VMware Communities : Thread List - VI: VMware ESX™ 3.5

Improvement in Backup Speed related to separate vlan for backup.

sayhi2shariq — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 07:56:11 GMT

Hi,
We have created a separate vLAN for backup in our infrastructure. So we have configured the same on our physical switch as well as added an extra NIC on each of the physical as well virtual servers to facilitate the backup process on different vLAN.

For understanding, the configuration are like

Each physical esx server is having four NIC.

NIC 1 - vmnic0 - Virtual switch - vswitch0 - VLAN 3
NIC2 - vmnic1 - VLAN8 This one we have created for storage and backup purpose
NIC3 , NIC4 - vmnic2/vmnic3 - Team - Trucking on ( All VLAN accessible ) - Assgin to virtul machine.

Other details :

VLAN 8 Backup 255.255.252.0

Now the question is although Backup Speed has been improved for physical machines significantly but in the case of virtual servers there is no improvement.

I request someone from the community to advice me on the same.

Need a confirmation

Lotus91000 — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 23:29:41 GMT

Hi there,

Somebody told me that is not necessary to set a broadcast when we change the IP address on a ESX Server.
So, instead to type: esxcfg-vswif -a vswif0 -p "Service Console" -i 172.23.206.61 -n 255.255.254.0 -b 172.23.206.254
We can just type:esxcfg-vswif -a vswif0 -p "Service Console" -i 172.23.206.61 -n 255.255.254.0

Is it true or no? And what the reason.

Cheers for your feed back

ESX 3.5 Host Hardware Replacement Job

pomiwi — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 03:34:28 GMT

Hi all

I am about to perform the following two tasks. Please could you review and make comments as appropriate?

__Task One__

3 x ESX 3.5 Servers in Cluster. All licenses in use. Need to replace all 3 x servers with new hardware.

I have heard that you cannot add additional servers to existing clusters when no licenses exist, i.e. you can only run eval licensing on single servers. What I propose to do is put 1 x host into maintenance mode and let all VMs migrate off. Remove the server both from virtual center and physically. Install the new server giving it the same name/IP address and add to the cluster. Let all VMs migrate over to the server. I will use the same method for all servers over a period of say 3 days - i.e. if we have a PSOD we can put the old server back in etc.

__Task Two__

Setup a new Cluster with 2 x new hosts and migrate VMs from 2 x ESXi FREE boxes running on local storage.

What I propose to do is to setup the new cluster with datastores etc.. install convertor on VC, power off the VMs on the ESXi FREE boxes, run convertor and migrate them from local storage over to SAN storage being hosted in the new cluster

Cheers

HA and Vmotion a extreme status

miaohl — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 09:35:50 GMT

I've got a quesiton about the HA and Vmotion a extreme stauts in VI3.5.
Supposing I had two ESX Servers who enable HA and Vmotion. The source esx suddenly goes down when a vm is running Vmotion from source esx to destination esx. Will the Vmotion continue or cancel? Is there a conflict between Vmotion and HA?

Lun Replication manual failover steps ?

galibai — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:59:51 GMT

Hi, I have gone through various sites about DR - Lun Replication. I have kind of idea about this. But I need to be sure that the steps that I am taking is right.

We have 2 datacenter - One is LA and other is NY. We are going to use SRM and also manual failover (because the LUNs are getting replicated). We dont want to put too much of money on SRM. So we thought we can use the Lun Replication and register the VMs at the other site.

Steps that needs to be taken, if they are going to be bi-directional site

1) Let us say if LA Datacenter has a disaster and we need to get up and running at NY what needs to be done ?

Break the replication

Not sure if this step is right, please tell me if this is wrong - On each ESX host in the Cluster where these VMs are going to poweron I will first have to EnablResignaure set to 1. (Do I need to this on all the nodes in the Cluster OR just one node will do the trick?

After the resignature, I will scan for the new Luns and then Once I get that I will register them to my VC server and power-on the VMs at NY.

Is this sufficient OR there is more to this? Also, how can I get the VMs back to LA?

Thanks

ESX stopped respoding to management functions

clydef — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 22:55:22 GMT

All.

I have a ESX3.5 U2 that has stopped responding to management functions.

The VI client attached directly hangs trying to build the VM servers list in the left hand pane as does the web browser.
The VI client talking to the database cannot start a VM without timing out and shows 0% CPU and memory in the summary page.

I've stopped and started the management services without any luck. We migrated to V4 about two weeks ago without any issues and we have another server that runs the ESX3.5 U2 thats fine.

Any ideas.

Thanks

Asus M4A78-E

MasterPT — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 14:29:16 GMT

Hello all,

I need to install a homelab, I have Asus M4A78-E motherboard with AMD 955 processor and 16gb memory.
All the esx 3.5 instalation and update 4 is donne, but............ when whe reboot i recieved the message "mounting root failed".
I need another raid card?
Any esx driver for SB700 Chipset 1 xUltraDMA 133/100/66 for up to 2 PATA devices 6 xSATA 3 Gb/s ports Support RAID 0,1,10,JBOD ?

Thanks .

And best regards

esxi 64 bit ram

lk5246 — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 03:54:29 GMT

i have a ESXi installed on my server i've but 4GB ram in it and ESXi reports 3.36 on vi client.. i have a 32 bit Pentium 4 thats problem . but what if i upgrade my Pentium 4 cpu to 64 bit will ESXi detect the 4GB ram or is becuase ESXi 32 bit. the bios reports the full ram. i just some understanding. if i have to 64 bit cpu will esxi see the full ram.

Thanks

Lekshmen Kannan

ESXI Installed on USB Drive

lk5246 — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 03:45:33 GMT

Hi i was wondering if installing esxi os on usb drive to boot is ok and not risk taking. i want to do this becuase i want the wrest of the hard drive for storage.

Thanks

Lekshmen Kannan

vmware esxi 3.5 supported

lk5246 — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 04:44:12 GMT

how long is vmware esx 3.5 32 bit suppotted for before vmware stops supporting it.

Thanks

Lekshmen Kannan

Rescanning HBA caused ESX to fail

Arkady — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:26:15 GMT

Hi,

I was rescanning HBAs on ESX host (version 3.5 Update 4) and host stopped responding in Virtual center.
I could not ping the host or connect via console, had to reboot.
I was scanning HBAs for more than a year without any issues.
Anybody experienced similar problems?

Thank you in advance!

I need a confirmation

Lotus91000 — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:00:11 GMT

Hi there,
Please can you give me a confirmation about this command:

1-esxcfg-vswif -a vswif0 -p Service Console -i 172.23.206.24 -n 255.255.254.0 -b 172.23.206.254 ?
2-esxcfg-vswif -a vswif0 -p "Service Console" -i 172.23.206.24 -n 255.255.254.0 -b 172.23.206.254?
3-esxcfg-vswif -a vswif0 -p ServiceConsole -i 172.23.206.24 -n 255.255.254.0 -b 172.23.206.254?
4-esxcfg-vswif -a vswif0 -p "ServiceConsole" -i 172.23.206.24 -n 255.255.254.0 -b 172.23.206.254?

