022 0026
International toll free - New Zealand: 0 800 444 601
International toll free - Norway: 800 181 22
International toll free - Philippines: 1 800 111 003 99
International toll free - Poland: 00 800 111 48 10
International toll free - Portugal: 800 819 148
International toll free - Russia: 810 800 2488 1012
International toll free - Singapore: 800 101 1739
International toll free - Slovenia: 0 800 80054
International toll free - South Africa: 0 800 999 558
International toll free - South Korea: 003 0813 1580
International toll free - Spain: 900 957 061
International toll free - Sweden: 02 079 7447
International toll free - Switzerland: 0 800 563 574
International toll free - Taiwan: 00 801 126 797
International toll free - Thailand: 001 800 156 205 1059
International toll free - UK: 0 800 404 7655
International toll free - Uruguay: 0004 019 0077
International toll free - Venezuela: 0 800 100 3100

IBM BladeCenter HS21 P2V Conveter can't search HHD

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 03:29:54 GMT

Availability GUIDE

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 13:25:12 GMT

Lab Manager 4.0 Internal APIs

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 00:46:34 GMT

service VMWARE VirtualCernter Server is down

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 14:28:10 GMT

We have Virtual Center Server Version 2.5.0 built 119598 , and We have a problem constantly the service vmware virtualcenter server is down .

add memory to a VM

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 17:45:05 GMT

Lab Manager Best Practices

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 18:14:34 GMT

workflow to add a CPU

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 16:05:50 GMT

create VM in batch and delete a bunch of VMs

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 13:51:31 GMT

Someone asked me how to create a batch of VMs using workflows.

As I was working on that workflow, I needed to do some clean ups to delete all the test VMs I was creating. but I found no workflow that takes a bunch of VMs as input (there is one in the library that deletes one VM at a time).

So I wrote a little workflow that deletes VMs in one go.

The workflow lets you specify the prefix of the VMs and how many VMs you want. It then creates the VMs and append them with numbers starting with 1.

How to extract and upload AppSpeed Server logs to the VMware ftpsite?

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 21:37:18 GMT

First please file a Support Request (bug). once done keep the SR number and continue to the next steps:

1. Login to Appspeed Server from VIC Console window using user name "console"

2. Type "snapshot --dump-all", note that this action may take several minutes

3. Type "shell"

4. Type cd /var/snapshot-conductor/

5. Type "ftp 65.115.85.53" (VMware ftpsite). Input the user name and password below:

User : inbound
Password:inbound

6.Type "bin" to enter binary mode.

7. Type mkdir <Enter the SR number you created>

8. Type cd <#SR>

9. Type "put <latest .snapshot file name you created together with matching md5 file >

Alternative option:

1. Follow steps 1 and 2 above

2. Open your web browser and type http://VC_IP/AppSpeed/snapshots/

3. Save the latest .snapshot file you created together with matching md5 file to your local machine

4. Upload the files to our ftp site:

FTP Server: ftpsite.vmware.com
User: inbound
Password: inbound

5. Continue as described in steps 6-9 above

This document was generated from the following thread: How to extract and upload AppSpeed Server logs to the VMware ftpsite?

get ESX patches installed on the host

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 11:45:07 GMT

get available space from a datastore and email

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 11:40:16 GMT

VMware vCenter AppSpeed Installation Guide

Sun, 19 Jul 2009 12:27:36 GMT

VMware vCenter AppSpeed User's Guide

Sun, 19 Jul 2009 12:24:33 GMT

Orchestrator with separate database

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 19:16:08 GMT

I'm wondering if anyone has their vCenter database on SQL 2008 and their Orchestrator database on SQL 2005? I'd like to avoid installing SQL 2005 as much as I can and if there are no issues with VC on SQl 2008 & Orchestrator on SQL 2005 that is the way I will go until VMware gets Orchestrator working on SQL 2008. Thanks for help.

Linked Mode Best Practices

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 22:41:56 GMT

A document on Linked Mode Best Practices is available at the VMware Infrastructure Operations (VIops) portal.

Here is the link to the document: http://viops.vmware.com/home/docs/DOC-1521

Meet the Engineer Series: VMware vCenter Server Linked Mode

Thu, 21 May 2009 23:45:28 GMT

Real people, real faces, discussing VMware vSphere topics...

In this video, two VMware Engineers will discuss VMware vCenter Server Linked Mode which is new with VMware vSphere 4:

{youtube}http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8En1pl7Bz-c{youtube}

For more "Meet the Engineer" videos, visit the VMware vSphere community Documents tab.

C# sample code for the vCO web service

Tue, 12 May 2009 22:46:40 GMT

Java sample for using the vCO web service

Tue, 12 May 2009 22:41:14 GMT

Unable to install software from a shared drive

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 17:12:34 GMT

Using VMware Lab Manager, I have set up a VM and can access it via Windows Remote desktop. I can access shared drives through the network in the VM and can see thier contents with no problem. However, when I try to install software via a shared drive or folder, it fails.

Are there any settings I need to configure to allow software installs from a shared, say, DVD drive? This is vital to my testing efforts.

Thanks in advance.

Hotplugging coldclone support to a running bootcd

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 14:19:44 GMT

We all know version 4 is out of beta and has several improvements over version 3.x. But version 4 is entirely hotclone based. Although it works great most of the time, there are cases that preferably need to be coldcloned. Building custom coldclone bootcd’s is not really science and was described already several years ago. That is just a matter of adding the files from the free standalone version and applying some registry patches.
This little tool is not science either, but merely a different approach towards a custom bootcd. This is a handy little app that will let you attach and load converter version 3.0.3 (the last version supporting coldclone) to any (almost) running windows preinstallation livecd. No need to have a custom buildt coldclone cd, no need for pebuilder plugins, no need for winbuilder scripts, or any similar strategy for that sake. You can grab a standard minimal recovery cd for vista or 2008, or an older bartpe bootcd of either xpsp2/xpsp3 or w2k3, and it will work in hotplugged coldclone mode.

What does it do?
There are 2 batch scripts included that collects the required files from an installation or extracts the files from the installer. It saves the files in a directory named “VMware-Converter-3.0.3”. Copy this directory to the root of a disk that will be accessible from the running bootcd. Also put the file “Converter303_Coldclone_Loader.exe” into the same directory and execute it from there.
The loader will patch the registry with all necessary entries as well as installing the 2 required services on the running preinstallation system. The loader works in such a “portable” way because of a registry-patching routine that assumes one known top-directory and patches according to varying driveletters for that disk.
The tool will generate desktop and startmenu shortcuts in your PE shell. There are two options; coldclone and hotclone mode. The hotclone mode was merely added just for the sake of having the “Configure Machine” as an option (which is disabled in coldclone mode). It has buildt-in protection against accidental execution in non-PE environments.

Supported OS’s:
32-bit xpsp2 and up to server 2008. Note, this is for the loader and not for converter itself.

Requirements:
Have the collected files on a writeable storage medium with correct directory structure.

Coldclone over wireless, all hotplugged.
It is not a problem to transfer it over a wireless even if you don’t have the stack buildt onto your bootcd. Yes it will be slooow, but possible. What we do is hotplug vmware player or workstation, just as we added converter. Here is a link to the needed tool with explanation; http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=6924
This way we have hotplugged vmware support to a running Preinstallation Environments. So how would you be able to connect over wireless from a bootcd when the system does not support it?

Explanation;
Attach a wireless usb adapter to the computer. In my case the guest vm was xpsp3. Disconnect it from the host and connect to the guest system. Create a host-only connection between the host and guest. You will now have 2 network adapters in the guest (1 usb wireless and 1 ethernet) and 1virtual network interface in the host. So on the host, all you need is 1 virtual network adapter, vmnet1 in my case. Inside the guest we must make a network bridge with the wired and wireless. Preferably connect to the access point with the usb adapter first. Important to set compatibility mode for the wired nic with "netsh bridge set adapter 2 ForceCompatibilityMode=enable" . Check the correct nic with “netsh bridge show adapter”. This is done to let the traffic be forwarded onto and over the wireless. In the host we must stop the virtual nat and dhcp services with “vnetlib – stop nat” and “vnetlib – stop dhcp”. We must also configure vmnet1 to automatically assigned IP address. When done with all configuration, issue “vnetlib – disable adapter vmnet1” and “vnetlib – enable adapter vmnet1” to have new IP and dns settings received from your access point. We can now happily surf the net over a wireless helper vm, with only one virtual network adapter on the host. So this is a bridge made the other way around.
And because of the slow speed, you better start the conversion before you go on a holiday.

Some screenshots of converter attached to different bootcds;
http://i402.photobucket.com/albums/pp106/jokke49/coldclone_bartpe_xpe.jpg
http://i402.photobucket.com/albums/pp106/jokke49/coldclone_storagecraft.jpg
http://i402.photobucket.com/albums/pp106/jokke49/coldclone_vistape_wireless.png
http://i402.photobucket.com/albums/pp106/jokke49/coldclone_windows_2008.jpg

Joakim Schicht

Physical Machine with disk LUN

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 01:49:44 GMT

Hi,

I have a physical machine that have one local disk and a
disk that is a LUN. Do I need to do anything special when doing import?

Thanks

Ray

Using Putty to forward VMware Converter's required ports to an inaccessible ESX Host

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 18:55:49 GMT

This is the schematic workaround (PortForwardingMap.png) with ports that need to be opened for VMware Converter. If there is an error in this, please comment on this document.

To create the tunnel using a Windows converter host, use putty. (If you run a real OS like Linux, use "ssh -L 443:esxhost:443 -L 902:esxhost:902 username@esxhost")

SSH to the ESX host and create 2 local tunnels for ports 443 and 902. (Putty.png)

Make sure you click ADD before starting the session!

Then, using the standalone converter, instead of typing the vCenter address or the ESXhost address, just use the address of the Converter host (Where you ran putty and the converter).

All requests from the source server to the ESX host will go via the Converter host that can reach the ESX server.

If there are any questions, or update requests, please post a comment to this document.

Author: Ger Apeldoorn

Steps to Install Vmware standalone converter and create a physical machine to virtual machine

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 07:31:06 GMT

Click the link given below to view the web site link whcih explains about the Steps to Install Vmware standalone converter and create a physical machine to virtual machine

http://www.petri.co.il/virtual_convert_physical_machines_to_virtual_machines_with_vmware_converter.htm

http://www.petri.co.il/virtual_convert_physical_machines_to_virtual_machines_with_vmware_converter_2.htm

Capacity

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 20:19:53 GMT

Incompatible HA Networks

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 09:35:46 GMT

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1006541

EMC Celerra VSA and VMware SRM Installation and Configuration

Fri, 06 Feb 2009 15:14:11 GMT

Java sample for using the vCO/LCM web service

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 10:16:47 GMT

C# sample code for the vCO/LCM web service

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 10:04:54 GMT

Installation of VMware tools into a OpenFiler Guest

Tue, 13 Jan 2009 04:15:55 GMT

To all:

This is my success story with installation of the VMware Tools onto a a OpenFiler NAS. Here is the config that I worked with:

ESX: 3i Build 3.5.0 130775

OpenFiler 2.3 x64 version

Now this might be a little simple for your Linux Admins, but it should be a step by step process for all others out there.

