VMware Communities : Document List - VMware vSphere™

VMware ESX 4 with VMware vCenter on VMware Workstation 7

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 16:50:57 GMT

Documentation about installation and testing of VMware ESX 4, VMware vCenter Server in VMware Workstation 7.

http://www.docstibr.net/docs/virtualizacao/vmware-vsphere-4

vSphere PowerCLI 4.0 Update 1 Cmdlet Reference

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 08:59:10 GMT

Consolicate Backup Dell MD300i Proxy San Win3k Setup

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 21:57:38 GMT

VMware Go vs vSphere Client

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 12:18:13 GMT

Introduction

VMware Go is a Cloud based application that enables you get up and running quickly with VMware virtualization in a completely automated fashion.

Web Browser Interface
Easy-to-use Wizard
Quickly create ESXi
Easily add VM
Manage ESXi and VM

VMware Go - http://www.vmware.com/go/vmware-go/
VMware to launch Go: a free web management service for ESXi - http://www.virtualization.info/2009/08/vmware-to-launch-go-free-web-management.html
VMware Free Service Simplifies ESXi Hypervisor Use - http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Virtualization/VMware-Free-Service-Simplifies-ESXi-Hypervisor-Use-341468/

VMware Go vs vSphere Client

VMware Go will require only a browser (but you DO need to install the web client "helper" tools in order to use the Web UI, it is NOT a fully web-based UI to ESXi)
VMware can manage more ESXi from a single interface (as vCenter Center)
VMware Go gives you the ability to patch scan VM's and also patch scan the ESXi itself and update it if needed (as vCenter Center)
VMware Go can manage P2V conversion (as vCenter Center or Standalone Conveter)
VMware Go it is free... as vSphere Client (but not as vCenter Center)

VMware Go is in beta version...
Future releases of VMware Go will also incorporate many other useful features

Source

Differences/benefits over vSphere client?

Vshphere Reference

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 11:49:19 GMT

Clarificaiton on Fault Tolerance

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 02:39:02 GMT

Can someone help clarify the following:

vShpere 4.0, ESXi 4.0.

When a guest OS has been configured for FT running in lock step on two hosts, what happens if that guest OS system suffers from a server panic, or the appication freezes or crashes. Does the guest machine on the secondary host also display the same conditions? Thanks, -Jeff

Yes - FT does not protect against OS or application failures, only underlying hardware failures.

--Matt
VCP, vExpert, Unix Geek

Thanks Matt.

This document was generated from the following thread: Clarificaiton on Fault Tolerance

Solution: SQL Server did not start after upgrade to ESX 4 because of missing msvcp71.dll

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 00:24:18 GMT

I got error events 7009 (Timeout waiting for the MSSQL service to
connect) and 7000 (The service did not respond to the start or control
request in a timely fashion) for my MS SQL Server after the upgrade to 4.0

Reason: It is a missing dll: msvcp71.dll

When I upgraded the VMWare tools, the 3.5 tools are uninstalled along
with msvcp71.dll from both the VMWare Tools directory and System32.
VMWare tools 4.0 does not require msvcp71.dll, so the .dll is never
returned.

Solution: Download msvcp71.dll from dll files athttp://www.dll-files.com/dllindex/dll-files.shtml?msvcp71and copy it to %windir%\system32

Can someone report this bug to vmware?

VMware FT

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 10:33:08 GMT

FT Information

http://www.vmware.com/products/fault-tolerance/
Meet the Engineer Series: VMware Fault Tolerance
http://tech.philipsellers.com/2008/09/20/introduction-to-vmware-ft-fault-tolerence/
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1010601 - Understanding VMware Fault Tolerance
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1013428 - VMware Fault Tolerance FAQ
FT not supported on Nehalem systems with hyperthreading enabled?

About vLockStep:
http://software.intel.com/en-us/blogs/2009/05/28/instruction-level-lock-step-parallelism-on-desert-islands/
http://mordtech.com/tag/vlockstep/

FT requirements

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1008027 - Processors and guest operating systems that support VMware Fault Tolerance

To check compatibility there is also a VMware utility:
Site Survey - http://www.vmware.com/download/shared_utilities.html

FT 1.0 limitations

Only 1 vCPU for each VM protected by FT
Require compatible CPU (http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1008027)
No vmxnet3 support (http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1013757)
No snapshot support (and no VCB and other snap-based backup program)
No physical RDM (Need clearification on FT requirement)
Do not use both ESX and ESXi hosts in clusters with fault tolerant virtual machines (http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1013637)

FT vs VM HA or MSCS

FT does not protect against OS or application failures, only ESX host failures.
Clarificaiton on Fault Tolerance

Enable/Disable FT with script

Could be useful to implement some backup solution on FT protected VM.
on-demand FT, can this be automated?
ftCLI.pl - VMware Fault Tolerant Managment

ESX4 (vSphere) on Sun V20z

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 00:29:12 GMT

Hi,

Has anyone gotten vSphere ESX 4 to run on a Sun V20z server?

If so, were there any issues with the install, and was it stable?

Thanks,

Bayley

Bringing Green IT to Data Storage - Doing More with Less Power

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 22:20:35 GMT

HA iSCSI Target on Ubuntu Server 9.04

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 13:13:00 GMT

Virtual SCSI Adapter type

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 19:21:21 GMT

LSI vs Buslogic (ESX/ESXi 3.x)

In ESX 3.x there are two different type of virtual SCSI adapters: Buslogic and LSI Logic (new from ESX 2.x)
The backend for Buslogic / LSILogic is almost identical, with very minor differences due to the hardware specs being different. The differences only apply during device driver loading, and should not affect I/O speed.

The real reason for two controllers is driver support. Older OSes have default driver support for Buslogic (e.g. Windows 2000 install CD), newer OSes do not have Buslogic drivers but do have LSILogic drivers (e.g. Windows 2003, 2008 install CDs). Pick the controller for which it is easier to obtain a driver for the guest.
Windows 2000 has by default the BusLogic driver, and Windows 2003 the LSI Logic.

For Linux in most cases, VMware recommends that you use the LSI Logic virtual SCSI adapter with all Red Hat guest operating systems. However, ESX Server 2.5.2, 2.5.3, 2.5.4, and 2.5.5 support only the BusLogic SCSI adapter. VMware provides a separate BusLogic driver for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 Upgrades 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 (see http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/linux_install_config.pdf).

To change adapter type:
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1002149 - Changing the virtual SCSI controller of a virtual machine
http://www.bahramov.com/2009/07/10/how-to-replace-buslogic-with-lsi-logic-scsi-controller-on-virtual-machine/

Possible performance issues with Buslogic virtual adapter:
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1614 - Effective BusLogic Qdepth is Limited to One on Windows 2000 SP3, 2003, or XP
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1890 - Limited Disk Throughput from Windows with BusLogic Adapter Causes Performance Problems
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1306 - NOT_IMPLEMENTED Errors in Windows NT, 2000, XP, and Server 2003 Virtual Machines on ESX Server 2.0 and 2.1

Possible problem with LSILogic:
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1006224 - Windows Guests Installed with LSI Logic Storport Driver 1.26.05 Crash while Booting

And here is some LSILogic tuning knobs to play with that I haven't made time to test yet:
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/9645697 - Large I/Os Are Split into 64KB Units When Using LSILogic Driver

New adapters (ESX/ESXi 4.x)

With vSphere there are two new virtual SCSI adapters: LSI logic SAS and VMware Paravirtualized (PVSCSI).
The old adapters are now called: LSI logic parallel and Buslogic parallel.

LSI Logic SAS is intended for use with Windows 2008 only for clustering.
Note that VMware doesn’t support using the PVSCSI adapter for boot devices. That is not to say that it doesn’t work (it does work), but that it is not supported.