Thanks

SAN performance testing

chukarma — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:10:24 GMT

Hello,

I understand we can set up a vm running under an ESX host and use tools such as i/o meter to test san performances. To avoid any possible Windows OS factor, VMkernel layer....etc Is there any way to test the SAN performance directly from the ESX server?

Thanks,
Daniel

As the VMware ESX download doesn't work

VMvareUpgrade — Tue, 19 May 2009 12:57:32 GMT

Hi,
Does somebody here know where I can download the VMWare ESX version 3.5 and the Virtual Center Server as the download Center doesn't work?
http://www.vmware.com/download/vi/
Thanks

|The Best Guy
|MSc in IT, University of Evry
|MCSE(Microsoft), CCA(Citrix)
|Paris-France

Converting a 2-node physical SQL cluster to a single VM

Brian Laws — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:51:47 GMT

I've got several SQL 2000 and SQL 2005 database clusters that I want to virtualize. Although I don't want them to be clustered anymore. I understand that there's still reason to do clustering in VMs, but we don't need it. The high availability provided by HA is good enough for us.

I have two primary requirements: capture all the configurations and objects in the active node (NTFS permissions, shares, applications, etc) and eliminate the need for SQL Enterprise Edition. It's the first requirement which makes it look like I need to convert the active cluster node. I can't guarantee that I can re-install everything; the risk is high. If I can get the active node virtual, then I can uninstall SQL, re-install Standard Edition, and restore the databases.

The trick, though, is in getting the active node virtual. Do any of you know of a good way to do that? Is there any software that could help? I very much want to avoid a re-install if I can help it. Thanks!!

what is the command for services restart ?

HitechCityHyd — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:45:42 GMT

what is the best command for vmware management services restart ?

Bash: esxcfg: command not found

HitechCityHyd — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:17:37 GMT

Hiii Friends,

this is the problem i am seeing......when i logon through the root user......when i type any esxcfg -nics -l (command) it says .......bash: esxcfg: command not found

what is the problem ?

where do i need to go on wich directory to work all these commands ( / ) ?

on which directory do all the ESX server regular commnads works ?

i appreciate you

Best P2V software

arturka — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:21:54 GMT

Currently I'm looking around for P2V software with some special features:

has to support Win2k hot block based migration with synchronization after first main migration

This is what I've found:

vConverter4 - I'm going to check it
Platespin8.1.1 - is supporting Win2K but I had a lot of problems with this tool when i was trying to use on Win2K as source servers
Vmware converter - supporting live migration of Win2k but without synchronization

Double take Move - doesn't support Win2K

Does anyone know any other software ?

Best Regards

Artur

ResourcePool.updateConfig failure in /var/log/vmware/hostd.log

tascheHyaene — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:25:46 GMT

Good afteroon,

I'm running a two-node ESX 3.5 cluster with vCenter 2.5. The cluster is running fine, and I recently started scouring logs looking for anything peculiar, just in case.

On one of the nodes, about every 10 minutes or so, two processes start and end in quick secession:

From /var/log/vmware/hostd.log:

~~2009-11-20 12:56:31.962 'TaskManager' 23034800 info~~ Task Created : haTask-ha-root-pool-vim.ResourcePool.updateConfig-270185
~~2009-11-20 12:56:31.962 'TaskManager' 23034800 info~~ Task Completed : haTask-ha-root-pool-vim.ResourcePool.updateConfig-270185
~~2009-11-20 12:56:32.032 'TaskManager' 21621680 info~~ Task Created : haTask-ha-root-pool-vim.ResourcePool.updateConfig-270186
~~2009-11-20 12:56:32.032 'TaskManager' 21621680 info~~ Task Completed : haTask-ha-root-pool-vim.ResourcePool.updateConfig-270186

After doing a vmware-vim-cmd vimsvc/task list, the output informs me that the process isn't running or the process never existed.

But like clockwork, about 10 minutes after the two tasks complete, I receive the following, again from /var/log/vmware/hostd.log:

~~2009-11-20 13:06:32.128 'PropertyCollector' 21621680 warning~~ GetPropertyProvider failed for haTask-ha-root-pool-vim.ResourcePool.updateConfig-270185
~~2009-11-20 13:06:32.129 'PropertyCollector' 21621680 warning~~ GetPropertyProvider failed for haTask-ha-root-pool-vim.ResourcePool.updateConfig-270186

Am I correct in assuming that 270185 and 270186 are references to specific processes?

If so, then why is the process ending and then reporting 10 minutes later that GetPropertyProvider failed? I'm guessing that the ESX box is trying to update the config on one or more resource pools, but why is it failing and should I be concerned?

The Internets and the google did not provide many tasty conclusive morsels in regards to this warning/failure and everything on both ESX boxes is running ok. I just want to make sure that this isn't part of something larger or will become part of something larger later on down the line.

Any opinions/questions/insights would be heartily welcomed.

Mcafee 100% cpu

msaville — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 20:30:46 GMT

Once a day when mcafee 8.7i gets its new dat file the on access demand will peg the processor to 100%. I started to notice this after the 8.7 upgrade and is most common on my terminal servers.

Any thoughts would be great.

Thanks

2008 R2 Slow

tkutil — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:18:54 GMT

I just installed 2008 R2 Server on my 3.5U4 and it took almost all morning to install and seems sluggish. Just wondering if this is supported on 3.5 and if anyone else experienced the same?

Script to find RDMs

hi1280 — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 02:39:17 GMT

This is my 1st offical communities post. Hopefully I'm following all the rules. I've followed both community posts that copied below. The rdm.sh posted by lamw (also attached below) at http://engineering.ucsb.edu/~duonglt/vmware/ is not producing accurate results for me. It does report back some of my RDM's, but not all. If it's something I'm doing wrong please don't fault lamw, it could just be my environment, please test his script as it did return some results for me. Has anyone (other then a 3rd party app) found a way to script an accurate report on all RDM's? Again below are the links that led me to the rdm.sh script. I'm running ESX 3.5 U4 on a 10 node ESX cluster over FC.

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/131228

http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-10188

Win Srv 2008 R2 support

DAbowitt — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:59:16 GMT

I setup a Windows Server 2008 R2 VM and had an issue with a couple of screens freezing such as the security configuration wizard.

Opened case with VMWARE and was told the Srv 2008 R2 is not officially supported yet and will be in a future patch fix to ESX 3.5.

Anyone can tell me when this will be supported as I want to roll out a migration from 2003 Domain Controller to Srv 2008 R2 DC's. Don't want to spend money on consultating to go to Srv 2008 SP2 and then have to spend again on R2 migration.

Also, anyone else try deployment of R2 and had success.

My config is 1VCPU, 4GB RAM, Enhanced VMXNET adaptor.

Thanks,

David Abowitt, VCP

OpenSSH GSSAPI allows elevated privileges

tupelo.operations — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:42:27 GMT

Would any of you guys know what patch addresses the {color:#000000}"OpenSSH GSSAPI allows elevated privileges" vulnerability? During a scan, 1 of our 11 ESX 3.5U4 hosts was dinged for this...no idea why the other 10 weren't. Any information would be appreciated.{color}

Message was edited by: Texiwill: Removed microsoft word foo

Clone Powered ON VM with RDM

Yamafrost — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:37:26 GMT

Hi all,

from your own experience, I would like to know if it's possible to clone a VM with a Virtual RDM disk without turning it off.