I am assuming that the OpenFiler is installed and running.

Go to the console and log on as root
Update the kernel to the latest version (Not sure if this is necessary, but did it anyway)
1. conary update kernel=openfiler.rpath.org@ofns:2
2. REF:https://forums.openfiler.com/viewtopic.php?id=2789
Reboot the system, then log on again as root
Update all of the packages on the system with the following command:
1. conary updateall
Install a C complier for this distro with the following command:
1. conary update rmake=conary.rpath.com@rpl:1
2. the path of rmake will be /usr/bin/rmake (remember that for later when you install the tools)
3. REF: http://wiki.rpath.com/wiki/rMake:Install_and_Configure
Go to mount directory /mnt. and create a new directory called cd (mkdir cd)
Start the VMware Installation tools from the VI client
Mount the VMware tools with the following command:
1. mkdir /dev/cd
2. mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cd
Go to your mounted cdrom, copy the tar file and then extract it. The build number of the VMware tools is specific to your version installed
1. cd /mnt/cd
2. cp VMwareTools-3.5.0-130755.tar.gz /tmp
3. cd /tmp
4. tar xvf VMwareTools-3.5.0-130755.tar.gz
5. cd vmware-tools-distrib
6. ./vmware-install.pl
This will start the intallation process, and it should all go well, choose the default locations for all of the requests.
When the questions come up for a compiler like gcc or a c complier for the components like vxnet and the other stuff, it will fail. When the scripts ask you if you would like to choose a specific location, enter Yes
Enter the path of /usr/bin/rmake
Re-enter path of rmake if needed for the rest of script.
It should finish and then volia! the tools are installed.
Check your VI client, it should show OK on the tools
Reboot, and you should be fine

Shawn

Automating Lab Manager with PowerShell

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 18:22:44 GMT

Hear and see VMware PowerShell guru Carter Shanklin describe how to use PowerShell to automate Lab Manager:

http://blogs.vmware.com/vipowershell
http://vimeo.com/2768903

Return wandering VMs to their preferred ESX host

Sun, 21 Dec 2008 06:55:50 GMT

There are some cases where its desirable to have a VM running on a specific host in an ESX cluster. This may be operational (grouping VMs with similar service levels together), performance ("manual" load balancing, keeping "developer" VMs seperate from "production" VMs, etc.) or a number of other organizational specific reasons. Over time VMs may "drift" to other hosts due to vMotion moves for patching without the corresponding "move back", failure recovery performed by HA, or administrative reconfiguration. It would be useful to have a way to periodically move any misplaced VMs back to their preferred host. Out-of-the-box there is no capability in ESX or vCenter to provide this "return home" functionality.

Fortunately vCenter Server and the VI Toolkit for Windows provide the necessary infrastructure to implement a short script to perform the necessary moves.

vCenter Server allows additional custom fields to be added to a VM. These custom attributes are available via scripting as well as exposed in the VI Client UI under the "Annotations" field
VI Toolkit for Windows provides the necessary cmdlets to get/set the custom attributes as well as invoke vMotion to move VMs back to their preferred server

There are two scripts in the solution

UpdateTargetHost.ps1 - This script will walk through a set of VMs (either all VMs in a Data Center or the VMs in a specific folder) and set the "VM Target Host" custom attribute to the host where the VM is currently running.
MoveVMtoTargetHost.ps1 - This script will walk through a set of VMs (either all VMs or only those in a specific folder) and, if needed, move the VM back to the host specified in the "VM Target Host" custom field.

The UpdateTargetHost.ps1 script isn't strictly necessary; you could use the VI Client to create the "VM Target Host" custom field and then populate the field in each of your VMs. While that is ok for a few VMs it can be pretty time consuming and error prone as the number of VMs grows. The script provides a quick way of setting the VM's custom field to whatever host the VM is located on when the script is run. So typically you would move your VMs around until they are on the desired hosts, then run the UpdateTargetHost.ps1 script to record the host for each VM. In the future if the desired host placement changed, you could either manually update the custom field entry, or simply move the VMs to the desired hosts and re-run the script.

The MoveVMToTargetHost.ps1 script is meant to be run regularly to move any VMs that are not on their "target" host back to that host. It only operates on VMs that are powered on, and utilizes vMotion to perform the moves (so shared storage is required).

In each of the scripts there is a small customization section that allows you to update some site specific parameters. You'll need to edit these before using the scripts

Update the "connect-viserver InsertYourServerNameHere" to match the name of your vCenter server. So for example if your vCenter server is called "vc01.company.com" then the command would be "connect-viserver vc01.company.com"
The $LOC = Get-Folder "vm" line controls the scope of the changes. Leaving it set to "vm" will run the script against all VMs in vCenter, or you can change "vm" to be any folder name that exists in vCenter, in which case only VMs in that folder will be impacted. The script will not "walk" through mulitple levels of folders however, so if you have a nested folder hierarchy you'll need to create a copy of the script for each folder, or do some script modification to have it walk through nested folders
The $Verbose line controls whether status messages are sent to the console as the script runs. Its handy to leave at $True as you're testing the script and verifying that its working as you intended

You can run the scripts from within PowerShell, or from the command line. If you're running the script from the command line you'll need to include the VI Toolkit for Windows components as well when you invoke PowerShell. The command line below will run the MoveVMToTargetHost script stored in the C:\VCScripts directory

C:\WINDOWS\system32\windowspowershell\v1.0\powershell.exe -PSConsoleFile "C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\VIToolkitForWindows\vim.psc1" -Command C:\VCScripts\MoveVMToTargetHost.ps1

The functionality of the scripts is basic, there isn't a lot of error checking or "fancy stuff" being done. Buyer beward, YMMV, and above all test before using them!

A final word of caution is to think carefully of the consequences of using the script in conjunction with DRS, particularly if you schedule the script to run periodically. If DRS is in "Fully Automated" mode there is a chance (likely a very good one!) that it will "fight" with the scripts to move VMs around (i.e. DRS will move the VMs to balance load, which will cause some of the VMs to be on hosts other than their "target host", at which point the script will move them back, only to have DRS move them again, etc., etc., etc.). This VM movement "thrashing" will cause significant performance issues. But then again, if you're running DRS in "Fully Automated" mode you don't care what hosts your VMs run on, so you won't be using this script anyway

Hopefully you'll find them useful, or at least a useful starting point for your own better-quicker-faster versions.

reset LCM appliance to perform initial configuration

Mon, 08 Dec 2008 16:46:07 GMT

"sudo rm /home/vmware/.initialconfigrun"

will re-trigger an initial config script after a reboot.

Converter stopping task due to an "untrusted certificate"

Sat, 06 Dec 2008 23:50:25 GMT

I am just conducting some tests with ESXi and Converer. I tried to migrate an existing VM from my VMWare Workstation to the ESXi U3. The conversion run for about 20 minutes and then errored out with an "Unkown Error" and hinting me, where I can find the logs. Looking into the logs I found out, that it did drop the connection due to an untrusted certificate - which I think is pretty usual for a) a testinstallation and b) even for a smal productive installation, so I think, this should not break the conversion, but rather ask, if one likes to continue nevertheless

Import a Physical Microsoft 2003 Cluster ( MSCS ) to ESX 3i Server

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 18:26:29 GMT

I did a lot of searching through the forums for importing an existing MSCS physical cluster into VMWare and did not come across too many detailed posts. My dev systems had MSDTC clustered so I probably experienced more issues than what most people would have gone through. This general walkthrough imports the systems into a single VMWare ESX 3i host server. The process is fairly straight forward, but success stems on having the right tools on hand with the right details in accomplishing the task. I hope someone else finds this useful.

GENERAL OUTLINE FOR IMPORTING MSCS NODE TO VMs
Based on VMWare KB 1002661

IMPORT PHYSICAL SERVER INTO VMWARE
(These were steps used for a MSDTC cluster in which VSS of VMWare Tools would fail to install)
1. Import OS partition and any non-shared (non-Quorum) drives, do not install VMWare tools at this time.
2. Turn on VMs but disconnect from the network
a. Install VMWare Tools without VSS option
b. Clean up old IP entries in the registry, but leave the old IPs under the cluster related keys.
c. Assign old IP addresses to VM

CREATE THE SHARED DRIVE (QUORUM DISKS) VIA REMOTE CL
See Chapter 2 of VMWare doc called Setup for Microsoft Cluster Service Update 1 Release for ESX Server 3.5… (vi3_35_25_u1_mscs.pdf)
1. For path reference, get the path of an existing VM

general command:
vmware-cmd.pl --server --username –password –l

outputs:
/vmfs/volumes/48f7xxxx-06c8xxxx-xxxx-001ec9b7xxxx/VM01/VM01.vmx

2. Create the Shared drive via Remote CLI using the path as reference,

general command:
vmkfstools.pl --server --username --password -c 1g -d eagerzeroedthick -a lsilogic "/vmfs/volumes/48f7xxxx-06c8xxxx-xxxx-001ec9b7xxxx / QUORUMS/Qourum_E.vmdk"

ADD QUOROM TO VMs
See Chapter 2 of VMWare doc called Setup for Microsoft Cluster Service Update 1 Release for ESX Server 3.5… (vi3_35_25_u1_mscs.pdf)
1. With the VMs off, add HD to VM, but choose SCSI (1:0) which will create a new SCSI Controller
2. On SCSI (1:0), change to LSI logic, and set to virtual

SWAP OUT PHYSICALS WITH VMs
Steps are similar to restoring a failed cluster disk as laid out in MS kb280425
1. Failover cluster to Physical Node1
2. Turn off Physical Node2
3. Bring on-line Node2 VM
4. If needed, in the Windows OS MMC, rescan the disks to see the Quorum shared drive. Then format the drive and assign the same drive letter as the old Quorum drive.
5. Use Robocopy (with the /SEC trigger) to copy QUOROM drives from Physical Node1 to Node2 VM.
6. From Windows 2000 resource kit, use DUMPCFG to get the disk signature of the physical Quorum drive from one of the physical nodes
7. From the VM, overwrite the signature with dumpcfg command –
a. dumpcfg -s <signature ID> <disk number>
ex:
dumpcfg -s DD9C59B4 2

8. Shutdown Physical Node1
9. Restart cluster services or the Node2 VM… if all goes well the cluster should come up
10. Bring online the Node1 VM.
11. Test failover to Node1 VM.
12. Install VMWare Tools VSS if desired on boxes, but snapshots are not possible on VMs with SCSI adapters set to virtual

TROUBLESHOOTING AND ISSUES EXPERIENCED
VMWare Tools VSS install fail.
Since part of the cluster involved MSDTC, the VSS option would fail. Part of the fix was to relaunch Add/Remove Programs à Install Windows Components and just run through the Wizard without making any changes. This forced to VM to reset the COM+ and MSDTC configuration. When I installed the VSS component, I did it on the machine that the cluster was running on. (+Search VMWare Communities for _Error: 1722 for VMWare Tools Installation_)+. Installing VSS is moot since snapshot will not work with SCSI controller set to Virtual.