For PVSCSI see:
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1010398 - Configuring disks to use VMware Paravirtual SCSI (PVSCSI) adapters
http://blog.petecheslock.com/2009/06/03/how-to-add-vmware-paravirtual-scsi-pvscsi-adapters/

Know problem with PVSCSI:
http://blog.scottlowe.org/2009/07/05/another-reason-not-to-use-pvscsi-or-vmxnet3/

More information

LSI or BUS Logic
SCSI Controller Type
Re: LSI vs Buslogic Clarification?
Re: LSI vs BusLogic.
Re: What is the diffrent in LSI and SCSI disk types ?
Re: LSI logic Parallel, LSI logic SAS, Buslogic parallel (Not recommended for guest OS), vmware paravirtual

Getting Started with the vMA (tips/tricks)

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 18:06:35 GMT

Author: William Lam
Twitter: @lamw
Website: http://engineering.ucsb.edu/~duonglt/vmware/

Getting started with Documentation:

Visit the vMA Home Page:

VMware vMA

vMA Forum:

VMware vSphere™ Management Assistant (vMA)

You will find latest Downloads, Reference Documentation and Community Discussions and links to resources.

Downloads:

VIMA 1.0 Download - Supports ESX(i) 3.5u2+
vMA 4.0 Download - Supports ESX(i) 3.5u2/4.0 and vCenter 2.5/4.0

Examples

Examples of vMA/VIMA usage:

http://engineering.ucsb.edu/~duonglt/vmware/#vmware_vima

Scripts and Tools

New tools and scripts to add/manage ESX(i) and vCenter targets on vMA 4.0:

http://engineering.ucsb.edu/~duonglt/vmware/#vmware_vma

vMA Compatible Agent/Scripts(Third Party) Community List:

vMA Compatible Agent/Scripts(Third Party) Community List

Health check reports on your VMware environment:

VMware vSphere Health Check Report v1.3 - vMA 4.0
VMware Health Check Report v0.9.4 - VIMA 1.0

Taking screenshots of your VM using vMA 4.0:

takeVMScreenshot.pl using vMA 4.0

Host and VM shutdown with UPS integration using vMA:

ESX/ESXi APC/APCUPSD Host Shutdown VI Perl Toolkit Script (ghettoShutdown.pl/upsVIShutdown.pl)

Backup VMs using vMA:

ghettoVCBg2 - Free alternative for backing up VMs in ESX(i) 3.5 and 4.x (no SSH console required!)

Utilize vi-fastpass On vMA to run Perl script without clear text password:

useVIFastpassOnvMAToRunPerlScriptWithoutClearTextPassword.pl

Tweaks

Hot add memory to vMA or other supported Linux guestOSes using vSphere ESX(i) 4.0:

Hot add memory to vMA or other supported Linux guestOSes using vSphere ESX(i) 4.0

How to increase/resize vMA Disks:

How to increase/resize vMA Disks

Offline patching of vMA 4.0:

Update vMA without internet access

How to install VMware VDDK on vMA:

How to install VDDK 1.1 on vMA 4.0 (libfuse.so.2 fix)

Enable root account:

Edit /etc/passwd

sudo vi /etc/passwd

Change

root:x:0:0:root:/root:/sbin/nologin

root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash

Help us improve our document, provide additional useful information and share with a friend.

VMDK virtual disk type

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 07:38:51 GMT

VMware virtual disk type

There are different type of virtual disks in VMware world.

From point of view related with the disk size there are two different types:

thick (or preallocated)
thin (or dynamically)

From point of view related with the number of files there are two different types:

monolithic (a single data file)
split (more data files, usually with a fixed size like, for example, 2 GB)

In ESX Server only monolithic format (thin or split) is directly supported.
In VMware Server and Workstation also split format is supported.

For more information see:
http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/thin_provisioning_datasheet.pdf
http://thinkvirtualization.net/2009/02/the-thick-and-the-thin-of-a-vmdk/

Type conversion

With Workstation there is the vmware-vdiskmanager command:
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1004022

With ESX there is the vmkfstools command:
http://vmetc.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/man-vmkfstools.txt

With ESX and vCenter Server is possible use the "migrate" function to move vmdk files and (if needed) change the type (between thin and thick). But all disks will have the same format.
With SVMotion license this operation could also be done the a "live" VM.
Without vCenter Server, is possible convert a thin disk to a thick with datatostore browser and the inflate option on the vmdk file (but the VM must be powered off).
To convert a thick disk to a EagerZeroed (for FT usage), simple enable FT on a powered-off VM: the disk will be automatically converted!

Note that by default ESX/ESXi disks are ZeroedThick, from vSphere is possible (also from the GUI) build thin disks (choosing "thin provisioning") or EagerZeroed Thick disks (choosing "support clustering feature").

Choose the right type

Choosing a virtual disk type for VMware Workstation/Server:
http://sanbarrow.com/vmdk/monlithicversussplit.html

Choosing a virtual disk type for VMware ESX:
http://searchvmware.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid179_gci1348873,00.html

Disk type in ESX

	Thick	ZeroedThick	Thin	EagerZeroed Thick
Creation Time	Fast	Same as Thick	Fastest	Extremely slow, and linearly proportional to size of disk
Block Allocation	Fully preallocated	Same as Thick	Allocated, on demand, on first write to the block Zero size on creation	Same as Thick
Virtual Disk Layout	Due to preallocation, it has a higher chance of using contiguous file blocks.	Same as Thick	Layout varies according to dynamic state of the volume at the time of on-demand block allocation.	Same as Thick
Zeroing of Allocated File Blocks	File blocks are not zeroed out.	File blocks are zeroed, on demand, upon first write to virtual disk.	File blocks are zeroed out upon block allocation.	File blocks are zeroed out upon creation of the virtual disk (blocks are allocated and zeroed).
I/O speed	Max all the time	Reduced at beginning due to zeroing blocks on first access	Reduced slightly more than ZeroedThick due to allocating and zeroing blocks on first access	Same as Thick
Security	Insecure - VM can read what was on partition before VM deployment	Secure	Secure	Secure

Source: http://communities.vmware.com/message/1380846

A Summary of FT Related Documents

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 18:55:57 GMT

(This may not be complete. Feel free to add.)

VMware Fault Tolerance
http://www.vmware.com/products/fault-tolerance/
FT Guide and Whitepapers:
vSphereTM Availability Guide
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40/vsp_40_availability.pdf
VMware Fault Tolerance Recommendations and Considerations on VMware vSphereTM 4 http://www.vmware.com/resources/techresources/10040
VMware vSphereTM 4 Fault Tolerance: Architecture and Performance http://www.vmware.com/resources/techresources/10058

Forum:
http://communities.vmware.com/community/vmtn/vsphere/availability?view=discussions

Knowledge base articles:
FT Compatible Processors
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1008027

Tools:
Vmware SiteSurvey Tool
http://www.vmware.com/download/shared_utilities.html

vServer Center Cluster Compliance Check (part of vCenter)

If you can access VMworld 09 sessions online,
VMworld 2009 sessions:
BC3425 VMware Availability Solutions and Futures
BC3369 VMware Fault Tolerance Real-World Use Cases
BC2961 VMware Fault Tolerance Architecture and Performance
BC3197 High Availability - Internals and Best Practices
BC3370 FT Overview and Best Practices
BC3602 Fault Tolerance - vSphereTM Workflows and API Considerations (an online presentation)
BC2407 When to use Fault Tolerance in Virtualized Data Centers (an online presentation)
BC2260 Automated Disaster Recovery for Branch Offices using SRM and vSphereTM 4
BC3421 Site Recovery Manager Architecture & Features: The Road Ahead
BC2142 Data Recovery – Install/Configure and Troubleshooting

ESX version and build number

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 17:41:57 GMT

How to read the build number

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1012514 - Determining detailed build number information for VMware ESX 4.0.x hosts
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1001179 - Determining detailed build number information for VMware ESX 3.0.x and 3.5.x hosts
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/392 - Determining VMware Software Version and Build Number

Service/Management Console mode

The build number at server console is the version of the VMware Kernel.
To read this number use this command:
vmware -v

VIC or VS Client mode

The build number which you see at vSphere Client is the hostagent version number.
For example, for ESX 4.0, after installing the latest patches your server console would show 193498, vSphere Client would show 175625. If you have installed patches released on 08/06, then the console would show 181792 and vSphere client would show 175625.