Thank You,
Alex

Snapshot issue in ESX 3.5

vpalan — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:05:36 GMT

When i try to delete my snapshot one of my VM through VC, am getting "operation timed out" error.

Command to delete snapshot throught CLI is

vmware-cmd /vmfs/volumes/UUID/VMNAME/VMNAME.vmx hassnapshot --> command to check snapshot is present or not
vmware-cmd /vmfs/volumes/UUID/VMNAME/VMNAME.vmx removesnapshot --> to delete

the above command is one to delete the snapshot, am right????

may i know why am getting "operation timed out" error in VC.

thanks in advances

with Regards,
Vimal

irq 177, boot Linux virtual machine with irqpoll?

namilak — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 12:43:57 GMT

Hi,

We have a virtual machine running RHEL 5.1 (64-bit) that crashed this morning. The virtual machine serves as a MySQL server, it has 4vCPU and 4096MB assigned; host is ESX 3.5.0, 113339.

These are the messages in the log:

Jul 15 15:50:19 hobbes kernel: ip_conntrack version 2.4 (8192 buckets, 65536 max) - 304 bytes per conntrack
Jul 16 01:37:55 hobbes kernel: irq 177: nobody cared (try booting with the "irqpoll" option)
Jul 16 01:37:55 hobbes kernel:
Jul 16 01:37:55 hobbes kernel: Call Trace:
Jul 16 01:37:55 hobbes kernel: <IRQ> <ffffffff800b5d77> __report_bad_irq+0x30/0x7d
Jul 16 01:37:55 hobbes kernel: <ffffffff800b5faa> note_interrupt+0x1e6/0x227
Jul 16 01:37:55 hobbes kernel: <ffffffff800b54bc> __do_IRQ+0xc7/0x105
Jul 16 01:37:55 hobbes kernel: <ffffffff8006a3bd> do_IRQ+0xe7/0xf5
Jul 16 01:37:55 hobbes kernel: <ffffffff8005b615> ret_from_intr+0x0/0xa
Jul 16 01:37:55 hobbes kernel: <ffffffff80011cba> __do_softirq+0x53/0xd5
Jul 16 01:37:55 hobbes kernel: <ffffffff8005c2fc> call_softirq+0x1c/0x28
Jul 16 01:37:55 hobbes kernel: <ffffffff8006a53a> do_softirq+0x2c/0x85
Jul 16 01:37:55 hobbes kernel: <ffffffff80068d0e> default_idle+0x0/0x50
Jul 16 01:37:55 hobbes kernel: <ffffffff8005bc8e> apic_timer_interrupt+0x66/0x6c
Jul 16 01:37:55 hobbes kernel: <EOI> <ffffffff80068d37> default_idle+0x29/0x50
Jul 16 01:37:55 hobbes kernel: <ffffffff80046f86> cpu_idle+0x95/0xb8
Jul 16 01:37:55 hobbes kernel: <ffffffff803d1806> start_kernel+0x220/0x225
Jul 16 01:37:55 hobbes kernel: <ffffffff803d1237> _sinittext+0x237/0x23e
Jul 16 01:37:55 hobbes kernel:
Jul 16 01:37:55 hobbes kernel: handlers:
Jul 16 01:37:55 hobbes kernel: <ffffffff881cb7fe> (e1000_intr+0x0/0x113 e1000)
Jul 16 01:37:55 hobbes kernel: Disabling IRQ #177
Jul 16 01:45:15 hobbes kernel: NETDEV WATCHDOG: eth0: transmit timed out
Jul 16 03:41:58 hobbes kernel: klogd 1.4.1, log source = /proc/kmsg started.

Should I reboot the machine with irqpoll?. Interrupt 177 is eth0.
Has anyone seen those errors on a vm running Linux? Are there any recommendations for the configuration of my virtual machine?

I appreciate your comments.

Thank you!

Changing subnet for VMkernel and Vmotion

Dave McD — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 05:47:51 GMT

Our current setup has Vmotion on the same subnet as our production machines, which I am not happy aboutand it is causing our 3com switched trouble when we vmotion a VM.

We have dedicated a subnet to vmotion and want to change the vmkernel port to the new subnet.

Our current vmkernel port has 2 physical nics, 1 in standby mode.

My plan is to create another vmkernel port on the same switch and the standby NIC. I would enable vmotion on that one, then disable vmotion on the original one.

I would then delete the original vmkernel port.

Will this plan work and if so, what sort of network out age will I be looking at.

Finally, is there a better way I can do it?

Virtual Machine Swapfile, Windows Paging File and SAN Replication

ericsl — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 02:15:58 GMT

Hello All,

This thread is a discussion about the best location for Virtual Machine Swapfiles, Virtual Machine Windows Paging Files and SAN Replication.

Configuration Goal: Reduce the amount of block level changes on WAN replicated SAN volumes

Current Config:
Dell R710's running ESX 2.5 Update 4, Virtual Center
Dell Equallogic 5000, 5500 and 6500 iSCSI SAN's

-A separate volume for each Windows Virtual Machine is configured on the SAN. We do that so that we can easily clone or roll-back just that virtual machines volume.
-The volumes are replicated over a WAN link at the SAN level to a DR site.

I would like to move the Virtual Machine Swapfile to a SAN volume that is not replicated, thus reducing the amount of block changes that are currently replicated. We use vMotion. It says in the screen where you setup the host or Pool swapfile location that this setting can affect vMotion performance. How so?

I would also like to here some ideas on dealing with the Windows Swapfiles and configured RAM, such as;
Creating virtual disks on SAN volumes that are not replicated
Increasing RAM to reduce Swapfile use
Eliminating them, etc..

Plus, any other ideas for reducing block level changes in virtual machines...

TYIA,

Eric

Too Many Levels of Redo files

seanhsmith — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 03:58:05 GMT

The VM would not boot this morning and had the error cannot read vmdk.... "Too Many Levels of Redo files"

The following sysmtoms occurred to a VM on an ESX Host
• Last change was a commvault update on Tuesday.
• The file server required a reboot after the update.
• The reboot was o scheduled for 4 Am this morning (Friday)
• According to the performance dataThe server fell over at 904pm yesterday evening. (Thursday) so the scheduled reboot never occurred.?
• There are 3 redo files from the 17th
• And 100 redo files started to be created at 8pm yesterday According to the performance data the server fellover at 9 but the redo files continued to be created up until 7am this morning.

The server created 100 or so redo files. I am currently cloning the individual hard drives according to.
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1004545

I am hoping this will resolve the issue.

I would be interested in alternative resolutions and also information about the redo process. Specifically my questions are?
Could I have deleted the redo files?
Is there a command to commit the redo files without having to clone?
Is there a log that references all of the files.?

I have read a couple of articles pertaining to earlier versions of ESX but they no longer seem to be relevant. for examle the vmware-cmd -commit and vmkfstools did not seem to do anything or were no longer valid commands.