Cluster Services still fails to start properly and quorum drives are unavailable for access.

Through trial and error and dealing with multiple quorum drives… one would work, the other would have data disappear so not all cluster services would come up properly. It was necessary to reformat a quorum drive and recopy the contents, which required turning off the cluster service and the usually hidden cluster disk device. This process is laid out in the last section of the MS KB article 280425.

Where the heck do I get DUMPCFG?!?!!

Looks like it is no longer part of the Windows 2000 resource kit. You can grab it from www.dumpcfg.com

nice work. I'll convert to document so it comes up higher in search results.

This document was generated from the following thread: Import a Physical Microsoft 2003 Cluster ( MSCS ) to ESX 3i Server

What update of Virtual Center?

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 14:00:16 GMT

We have build 64192 of the VMware Infrastructure Client and build 84767 VMware VirtualCenter. I also found that we are on version 2.5.0.64207 of the Virtual Infrastructure Client. How can I tell what update I'm running? Thanks - Jim Maloney

84767 is VC 2.5.0 U1

Below you can find all the build information

http://www.vmware.com/download/vi/

if you found this or any other post "helpful" or "correct" please consider awarding points.

This document was generated from the following thread: What update of Virtual Center?

VMware Converter 4.0 Standalone Public Beta Announcement

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 02:44:38 GMT

Copied below is the email that is going out to announce the public beta for Converter 4.0.
Follow the instructions to register for the beta and participate.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

VMware Converter 4.0 Standalone Beta Invitation

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hello,

Thank you for your interest in VMware(R) beta programs. Our upcoming release
of VMware Converter 4.0 Standalone product includes many exciting
enhancements that our customers have been requesting including P2V support
for Linux and Win 2K8 sources, hot cloning enhancements as well as workflow
automation enhancements. We are certain you will find participation in this beta
program a valuable experience. We are looking forward to working closely with
you during this beta program.

As part of this beta, we request you to extensively test several areas of feature
enhancements including P2V support for Linux and Win 2K8 sources, hot
cloning enhancements as well as workflow automation enhancements. Your
active participation in this beta program is critical. We appreciate and value
your efforts to install upon downloading the software and actively provide us
with your valuable product feedback.

~~ Getting Started ~~
If you already have a VMware store account, please follow the link below to
gain access to Converter 4.0 beta software, documentation and join the
Converter 4.0 beta community.

http://www.vmware.com/publicbeta/conv4-beta

If you don’t have a VMware store account, please follow the link below to create
a VMware store account, gain access to Converter 4.0 beta software,
documentation and join Converter 4.0 beta community.

http://www.vmware.com/publicbetanew/conv4-beta

~~ How to Provide Feedback ~~
Your active feedback is much appreciated. Please provide your feedback through
the Converter 4.0 beta community by:

Filing Support Requests (SRs)
Participating in Converter 4.0 Beta Forum Discussions on VMware communities site
Responding to surveys on Converter 4.0 Beta Forum

~~ Support Requests (SRs) ~~
File all issues that you find as Support Requests (SRs), even if you report them to
VMware by other means. SRs should include log files wherever applicable.

Thank you for your participation.

Sincerely,
The VMware Beta Program Team

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This document was generated from the following thread: VMware Converter 4.0 Standalone Public Beta Announcement

Template customization password setting not working

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 23:20:33 GMT

I have built a new XP machine. I templated it. Now I am trying to deploy from template using the customization wizard. However the password is not getting passed through to the machine. The sysprep is running on the machine and when the machine comes up to the login it will not accept any password. I'm not sure what is happening and I have tried every combination possible. I am not recieving any errors btw.

ESX 3.5.0/VC 2.5.0

I had a very similar issue in the past, for me the answer was a blank password. I don't know how that happened, and someone else took over this project for me and corrected the issue. But the answer at the time was a blank password, have you tried that?

Hope this helps.

While deploying from a template and using the customization wizard to change the PASSWORD there is a caveat that one has to know. I am pasting the below from the VMware Basic system administration guide

" *NOTE You can only change the administrator password if the administrator password on the source Windows virtual machine is blank. If you specify a new administrator password and the source Windows virtual machine or template already has one, the old administrator password does not change"

LabManagerInternal API Documentation

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 23:17:15 GMT

Lab Manager's SOAP interface is split into internal and external APIs. Only the external APIs are officially supported-- they are the ones documented in the SOAP API guide found at http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/labmanager_pubs.html.

The documentation for the internal API is attached here with the following conditions:

This is an unsupported interface. VMware engineering and tech support will not take SRs regarding methods not in the SOAP API guide
Methods that are not in the SOAP API Guide will change or be deleted without deprecation.
There is no guarantee of completeness of internal API functions or functionality. Use these methods at your own risk.
This documentation is provided AS IS. There may be differences between what is shipped and what is in this documentation.

Because of these conditions, you are heavily encouraged to use only external API functions in your code. We find that oftentimes when users are trying to use internal APIs they are using techniques that make things more difficult than they need to be. This forum can be a good place to vet techniques of using the SOAP API.

Steven

MemorySizeNotRecommended

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 17:41:47 GMT

Changing from Guest Operating System (in Options) from Windows Standard Edition (64-bit) to Enterprise Edition (64-bit) got rid of the error message. Because of the maximum supported memory by the OS maximum 4GB

Copying vm template to a different SAN - how to make it show up in VIC Template View?

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 22:07:33 GMT

Hi,

I have 2 VMware clusters, each attached to its own SAN, separate by a WAN link. All clusters, hosts and LUNs are visible in the VIC. Using Veeam FastSCP I was able to copy a template folder from one SAN to the other SAN. Using the VIC with Datastores View, I can Browse Datastore and see it. However, how do I make it display in the Hosts and Clusters or Virtual Machines and Templates view in the VIC? Right now I don't know how to access it or use it on the destination SAN, even though it is present.

Thank you for your kind help!

Mak

right click on the .vmtx file and add to inventory and follow the prompts.

Message was edited by: Troy Clavell
corrected file extension name

Hello,

Do you get an add to inventory when you right mouse click the template.vtmx file?

http://blog.laspina.ca/

That is the piece I was missing! Thanks bunches!!! Points awarded.

This document was generated from the following thread: Copying vm template to a different SAN - how to make it show up in VIC Template View?

Import VMC file -> "VPC Config file could not be parsed"

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 12:35:36 GMT

If you are getting the error ("VPC Config file could not be parsed") while trying to convert the Microsoft Virtual PC Image VMware Converter.

Relevant log errors will look like this:

(2008-05-21 16:24:25.250 'P2V' 536 error) (task,295) Task failed: P2VError IMPORT_SOURCE_VPC_CONFIG_FILE_PARSE_ERROR()
(2008-05-21 16:24:25.250 'P2V' 536 verbose) (task,339) Transition from InProgress to Failure requested
(2008-05-21 16:24:25.250 'P2V' 536 verbose) (task,388) Transition succeeded

Resolution:

Install MSXML 4 and attempt the conversion again. You should be able to parse the file with this version of MSXML.

Success Stories:

Wow! Installing MSXML 4 solved my problem! Thanks guys!

MSXML4 worked for me too. Thanks guys!
BSV

MSXML 4 fixed the issue for me as well. Thanks!

MSXML 4 fixed it for me too, but would have been nice if vmware reported a more user-friendly/precise error message. Installing MSXML4 is not the first thing end-users think about when seeing "VPC Config file could not be parsed"...

This document was generated from the following thread: Import VMC file -> "VPC Config file could not be parsed"

Task failed: P2VError UFAD_SYSTEM_ERROR(unknown internal error)

no_replies@vmware.com — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 21:05:30 GMT

I've tried like mad convert a win2k server to virtual and I'm getting nowhere. I've defragged, chkdsk'd, disabled services, etc. I'm still getting this error. Finally, I thought I would ask the experts. So, what do you say guys. Can you help the helpless?

VMware Converter - NFC Errors and Specific Fixes

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 16:17:28 GMT

thread:id=167534 - Getting some "NFC ERROR" messages when converting a VMWare Server VM to ESX3i (Dell PowerEdge 2900)

[NFC ERROR] NfcNetTcpWrite: bWritten: -1
[NFC ERROR] NfcNet_Send: requested 272, sent only 4294967295 bytes
[NFC ERROR] NfcFileSendMessage: hdr send failed:
[NFC ERROR] Network error -- Failed to send header message
[imageProcessingTaskStep,194] BlockLevelCloning::task{11} step "copy local->remote" destroyed

1. Disabled all TOE options on the Broadcom NIC on the Dell PowerEdge 2900 that was the host vmware server. (TOE has caused me sooo many problems in the past, I believe this is what fixed it.)
2. Setup second VMFS Volume to hold larger file sizes (2mb = 512GB max file size in this case)

How to disable TOE for Broadcom cards on Dell servers here: http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/dsn/en/document?c=ca&dl=false&l=en&s=gen&docid=395096AA3480EFFFE040A68F5B28437E&doclang=en (These seems to be the most problematic cards of all with respect to TOE)

enter in maitenance mode pb !

Tue, 09 Sep 2008 20:14:16 GMT

Hello,

We have two ESX (v3.5U2) under one cluster (DRS/HA) and in our VC (2.5U2) we try to pass one ESX in maintenance mode without succes.

We look the task blocked to 2% and we have one message per VM's => unable to automatically migrate...

We have no CPU affinity and no other error messages. VMotion and DRS/HA works perfectly except this pb.

Any idea for this issue ?

Thanks for your Help.

Accessing ESX behind firewall

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 19:23:12 GMT

Hi, I have an ESXi server behind a firewall and would like to manage it using the Infrastructure client. What ports should I open up? I have tried opening 902 but am getting a "connection failed" message when trying to access it.

Thanks
Dilan

Step-by-Step Explaintion of a X2V with VMware Converter

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 12:22:25 GMT

I have a P2V guide that I've wrote for my client and handed over to them using same methods listed on http://www.vmware-land.com/ site which is very precise. Basically follow the standards and you should be fine, just document and do screenshots of each step and put it in a technical form than you're solid with complete P2V guide.