Convert a build number in a ESX version

For the major releases, not including patches between roll-ups, you can look at the download page (for each product version you see also the relative build number).
http://downloads.vmware.com/d/info/datacenter_downloads/vmware_vsphere_4/4
http://www.vmware.com/download/vi/

Or the quick and dirty solution is to google the build number

To know the applied patch you can use:
esxupdate -l info

ESX/ESXi 3.5 versions

http://www.techhead.co.uk/how-to-determine-the-vmware-esx-or-esxi-build-version
ESXi 3.5 - What 'update' am I using.

VMware Data Recovery step-by-step for Newbie's

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 05:49:26 GMT

Virtual NIC type

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 08:08:55 GMT

Available Network Adapters

The following network adapters may be available for your virtual machine, depending on the factors discussed above:

Vlance - An emulated version of the AMD 79C970 PCnet32 LANCE NIC, an older 10 Mbps NIC with drivers available in most 32bit guest operating systems except Windows Vista and later. A virtual machine configured with this network adapter can use its network immediately.

VMXNET - The VMXNET virtual network adapter has no physical counterpart. VMXNET is optimized for performance in a virtual machine. Because operating system vendors do not provide built-in drivers for this card, you must install VMware Tools to have a driver for the VMXNET network adapter available.

Flexible - The Flexible network adapter identifies itself as a Vlance adapter when a virtual machine boots, but initializes itself and functions as either a Vlance or a VMXNET adapter, depending on which driver initializes it. With VMware Tools installed, the VMXNET driver changes the Vlance adapter to the higher performance VMXNET adapter.

E1000 - An emulated version of the Intel 82545EM Gigabit Ethernet NIC, with drivers available in most newer guest operating systems, including Windows XP and later and Linux versions 2.4.19 and later.

VMXNET 2 (Enhanced) - The VMXNET 2 adapter is based on the VMXNET adapter but provides some high-performance features commonly used on modern networks, such as jumbo frames and hardware offloads. This virtual network adapter is available only for some guest operating systems on ESX/ESXi 3.5 and later.
VMXNET 2 is supported only for a limited set of guest operating systems:
- 32 and 64bit versions of Microsoft Windows 2003 (Enterprise and Datacenter Editions). You can use enhanced VMXNET adapters with other versions of the Microsoft Windows 2003 operating system, but a workaround is required to enable the option in VMware Infrastructure (VI) Client or vSphere Client. See Enabling enhanced vmxnet adapters for Microsoft Windows Server 2003 (1007195) if Enhanced VMXNET is not offered as an option.
- 32bit version of Microsoft Windows XP Professional
- 32 and 64bit versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.0
- 32 and 64bit versions of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10
- 64bit versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.0
- 64bit versions of Ubuntu Linux

VMXNET 3 - The VMXNET 3 adapter is the next generation of a paravirtualized NIC designed for performance, and is not related to VMXNET or VMXNET 2. It offers all the features available in VMXNET 2, and adds several new features like multiqueue support (also known as Receive Side Scaling in Windows), IPv6 offloads, and MSI/MSI-X interrupt delivery.
VMXNET 3 is supported only for virtual machines version 7 and later, with a limited set of guest operating systems:
- 32 and 64bit versions of Microsoft Windows XP and later
- 32 and 64bit versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.0 and later
- 32 and 64bit versions of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 and later
- 32 and 64bit versions of Asianux 3 and later
- 32 and 64bit versions of Debian 4/Ubuntu 7.04 and later
- 32/64bit versions of Sun Solaris 10 U4 and later

Adapter Caveats

This section discusses some potential problems you might have.

Migrating virtual machines that use enhanced vmxnet
VMXNET 2 is new with ESX 3.5 virtual machines configured to have VMXNET 2 adapters cannot migrate to earlier ESX hosts, even though virtual machines can usually migrate freely between ESX 3.0 and ESX 3.0.x.
If you must migrate a virtual machine between later and earlier hosts, do not choose VMXNET 2.

Upgrading from ESX 2.x to ESX 3.x
When a virtual hardware upgrade operation transforms a virtual machine created on an ESX 2.x host to an ESX 3.x host, Vlance adapters are automatically upgraded to Flexible. In contrast, VMXNET adapters are not upgraded automatically because most or all Linux guest operating system versions do not reliably preserve network settings when a network adapter is replaced. Because the guest operating system thinks a Flexible adapter is still Vlance, it retains the settings in that case. If the upgrade replace a VMXNET adapter with a Flexible adapter, the guest operating system erroneously discards the settings.
After the virtual hardware upgrade, the network adapter is still VMXNET, without the fallback compatibility of the Flexible adapter. Just as on the original earlier host, if VMware Tools is uninstalled on the virtual machine, it cannot access its network adapters.

Adding virtual disks
Adding an existing earlier (ESX 2.x) virtual disk to an ESX 3.x virtual machine results in a de-facto downgrade of that virtual machine to ESX 2.x. If you are using ESX 3.x features, such as enhanced VMXNET or Flexible network adapters, the virtual machine becomes inconsistent. When you add an existing ESX 2.x virtual disk to an ESX 3.x machine, immediately use the Upgrade Virtual Hardware command to restore the virtual machine to the ESX 3 version. This problem does not arise when you add earlier virtual disks to an ESX/ESXi 4.0 virtual machine.
Note: Executing Upgrade Virtual Hardware changes the ESX 2 virtual disk so that it is no longer usable on an ESX 2 virtual machine. Consider making a copy of the disk before you upgrade one of the two copies to ESX 3 format.

Problems with VMware FT
The new vmxnet3 virtual NIC is not compatible with VMware FT, see: http://blog.scottlowe.org/2009/07/05/another-reason-not-to-use-pvscsi-or-vmxnet3/

Performance difference

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsp_4_vmxnet3_perf.pdf
http://blog.vmpros.nl/2009/09/22/vmware-performance-evaluation-of-vmxnet3-virtual-network-device/

Reference

Choosing a network adapter for your virtual machine - http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1001805
http://blogs.vmware.com/networking/2009/06/what-vnic-choosing-an-adapter-for-your-vm.html
vmxnet3 - features and use information - tips and tricks
Which NIC for Windows 2008? E1000 or VMXNET 3?

ESX Update Tools

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 14:42:55 GMT

ESX Install Kit

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 13:42:26 GMT

Networking drop in Red Hat 5.4 VM

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 17:08:34 GMT

Hi all,

I am posting this question to see whether any of you hear similiar issue before. We are facing this one
at the customer site now.

The VM (Red Hat Linux 5.4) is running on vSphere RTM. It is
running fine for a while. Then, if we leave it for some time, we found that we were
able to ping it. However, if you login it via vSphere console, just do a ifconfig, and then it will be able to ping again from outside. It looks like
something was suspended … Same VM running on SUN virtualization platform does not have
such issue.

BTW, firewall is turned off, VMware tool has been reinstalled.

Thanks!

New version of vifs.pl

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 10:38:19 GMT

How to Install ESX 4.0 on Workstation 6.5.2

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 22:06:13 GMT

Backup solutions for VMware ESXi

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 05:44:17 GMT

Free solutions

ghettoVCB
ghettoVCB.sh - Free alternative for backing up VM's for ESX(i) 3.5 and 4.0+
ghettoVCBg2 - Free alternative for backing up VMs in ESX(i) 3.5 and 4.x (no SSH console required!)
This script performs backups of virtual machines residing on ESX(i) 3.5/4.0+ servers using methodology similar to VMware's VCB tool.
It's created and well maintained by lamw

Other script based solutions
Another ESXi backup script
http://communities.vmware.com/blogs/gabrielmaciel/2008/12/08/free-vm-backup-alternative-for-esx-35-and-esxi
Re: Free ESXi Backup Solution for Windows
Any new backup VM Solutions - ESX 3.5

VMware Converter Standalone
http://www.vmware.com/products/converter/
Is not designed as a backup solution, but could be used also for this purpose.