Is there a source of knowledge on the commands and the process that relates to ESX 3.5

Many thanks!!

fiber switch

jspot — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:01:02 GMT

We currently have 2 esx hosts connected to an emc clarion san via fiber. In order to add an additional host we need to add 2 fiber switches. We went with the Brocade 300 series. Brocade has a management tool to help setup zoning etc.

Is there anything I need to configure through SAN or esx to make this happen?

I would think it would be as easy as
1) shutdown esx hosts
2) plug esx hosts into fiber switches
3) plug san into fiber switch
4) configure zones etc through management software
5) power on esx hosts

Am I missing anything?

ESX 3.5 VM File Server and slow initial conneciton/timeout

kf4ape — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:14:31 GMT

All,
I have a file server VM (30gb total) and will occasionally have a slow inital connection via UNC however the ESX is on GigE. the server hosting it is a DL385g5p (dual quad cores) and the it sites on an MSA60 connected via a P800...it no slouch and there is one other VM on the box (the VC) which shows no activity...the VM was initiall created on an ESX3.0.2 box and coverted over to 3.5

so what is happening is that the network map to it looses connection and the delay kill the autoreconnect by the client...the end user connects to other shares without issue, just this one file server (which is VM)

thoughts?

ESX 3.5 and Adaptec 2610SA SATA Raid for white box

Virtuali3ed — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 22:55:09 GMT

Hi forum, Just wanted your input about Asaptec 2610 SA SATA Raid with ESX 3.5. I read in other post that this controller works for 3.0.2 but does this work with 3.5.

Thanks in advance!

VCB-HP Data Protector Problem

kamesh_a — Fri, 30 May 2008 13:18:30 GMT

Hi,

I have been struggling to integrate HP Data protector for my VI3.5 environment. Appreciate your suggestions and support. Exhausted and lost 3 business days, valuable time due to HP horrible support even after holding a Sev1 SR. No return expect my frustruation. I thought better to try with this community.

My Setup is as mentioned below:

1. Installed VCB and configured as per the VMware and HP document like

Installed & configured VCB, (config.js with required parameters)
Pushed DP agent from DP Cell manager to VCB server
Copied (vcbmount.js, vmwarepreexec.cmd & vmwarepostexec.cmd) to C:\Program Files\OmniBack\bin directory.
Created C:/mnt folder and a C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Consolidated Backup Framework\config\vmware_passwd file with required entries.

On Cell Manager:

Backupjob\options\Advanced\

Pre-exec: vmwarepreexec.cmd -a all -r c:\mnt -t file
On Client: VCB box name
Post-exec: vmwarepostexec.cmd
On Client: VCB box name
Object properties:
Client system: VCB box name
Object type: FilesystemWindows
Description:c:\mnt
Source: c:\mnt

It is well working with

vcbmounter -h VCBIP -u vcbadmin -p xxxx -a ipaddr:vmip -r c:\mnt\test01 -t file
vcbmounter -h "VCBIP" -u vcbadmin -p xxx -U c:\mnt\test01

When I ran it from cell manager, I am getting the below errors and exiting.

Major From: ~~VBDA@c-vcb01.c.nuk.local~~ "c:\mnt" Time: 30/05/2008 13:04:21 81:72 c:\mnt

Cannot verify filesystem mount point: (144 The directory is not a subdirectory of the root directory. ).

Critical From: VBDA@c-vcb01.c.abc.com "c:\mnt" Time: 30/05/2008 13:04:21

81:52 c:\mnt Not a valid mount point => aborting.

Hope this information is sufficient for a basic understanding.

Thanks,

Kameswar Akella

hostd keeps crashing

CB@EQUITY — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:54:51 GMT

I have a host that the hostd keeps crashing. I'm unable to join it to VC and unable to connect via vi client. When i run the service management command the server will start and stay running until I try to join to VC and apparently it stops. I see in the host.d log that its having issues finding certain files. Would this be causing the crash ? When I try to join it to VC is it searching for these folders and when they are not found the service crashes?

Any ideas how to fix this.. I really need to avoid rebooting the host because I have 10 production servers running on it. Or is there a way to move the VM's to another host without powering down. ( i don't think there is but I just want to verify)

~~2009-11-18 13:47:34.643 'Vmsvc' 3076440992 info~~ Failed to VixHost_OpenObject: Error: A file was not found
~~2009-11-18 13:47:34.695 'BaseLibs' 3076440992 info~~ DISKLIB-LINK : "/vmfs/volumes/4aeb0fea-9a7bd6eb-9061-0019bb3c101a/esXpress_VBAs/esXpress_Helper.hpmvex66607.gennxt.trce.hp.com.3/esxpress_3_3-2247.vmdk" : failed to open (The system cannot find the file specified).
~~2009-11-18 13:47:34.695 'BaseLibs' 3076440992 info~~ DISKLIB-CHAIN : "/vmfs/volumes/4aeb0fea-9a7bd6eb-9061-0019bb3c101a/esXpress_VBAs/esXpress_Helper.hpmvex66607.gennxt.trce.hp.com.3/esxpress_3_3-2247.vmdk" : failed to open (The system cannot find the file specified).
~~2009-11-18 13:47:34.695 'BaseLibs' 3076440992 info~~ DISKLIB-LIB : Failed to open '/vmfs/volumes/4aeb0fea-9a7bd6eb-9061-0019bb3c101a/esXpress_VBAs/esXpress_Helper.hpmvex66607.gennxt.trce.hp.com.3/esxpress_3_3-2247.vmdk' with flags 0x17 (The system cannot find the file specified).
~~2009-11-18 13:47:34.695 'Vmsvc' 3076440992 info~~ Failed to VixHost_OpenObject: Error: A file was not found
~~2009-11-18 13:47:34.750 'Vmsvc' 3076440992 info~~ Loaded virtual machine: /vmfs/volumes/4aeb0fea-9a7bd6eb-9061-0019bb3c101a/esXpress_VBAs/esXpress_Helper.hpmvex66607.gennxt.trce.hp.com.3/esXpress.vmx