You can follow steps below or read more details on VMware P2V Guide can be download on http://www.vmware.com/ site.

Converter Best Practices

Found this in the recently posted "Server Migrations with VMware Converter" presentation from VMware TSX and modified it based on my experiences http://www.vmware-tsx.com/download.php?asset_id=48

1. Agent Installation Location

Locally: Install Converter and agent directly on source machine if converting directly into ESX Server
Remotely: Connect to source machine over network to install agent

2. Agent Installation

Use local administrator account
Avoid domain accounts that have restrictive policies
Allow reboot for Windows NT 4.0 and 2000 sources

3. Machine Preparation

Do not deactivate services or harden security

Workstation service
Server service
TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper service
Volume Shadow Copy service (Windows 2003 or XP)

Ensure sufficient free disk space (at least 200MB)
Mirrored or striped volumes across multiple disks should be broken
Dynamic disks with utility partitions should use cold cloning
Disable Windows Simple File Sharing (Windows XP only)
Disable anti-virus software
Defrag hard disks
Shutdown any un-needed Windows Services
Clean-up any temporary files and un-needed data
Run chkdsk
Keep users off if possible
Power off VM if not using hot cloning
VCB VM exports need editing prior to import

Edit virtual disk filenames inside .vmx
Rename filenames for .vmdk files to match those listed in .vmx
Edit index .vmdk file to change references to span files

4. Network Preparation

Open TCP/UDP ports 139, 445, and 902 (Converter 3.0.0) or 443 (Converter 3.0.1)
Open network ports between source and destination

Alternative is to create a VM visible to source, copy VM files to location visible to destination, and import VM

Use FQDN to connect to both source and VI3

5. Converter Preparation

Run on OS greater than or equal to source if source is

VM and powered off, or
Symantec Livestate System Image

6. Cloning

Starter edition limitations and workarounds

Cannot remote hot clone directly into VI3

- Workaround 1: install Converter on source machine
- Workaround 2: select standalone VM as destination, and then import VM to VI3 using two steps

Cannot run multiple tasks concurrently

- Workaround: run multiple copies of Converter

Cannot cold clone

- Workaround: create new VM, use third-party cloning application such as Ghost, and run Converter configure

Do not resize volume for fastest clone speed (block-level copying)
Resize volumes if source disks have inefficient utilization (resorts to file-level copying)
Use cold-cloning disk-based cloning (not volume-based) for non-Windows systems
Use hot cloning for Windows NT 4.0 systems to avoid NTFS upgrade
Destination needs to be writeable

7. Configure

Avoid cloning utility partitions
Check partition numbers in boot.ini
Automatic "Install VMware Tools" option is only available for ESX Server VMs

8. Clean-Up Prior to Power On

Edit VM settings according to desired goal

Number of vCPUs
Add/Delete USB devices
Add/Delete Serial and parallel devices
Remove Floppy drive if not needed
SCSI controller type (BusLogic vs. LSI Logic)

OEM source may require license activation

SMBIOS.reflectHost = "TRUE" in .vmx may avoid reactivation
Requires destination host to have same hardware

9. Clean-Up After Power On

Detect hardware

VMware Tools installation may hang if hardware not detected

Allow reboots to occur

Detect hardware and VMware Tools installation

Verify HAL and change if necessary
Remove non-present old hardware

CMD prompt type set DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES=1
Next type DEVMGMT.MSC and select Show Hidden Devices
Delete any old grayed out non-present hardware

10. Guest Troubleshooting

Blue screen after powering on

Start Windows in Safe Mode and uninstall hardware-specific applications or services
Attach VM to "Helper VM" to remove hardware-specific drivers or to correct the boot.ini

No keyboard/mouse

Select Workstation/Server VM instead of ESX Server, then import VM to ESX Server
Use PS/2 keyboard/mouse on source

Display problems

Uninstall PC Anywhere prior to installing VMware Tools

If you found this information useful, please consider awarding points for "Correct" or "Helpful". Thanks!!!

Regards,

Stefan Nguyen
iGeek Systems Inc.
VMware, Citrix, Microsoft Consultant

Converted Solaris image panics "cannot mount root path"

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 12:14:51 GMT

This document was generated from the following thread: Converted Solaris image panics "cannot mount root path"

Please see the attached picture, as it explains the repair process after a cold migration of a Solaris 10 system to a SCSI based virtual machine.

VMware Converter - Summary of Snapshot Errors and Fixes

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 20:18:14 GMT

For Any Conversion:

Disable any diagnostic partitions partitions
Partition is FAT instead of NTFS (upgrade to NTFS)

For VSS Based Conversions (XP/2003):

Converter not installed/run as admin (reinstall)
Converter not installed to C:\ (reinstall)
"MS Software Shadow Copy Provider" from Service.msc (in the case of XP) is disabled or replaced (by another VSS backup software) ... remove other software and enable the service
"Volume Shadow Copy" ensure that it is enabled
Check for VSS errors in the System's Event Log (eventvwr) - troubleshoot these, and you should fix it (example: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/941956 )

For stcbasic.sys Based Conversions (2000/NT4):

Converter not installed/run as Local Admin (reinstall)
Converter not directly installed to C:\ (reinstall)
chkdsk the drive for errors on a reboot

root password to the LCM appliance

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 09:53:53 GMT

simply use sudo to shutdown/reboot or even change the root password.

Failed to install the VirtualCenter Agent Service ??

chris@amssys.lu — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 08:20:32 GMT

I have a VC with 2 ESX

i was able to manage them without problem

since we change our active directory i have lost the connection with one ESX

i can log on directly to it but not through VirtualCenter ESX Disconnected

when i try to reconnect event said Failed to install the VirtualCenter Agent Service

Update Manager had a failure

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 13:41:17 GMT

Task: Scan

Error during the configuration of the host: option -p not recognised.....

VirtualCenter 2.5.0 - 84767

Update Manager 1.0

ESX 3.5.0 98103

ESX 3.5.0 82663 - clean installed 2 days ago

I recently installed update manager and managed to scan and remediate one host, taking it from 82663 to 98103. Now when I scan any of my two hosts I get the above message. Grateful for any help...

VMware Converter and Acronis True Image Server 9.1

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 13:59:46 GMT

When attempting to utilize Converter, 3.0.3 Build 89816, I get the following error when attempting to read the Acronis .tib file: "Unable to determine Guest Operating System".

Any assistance would be highly appreciated.

VMware Converter and Acronis TrueImage Echo 9.5

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 17:12:59 GMT

Update:

Converter 4.0 Beta does support newer versions of Acronis

Release Notes:
http://communities.vmware.com/viewwebdoc.jspa?documentID=DOC-7860&communityID=2807#interop

Acronis True Image Echo 9.1, 9.5, and Acronis True Image 10, 11 (Home product)

Beta Site:
http://communities.vmware.com/community/beta/converter/

Any problems with the TIB conversion process should be posted in the Beta Forum specifically.

##########################################################################################

Acronis True Image Echo 9.5 is not supported in the current releases of VMware Converter. This is listed as a feature request for a future release of the Converter product. Acronis TrueImage 9.1 is supported as of the 3.0.2 release.

In the mean time; the following steps are possible with some versions of Acronis Echo, and will be able to create a new VM from a TIB file:

1 - In Acronis, browse existing backups
2 - Export it as a VMware (ESX Server) VMDK file to a temporary location
3 - Upload/Move the .vmdk files to their final storage destination
4 - Create a new VM, and use this existing VMDK as the disk
5 - Attempt to power on the new VM.

NOTE: If the power on fails with any errors, run the 'Configure Machine' option of Converter against the virtual machine, and try to power it on afterwards. If errors still persist, screen capture the failure message to attach to a forum post or VMware Support Request.

Service Console best settings What happens if default gateway fails in HA?

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 00:15:22 GMT

I'm just curious about HW and how it works.

At the moment, I have 3 ESX 3.5 hosts and VC 2.5. Initially, the persons setting them up, out both Service Console and VM's on the same vswitch and on the same internal VLAN. I have now created more VLAN's, which are routed on our firewall (Checkpoint). HA was enabled and was working, but I disabled it when I was setting up new networks and assigning new IP adresses to the SC.

My question is now: what happens if our firewall (router) fails? I know that HA pings the default gateway, but doesn't it detect that the other ESX hosts are still running and does not force a restart of the VM's? I have setup switch redunacy and all virtual switches have dual or triple physical NIC's.

The gateway is only pinged to check if the host is isolated (= has no network connectivity), but this starts only when it stops receiving heartbeats from the other hosts in the cluster. As you have your service consoles probably on the same subnet, they would talk even with a dead GW.

Thanks for the help.

Yes, all my hosts are on the same subnet, so then I know I can survive a downed firewall.

It has a 15 seconds heartbeat and if it found to be isolated than it restart the VMs on other ESX hosts within your cluster. HA heavily depends on your DNS infrastructure and I would place entries in /etc/hosts file for all ESX hosts to make sure if your DNS failed it still communicate via host entries.

If you found this information useful, please consider awarding points for "Correct" or "Helpful". Thanks!!!

Regards,

Stefan Nguyen
iGeek Systems Inc.
VMware, Citrix, Microsoft Consultant

Best Practice for HA requires redundancy for the Service Console network, this can be accomplished one of two ways:

1. Single Service Console Network with redundant pNICs connected to different pSwitches

2. Secondary Service Console Network. You can create a second SC portgroup on a new or existing vSwitch, and then configure a second Isolation Address (under HA Advanced Options set: das.isolationaddress2 = SecondIPAddress )

Personally I like Option 1 better. Another advanced option you might want to consider setting is changing the default timeout value: das.failuredetectiontime = timeinms

I had changed this from the default of 15 sec to 60000 (60 seconds). This just gives you a little more time before HA thinks you have an isolated/down ESX server.

The other option is to change the default for Isolation Response from Power Off to Leave Powered On. This will make sure VMs do not get powered off for false HA Isolation events. This does mean if the server really is "isolated" the VMs wont be moved, but they should still be up and running, because we are not talking about an ESX server being down, just isolated from the rest of the cluster. IMO its better to leave the VMs running if they are still up and resolve this problem after business hours.

Don Pomeroy
VMware Communities User Moderator

" I would place entries in /etc/hosts file for all ESX hosts to make sure if your DNS failed it still communicate via host entries."

I have a question about this. From what I read in the HA Best Practices doc (http://kb.vmware.com/Platform/Publishing/attachments/1002080_fHA_Tech_Best_Practices.pdf), the ESX server does this automatically and VMware recommends against manually editing the hosts file.

Here is the text from the doc:

1. Proper DNS & Network settings are needed for initial configuration
After configuration DNS resolutions are cached to /etc/FT_Hosts (minimizing the
dependency on DNS server availability during an actual failover)
DNS on each host is preferred (manual editing of /etc/hosts is error prone)

So what is everyone else doing?