File copy solutions
For a powered off VM is possible to simple copy all the files in the VM folder.
To use also with a powered on VM you need to do create a VMware snapshot to unlock the *-flat.vmdk files
To make this copy several tools could be used:

Datastore browser (directly from VIC or vSphere Client)
SCP / Veeam fastSCP (need to enable SSH access: http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2008/08/10/howto-esxi-and-ssh/)

VMware solutions (need license)

VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB)

VMware Data Recovery (VDR)
http://www.vmware.com/products/vcenter-data-recovery/

Commercial solutions that may support ESXi in the future releases

esXpress
http://phdvirtual.com/products/esxpress-virtual-backup
esXpress radically alters the notion of how to protect data in virtual infrastructures in one simple way: we use the virtual infrastructure to backup and restore itself!
esXpress v3.6 is Compatible with VMware ESX v3, v3.5 and vSphere4.

Vizioncore vRanger Pro 4.0
http://www.vizioncore.com/products/vRangerPro/
http://www.vizioncore.com/products/vRangerPro/documents/vRangerPro-DPP-FAQ.pdf
vRanger Pro Data Protection Platform (DPP) is the market-leading backup, recovery and backup management solution for virtual environments. The 4.0 release is the next generation of vRanger Pro which features a completely redesigned architecture, including plug-n-play modularity and a service-based architecture. VMware ESX3.x and VMware ESX 4.x upon initial release. Future releases include support for: VMware ESXi 3.x, VMware ESX & ESXi 3.x VCB, VMware ESXi 4.x, VMware ESX & ESXi 4.x VCB.

The free ESXi "problem"

With the free version of ESXi then you cannot actually use a third party tool to perform any backups. This is against your EULA. If it is the paid version of ESXi go for it.
So be sure which you are using to be sure you do not violate the EULA.

As for other mechanisms, you can snapshot the VM and then copy the data via the vSphere Client/VIC as well. There is also VMware Converter. These tools do not violate the EULA.

See also: http://www.virtualizationpractice.com/blog/?p=274 - VMware Forcing Third Parties to NOT Sell Products for Free ESXi

Storage based solutions

If you have a stora NFS base, then file copy could be simple...
For other shared storage you can use storage snapshots.

Backup ESXi configuration

You can use the RCLI to make a backup configuration of your ESXi host using
esxcfg-cfgbackup
You can find more information for the RCLI documentation here: http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_35/esx_3/r35u2/vi3_35_25_u2_rcli.pdf

There are also other ways to do a backup of ESXi configuration, see:
http://www.r71.nl/index.php/kb/technical/212-vmware-esxi-configuration-backup
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/software/eslvmwre/DG/ESXi_3_5_U4/HTML/app_c.htm

vMA Compatible Agent/Scripts(Third Party) Community List

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 23:57:33 GMT

Folks,

The intention of this document is to list third party agents / scripts that work with vSphere Management Assistant.

If you are a third party software vendor, or anyone with an interesting script that you have tested on vSphere Management Assitant, please add to the list below. The benefit is that the community will be able to determine and quickly see if your agent runs on vMA. This is very much a community effort and look for your help in maintaining this list.

Product Name	Owner	Link	vMA Compatible Version
VMware Health Check Report v0.9.4	William Lam	VMware Health Check Report v0.9.4	VIMA 1.0
VMware vSphere Health Check Report v1.2	William Lam	VMware vSphere Health Check Report v1.3	vMA 4.0
ghettoShutdown.pl/upsVIShutdown.pl	William Lam	ESX/ESXi APC/APCUPSD Host Shutdown VI Perl Toolkit Script (ghettoShutdown.pl/upsVIShutdown.pl)	VIMA 1.0
ghettoVCBg2	William Lam	ghettoVCBg2 - Free alternative for backing up VMs in ESX(i) 3.5 and 4.x (no SSH console required!)	vMA 4.0

Instructions on how to install vCLI 32bit/64bit on Ubuntu 9.04

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 02:17:59 GMT

Apparently VMware vCLI does not support Ubuntu 9.04 out of the box per Re: Installing vCLI on Ubuntu Server 9.04, but thanks to eparthuisot, it's actually only two packages that you need to install to get the latest version of vCLI installed on your minimal Ubunutu server.

Setup:
Ubuntu server 9.04 (32bit or 64bit)
VMware-vSphere-CLI-4.0.0-161974.i386.tar (32bit installer)
VMware-vSphere-CLI-4.0.0-161974.x86_64.tar (64bit installer)
libxml-libxml-perl
libclass-methodmaker-perl

Instructions:

0. Verify version of Ubuntu:

primp@ubuntu-test:~$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 9.04
Release:        9.04
Codename:       jaunty

Steps for installing on Ubuntu Server 9.04 32bit:

1. Download vCLI from VMware's site and upload via scp or other means to your Ubuntu system

2. Download and install libxml-libxml-perl and libclass-methodmaker-perl and libcrypt-ssleay-perl

primp@ubuntu-test:~$ sudo apt-get install libxml-libxml-perl
[sudo] password for primp:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
  libxml-libxml-common-perl libxml-namespacesupport-perl libxml-sax-expat-perl libxml-sax-perl
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  libxml-libxml-common-perl libxml-libxml-perl libxml-namespacesupport-perl libxml-sax-expat-perl libxml-sax-perl
0 upgraded, 5 newly installed, 0 to remove and 51 not upgraded.
Need to get 523kB of archives.
After this operation, 2064kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y
.......

primp@ubuntu-test:~$ sudo apt-get install libclass-methodmaker-perl
.......

primp@ubuntu-test:~$ sudo apt-install libcrypt-ssleay-perl 
.......

Note: If you're doing this as a regular user, you may need to use sudo or switch over to root to perform these elevated operations

3. Extract vCLI tar file

primp@ubuntu-test:~$ tar -zxvf VMware-vSphere-CLI-4.0.0-161974.i386.tar.gz
.......

4. Install vCLI

primp@ubuntu-test:~$ cd vmware-vsphere-cli-distrib/

primp@ubuntu-test:~/vmware-vsphere-cli-distrib$ sudo ./vmware-install.pl
Creating a new vSphere CLI installer database using the tar4 format.

Installing vSphere CLI.

Installing version 161974 of vSphere CLI


You must read and accept the vSphere CLI End User License Agreement to
continue.
Press enter to display it.

......
<stick with the defaults>
......

Please wait while copying vSphere CLI files...

The installation of vSphere CLI 4.0.0 build-161974 for Linux completed
successfully. You can decide to remove this software from your system at any
time by invoking the following command:
"/usr/bin/vmware-uninstall-vSphere-CLI.pl".

This installer has successfully installed both vSphere CLI and the vSphere SDK
for Perl.

Enjoy,

5. Verify vCLI

primp@ubuntu-test-32bit:~$ esxcfg-nas -l --server himalaya.primp-industries.com --username root
Enter password:

dlgCore-NFS-bigboi.VM-Backups is /exports/XXXXXX from A.B.C.D mounted

Steps for installing on Ubuntu Server 9.04 64bit:

1. Download vCLI from VMware's site and upload via scp or other means to your Ubuntu system

2. Download and install libxml-libxml-perl and libclass-methodmaker-perl

primp@ubuntu-test:~$ sudo apt-get install libxml-libxml-perl
[sudo] password for primp:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
  libxml-libxml-common-perl libxml-namespacesupport-perl libxml-sax-expat-perl libxml-sax-perl
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  libxml-libxml-common-perl libxml-libxml-perl libxml-namespacesupport-perl libxml-sax-expat-perl libxml-sax-perl
0 upgraded, 5 newly installed, 0 to remove and 51 not upgraded.
Need to get 523kB of archives.
After this operation, 2064kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y
.......

primp@ubuntu-test:~$ sudo apt-get install libclass-methodmaker-perl
.......

Note: If you're doing this as a regular user, you may need to use sudo or switch over to root to perform these elevated operations

3. Extract vCLI tar file

primp@ubuntu-test:~$ tar -zxvf VMware-vSphere-CLI-4.0.0-161974.x86_64.tar
.......