~~2009-11-18 13:47:34.770 'BaseLibs' 106306480 info~~ Reloading config state: /vmfs/volumes/4aeb0fea-9a7bd6eb-9061-0019bb3c101a/esXpress_VBAs/esXpress_Helper.hpmvex66607.gennxt.trce.hp.com.1/esXpress.vmx
~~2009-11-18 13:47:34.839 'BaseLibs' 106306480 info~~ readlink /var/run/vmware/1a12cb5258d8dbc460cb3ef1bfd7edb2: No such file or directory
~~2009-11-18 13:47:34.839 'BaseLibs' 106306480 info~~ readlink /var/run/vmware/%2fvmfs%2fvolumes%2f4aeb0fea%2d9a7bd6eb%2d9061%2d0019bb3c101a%2fesXpress%5fVBAs%2fesXpress%5fHelper%2ehpmvex66607%2egennxt%2etrce%2ehp%2ecom%2e1%2fesXpress%2evmx: No such file or directory
~~2009-11-18 13:47:34.842 'BaseLibs' 89074608 info~~ readlink /var/run/vmware/1a12cb5258d8dbc460cb3ef1bfd7edb2: No such file or directory
~~2009-11-18 13:47:34.842 'BaseLibs' 89074608 info~~ readlink /var/run/vmware/%2fvmfs%2fvolumes%2f4aeb0fea%2d9a7bd6eb%2d9061%2d0019bb3c101a%2fesXpress%5fVBAs%2fesXpress%5fHelper%2ehpmvex66607%2egennxt%2etrce%2ehp%2ecom%2e1%2fesXpress%2evmx: No such file or directory
~~2009-11-18 13:47:34.868 'BaseLibs' 3076440992 info~~ DISKLIB-VMFS : "/vmfs/volumes/STD06-XP-LUN026/esXpress_VBAs/esXpress_Helper.hpmvex66607.gennxt.trce.hp.com.0/esxpress-flat.vmdk" : open successful (23) size = 1073741824, hd = 0. Type 3
~~2009-11-18 13:47:34.877 'BaseLibs' 3076440992 info~~ DISKLIB-VMFS : "/vmfs/volumes/STD06-XP-LUN026/esXpress_VBAs/esXpress_Helper.hpmvex66607.gennxt.trce.hp.com.0/esxpress-flat.vmdk" : closed.
~~2009-11-18 13:47:34.900 'BaseLibs' 3076440992 info~~ DISKLIB-VMFS : "/vmfs/volumes/4aeb0fea-9a7bd6eb-9061-0019bb3c101a/esXpress_VBAs/esXpress_Helper.hpmvex66607.gennxt.trce.hp.com.1/esxpress_1-flat.vmdk" : open successful (23) size = 10485760, hd = 0. Type 3
~~2009-11-18 13:47:34.901 'BaseLibs' 3076440992 info~~ DISKLIB-VMFS : "/vmfs/volumes/4aeb0fea-9a7bd6eb-9061-0019bb3c101a/esXpress_VBAs/esXpress_Helper.hpmvex66607.gennxt.trce.hp.com.1/esxpress_1-flat.vmdk" : closed.
~~2009-11-18 13:47:34.913 'BaseLibs' 3076440992 info~~ DISKLIB-LINK : "/vmfs/volumes/4a4529f5-e48bd2c5-2ac1-001a4bffbb98/pepwwv11101/pepwwv11101_2.vmdk.phd" : failed to open (The system cannot find the file specified).
~~2009-11-18 13:47:34.914 'BaseLibs' 3076440992 info~~ DISKLIB-CHAIN : "/vmfs/volumes/4a4529f5-e48bd2c5-2ac1-001a4bffbb98/pepwwv11101/pepwwv11101_2.vmdk.phd" : failed to open (The system cannot find the file specified).
~~2009-11-18 13:47:34.914 'BaseLibs' 3076440992 info~~ DISKLIB-LIB : Failed to open '/vmfs/volumes/4a4529f5-e48bd2c5-2ac1-001a4bffbb98/pepwwv11101/pepwwv11101_2.vmdk.phd' with flags 0x17 (The system cannot find the file specified).
~~2009-11-18 13:47:34.914 'Vmsvc' 3076440992 info~~ Failed to VixHost_OpenObject: Error: A file was not found
~~2009-11-18 13:47:34.979 'BaseLibs' 3076440992 info~~ DISKLIB-VMFS : "/vmfs/volumes/4aeb0fea-9a7bd6eb-9061-0019bb3c101a/esXpress_VBAs/esXpress_Helper.hpmvex66607.gennxt.trce.hp.com.1/esxpress_3_1-30406-flat.vmdk" : open successful (23) size = 10485760, hd = 0. Type 3

Layer 2 errors on VMs

Dave365 — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 01:16:59 GMT

Hello all,

I recently noticed a number of guest VM's in my ESX 3.5 cluster have trasmit and receive errors on the ethernet interface.

The VM's I've checked so far are all x86 CentOS 5. They are using a mix of pcnet32 and vmxnet ethernet modules.

The hosts use teamed pNICs in the prodction vSwtiches, and none of the hosts have any interface errors at all. I didn't think it was possible to get errors of this type on a virtual machine, expecially if the hosts are error free.

The errors are occuring in a low numbers and aren't really affecting performance but I'd love to find out what is causing them. So any ideas would be great.

Sample ifconfig from VM:

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:23:4d:70:50:6e
inet addr:192.168.1.11 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:857783612 errors:1637 dropped:1818 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:876028660 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:742182802 (742.1 MB) TX bytes:130439686 (130.4 MB)
Interrupt:17

Thanks guys

VSS/VCB Issues

tkutil — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 13:55:02 GMT

I am having a problem on one server that whenever I run a VCB I get VSS errors. Anyone seen this before?

ESX3.5 Update 2

System Event Log

Source VolSnap

Event ID 8

The flush and hold writes operation on volume C: timed out while waiting for a release writes command.

Application Event Log

Source VSS

Event ID 12289

Volume Shadow Copy Service error: Unexpected error WaitForSingleObject(000002C4,40000) == 0x00000000. hr = 0x00000000.

Source VSS

Event ID 12293

Volume Shadow Copy Service error: Error calling a routine on the Shadow Copy Provider {564d7761-7265-2056-5353-2050726f7669}. Routine details CommitSnapshots({9c709153-c894-4f97-a5c3-adb0c5be11b2}) hr = 0x800705b4.

Source VSS

Event ID 12298

Volume Shadow Copy Service error: The I/O writes cannot be held during the shadow copy creation period on volume \\?\Volume{18f2a733-6fae-11dd-82f4-806e6f6e6963}\. The volume index in the shadow copy set is 0. Error details: Open0x00000000, Flush0x00000000, Release0x00000000, OnRun0x8000ffff.

High CPU in HA Cluster

Gooose — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:29:07 GMT

Good Morning all,

I'm running ESX3.5 Update 4 in an HA environment consisting of 4 ESX servers (IBM3850 - M2)

Each ESX server has 4 Quad Core CPU's. 16 CPU's

I notice yesterday on one of my ESX servers that 15 of the CPU's were working at around the 10>20% mark, however 1 of the CPU's was reporting 99%.

I'm obtaining this information using vFoglight.

Can anyone advise as to why just one of the 16 CPU's would be getting thrashed? Shouldn't the load be distributed evenly across the CPU's?

Any thoughts in respect to the above would be greatly appreciated.