This document was generated from the following thread: What happens if default gateway fails in HA?

VMware Infrastructure Client 2.5 update 1 crashes regularly. Any Fixes UPDATE MANAGER

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 02:40:42 GMT

This week I upgraded my Virtual Center server to 2.5.0 BUILD 84767 (Update 1, right?). It appears that Update Manager was not updated in this release.

Anyway, I updated my vpxclient to the same version 2.5.0 BUILD 84767. It has been crashing very often now. Sometimes I get the message "The process cannot access file 'C:\Documents and Settings\myprof\Local Settings\Application Data\VMware\vpx\viclient-X.log' because it is being used by another process." Never had that message until now.

Also, the client will just shut down with a dialog box that I haven't seen before, wanting to send information to Microsoft. No, it's not the standard one for app crashes I'm familiar with. Never seen this particular dialog box until yesterday.

I've had this problem on multiple Windows XP SP2 boxes, where we were running the vpxclient 2.5 just fine. Any advice?

(Also, Update Manager is acting really squirrelly now.)

TIA,

Howard H

Here is a link to a thread where someone was having the same problem. Their solution was to uninstall all the VI-Client pieces and delete all folders pertaining to the VI-Client. Anways check out the link and the solution is the last post. I hope it helps.

http://communities.vmware.com/message/914869#914869

If you found this or any other post helpful please consider the use of the Helpfull/Correct buttons to award points

Hi,

I suspect this is a .net code mismatch, the VI client should have the current .net 2.0 installed. Have you tried updating .net?

I had this issue when I installed the update manager client from the plugin manager. In order to fix in my environment, I uninstalled the update manager client code from the machine, and then manually ran the update manager client install from the vc client media from the /vci directory on the root of that cd. That fixed my client and it hasn't crashed since.

-KjB

I've seen this on the forum somewhere indicated you have to remove and replace the .dll files that would resolve your crashes issue. Please search more details since I didn't bookmark that thread sorry

If you found this information useful, please consider awarding points for "Correct" or "Helpful". Thanks!!!

Regards,

Stefan Nguyen
iGeek Systems Inc.
VMware, Citrix, Microsoft Consultant

I had removed and reinstalled VI Client already, clearing out directories under Program Files\VMware, to no avail. I reinstalled again this morning, but did not even attempt to install Install manager. I've had no crashes all day. Guess I'll wait for an update on it before installing.

I guess such postings as "Update Manager Sux" have some validity.

I had issues only when I used the plugin manager to install update manager. When I installed the update manager from the vc cd, under the vci folder, vmware-umclient.exe. I have not had any issues after that, and it has been working well ever since.

-KjB

Yes, me too, so far. If installed from the CD (or equivalent) and not downloaded from the VC as a plug-in, even Update Mgr works.

Thanks for your help, kjb007.

This document was generated from the following thread: VMware Infrastructure Client 2.5 update 1 crashes regularly. Any Fixes??

Successful Physical to Virtual P2V conversion of Linux boxes with VMware Converter

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 13:18:45 GMT

For those you who are looking for the comprehensive details steps of how to P2V a linux box with VMware Converter.

Pre-requisites: Have the Linux installation Boot CD1 handy. You should purchase VMware Converter Enterprise license.

1. Download VMware Converter Enterprise latest version and burn it to the CD. I used version 3.0.2 update 1.
2. Boot up with the above VMware Converter CD on the physical Linux box.
3. Let the WinPE load up and watch for the Network adaptor settings screen. Make necessary changes such as IP addressing.
4. Finally you should see the VMware Converter screen where you can import the machine.
5. Click on Import machine button and follow the steps.
6. Important Make sure you select all disks and no resizing during the import process.
7. If all the information is entered correctly, it should start importing to ESX/VC.
8. It will create a VM on the selected ESX server.
9. In my case it failed at 97% where the error occurs at customization steps (which I did not configure for) but after successful copy of the local disks.
10. Go to the ESX server where the imported VM resides. Edit the settings.
11. In the VM's settings, check any irregular settings which might appears. In my case, I had to change the OS type of VM from other 32bit to REHL 4.
12. When the VM is powered up for the first time as soon as P2V has finished, kernel panic will occur and it is just as expected.
Steps to fix the kernel panic on the Linux VM
13. Boot up with the bootable Linux installation CD 1. If it doesn't boot from the CD, you may have to change the VM's setting to go to the BIOS setting on the next boot so that you can change the boot sequence.
14. At the boot: prompt type Linux rescue and hit enter.
15. It will search for the Linux partition. In my case, it could not find the hard disks. So, I had to go back to VM's setting to change the BusLogic SCSI controller to LsiLogic.
16. After changing to LsiLogic controller, Linux installation image was able to find the Linux partitions on the VM.
17. The system will give you opportunity to mount the root file system. At the linux prompt, type: chroot /mnt/sysimage and hit enter.
18. It will get you back to the prompt. Now at the prompt type: kudzu and hit enter.
19. It will ask you to remove old hardware and detect and install new hardware. Follow the instructions.
20. After exiting from Kudzu, at the prompt type: ls /lib/modules and take note of the version/image. For instance, your active linux version is 2.6.9-5.ELsmp. Take note of it.
21. After that you will need to make new RAM disk as follows.
22. Type /sbin/mkinitrd -v -f /boot/initrd-2.6.9-5.ELsmp.img 2.6.9-5.ELsmp
23. Reboot.
24. After the reboot, it should successfully boot up without any kernel panic.
25. If you still see the kernel panic, then go back to step 20 and find the correct module and repeat the steps 22 & 23.
26. After you have booted the system successfully, determine if it is working as expected.
27. Install VMware Tools.

The steps from 13 to 24 should take about 20-30 minutes. This procedure should be the same for most Linux distributions. Hope it will help on your P2V of Linux boxes.

VM Converter

Wed, 28 May 2008 23:06:42 GMT

BaseLibs' 130821040 info] NFC DEBUG

VMware Firewall Ports(v1.0).xls (including visio diagram)

Thu, 22 May 2008 20:56:27 GMT

How to update Licensing in VI3

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 16:05:27 GMT

To successfully change a License File for VMware

Log into the Virtual Center Console and make note of the current licenses.
Log out of Virtual center
Download the file from VMWare site
Put the file in the directory structure for the License Server
example C:\program files\vmware\vmware license server\licenses\<file_name.lic>
Open the License Manger
Programs > VMWare > VMWare License Server > VMware License SErver Tools
Select the "Config Services" Tab at the top right
Click "Browse" on the "Path to the License file" option
Point to the file that you downloaded from the VMware site
Click on the "Save Service" button within the same window
Select the "Start/Stop/Reread" tab at the top
Click on "Stop Server"
Click on "Start Server"
Click on "Reread License File"
Wait until you see the message at the bottom of the window
“Reread server License File Completed”
Open the Server Services from within the Administrator Tools.
Restart the "VMWare License Server" service
Restart the "VMWare Virtual Center Server" service
Log into Virtual Center
Click on Admin > and select the Licensing tab at the top.
Right click in the white space below the license columns and select refresh
You should now see New the licenses.

LM Networking

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 18:30:29 GMT

S/w ISCSI and mulitple Targets

Sat, 15 Mar 2008 14:50:04 GMT

Delete Document

High CPU usage after upgrading VirtualCenter 2.x with MSDE database to VirtualCenter 2.5 with MS SQL Server (Express, Standard, Enterprise)

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 04:44:59 GMT

PROBLEM
After upgrading from Virtual Center 2.x with a MSDE Database to Virtual Center 2.5 with a MS SQL Server (Express, Standard or Enterprise) your database server has increasingly lengthy periods of very high CPU utilisation and may become unresponsive.

CAUSE
The SQL upgrade scripts (cleanup_upgrade_mssql.sql) did not complete successfully at the time of the upgrade and were not reported as an error; the upgrade appeared to complete successfully. The stored procedures designed to rollup statistics do not complete their function and eventually consume 100% of resources and never complete.

By default the stats_rollup1_proc process runs every 30 minutes in sqlservr.exe to rollup statistics stored in the table VPX_Hist_Stat1, this process does not complete its function due to the mis-configuration performed by the upgrade and the number of rows in VPX_Hist_Stat1 will continue to grow causing the procedure to overwhelm resources.

WORKAROUND
Use Virtual Infrastructure Client to disable Statistics Collection.
Drop down menu - Administration > VirtualServer Management Server Configuration...
Select - Statistics : Uncheck all collection options

Server CPU usage will revert to normal.

RESOLUTION
Courtesy of Ramprasad K S of VMware Technical Support (KSRam)
I have been able to finish the analysis and reach the root cause. This has
resulted in a possible corrective action without much disruption to existing
installation. The down side of this action is that you will loose any
performance data that is currently stored in the DB.

The root cause here is that the upgrade process failed to completely upgrade.
Though the Wizard shows the process as success, there are some activities
that are not committed correctly.

Corrective action.

Truncate the data from table VPX_HIST_STAT1
Execute each of the commands from C:\Program
Files\VMware\Infrastructure\VirtualCenter
Server\dbupgrade\Upgrade-v3-to-v4\T-SQL\cleanup_upgrade_mssql.sql.

To simplify the process please see the (below process) which would help you
to execute the commands.

These commands (SQL) are to be executed on the VirtualCenter Database.

This action would put the database in correct state so that any further
performance statistics collection is not bothered.

Note: Depending on your configuration you may need to download and install the Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Edition Toolkit in order to access the Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio to perform the following process.