4. Install vCLI

primp@ubuntu-test:~$ cd vmware-vsphere-cli-distrib/

primp@ubuntu-test:~/vmware-vsphere-cli-distrib$ sudo ./vmware-install.pl
Creating a new vSphere CLI installer database using the tar4 format.

Installing vSphere CLI.

Installing version 161974 of vSphere CLI


You must read and accept the vSphere CLI End User License Agreement to
continue.
Press enter to display it.

......
<stick with the defaults>
......

Please wait while copying vSphere CLI files...

The installation of vSphere CLI 4.0.0 build-161974 for Linux completed
successfully. You can decide to remove this software from your system at any
time by invoking the following command:
"/usr/bin/vmware-uninstall-vSphere-CLI.pl".

This installer has successfully installed both vSphere CLI and the vSphere SDK
for Perl.

Enjoy,

5. Verify vCLI

primp@ubuntu-test-64bit:~$ esxcfg-nas -l --server himalaya.primp-industries.com --username root
Enter password:

dlgCore-NFS-bigboi.VM-Backups is /exports/XXXXXX from A.B.C.D mounted

and now you're on your way to using vCLI on Ubuntu!

VDR

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 13:23:34 GMT

why the storage list is null when I add a new virtual machine?

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 06:06:32 GMT

Hi, guys

I am evaluating the VMware vCenter 4.0 and VMware ESX server 4.0. They both set up in the Dell PC machines.
I can connect the VMware ESX machine successfully using VMware vSphere client. But when I try to "New Virtual Machine" , I select "Typical"->"Name"->"Datastore", there is nothing in the "Datastore" list. why? How to configure this?

Can anyone help me? Many thanks!

move template to another pc or storage

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 08:45:23 GMT

i want move my template to another pc for a backup.can its possible on esx server.

Using VI Toolkit from .Net C#

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 05:44:54 GMT

http://www.slideshare.net/vmwarecarter/using-vi-toolkit-for-windows-from-net#

Check for Privileges

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 03:14:42 GMT

Storage configure in the Desktop PC

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 12:31:36 GMT

takeVMScreenshot.pl using vMA 4.0

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 05:30:33 GMT

Ever run into issues with your VMs where you have some debugging information logged to the console and you want to take a screenshot of it using vSphere API?

Requirement
ESX(i) 4.0 (must execute against individual ESX(i) host and not vCenter)
vMA 4.0

Sample Execution:

[vi-admin@scofield ~]$ ./takeVMScreenshot.pl --server himalaya.primp-industries.com --username root --vmname William-XP
Enter password:

Initiating screenshot of William-XP ...
Successfully capture screenshot from William-XP!
Downloading "William-XP-screenshot-0.png" to "vm_screenshots/William-XP-screenshot-0.png"
Removing screenshot "William-XP-screenshot-0.png" from ESX(i) host ...

Here is what William-XP-screenshot-0.png looks like:

Hot add memory to vMA or other supported Linux guestOSes using vSphere ESX(i) 4.0

Sun, 09 Aug 2009 18:47:36 GMT

Summary

This document will demonstrate how to hot add memory to a live running vMA (RHEL5) VM using vSphere ESX(i) 4.0, this feature is only supported on certain guestOSes, check vSphere documentation for more information.

Resources

http://adaptivethinking.wordpress.com/2009/07/27/vsphere-esx4-hot-add-memory-for-linux-guests/

Requirements

ESX(i) 4.0
vMA 4.0 or other supported Linux guestOSes

Instructions

1. Hot add memory requires a VM to be running hardware version 7 and since vMA 4.0 by default is distributed as HW4, you'll need to first right click on the VM and upgrade to hardware 7 before powering on the VM. You will also need to enable hot add memory which is a new configuration item once you've upgraded to HW7 under OPTIONS->Memory/CPU Hotplug and just select 'enable'

2. Power on vMA

3. Let's verify the default memory available within vMA (this can be done using free,/proc/meminfo,top,etc)

[vi-admin@vMa-resize ~]$ free -m
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:           498        178        320          0          6         98
-/+ buffers/cache:         73        425
Swap:         1023          0       1023

[vi-admin@vMa-resize ~]$ cat /proc/meminfo m
MemTotal:       510668 kB
MemFree:        327696 kB
Buffers:          6740 kB
Cached:         101200 kB
SwapCached:          0 kB
Active:         110392 kB
Inactive:        43864 kB
HighTotal:           0 kB
HighFree:            0 kB
LowTotal:       510668 kB
LowFree:        327696 kB
SwapTotal:     1048568 kB
SwapFree:      1048568 kB
Dirty:              24 kB
Writeback:           0 kB
AnonPages:       46340 kB
Mapped:          43704 kB
Slab:            12584 kB
PageTables:       2408 kB
NFS_Unstable:        0 kB
Bounce:              0 kB
CommitLimit:   1303900 kB
Committed_AS:   222648 kB
VmallocTotal: 34359738367 kB
VmallocUsed:    263328 kB
VmallocChunk: 34359474423 kB
HugePages_Total:     0
HugePages_Free:      0
HugePages_Rsvd:      0
Hugepagesize:     2048 kB

Default installation of vMA 4.0 is 512mb of memory, we'll increase this to 1gb

4. You will now use the vSphere Client and edit the vMA's memory and change it from 512mb to 1gb

5. Download and copy online_hotplug_memory.sh to vMA

[root@vMa-resize ~]# chmod +x online_hotplug_memory.sh

6. Execute the script which will find any new memory allocated to vMA and online the memory

[root@vMa-resize ~]# sudo ./online_hotplug_memory.sh
Found sparsemem: "/sys/devices/system/memory/memory0" ...
        memory0 already online
Found sparsemem: "/sys/devices/system/memory/memory1" ...
        memory1 already online
Found sparsemem: "/sys/devices/system/memory/memory2" ...
        memory2 already online
Found sparsemem: "/sys/devices/system/memory/memory3" ...
        memory3 already online
Found sparsemem: "/sys/devices/system/memory/memory4" ...
        memory4 is new memory, onlining memory ...
Found sparsemem: "/sys/devices/system/memory/memory5" ...
        memory5 is new memory, onlining memory ...
Found sparsemem: "/sys/devices/system/memory/memory7" ...
        memory7 is new memory, onlining memory ...

As you can see from the script output memory0-3 was already allocated and split up but memory4-7 was the newly added memory which needed to be brought online before the OS can use it.

7. Let's verify the new memory that has been allocated while the VM was running

[root@vMa-resize ~]# free -m
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:           882        188        694          0          7        100
-/+ buffers/cache:         80        802
Swap:         1023          0       1023

[root@vMa-resize ~]# cat /proc/meminfo
MemTotal:       903884 kB
MemFree:        711128 kB
Buffers:          7644 kB
Cached:         102612 kB
SwapCached:          0 kB
Active:         111996 kB
Inactive:        45060 kB
HighTotal:           0 kB
HighFree:            0 kB
LowTotal:       903884 kB
LowFree:        711128 kB
SwapTotal:     1048568 kB
SwapFree:      1048568 kB
Dirty:              36 kB
Writeback:           0 kB
AnonPages:       46836 kB
Mapped:          43708 kB
Slab:            12748 kB
PageTables:       2460 kB
NFS_Unstable:        0 kB
Bounce:              0 kB
CommitLimit:   1500508 kB
Committed_AS:   224736 kB
VmallocTotal: 34359738367 kB
VmallocUsed:    263628 kB
VmallocChunk: 34359474423 kB
HugePages_Total:     0
HugePages_Free:      0
HugePages_Rsvd:      0
Hugepagesize:     2048 kB

How to increase/resize vMA Disks

Sat, 08 Aug 2009 22:46:54 GMT

Summary:

If you're extensively using vMA's vi-logger functionality or storing lots of content on the default 5gb VMDK, you can easily fill up the disks. This document will provide the steps in resizing and increasing the disk sizes using LVM.