Steve

ESX 3.5 Update 4: unable to detect cd-rom

mbx369 — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 03:48:47 GMT

Hi,

I have 2 ESX servers on HP ProLiant DL580 G5. Somehow, I am unable to detect the cd-rom.
But the drives are definitely ok, coz bootable from cd.
I also have 2 HP ProLiant DL380 G6. But these two are working fine.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

I had posted in this thread http://communities.vmware.com/message/1290101 but i think that thread's been closed.

~~~~~ To Live Is To Die ~~~~~

Cant mount cdrom on HP Proliant ML350 server

fabio.damiani — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 14:55:52 GMT

I have a problem, When I try to mount the CD\DVD on VM ESX 3.5 Server host; I get this error :

~~root@cgsvm01 /~~# mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom
mount: /dev/cdrom is not a valid block device

The physical harware is a HP Proliant ML 350 Server

I looked at the note but have not solved the problem

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/102401
http://communities.vmware.com/thread/72493

Here are more details on configuring my ESX server :
~~root@cgsvm01 var~~# ls -l /dev/cdrom
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Jan 31 15:22 /dev/cdrom -> /dev/scd0
~~root@cgsvm01 etc~~# cat /etc/mtab
/dev/cciss/c0d0p2 / ext3 rw 0 0
none /proc proc rw 0 0
none /dev/pts devpts rw,gid=5,mode=620 0 0
usbdevfs /proc/bus/usb usbdevfs rw 0 0
/dev/cciss/c0d0p1 /boot ext3 rw 0 0
none /dev/shm tmpfs rw 0 0
/dev/cciss/c0d0p6 /var/log ext3 rw 0 0
~~root@cgsvm01 etc~~# cat /etc/modules.conf
alias eth0 bnx2
alias eth1 bnx2
alias scsi_hostadapter cciss
alias usb-controller usb-uhci
alias usb-controller1 ehci-hcd
alias usb-controller usb-ohci
alias block-major-3 off
alias block-major-11 off
~~root@cgsvm01 etc~~# cat /etc/fstab
UUID=3a426241-6cc4-4ddf-9e8f-0fa939e7dd6e / ext3 defaults 1 1
UUID=14da41c2-3061-4995-9bf1-2aedc2f39d62 /boot ext3 defaults 1 2
none /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
none /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
UUID=5cd89235-8c66-4e46-8711-573ac46f9a38 /var/log ext3 defaults 1 2
UUID=8fec316f-55b9-41ce-a540-6acbde5440f2 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom udf,iso9660 noauto,owner,kudzu,ro 0 0
~~root@cgsvm01 etc~~# cat /etc/grub.conf
#vmware:configversion 1
# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE: You have a /boot partition. This means that
# all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.
# root (hd0,0)
# kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/cciss/c0d0p2
# initrd /initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/cciss/c0d0
timeout=10
default=0
title VMware ESX Server
+ #vmware:autogenerated esx+
+ root (hd0,0)+
+ uppermem 277504+
+ kernel --no-mem-option /vmlinuz-2.4.21-57.ELvmnix ro root=UUID=3a426241-6cc4-4ddf-9e8f-0fa939e7dd6e mem=272M+
+ initrd /initrd-2.4.21-57.ELvmnix.img+
title VMware ESX Server (debug mode)
+ #vmware:autogenerated esx+
+ root (hd0,0)+
+ uppermem 277504+
+ kernel --no-mem-option /vmlinuz-2.4.21-57.ELvmnix ro root=UUID=3a426241-6cc4-4ddf-9e8f-0fa939e7dd6e mem=272M console=ttyS0,115200 console=tty0 debug+
+ initrd /initrd-2.4.21-57.ELvmnix.img-dbg+
title Service Console only (troubleshooting mode)
+ #vmware:autogenerated esx+
+ root (hd0,0)+
+ uppermem 277504+
+ kernel --no-mem-option /vmlinuz-2.4.21-57.ELvmnix ro root=UUID=3a426241-6cc4-4ddf-9e8f-0fa939e7dd6e mem=272M tblsht+
+ initrd /initrd-2.4.21-57.ELvmnix.img-sc+

Where is the problem?

Sun Blade 6000 Virtualized NEM (X4238) driver is MIA

csoto — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:14:59 GMT

Since 11/2, the I/O Compatibility Guide (http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/pdf/vi_io_guide.pdf) has shown the availability of the Sun hxge version 1.2.2.11 driver for ESX 3.5 Update 4. But I can't find it anywhere in the driver downloads. Has anyone been able to locate this driver? That would help us tremendously.

Charles

Resetting password for vpxuser account

Eire09 — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:13:22 GMT

Hi,
I don't know the password for the vpxuser account and want to reset it. Is it possible to do this while logged onto the ESX Server with the Root account?

Thanks in adance...

Jumbo frame

Sivan09 — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 22:38:47 GMT

Hi ,

I have a doubt about jumbo frame. My environment comprise of five ESX 3.5 server , with 77 guest operating system. In each server we have three physical nic connected to a gigaport of cisco 3750G switch. In ESX three physical nic are converted into one virtual switch. I would like to know whether we need to configure jumbo frame i.e by default each gigabit port support MTU of 1500 . But I feel it is a bottle neck , since 15 guest is community with 3 gig interface on each ESX.

What is your suggestion , ie. whether default MTU is enough at switch end or do we need to increase the MTU size for better performance at cisco switch level.

Expecting valuable recommendation.

Siva

Command for changing System Resource Allocation Settings - CPU shares, reservations

hodnov — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:15:46 GMT

Is there a command in the vimsh set or otherwise that will change the System Resource Allocation settings of an ESX host?

I need to change the Cpu shares to 4000 and the reservation to 1000 mhz.

I know these values get stored in etc/vmware/esx.conf, but the entries get populated only after you alter the defaults in VI Client.

I want to make the changes during a scripted esx install.

Thanks

Virtualize Unix server

manojpeter — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:33:25 GMT

Hi,

I am trying to virtualize unix machine using VM Converter software. Please advise the steps to achieve this?

Thanks in Advance.

Unable to add host to vcenter across two sites

foxy1977 — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:21:35 GMT

Hi there,

I am having a problem adding a 3.5 host to a vsphere vcenter server running over a VPN. I have a vcenter up and running with 3 hosts in a datacentre. I have a 3.5 host in our machine and I want vcenter to be able to manage it. I now have a VPN setup between the two sites and I can ping most local addresses from each sites.

The problem i am having is that i cannot ping the esx 3.5 host in our office from the datacentre. I can also not ping it from the office. From here I then tried to connect vshere client to the 3.5 host from both sites. I was able to connect within our office and manage the server. Unfortunately i cannot connect the client to the host from the datacentre. Is there a firewall setting only allow connections/pings from the same local network?

I tried to add the host to the vcenter server but i could not add it. I get an error saying 'cannot connect to the specified host (192.168.1.23) the host may not be available on the network'

All ports are open on the VPN connection between the sites.

Anyone any ideas or thoughts on what the issue may be?

thanks

How do I commit a redo log when VC doesn't show any snapshots are being used?

benny.hauk — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:52:06 GMT

So I have 2 production VMs that are actively utilizing redo logs (they are growing) and I need to commit the redo logs. However VC doesn't show their are any snapshots for either of those so I can't just go into "Manage Snapshots" and delete the snapshot.

I'm on regular ESX (not ESXi) so can someone tell me the command to run to commit these redo logs before my datastore fills up?

btw, that's how I got in this state in the first place (run away redo log filled up the datastore which crashed a VM host and when the host was power cycled, the 2 VMs who had an active redo log at the time still do, but VC isn't aware of it.

thanks!!

Benny Hauk, VCP4
Systems Admin
LifeWay Chrstian Resources

Incorrect NIC speed!

alize77 — Fri, 02 May 2008 06:02:51 GMT

On the VI Client, one of my nic is showing as 100mbps. However, on the Guest VM, it show as 1000mbps. I have check the speed using esxcfg nics -l and indeed, the speed is running at 100mbps. I'm totally clueless as I have check the switch port settings and it's set to auto and on the vmware, it is also running as auto. If I force the speed to be running at 1000mbps on the vmnic, the status will be shown as "Down".