1. Shut down the VirtualCenter Server Service

2. Backup the database

3. Execute

TRUNCATE TABLE VPX_HIST_STAT1

4. Execute

TRUNCATE TABLE VPX_HIST_STAT;
alter table vpx_hist_stat drop constraint FK_VPX_HIST_STAT_REF_VPX_SAMP;
truncate table vpx_sample;
CREATE UNIQUE CLUSTERED INDEX PK_VPX_HIST_STAT1 ON VPX_HIST_STAT1
(COUNTER_ID,TIME_ID);
CREATE UNIQUE CLUSTERED INDEX PK_VPX_HIST_STAT2 ON VPX_HIST_STAT2
(COUNTER_ID,TIME_ID);
CREATE UNIQUE CLUSTERED INDEX PK_VPX_HIST_STAT3 ON VPX_HIST_STAT3
(COUNTER_ID,TIME_ID);
CREATE UNIQUE CLUSTERED INDEX PK_VPX_HIST_STAT4 ON VPX_HIST_STAT4
(COUNTER_ID,TIME_ID);

5. Execute

create view VPXV_HIST_STAT_DAILY as
select st.SAMPLE_TIME, st.SAMPLE_INTERVAL, sd.NAME as STAT_NAME,
sd.GROUP_NAME as STAT_GROUP,
case sd.ROLLUP_TYPE
when 0 then 'average'
when 1 then 'maximum'
when 2 then 'minimum'
when 3 then 'latest'
when 4 then 'summation'
when 5 then 'none'
end as STAT_ROLLUP_TYPE,
si.MOID AS ENTITY,
d.DEVICE_NAME, hs.STAT_VAL as STAT_VALUE
from VPX_SAMPLE_TIME1 st
, VPX_DEVICE d
, VPX_STAT_COUNTER sc
, VPX_STAT_DEF sd
, VPX_HIST_STAT1 hs
, VPX_STAT_ID si
where hs.counter_id=sc.COUNTER_ID
and sc.STAT_ID = sd.ID
and isnull(sc.DEVICE_ID,1)=isnull(d.DEVICE_ID,1)
and hs.TIME_ID = st.TIME_ID
and sc.ENTITY_ID=si.ID;

6. Execute

create view VPXV_HIST_STAT_WEEKLY as
select st.SAMPLE_TIME, st.SAMPLE_INTERVAL, sd.NAME as STAT_NAME,
sd.GROUP_NAME as STAT_GROUP,
case sd.ROLLUP_TYPE
when 0 then 'average'
when 1 then 'maximum'
when 2 then 'minimum'
when 3 then 'latest'
when 4 then 'summation'
when 5 then 'none'
end as STAT_ROLLUP_TYPE,
si.MOID AS ENTITY,
d.DEVICE_NAME, hs.STAT_VAL as STAT_VALUE
from VPX_SAMPLE_TIME2 st
, VPX_DEVICE d
, VPX_STAT_COUNTER sc
, VPX_STAT_DEF sd
, VPX_HIST_STAT2 hs
, VPX_STAT_ID si
where hs.counter_id=sc.COUNTER_ID
and sc.STAT_ID = sd.ID
and isnull(sc.DEVICE_ID,1)=isnull(d.DEVICE_ID,1)
and hs.TIME_ID = st.TIME_ID
and sc.ENTITY_ID=si.ID;

7. Exceute

create view VPXV_HIST_STAT_MONTHLY as
select st.SAMPLE_TIME, st.SAMPLE_INTERVAL, sd.NAME as STAT_NAME,
sd.GROUP_NAME as STAT_GROUP,
case sd.ROLLUP_TYPE
when 0 then 'average'
when 1 then 'maximum'
when 2 then 'minimum'
when 3 then 'latest'
when 4 then 'summation'
when 5 then 'none'
end as STAT_ROLLUP_TYPE,
si.MOID AS ENTITY,
d.DEVICE_NAME, hs.STAT_VAL as STAT_VALUE
from VPX_SAMPLE_TIME3 st
, VPX_DEVICE d
, VPX_STAT_COUNTER sc
, VPX_STAT_DEF sd
, VPX_HIST_STAT3 hs
, VPX_STAT_ID si
where hs.counter_id=sc.COUNTER_ID
and sc.STAT_ID = sd.ID
and isnull(sc.DEVICE_ID,1)=isnull(d.DEVICE_ID,1)
and hs.TIME_ID = st.TIME_ID
and sc.ENTITY_ID=si.ID;

8. Exceute

create view VPXV_HIST_STAT_YEARLY as
select st.SAMPLE_TIME, st.SAMPLE_INTERVAL, sd.NAME as STAT_NAME,
sd.GROUP_NAME as STAT_GROUP,
case sd.ROLLUP_TYPE
when 0 then 'average'
when 1 then 'maximum'
when 2 then 'minimum'
when 3 then 'latest'
when 4 then 'summation'
when 5 then 'none'
end as STAT_ROLLUP_TYPE,
si.MOID AS ENTITY,
d.DEVICE_NAME, hs.STAT_VAL as STAT_VALUE
from VPX_SAMPLE_TIME4 st
, VPX_DEVICE d
, VPX_STAT_COUNTER sc
, VPX_STAT_DEF sd
, VPX_HIST_STAT4 hs
, VPX_STAT_ID si
where hs.counter_id=sc.COUNTER_ID
and sc.STAT_ID = sd.ID
and isnull(sc.DEVICE_ID,1)=isnull(d.DEVICE_ID,1)
and hs.TIME_ID = st.TIME_ID
and sc.ENTITY_ID=si.ID;

9. Exceute

CREATE VIEW VPXV_STAT_COUNTERS as
select sd.ID AS ID
,case sd.ROLLUP_TYPE
when 0 then 'average'
when 1 then 'maximum'
when 2 then 'minimum'
when 3 then 'latest'
when 4 then 'summation'
when 5 then 'none'
end as STAT_ROLLUP
, sd.NAME
, sd.GROUP_NAME
, case sd.TYPE
when 0 then 'absolute'
when 1 then 'delta'
when 2 then 'rare'
end as TYPE
, sd.UNIT
, sd.ASSOCIATE_IDS
, sd.STAT_LEVEL AS STATS_LEVEL
FROM VPX_STAT_DEF sd;

10. Exceute

CREATE VIEW VPXV_STAT_HISTORICAL_INTERVALS as
select sid.INTERVAL_SEQ_NUM as ID
, sid.INTERVAL_DEF_NAME as NAME
, sid.INTERVAL_VAL as SAMPLING_PERIOD
, sid.INTERVAL_LENGTH as LENGTH
, sid.STATS_LEVEL
, case sid.ROLLUP_ENABLED_FLG
when 1 then 'Y'
when 0 then 'N'
end as ENABLED
FROM VPX_STAT_INTERVAL_DEF sid;

11. Exceute

drop table VPX_ALARM_EXPRESSION_bk ;
drop table VPX_ALARM_ACTION_bk ;
drop table VPX_SCHED_SCHEDULER_bk ;
drop table VPX_SCHED_ACTION_bk ;
drop table VPX_ACCESS_bk ;
drop table VPX_COMPUTE_RESOURCE_bk ;
drop table VPX_HOST_bk ;
drop table VPX_DATASTORE_bk ;
drop table VPX_NETWORK_bk ;
drop table VPX_RESOURCE_POOL_bk ;
drop table VPX_DS_ASSIGNMENT_bk ;
drop table VPX_HOST_CPU_bk ;
drop table VPX_HOST_NODE_bk ;
drop table VPX_GUEST_DISK_bk ;
drop table VPX_FIELD_DEF_bk ;
drop table VPX_FIELD_VAL_bk ;
drop table VPX_VM_bk ;
drop table VPX_GUEST_IP_ADDRESS_bk ;
drop table VPX_GUEST_NET_ADAPTER_bk ;
drop table vpx_object_type_bk ;
TRUNCATE TABLE VPX_HIST_STAT;
alter table vpx_sample_time1 drop column row_id;
alter table vpx_sample_time2 drop column row_id;
alter table vpx_sample_time3 drop column row_id;
alter table vpx_sample_time4 drop column row_id;
drop procedure hist_stats_upgrade_proc;

Problems starting Virtual Center service error code 2

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 12:43:22 GMT

I have recently installed the Virtual Center 2.5 and it went like a charm!

Now I have rebooted the physical server and I cannot start the Virtual Center service.

Event Viewer said:
The VMware VirtualCenter Server service terminated with service-specific error 2 (0x2). Event ID: 7024

In the most recent logfile (C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\Logs)
it said: Failed to create http proxy: Resource is already in use: Listen socket: :80

I stopped the IIS service, started the Virtual Center service (without problems) and finally I started the IIS service again!

BR
Marcus

VMotion problem - 'device with remote backing' - Greyed out CD-ROM - no vmotion

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 23:30:27 GMT

When trying to VMotion from one ESX server to another, I receive this error:

Unable to migrate from ESX1 to ESX2: Virtual machine is configured to use a device that prevents migration: Device 'CD/DVD Drive 1' is a connected device with a remote backing.

If i view the virtual machine properties, the CD/DVD drive is showing as 'Connected - client unknown'. All of the CD/DVD properties are greyed out.

I can click the 'Disconnect D:' button on the toolbar with the VI client, but this doesnt have any effect.

Any ideas?!

P.S i even tried removing the CD/DVD device whilst the VM was powered off, powering up the VM, powering it down, and re adding the CD/DVD but this didnt have any effect.

Thanks

You should find what is configured to use the device.
Another way: did you try unistalling the device in the virtual OS?

I have this same issuse on a VM i use for testing VMotion, its been used 100's of times for VMotion..

Removing the CD/DVD didnt help, but removing both the CD/DVD and Floppy did the trick..

I havent looked too deeply into it.. But will do later..

I think that is caused by a vcenter user with the console open to the VM that has the CD connected via Device type "Client Device"

Check the sessions on the server and see if anyone has that vm open.

I added my CD/DVD and floppy back, but still get the issues.. But that a good shout, as that VM has had console connected via VC, although all have been closed and VM rebooted etc..

That's really curious. If you can shutdown the vm for a few minutes, try making a new VM pointing to the existing disk files and see if that will vmotion.

Im quite sure that would work, i'll see if i can get chance to test..

Couldn't work out what was causing this...there weren't any sessions showing.
I removed the VM from virtual center, and then re-registered it. This did the trick - can now VMotion OK.

thanks for the suggestions.

Glad to hear that helped.

Thanks for the points!

I'm still having these problems, but now it's happening on 9 of our VMs - a real pain. Only way I can see to fix is to remove the VMs from virtual centre and reregister them.

Just wondering if anyone else has any ideas?

James

Message was edited by:
jparnell

I've had the same problems on my VMs running linux OS-es.
And NOW I resolve the problems!! Yeah!!

The cause is that my VMs hold "VMware Tools Install" images on their Virtual CD-ROM drives.

Click "Inventry->Virtual Machine->End VMware Tools Install".
It may save you.

I have seen this too. If the VM tools install thinks it is still running the CD drive is mapped to the iso file on the host. You wont be able to VMotion until you disable the tools install.

I had the same problem and found this solution in another post:

When trying to vmotion a virtual machine you may get an error message that says you cannot migrate the vm because the CD is connected to a device that prevents migration. If you try to disconnect that device it may stay connected. If it does, open an SSH connection to the ESX host.

Once connected run the following command: "service mgmt-vmware restart"

This will restart the management interface and should clear the connection to the CD or floppy.

Bill S.

I couldn't select to end my instlal but doing a "repair" fixed my remote backing issue.

Ben

I have tried th uninstall and re-install of both the floppy and the CD-Rom although still no luck. What I did find to work more than once it powering down your VM > ensure either Floppy and or CD-Rom are both disconnected > Migrate to another ESX server > Power VM up > try to VMotion.

I hope this helps

JC

Had another one today, I did a 'mgmt-vmware restart' and it fixed the problem.

This should cure the problem without the need to shutdown the VM...