Environment:

vMA 4.0 or VIMA 1.0 (not testing on VIMA 1.0, but steps should be exactly the same)
SSH and/or vSphere Client console access

Operation:

Increase /var/log from 500MB to 10GB

Steps:

1. Here is a default vanilla installation of vMA

Last login: Sat Aug  8 15:00:31 2009 from 172.30.0.225

Welcome to vMA
run 'vma-help' or see http://www.vmware.com/go/vma4 for more details.

[vi-admin@vMa-resize ~]$ cat /etc/vima-release | head -1
vMA 4.0.0 BUILD-161992

[vi-admin@vMa-resize ~]$ df -h
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-root
                      3.3G  1.5G  1.7G  48% /
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-var
                      496M   19M  452M   4% /var/log
/dev/sda1              99M   16M   79M  17% /boot
tmpfs                 250M     0  250M   0% /dev/shm

2. Notice /var/log has total of 452MB free and I will attempt to fill it up to 98%

[vi-admin@vMa-resize ~]$ sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/var/log/big_ass_file bs=1M count=440
440+0 records in
440+0 records out
461373440 bytes (461 MB) copied, 9.64461 seconds, 47.8 MB/s

[vi-admin@vMa-resize ~]$ df -h
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-root
                      3.3G  1.5G  1.7G  48% /
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-var
                      496M  461M  9.9M  98% /var/log
/dev/sda1              99M   16M   79M  17% /boot
tmpfs                 250M     0  250M   0% /dev/shm

OH NO! /var/log is full, what to do! Let's increase the size of /var/log to 10GB, that should be plenty for logs.

3. Shutdown the vMA and edit the VM configurations and change the disk from 5gb to 15GB (increase of 10GB)

[vi-admin@vMa-resize ~]$ sudo shutdown -h now

4. Power back on vMA

5. As you can see we've grown the virtual disk from 5gb to 16gb

[vi-admin@vMa-resize ~]$ sudo fdisk -l
Password:

Disk /dev/sda: 16.1 GB, 16106127360 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1958 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1          13      104391   83  Linux
/dev/sda2              14         652     5132767+  8e  Linux LVM

6. Next we'll be creating a new partition with the new space

[vi-admin@vMa-resize ~]$ sudo fdisk /dev/sda

The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 1958.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
and could in certain setups cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
   (e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)

Command (m for help): n
Command action
   e   extended
   p   primary partition (1-4)
p
Partition number (1-4): 3
First cylinder (653-1958, default 653):
Using default value 653
Last cylinder or +size or +sizeM or +sizeK (653-1958, default 1958):
Using default value 1958

Command (m for help): t
Partition number (1-4): 3
Hex code (type L to list codes): 8e
Changed system type of partition 3 to 8e (Linux LVM)

Command (m for help): w
The partition table has been altered!

Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.

WARNING: Re-reading the partition table failed with error 16: Device or resource busy.
The kernel still uses the old table.
The new table will be used at the next reboot.
Syncing disks.

Note: The options were: n,p,3,<enter>,t,3,8e,w

7. We now verify the new partition has been created:

[vi-admin@vMa-resize ~]$ sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 16.1 GB, 16106127360 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1958 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1          13      104391   83  Linux
/dev/sda2              14         652     5132767+  8e  Linux LVM
/dev/sda3             653        1958    10490445   8e  Linux LVM

/dev/sda3 is our new partition which has been formatted with LVM, we now need to reboot vMA before continuing.

vi-admin@vMa-resize ~]$ sudo reboot

8. We need to add a physical volume before LVM can access the partition

[vi-admin@vMa-resize ~]$ sudo pvcreate /dev/sda3
  Physical volume "/dev/sda3" successfully created

9. Now we need to extend the existing volume group to the physical volume which was found by doing (df -h)

[vi-admin@vMa-resize ~]$ sudo vgextend VolGroup00 /dev/sda3
  /dev/hda: open failed: No medium found
  Volume group "VolGroup00" successfully extended

10. Now we'll want to extend the logical volume into the new space, but we want to make sure how much the system will give us in terms of free space

[vi-admin@vMa-resize ~]$ sudo vgdisplay | grep -i free
  Free  PE / Size       320 / 10.00 GB

As you can see, that is the additional 10GB we've added on top of the already existing 5GB

11. Now we extend the LV to /var and not to another mount point and we'll increase that to 10GB

[vi-admin@vMa-resize ~]$ sudo lvextend -L+10G /dev/VolGroup00/var
  Extending logical volume var to 10.50 GB
  Logical volume var successfully resized

12. Last step is to make this space available to the OS, on general RHEL systems you have access to ext2online but since vMA is a stripped down version of RHEL, that is not available. We'll make uses of resize2fs to accomplish the same task

[vi-admin@vMa-resize ~]$ sudo resize2fs -p /dev/VolGroup00/var
resize2fs 1.39 (29-May-2006)
Filesystem at /dev/VolGroup00/var is mounted on /var/log; on-line resizing required
Performing an on-line resize of /dev/VolGroup00/var to 11010048 (1k) blocks.
The filesystem on /dev/VolGroup00/var is now 11010048 blocks long.

Note: This task can take a few minutes depending on the disk size increase

13. Now we verify the new disk increase for /var/log for 10GB

[vi-admin@vMa-resize ~]$ df -h
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-root
                      3.3G  1.5G  1.7G  48% /
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-var
                       11G  462M  9.2G   5% /var/log
/dev/sda1              99M   16M   79M  17% /boot
tmpfs                 250M     0  250M   0% /dev/shm

voilà! you've just increased the disk space on the default installation of vMA.

Quick Migrate Function

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 19:43:20 GMT

VMWare Quick Migration Function

Author: Justin Grote <jgrote NOSPAMAT enpointe DOT com>
Credit: Inspired by Mike DiPetrillo's Quick Migration Script: http://www.mikedipetrillo.com/mikedvirtualization/2008/10/quick-migration-for-vmware-the-power-of-powershell.html
Version: 0.1
Last Revised: 31 July 2009

Description: Performs the fucntional equivalent of a Hyper-V Quick Migration by suspending a VM,
moving it to a new host, and resuming it. This does not require vMotion licensing.
it works by providing required VM objects via the pipeline or the second argument,
and specifying the Destination host in the first argument.
The commeand accepts both text strings and VMHost objects for the VMHost Parameter

Prerequisites:
Powershell v1
VMWare PowerCLI 4.0 (May work with earlier version but not tested)

Instructions to Install: Save this script and import into your session with, for example, . C:\temp\quickmigrate.ps1
You can also include it in your PowerCLI profile to have it automatically included.

Command Usage: get-vm MyTestVM | Quick-MigrateVM "MyTestHost2"

Disconnect the FC SAN before installation or not?

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 12:11:02 GMT

If I remember well you had to disconnect the shared SAN storage from the second node of the ESX cluster before you install ESX on that node otherwise it reformatted it without a question during installation

Is this still true with ESX 4i?

Thanks,

Rudi

ESX 4 crashing

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 01:04:58 GMT

I have recently upgraded to ESX 4 and I have noticed when at the console, if I try to delete a file not in use in a datastore my blade goes into PSOD. Does anyone have any ideas what I can look for. I have recently contacted technical support and they are reviewing my crash dump files... Just checking if anyone else has seen this type of behaivor.... My SAN storage is Overland Ultamus 1200 connected to a C7000 blade center with (4) ESX 4 servers.

Has anyone ever seen where you cannot delete files from a datastore?

Any assistance will do.

Changes to the ESX Service Console for ESX 4.0

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 23:25:20 GMT

Get-Stat2 : another way of getting at the statistical data

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 15:18:59 GMT

With the release of PowerCLI v4 the Get-Stat cmdlet has been much improved.

In October 2008, as a temporary solution for the problems with the Get-Stat cmdlet in older PowerCLI or VITK releases, I wrote the Get-Stat2 script.
The Get-Stat2 script allows lightly different parameters than the regular Get-Stat cmdlet.

For that reason I will make the Get-Stat2 script available again (the original document was removed some time ago).

But please only use this script when you couldn't get the result you needed with the current Get-Stat cmdlet!