I have change the network cable and switching to another port but still, the speed is running at 100mbps. Where else could go run??? Have anyone experience such issue before? Pls advise and thanks.

3.5 install not picking up local PERC raid controller

foxy1977 — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 09:29:57 GMT

Hi there,

I tried to carry out an install of esx classic on a host machine that was running 3.5i with no problems. It is a dell 1950 series 3. I changed the raid setup so the local disks were running as raid 1 with a hot spare instead of 4 disks in a RAID 5 config. The server has a emulex figre card in and we are currently experiencing issues with a known memory leak that vmwareare working to address.

When i went through the installer and it picked up all of the disks on the SAN and i ignored these. When i tried to select the disk where to install esx classic the local disk on the PERC controller doesnt appear in the list! Anyone any ideas why i cannot select the local disk. All of the disks on the SAN are visible and these start with the letters sba, sbb, sbc etc. I also received a warning about invalid bios setting for the disk (or something similar!) and i clicked ignore hoping the disk would show up again.

The strange thing is that i ended up having to reinstall esxi on the box with no problems (without changing anything!).

Anyone any ideas? Does esx classic have a different HCL list?

Thanks in advance

Terminal Server Farm an Resource Pool

markvor — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:06:59 GMT

Hi,

start this discussion to get some practice Reports or experiences.

First of all the Situation.

I got an environment where 20 Windows Terminal Servers (Windows 2003 32-bit, 1CPU, 2048 MB Ram, VMWARE Tools installed without Memory Balloon Driver, fixed Page Files, Citrix) are Hosted over Cluster of 5 Hosts. I made a Resource-Pool with Standard settings.
On each Terminalserver the maximum Session Limit is set to 15.

Every day i run in performance issues where the some Applications like Adobe Acrobat Reader,Internet Explorer, Outlook start to take the complete CPU Resources with the result, that the other Sessions on that Terminalserver gonna hang until the Thread which causes the high CPU usage has finished its thread.

My question is now, can i use the Resource Pools to optimize Shares for the CPU and Memory Settings or is it better to leave the Terminal VM's without any Resource Pools in the Cluster.

Thanks for some thoughts.

Best Regards

Markus Vorderer

Moving from Local storage to iSCSI SAN

MTLevy — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:24:43 GMT

Good morning, afternoon or evening

I'm in the rather unenviable position of having to migrate from our current local storage setup

to a brand new iSCSi SAN, and would like some help on the best way to achieve this.

The situation is as follows:

3 x ESX 3.5 hosts, with a total of around 40 VMs, all on local storage

1 x new ESX 3.5, still to be built

1 x iSCSI SAN, with lots and lots of lovely space

Now, my issue is not the configuration - I'm fairly sure I know what I'm doing on that side of things.

My issue is simply migrating everything to the SAN. I know I can use Storage vMotion to shift the data,

but its migrating the VM's themselves that concerns me.

As I understand it (and please correct me if I'm wrong) that VMotion itself works when servers are configured

as part of a resource pool. I was planning to create a new resource pool, add the new server to that and then

transfer all the VM's from one of the existing ESX hosts before adding that host to the resource pool and so on.

So am I totally barking up the wrong tree?

Thanks in advance

IPMI message handler: BMC returned incorrect response

pkk — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 12:29:22 GMT

Hi,

I need help resolving this problem that occured on one of five hosts a couple of months ago:

At the Console, after pressing Alt-F1 for login, the following messages are displayed:

IPMI message handler: BMC returned incorrect response, expected netfn 5 cmd 25, got netfn 5 cmd 35

IPMI message handler: BMC returned incorrect response, expected netfn 5 cmd 27, got netfn 5 cmd 35

The first message can appear up to 7-10 times, the second only once. Hitting Enter gives me the login prompt.

After searching the web, answers pointing towards BMC firmware issues, I've updated the host from U2 to U4 with all the latest patches using VUM & updated the BIOS and Firmware with the newest versions from HP.

We have 5 host, 4 HP ProLiant DL580 G4 and one HP ProLiant DL580 G5. I only se this on the G5. All host connected to Clarion SAN.

System:

HP ProLiant DL580 G5, System ROM P61 09/23/2008, iLO 2 Firmware Version 1.77 04/23/2009, 4x Intel Xeon 7220 2,93Ghz, 64GB RAM, 2x LPe1150 4Gb FC, 1x HP Smart Array P400, 2xOnboard Broadcom NetXtreme II BCM5708 1000Base-T, 1xQuad 82571EB Gigabit Ethernet controller

ESX 3.5.0 (U4) build-184236 (vCenter displays build 176894)

vCenter 2.5.0 (U3) build-119598

Thanks in advance!

Best regards, Per Kristian

Hungs on RedHat VMs

afrontera — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:06:03 GMT

i am experiencing some hungs on RedHat VMs. The VMs appears to be on, but the service it provides get down (web applications fail, web servers down, any service that is running on this VM fails). It responds to ping and console on vcenter responds, but when you try to login on it, only left you to type the username and dont get reponse beyond that (ssh fails too). No fails detected on sistem logs. Diferent versions of RedHat an kernel:

distro	kernel	tools version
RH3 U2	2.4.21.15.ELsmp	169697
RH3 U2	2.4.21.15.ELsmp	169697
RH3 U2	2.4.21.15.ELsmp	158874
RH3 U2	2.4.21.15.ELsmp	No instaladas
RH5	2.6.18-164.6.1.el5	158874
RH5	2.6.18-164.6.1.el5	158874

Looks like a vmware problem with this releases and kernels. Anyone has experienced some similar like this?

Infrastructure:

ESX 3.5 U4 176894 (20 hosts)

Vcenter 2.5 U4 (planned to upgrade to U5 this week for HA issues)

FC SAN Storage

Thanks in advance!

Increase disk size in ESX

EricSes — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 21:39:55 GMT

I am aware that this question has been asked a few times on this site before, but none of the others answered my question. I didn't feel like gravedigging by responding to one of the old ones, so here I am.

We just recently purchased ESX and have configured it in our environment. It is running on Dell Poweredge 2900 with two quad core processors and 28 GB of ram. After converting VMs from VMWare Server to ESX, I tried to increase the disk space on a Windows Server 2003 VM. The VM file is currently located on our SAN. The steps I took to increase the disk space were:

#1 - Use the VIClient to shutdown, edit the VM on ESX, and add additional storage space.

#2 - Boot the VM back up and do a diskpart to allocate the additional space to the partition.

In Windows Disk Management, I can see the unallocated space. However, whenever I did the diskpart command, it told me that the operation could not be performed on the specified volume. I only have one partition. I googled the problem and found that many people like to use gpart to boot the vm off and use that instead of diskpart. When I used gpart, I told it to extend the VM by the extra amount of space I gave the VM...it went and did it's thing but then told me it had a problem increasing the size. Now, when I boot the machine, Disk Management says I have 15 GB allocated, but My Computer says I only have a 13 GB drive. This is a test vm, so I don't care about GPart screwing it up, however, I do need to find a solution to this problem in the future as it is inevitable that some of our VM's will run out of diskspace. So my question to you guys is, what are your standard means of increasing the VM sizes? When we used VMWare Server, we had absolutely no problem using diskpart to increase the allocated space, so it's a bit strange to me as to why ESX is causing a problem.