Select "Install VMware Tools" on the Virtual Machine - this will initiate the VMware Tools Installer Mount.

Select "End VMware Tools Install" - this will unmount the Tools Installer.

A word of warning, the VMware Tools Installer Mount will forcibly disconnect the remote device, so if someone has genuinely mounted a Virtual CRDOM it will be lost.

Hi,

I got a similar message during VMOTION. To resolve the issue, i did the following.

1. Rihgtclick on the Virtual Machine and select 'Edit Settings'
2. Select (Highlight) CD/DVD Drive 1
3. On the right hand side under Device status, uncheck the box 'Connected'
4. Try VMOTION (drag and drop the Virtual machine) and it should work.
5. If required then check the box which was unchecked in step 3 (for the moved VM on the target server).

Hope this helps!

Regards,
Ronald

In this scenario the CD/DVD Device Status shows up as "Connected - client unknown" and all of the properties are greyed out, so you can't Edit the Settings.

I am not absolutely certain what the reason is for this behaviour, but I am able to recreate it...

Connect a CD to a VM, then shutdown & power off; now remove the CD (i.e. set to "Client Device"), then power back on. Now try to VMotion and Hey Presto "Device 'CD/DVD Drive 1' is a connected device with a remote backing" and all options greyed out.

The only certain workaround that I have found for this is to "Install VMware Tools"/"End VMware Tools Install", or even better disconnect the CD before shutting down the VM!

I've recently migrated a load of servers using vmware converter - and I have noticed we recieve the error on every server we migrate. I have got into the habbit of "install vmware tools"/"end vmware tools install"

One more addition. The previously posted solutions did not work for me but i found that my guests CDROM was configured to "Emulate IDE" under the Mode section in properties of the CDROM. I set it back to Passthough IDE and vmotion worked with properly.
DG

Had this problem with one machine this morning.

To fix it, I had to remove the cdrom AND floppy disk -> bootup so windows removed them from dev mgr -> shutdown and re-add them. (For good measure, you may consider deleting the hidden devices.)

FWIW, the cd rom was originally set for "Emulate." Changing it to Passthrough did not work for me. I had to remove both devices.

I went into device manager and disabled the floppy drive and cd-rom. Once I did this I clicked edit settings and the cd-rom was no longer connected and I could migrate.

I simply reinstalled my VMWare Tools and it enabled me to VMotion correctly.

Thanks,

Josh

I had this issue on all my VMs since I had installed VMtools. I did a service mgmt-vmware restart on each ESX host 1 min later connected to unknown with the check box was gone...works like a charm.

This document was generated from the following thread: VMotion problem - 'device with remote backing'

Converter and Windows activation

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 13:15:52 GMT

Hi,

I'm running my ESX 3.5 during the 60 days trial mode, and during this period I need to test our main servers in VM mode. For this reason I donloaded VMWare Converter 3.0.2u1 and converted two Win2003 server. But at the en of the job I was unable to login onto the new VMs because windows "must be activated". Is there a way to perform the conversion by exactly cloning the two systems, without asking for activation ? This conversion is for test only, so I cannot dismiss the real server by now. What I would like to do is convert the real server comlletely, keeping the same names, IP, etc, then switch off the real servers, power on the VMs and see if all goes ok. So, I will not run the real and virtual machine at the same time, but I need to keep the real servers ready and activated.

Is there a solution for this issue ? Thanks and bye, Stefano

i bet your physical OS is an OEM license. If so, boot the vm with the OS disc, then run a repair on the os and enter a volume license key

Use the customization option to invoke Sysprep. This will allow you to enter in a different license.

If your original license was an OEM license, then you're stuck. You can't swap in a volume license key when the original installation used OEM media.

yes you can swap an oem license for a volume license. i have done it at least 10 times. once you get the oem server converted, boot the vm with the volume license cd, run a repair on the OS and change the key there. it has worked everytime for me

That's good to clarify that you mean going through a repair process. What I meant was when Windows requires a reactivation, you can't put in just any license key-- if it was originally an OEM license the dialog won't take a volume license. Doing a repair, or in an extreme case, a reinstall, can lead to some items potentially changing on the system, unlike a standard conversion using Converter.

Hi,

please can you explain me wich command to give once I enter the recovery console ? I didn't find any in the help list.

Thanks, Stefano

dont go to the recovery console.

just do it like a fresh install it will find the previous OS install and run a repair

Hi,

but if I perform a fresh install and choose the same partition/folder of the present win installation, the installer warns me that the present installation will be deleted, together with "My Document" folder. I tried to go on pressing the "L" key (accepting the deletion) and in fact I got a completely new VM, with the old OS destroyed, wich was not what I was looking for. Fortunately I had a shapshot.

Maybe I'm missing something... please can you explain me step by step your procedure ? Thanks.

oh yeah u missing something

boot to the OS cd

welcolme to setup press enter

press f8 at license agreement

then at the next screen hit r and just let it do its thing to windows starts to load.

so thats all it is

Umhhh... that's the issue: after F8 (license agreement) I have no "hit R" choice, instead I have a screen where to choose which partition to install in. Then I select C: (where is the old Win2003) and in the nwxt screen I'm warned about another system installed being overwritten. I can only select Continue (C) or Cancel (ESC). If I go on, I'm propted how to format the C: partition ! I do NOT format it, then the last screen asks whether delete the content of C:\WINDOWS directory, or choose another dir. If I select Delete (L) I get the old installation destroyed.

I'm using a Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition disk.

i do too use w23k ent

This document was generated from the following thread: Converter and Windows activation

Can a LabManager VM disk size be increased (extended)?

Thu, 03 Jan 2008 17:17:33 GMT

I need to increase the disk size for some of my templates in LabManager. I don't see a way to do this through the interface or through VIC. I tried the following commands on the host server but got an error that you cannot extend the disk you have to extend the parent.

Power off the VM

Go to the console of the VMWare host server that hosts the VM

Change directories to \vmfs\volumes\(san disk label)

Change directories to the directory name of the server you want to expand

Type in the command vmkfstools -X ##G (servername.vmdk) (example: vmkfstools -X 90G aa-chatter.vmdk). The ##G is the total size of the file in GB. So if you have a 20GB file and you want to add another 10GB you would enter the new file size as 30GB

Logout of the console

Power on the VM

Start, run, diskpart

List the volumes in diskpart with "list volume"

Select the volume to be expanded with the command "select volume #" (where # is the number of the volume from the list volume command)

Enter the command ‘extend' to extend the volume.

Exit diskpart

That is exaclty how I did it.

Just make sure you're accessing the right folder, and not a linked clone.

Watch out; I would be very careful here. Direct access to Lab Manager VMs is not supported and can break a lot of things fast.

Lab Manager templates can be-- and often are linked clones, and aw Yeowow mentions you can't do a `vmkfstools -X` on a COW disk.

In addition, doing this on a Lab Manager disk may just break all the linked clones on top of it.

Thanks for the responses. So is there a supported way to extend the disk with LabManager VMs? Do we have to rebuild templates from scratch to extend the disk? That's a lot of rework.

Thanks.

Try it like this.

Go to Templates area
Highlight required Template name, and select Consolidate
Wait for consolidation to complete (if it is needed)
Highlight requried Template name, and select Properties
Make note of "VM Directory ID"
Login via SSH or console to your ESX Host
Navigate to your storage server of that VM (/vmfs/volumes/Local-RAID/VM/$VMDirectoryID)
Make a backup of the disk file (vmkfstools -i nameofvmdk.vmdk DestinationOfBackup.vmdk)
Increase the original vmdk size (vmkfstools -X 30G nameofvmdk.vmdk)
Back in Lab Manager, go to properties for the Template, and you should see your increased disk size.

This has worked successfully for me multiple times

Thanks a lot, Yeowow. That worked.

It appeared that this worked, however, when I create a new config from the template or deploy the template itself the disk is still only at my original size of 8Gb. The properties of the template show the new size of 20G.

Is there another step I missed? I followed the steps in Yeowow's reply.

Thanks

The steps I listed only allowed you to grow the Virtual Disk.

You will still need to run a disk tool to utilise the new space available (fdisk/gparted/Partition Magic/etc)

This document was generated from the following thread: Can a LabManager VM disk size be increased (extended)?

App' 6756 error client,164 Rethrowing MethodFault sysimage.fault.OsVersionNotFound

Mon, 10 Dec 2007 11:15:57 GMT

5 --2007-12-08 13:01:47.117 'App' 6756 error-- client,164 Rethrowing MethodFault sysimage.fault.OsVersionNotFound:
5 --2007-12-08 13:01:47.117 'App' 6492 error-- importSource,357 Unable to read OS info from system disk: sysimage.fault.OsVersionNotFound
5 --2007-12-08 13:01:47.117 'App' 6492 error-- imageProcessingTaskImpl,552 VmiQuerySourceInfoTask::task{4}: Image processing task has failed with MethodFault::Exception: sysimage.fault.UnableToDetermineGuestOs
5 --2007-12-08 13:01:47.117 'App' 6492 verbose-- imageProcessingTaskImpl,154 VmiQuerySourceInfoTask::task{4}: SetState to error
5 --2007-12-08 13:01:47.164 'App' 6492 verbose-- disposable,122 object explicitly disposed: VmiQuerySourceInfoTask::task{4}
5 --2007-12-08 13:01:47.164 'App' 6492 verbose-- imageProcessingTaskImpl,123 VmiQuerySourceInfoTask::task{4} being destroyed
--2007-12-08 13:02:08.868 'App' 3756 verbose-- CloseSession called for session id=BD1E2F94-B2A8-475A-B9A0-A53748C37F51
--2007-12-08 13:02:08.868 'VmdbAdapter' 3756 verbose-- Removed vmdb connection /db/connection/#5/

convert VMware Server VM to ESX 3.0.1 VM

Sun, 18 Nov 2007 23:23:53 GMT

Method 1 Vmware Converter running directly on Vmware Server (Cold clone)

* Install Vmware Converter on to the Vmware Server and reboot if prompted

Shutdown the VM to be converted
Run Converter and select Import Machine
Click Next at the Welcome screen and Next again at the Source screen
Select Standalone virtual machine, backup or disk image as your source and click Next
Browse to your VMs vmx file and click Next
Select either Import all disks and maintain size or Select volumes and resize to save or add space, select your volumes and enter a new disk size if necessary and click Next
Click Next at the Destination screen
Select VMware ESX Server or VirtualCenter virtual machine as your destination and click Next
At the destination login screen enter your VC/ESX server name and login credentials and click Next
Enter a Virtual Machine name and folder and click Next
Select a Host/Cluster and click Next then select a Datastore and click Next
Enter your NIC information and click Next then click Next again at the customization screen
Click Finish when it completes
Edit your new VMs settings and remove any extra hardware if not needed, ie. USB devices, serial and parallel devices, Floppy drive and change the SCSI adapter to LSI Logic if needed
Power on your new VM and uninstall VMware tools (VMware server version)
Restart server
Remove old virtual machine hardware
o Open CMD prompt and type SET DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES=1 and then DEVMGMT.MSC
o Select Show Hidden Devices from top menu
o Remove old greyed-out non-present hardware, ie. old processor, disk drives, IDE/SCSI controllers, storage volumes, etc.
Reboot and install VMware tools (ESX version) and you are finished