An extract from the original document:
The script accepts the following parameters:

-Entity <VIObject>	: the object for which the statiscal data will be collected. Only 1 object allowed !
-Start <DateTime>	: start of the interval
-Finish <DateTime>	: end of the interval
-Stat <string[]>	: array of statistic identifiers
-Instance <string>	: some statistic identifiers allow instances.
                        ("" : aggregate (default) / "*" : all instances / array of specific instances)
-Interval <string>	: desired sampling interval, allowed values: "RT","HI1","HI2","HI3","HI4"
			  RT : real time
                          HI : historical interval
                         (results in these defaults 20, 300, 1800, 7200, 86400 seconds)
-Maxsamples <int32>	: only for "Real time" interval; number of intervals
-QueryMetrics		: return all available metrics for the Entity
-QueryInstances	: return all available instances for the Entity and Stat

Update 01/11/08
When you add a new resource to an entity, the statistical data for historical intervals will not be available immediately.
You will have to wait at least till the sampling period of the historical interval has expired.
The QueryPerf method will return sampling periods (date/time stamps) but there will be no statistical data (yet).

Example:

you add a vCPU to a virtual machine
data for HI2 for that CPU instance will only be available after +/- 30 minutes

The minimum wait time to see data for a new resource:

RT 20 secs
HI1 5 mins
HI2 30 mins
HI3 2 hours
HI4 1 day

To avoid errors from the Get-Stat2 function a test was added to verify if any data was returned by the QueryPerf method.
If there is no data, the Get-Stat2 function returns $null.

The attached script has been updated.

Update 15/02/09
The attached Get-Stat2.ps1 script has been updated.
The changes:

corrected MaxSamples parameter
corrected Cluster entity clastype
corrected missing Start and Finish parameters test
added -QueryMetrics option
added -QueryInstances option

With the addition of these last two parameters, the script can now be used to

query all the valid metrics for a specific entity
query all the valid instances for one or more metrics

Example -QueryMetrics


$esx = Get-VMHost <ESX-hostname> | Get-View
./Get-Stat2.ps1 -entity $esx -querymetrics |ft

produces an array of custom objects like this


Group                Name                               Rollup                  Id               Level                Type Unit
-----                ----                               ------                  --               -----                ---- ----
clusterServices      cpufairness                        latest                 105                   1            absolute number
clusterServices      memfairness                        latest                 106                   1            absolute number
cpu                  idle                            summation                 112                   3               delta millisecond
cpu                  reservedCapacity                  average                 110                   2            absolute megaHertz
cpu                  usage                             average                   2                   1                rate percent
cpu                  usage                             maximum                   4                   4                rate percent
cpu                  usage                             minimum                   3                   4                rate percent
cpu                  usagemhz                          average                   6                   1                rate megaHertz
cpu                  usagemhz                          maximum                   8                   4                rate megaHertz
cpu                  usagemhz                          minimum                   7                   4                rate megaHertz
cpu                  used                            summation                 111                   3               delta millisecond
disk                 busResets                       summation                 115                   3               delta number
disk                 commands                        summation                 113                   3               delta number
disk                 commandsAborted                 summation                 114                   3               delta number
disk                 deviceLatency                     average                 156                   2            absolute millisecond
disk                 deviceReadLatency                 average                 148                   2            absolute millisecond
disk                 deviceWriteLatency                average                 152                   2            absolute millisecond
disk                 kernelLatency                     average                 157                   2            absolute millisecond
disk                 kernelReadLatency                 average                 149                   2            absolute millisecond
disk                 kernelWriteLatency                average                 153                   2            absolute millisecond
disk                 numberRead                      summation                  91                   3               delta number
disk                 numberWrite                     summation                  92                   3               delta number
disk                 queueLatency                      average                 159                   2            absolute millisecond
disk                 queueReadLatency                  average                 151                   2            absolute millisecond
...

Example QueryInstances


$esx = Get-VMHost <ESX-hostname> | Get-View
./Get-Stat2-v1.1.ps1 -entity $esx -stat "disk.deviceLatency.average","net.received.average" -queryinstances | ft

produces an array of custom objects like this


Stat                                                                    Instance
----                                                                    --------
disk.deviceLatency.average                                              vmhba0:0:0
disk.deviceLatency.average                                              vmhba0:1:0
disk.deviceLatency.average                                              vmhba32:0:0
disk.deviceLatency.average                                              vmhba32:0:1
disk.deviceLatency.average                                              vmhba32:1:0
disk.deviceLatency.average                                              vmhba32:11:0
disk.deviceLatency.average                                              vmhba32:2:0
disk.deviceLatency.average                                              vmhba32:2:1
disk.deviceLatency.average                                              vmhba32:6:0
disk.deviceLatency.average                                              vmhba32:6:1
disk.deviceLatency.average                                              vmhba32:7:0
disk.deviceLatency.average                                              vmhba32:7:1
disk.deviceLatency.average                                              vmhba32:8:0
net.received.average                                                    vmnic0
net.received.average                                                    vmnic1
net.received.average                                                    vmnic2
net.received.average                                                    vmnic3

Note that an instance can have a length zero for some metrics.
This ("") is the instance that returns the aggregated statistics value.


$esx = Get-VMHost <ESX-hostname> | Get-View
./Get-Stat2-v1.1.ps1 -entity $esx -stat "cpu.usage.average" -queryinstances | ft

returns


Stat                                                                    Instance
----                                                                    --------
cpu.usage.average
cpu.usage.average                                                       0
cpu.usage.average                                                       1

The first object in the array is the "aggregate" instance.

Update 02/03/09
The attached Get-Stat2.ps1 script has been updated.
The changes:

corrected issue with missing -Maxsamples parameter
corrected issue with incorrect instances returned for -QueryInstances
introduced default value ("RT") for -Interval parameter

Starwind iSCSI target and VmWare ESX Server

constantin.videnski@starwindsoftware.com — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 08:33:34 GMT

Simple VCB Script for Scheduled Tasks

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 19:01:21 GMT

I wrote this because of weak TSM controls:

servers.txt should have this format:

day fqdn
Mon server.domain.com
Tue server2.domain.com

REM #Set the path to include cygwin and TSM
path=%path%;D:\UserApps\VMware\VMWARE~1\Batch;D:\SystemApps\Tivoli\TSM\cygwin\

REM #Remove previous backups
rm -rf e:\mnt
mkdir e:\mnt
rm -f d:\userapps\TSM\PreScript.bat

REM #Get todays day of the week
date /t | gawk '{print $1}' > %temp%\day.txt
set /p day= < %temp%\day.txt
del %temp%\day.txt

REM #Output the backup script
echo path=%path%;D:\UserApps\VMware\VMWARE~1\Batch;D:\SystemApps\Tivoli\TSM\cygwin\ >d:\userapps\TSM\PreScript.bat

type d:\userapps\TSM\servers.txt | grep %day% | grep -v # | gawk '{print "cmd.exe /c pre-command.bat " $1 " " $2 "-FullVM" "\r"}' >> d:\userapps\TSM\PreScript.bat

REM #Start the backup process
D:\UserApps\TSM\PreScript.bat

VCB Backup Script written in VBS

samspade@u.washington.edu — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 18:54:38 GMT

This is a script that will use VMWare Consolidated Backups (VCB) to backup all of the VMs being managed by Virtual Center. It does afew things. First it pulls a list of all VM machines from Virtual Center. Then it loops through them and does either a full image backup or it will mount the file system (depending on how your VCB config is setup). This script will log to the Big Brother format and has a production and debug mode. Edit the first few lines first to meet your environment.

Issue getting healthcheck to run manually or scheduled

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 19:38:23 GMT

Up until ESX 3.5 Update 4 we had the HealthCheck script schedule to run everyday, but since we updated it does not seem to be able to run.

I have tried it manually and recieved this error:

vSphere PowerCLI C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\VIToolkitForWindows\Scripts> dir
Directory: Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\FileSystem::C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\VIToolkitForWindows\Scripts
Mode LastWriteTime Length Name
----

-a--- 7/7/2009 2:12 PM 16674 Healthcheck.ps1
-a--- 4/23/2009 6:56 AM 7771 Initialize-VIToolkitEnvironment.ps1
vSphere PowerCLI C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\VIToolkitForWindows\Scripts> ./Healthcheck.ps1
Incomplete string token.
At C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\VIToolkitForWindows\Scripts\Healthcheck.ps1:121 char:270
+ $vmhosts | Sort Name -Descending | % { $server = $_ |get-view; $server.Config.Product | select { $server.Name }, Version, Build, FullName }| Co
nvertTo-Html â?"body "<H2>$cluster Cluster Information.</H2>" -head "<link rel='stylesheet' href='style.css' type='text/css' / <<<< >" | Out-File -Ap
pend $filelocation
vSphere PowerCLI C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\VIToolkitForWindows\Scripts>

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated

NVidia NForce MCP73

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 17:16:05 GMT

Hello,

I have a ACER M3641 with a NVidia NForce MCP73 controller.

I saw that is is supported bij ESXi 4.0 but I cant get it to work.

with fdisk -l VM just doesn't see the drive.

Is it really supported?

Thanks in advance,

Mike

vmrun.exe error Error: Insufficient permissions in host operating system

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 02:58:33 GMT

Hi,

Does anyone have a listing of errors that vmru.exe produces and what they mean?

I have this error Error: Insufficient permissions in host operating system when I try to remote start a vm.

Regards,

Garry

Backup DOS script for VCB and ntbackup

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 16:29:47 GMT

A Simple DOS script to backup all guests on a specified host using VCB and ntbackup

Hopefully someone will find this useful!
I tired of looking for a reasonably priced backup solution to go with VCB (which I think is great!) so got down to pulling together a lot of googling to create a reasonable batch script for a simple manual backup rotation.

This is effectively a disk-disk-tape solution, although by 'tape' any storage device available to ntbackup could be used. You could also modify the script to omit the ntbackup parts and keep the vcb backup files

The calls the ntbackup are specifically dewsigned to avoid any tape management. The tape currently in the drive is erased, and the backup is written. It is ejected at the end of the operation so that it can be manually rotated.

Hell you can modify if however you like - just share it back to the community if you make it do something nice!

Pre-Requisites for Use

Essentials

Read the 'Terms of Use' for Community sample code! No warranty is offered on this script, it is for your own reference. If you choose to use it for production use, I cannot guarantee your backup. .. Use entirely at your own risk
No really - go and read the terms of use
A Windows OS VCB Backup proxy machine, with VCB fully installed
Enough disk space on this server to backup your largest guest
A valid license for VCB on your ESX host
A working backup device that can be used for backup by ntbackup

Nice to Haves

I use TrapGen (http://www.ncomtech.com/trapgen.html) to fire an SNMP trap to my network management station when the backup fails. You could replace this with any other command to make an alert, it just so happens my NMS like SNMP.

Watching the logs is made easy by use of baretail (http://www.baremetalsoft.com/baretail) - just associate this useful proggy with .log files and double-click the log.

Installation

Add a user 'backup' to your ESX host with appropriate rights, set a nasty obfuscated password
Add the environment variable vmpwd to your VCB backup proxy machine, setting it's
value to the password
Make a working directory on your VCB backup proxy machine. For example C:\Backup
Make a subdirectory script
Make a subdirectory vcbmount (your temporary backup storage before going to tape)
Create a script file backup.cmd and paste in the code
Use Task Scheduler or similar to make a job, redirecting output to a backup.log file in your backup directory
You can test by doing a run now on your task
Change the parameters at the top of the script to appropriate values for your system
Find LTO Ultrium and Quantum LTO - change these to your tape library name. For some reason I haven't managed to parameterise these
If you're not using network based disk method, change the -m nbd parameter appropriately

If you want to use TrapGen.exe then put the executable in your script subfolder, and create another command file backup_failed.cmd to send the trap according

to your requirements. Alternatively make this script take whatever alert action you require.

The Script

::back up all guests on a specified ESX host listed in a control file populated by listing guests on
the host
@echo off
set debug=OFF
for /f "Tokens=1-4 Delims=/ " %%i in ('date /t') do set dt=%%i-%%j-%%k-%%l
for /f "Tokens=1" %%i in ('time /t') do set tm=-%%i
set tm=%tm::=-%
set dtt=%dt%%tm%
set skipguest=:
rem -- SET YOUR VALUES FOR THE FOLLOWING
set bd=C:\Backup
set esxhost=myesxhost
echo --%date% %time% - Starting Backup script for ESX host %esxhost% at %dtt%
IF "%debug%"=="ON" (echo DEBUG MODE ACTIVE - NO ACTIONS WILL BE TAKEN)
echo   Refreshing RSM library
IF "%debug%"=="OFF" (rsm.exe refresh /LF"Quantum LTO 2 Tape Drive")
echo --%date% %time% - Discovering Guest list for ESX host %esxhost%
"C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Consolidated Backup Framework\vcbvmname" -h %esxhost% -u backup -p
%vmpwd% -s Any -L 0 > %bd%\script\%esxhost%_vm_list.txt
echo   Making initial backup of scripts and RSM database
::the next command is REALLY fussy don't fiddle with it if possible!
IF "%debug%"=="OFF" (ntbackup.exe backup "@%bd%\script\InitialLocal.bks" /n "TAPE-%esxhost%-%dtt%"
/d "SET-%esxhost%-%dtt%" /snap:on /v:no /r:no /rs:no /hc:on /m normal /j "JOB" /l:f /p "LTO Ultrium"
/um)
if ERRORLEVEL 1 GOTO :errexit
echo   Entering VM Backup loop
for /F "skip=10 tokens=1,2 delims=:" %%i IN (%bd%\script\%esxhost%_vm_list.txt) DO (
IF "%%i%"=="name" (
echo     %date% %time% - Starting VCB backup of guest %%j
IF "%debug%"=="OFF" (
IF EXIST %bd%\vcbmount\%%j (RD /S /Q %bd%\vcbmount\%%j)
"C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Consolidated Backup Framework\vcbMounter" -h %esxhost% -u backup
-p %vmpwd% -a name:%%j -r %bd%\vcbmount\%%j -t fullvm -m nbd
)
if NOT ERRORLEVEL 1 (
echo     %date% %time% - Starting backup to tape of guest %%j
IF "%debug%"=="OFF" (ntbackup.exe backup %bd%\vcbmount\%%j /a /t "TAPE-%esxhost%-%dtt%" /snap
:off /v:no /r:no /hc:on /m normal /l:f )
if NOT ERRORLEVEL 1 (
echo     %date% %time% - successful tape backup of guest %%j
) ELSE (
echo     %date% %time% - failed tape backup of guest %%j
set skipguest=%skipguest%,%%j
)
) ELSE (
echo     %date% %time% - Failed VCB snapshot of guest %%j
set skipguest=%skipguest%,%%j
)
IF "%debug%"=="OFF" (IF EXIST %bd%\vcbmount\%%j (RD /S /Q %bd%\vcbmount\%%j))
)
)
echo   %date% %time% - Ended VM Backup loop
IF "%skipguest%"=="" (
echo --%date% %time% - Generating SNMP trap due to skipped guest
CALL backup_failed.cmd
)
IF "%debug%"=="ON" (
echo IN DEBUG MODE - FORCING SNMP TRAP
CALL backup_failed.cmd
)
echo   Ejecting tape
IF "%debug%"=="OFF" (rsm.exe eject /PF"TAPE-%esxhost%-%dtt% - 1" /astart)
echo   Guests not backup up or skipped%skipguest%
echo --%date% %time% - Ending Backup script for ESX host %esxhost%
goto :finish

:errexit
echo There was an error existstatus returned from the initial backup command
echo --%date% %time% - Generating SNMP trap due to skipped guest
CALL backup_failed.cmd

:finish

Known Issues

The timestamp written to the logs doesn't update - really need to make a function call for this

Couldn't parameterise the tape library name and similar parameter for the RSM refresh for some reason - I blame the ntbackup command as this is very fussy!

NBD method not parameterised

Meet the Engineer Series: VMware Host Profiles

Thu, 21 May 2009 23:39:16 GMT