Method 2- Vmware Converter running directly on Virtual Machine (Hot clone)

Install Vmware Converter on to the Virtual Machine and reboot if prompted
Run Converter and select Import Machine
Click Next at the Welcome screen and Next again at the Source screen
Select Physical Computer as your source and click Next
Select This local machine and click Next
Select either Import all disks and maintain size or Select volumes and resize to save or add space, select your volumes and enter a new disk size if necessary and click Next
Click Next at the Destination screen
Select VMware ESX Server or VirtualCenter virtual machine as your destination and click Next
At the destination login screen enter your VC/ESX server name and login credentials and click Next
Enter a Virtual Machine name and folder and click Next
Select a Host/Cluster and click Next then select a Datastore and click Next
Enter your NIC information and click Next then click Next again at the customization screen
Click Finish when it completes
Edit your new VMs settings and remove any extra hardware if not needed, ie. USB devices, serial and parallel devices, Floppy drive and change the SCSI adapter to LSI Logic if needed
Power on your new VM and uninstall VMware tools (VMware server version)
Restart server
Remove old virtual machine hardware
1. Open CMD prompt and type SET DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES=1 and then DEVMGMT.MSC
2. Select Show Hidden Devices from top menu
3. Remove old greyed-out non-present hardware, ie. old processor, disk drives, IDE/SCSI controllers, storage volumes, etc.
Reboot and install VMware tools (ESX version) and you are finished

This document was generated from the following thread: convert VMware Server VM to ESX 3.0.1 VM

Virtual Machines status not correct vissible

Fri, 28 Sep 2007 20:53:23 GMT

Hello,

We have at the office 3 ESX servers, after upgrading to the new version of VirtualCenter 2.0.2 I can see that only on one of our ESX server nodes the status is correct visuable

see screenshot

http://www.fekanv.be/vmware.jpg

Regards,
Kurt

TRy reinstalling vmware tools

I was having the same problem and a service vmware-vpxa restart brought back all of the status lights for my vms.

I see you beat me to the punch bjmoore !

Our shop too has been experiencing this issue. It started after VC 2.0.1 Patch 2. It happens pretty much anytime after a host is rebooted, or the Virtual Center service is restarted on the VC server.

For us this happens 100% of the time upon a host reboot/VC service restart. Every time we have to restart the vpxa client on the host.

I have an open ticket with support, but they haven't been able to fix this issue.

Is anyone else experiencing this issue?

To compare notes. Our VC server is win2k3 R2 SP2, SQL2005 SP2. Fully patched ESX 3.0.1 hosts. Our VMs are a mix of linux and windows. We are running from an iSCSI SAN.

Message was edited by: joelgb

Yep that did the trick

service vmware-vpxa restart

I hope they fix it in the near future

kurt remember to assign points for helpful/correct answers.

See you on VMTN

Pardon my ignorance but where exactly is this vpxa service - on the ESX host itself or the guest VMs? If on the ESX host how do you go about restarting it?

Many thanks.

Chris

You'd SSH into the console of your ESX server, su - to get root access and then type "service vmware-vpxa" restart. It should show you progress for restarting the service. After a few minutes VC will poll the ESX host again and the status lights should reappear.

Fantastic - that's done the trick. Many thanks.

I'm also getting this problem.
I can get the status back by #service vmware-vpxa restart but then if I restart the virtual center service, i lose all the vm status and have to run service vmware-vpxa restart on each host again. Has everyone who upgraded to 2.0.2 got this problem?

I have the same issue :

VCenter 2.0.2
ESX 3.0.2

Some VM's didn't show the status so I restarted the vmware-vpxa service.
Now all VM's don't show the status.
I've done this 15 minutes ago.

???

I saw a similar problem after I restarted the VC service on the windows server it was hosted on. I might suggest restarting that service, then restarting mgmt-vmware and vmware-vpxa again.

good luck!

Now took a look at the affected server and still the VM*s status is missing.

So I did

service vmware-vpxa stop
service mgmt-vmware restart
service vmware vpxa start

and now the status is back :o) but VMware needs to fix it.
I do not want to connect to each ESX (we have about 50 at the moment)
and issue those commands ... what about a centralized CLI interface in VCenter guys ???

It would be easier with it to implement those workarounds ... :o)))

I've got the same issue. Just upgraded VirtualCenter to 2.0.2

VCenter 2.0.2
ESX 3.0.1

Some VMs had a status, some did not. After restarting the VCenter Service I have no status on any VMs

After restarting mgmt and vpxa I now have status on all of my windows server guests, but not for my Linux Guests.

FYI - If I point my VIClient to my host server instead of my Virtual Center Server, I have a status on all guests (even before stopping and restarting mgmt and vpxa)

Message was edited by:
hazent

I see the status of Winodws & Linux VM's after restarting

mgmt-vmware and vmware-vpxa

Did someone create a SR with VMware ?

I think I will create one today.

I've got a SR open...still working on it though.

I just recreated all of my VM-related alarms and that seemed to clear it up, at least for now...

My guess is that even after recreating all your VM alarms, if you restart the Virtual Center Service your status lights will stop working again. At least that is what happens on our setup.

I had a SR open but after trying many things (recreating alarms, reinstalling the vpxa agents on the ESX hosts, total fresh reinstall of virtual center and database on a VM instead of a physical host), it was closed because our ESX servers are not running on supported hardware. We run IBM x345's(not supported) an equallogic SAN, qlogic 4052c HBAs, and each box has Quad Port Intel Gigabit NICs.

bjmoore: If you don't mind, what hardware are you running and are you on totally supported hardware? How much troubleshooting have you done with this issue?

Looks like you're right. After I restarted the VirtualCenter service the status lights disappeared again. I'm on fully supported hardware. Mostly I've been back and forward with support. It seems like they're still trying to get a handle on a lot of the new 2.0.2 bugs. At least this one's not major.

That's not nice !
We have an ELA Platinum.
I will create a SR next monday because I spend today much time in restarting the agents and I can imagine that restarting the VCenter service would end up in loosing all status information.

Our HW is HP Proliant DL 385 G1 / G2 DL 585 HDS San ...

I am seeing the same thing also running on HP hardware

Thank You everyone!
I'm glad my trials are reproducible on supported hardware. For us at least this problem showed up sometime after a 2.0.1 patch back in early June.

Heres what I have gathered so far:
It seems to me that some of the alarms are not working properly and/or are not correctly refreshing the status lights correctly. If you remove all virtual machine alarms, your status lights will never change and will always be white (by design I believe).

Some of the alarms appear to not be changing the status color initially to green. This idea is confirmed as I have noticed that a status light will change if an alarm is triggered (maybe a CPU alarm changing from white to yellow or red, and then will return back to green). From that time on, that VM's status light appears to be working fine. The alarms not initially changing the status light are: VM CPU, VM Mem, VM Disk, VM Network

I then found that If I added either one of the following two alarms, Virtual Machine State or Virtual Machine Heartbeat, the status lights would initially turn green. The status lights continue to stay green even after restarting the Virtual Center Service, no restart of vmware-vpxa on the hosts is required.

So for right now I have added the Virtual Machine Heartbeat monitor, also thinking that maybe the status lights not working are the Virtual Center service missing some heartbeats. The only oddity I am seeing is that powered-off on virtual machines have a status of green. As it was explained to me, powered-off VMs should not display a status light... I haven't had too much time to work on that issue.

Additionally I tried setting the VM State alarm up (set yellow and red triggers to none) and this alarm also makes all status lights turn green.

I've also noticed after upgrading to VC 2.0.2 the alarm actions are not working. Even after restarting VMware-vpxa and mgmt-vmware. I was able to resolve this by disabling the alarm, then re-enabling it.

I am having the same problem with HP 585 G1 /G2 and Fuijtsu Server RX600 S1 .

I have the same issue
I think its because the VC and the ESX rebuild version is not the same
VC = 2.0.2 50618
ESX's = 3.0.2 52542

I have been opened support ticket to that no resolved yet

The lust time its work for me when the VC and ESX's rebuild was the same
VC = 2.0.0 27704
ESX = 3.0.0 27701

Maybe in 3.1.0...

Current fix from support is to run the service restart options for mgmt and vpxa; this does not work for very long however. You will find that after a day the status begins to disappear from the VMs.

Don't care about the build number.

the version is important (ESX 3.0.2 and VC 2.0.2)

I am also seeing this issue, 2.0.2 with 3.01 and 3.02 mixed.

All VMware certified IBM gear.

I also see this issue.

2.02 and 3.02 on HP DL585.

Is it ok to:
service vmware-vpxa stop
service mgmt-vmware restart
service vmware vpxa start
on a production system?
I read that the vm's could restart if you did a restart on mgmt-vmware on a non patched system?

--
Regards Falk
Sweden

I can also see this issue, certified hardware: 2.02 & 3.02 HP DL385 w/ QL4050

It seems that after the 2.02/3.02 upgrade my alarms don't work anymore. I can get them to turn "green" if I add a heart-beat alarm to the VM, however they don't trigger anymore (turn orange or red) for memory or CPU. Only the HB will produce an alarm.

I may remove every alarm and re-create. That and start a ticket with VMW so they know this is a widespread problem.

I also have this problem, very heavy!!!!

3 ESX 3.0.2 (IBM 3650) (DS4800 SAN)

1 VC 2.0.2

What's the solution?

Lieber Mailserver

Vielen Dank für Ihre e-Mail. Ich bin bis am Freitag, 5.10. ausser Haus. Ihre Nachricht wird nicht weitergeleitet.

In dringenden Fällen wenden Sie sich bitte an die Zentrale: +41 32 344 86 00. Diese wird Sie mit einer zuständigen Ansprechperson verbinden.

Freundliche Grüsse
Markus Blunier

The solution is to edit every alarm, and change the values for warn and alarm to something new and apply. Then edit the alarms and change the values back. Aparently the values get truncated during the upgrade and have to be re-created before they are actually set post upgrade.

All of my alarms are now working after editing.

Thanks Bill!
i'll try tomorrow

Bill,

Editing all of the alarms changing yellow and red values; save; and change back to original values resolved my issues with the alarms as well.

Thanks for the good work,

Todd

RESOLVED Editing alarms many thanks!!!

Ercole77

This document was generated from the following thread: Virtual Machines status not correct vissible