Any information you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Eric

100 percent CPU usage on 1 CPU in ESX host

VirtuallyTaken — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:18:48 GMT

Hi all,

I have an ESX host in a cluster. I come in this morning and this host is showing 100 percent CPU for CPU 0. This is a SUN Fire X4600 M2 box with 8CPUs. There are no alarms being generated for this. This started happening from Sat moring at around 4am. There are no CPU affinity rules. The average CPU usage of this box ia around 30 to35percent. Has anyone experienced this? If so how did you resolve it? Howdo you check what processes are using CPU 0 in the service console or anywhere else?

Your help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

ESX 3.5 cluster failure with SAN & Network connectivity loss, BMC error ?

George_B — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 22:10:18 GMT

Hi All,

I have just had a weird catastrophic failure of one of my hosts in my cluster and I have yet to be able to pinpoint what caused it and how to fix it. Any thoughts, comments or pointers appreciated.

In brief I have a two node ESX 3.5 U4 cluster with enterprise licensing (DRS, vMotion etc with vCentre) running on HP DL380 G5 servers. These are connected via QLogics PCIe iSCSI HBAs to a Nortel ERS 5500 switch and then an EqualLogic iSCSI cluster of a PS100E and a PS4000E with version 4.2.1 firmware.

This is used to provide numerous high value but low load development and demonstration virtual machines. As of about 5 this evening one of the nodes just disconnected from VC along with all the VMs running on it. Before this no changes to configurations of switches, ESX or servers had taken place. What seemed to trigger this was the changing of some VM's NIC vSwitch connections.

Looking at all VMs running on the one remaining host seem to be OK but on closer inspection if you attempt to do anything that writes to the disk it fails, in a similar way if the their is an iSCSI time out due to a network failure. VC which is in a VM allows logins and functions but you cant use RDP to get to it or communicate with the VM in any other way.

There are also a number of errors on the physical consoles of the servers which also indicate a network connectivity failure. See screen grab below:

However the SAN is up, the network is only one switch and it is up, the VCB physical server thats connected to the same independent iSCSI SAN network can mount LUNs and happily write and read to them. This then isolates the network and SAN as possible faults.

One server responds only to Ping and SSH the other responds to Ping, SSH, VI Client direct connection and VC. As they both still respond in some way to their original IPs then there can't have been a vswif mis-config.

Logging in physically to both servers brings up similar errors relating to BMC. With a quick search of Google and the forums this seems like it might be an issue but why has it just happened without a re-boot or upgrade happening etc ? The KB article that seems to relate to this does not work and keeps asking for authorization.

So any help much appreciated !

ESX 3.5 and Storage

NeelR — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:53:03 GMT

Hi All,

We are currently thinking of using vRanger 4.0 DPP for our new backup. Is anyone using this?

Below is a rough drawing on how we have our enviro setup.

MGT Server - Windows pServer where we do all our work from.

San 2/3 - ESX Storage

San1/4 - For Backups (Fibre attached to MGT Server)

Green is all Fibre

Blue is Ethernet

Red line on the FC Switch is zoning. So 2 zones seperating the Sans.

So we want to install vRanger on our MGT server and then store the backups on San1/4. Is this possible? Even though the switch is Zoned?

Also if the ESX Server see's San1/4 but doesnt use them is this an issue? I remember having an MSA1000 attached to our MGT Server a while back, it was being 'seen' from ESX Servers and they began to have issues in the logs, however I cannot remember if there was any performance problems. Also, should the be seen if it is zoned? Do I need another FC Card to see San2/3 on our MGT Server?

Any help would be great.

Cheers,
Neel

VCB Snapshots fill up vmfs datastore

jredwine2857 — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:14:23 GMT

I have had this problems on every esx 3.5 box that i employ vcb on. When using VCB inevitably a screw up happens and vcb does not delete the snapshot. Several days go by and eventually the vmfs datastore fills up and shuts down the VM. Is this just poor design or am I missing something? I have used VCB and Veeam and have had this happen with both at 2 different clients. Is there any way to bulletproof this aside from checking for erroneous, left-behind snapshots on a daily basis? (Which will never happen)

Thanks!

Template Deploy Customization Times Out

khughes — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:09:48 GMT

Yesterday I had to deploy out all new Citrix servers. I didn't get around to the last one now everything seems to be going sideways. I thought that maybe last nights bulk backup affected the unfinished deployment so I started fresh but it looks like the same thing is happening. It does the initial customization but once it gets to the IP settings / Domain, it times out. I had no issues yesterday in regards to the template or deploying them using the customizations. Double checked the customization settings 2-3x over.

The only thing that is different, in my mind shouldn't matter, is the template was made off of the name of machine I'm trying to deploy. Even so the customization should take care of that right? IE- Weeks ago I made a template off of Citrix6 and now I want to deploy to Citrix6.

Kyle

Unable to create partition - NFS Server

kanoute696 — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:23:22 GMT

I have a ESX3.5 host with a NFS server connected via VM Kernel. When I create a new virtual machine and run a iso image it constantly comes back saying that it cant create a partition on the datastore located NFS server. All the obvious permissions are fine. Has anybody seen this before?. Both servers are new builds.

Scheduled Task

max2479 — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:17:25 GMT

Hello All,
Schedule task does not have the way of gracefully rebooting the VM. Shutdown will not work because I am not sure when VM will be shutdown so I can power it back on... reset is NOT gracefully shutdown. If I want to gracefully reboot the VM at scheduled time what are the options for me?

script only?
if yes, are there scripts that will schedule the time for the VM to reboot?

Cannot find nic driver for Win2k3 X64 after P2V (Intel pro mt 1000)

shedy77 — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:18:51 GMT

Can someone help me with this issue. I P2Ved a Windows 2003 std x64 server, after the P2V completed the nic driver for Intel pro MT is unavailable. I saw that vmware tools is trying to install vmxnet but Windows is asking for Intel Pro MT 1000 driver. I verified that the template was correct. I am running ESX 3.5 managed by Vcenter 4.0.

Can serive console and vmkernel be in the same network?

olano — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 02:35:22 GMT

Hi,

I just want to know if service console and vmkernel can be configured in the same network? Any disadvantages?

Thanks!

Lan

Service console memory monitoring

chukarma — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 23:04:55 GMT

Hello,

Is there a way to monitor the service console for memory leak using esxtop? If there is, can someone please shares the commands to get to that screen?

Thanks,
Daniel

HA for Guests on ESX 3.5?

compldc1972 — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 08:37:44 GMT

Hi,

Got asked a question on an interview a few weeks back.

"""In ESX 3.5 if a guest blue screens on crashes what will happen, my answer was Nothing."""" - the interviewer said HA would restart it

In ESX4.0 - I know HA will restart the guest but I'm sure this is new so not available in 3.5

Can someone confirm..... the interviewer was positive it could be done in 3.5

thanks

HBA replacement in VMware HA/DRS cluster

jose_maria_gonzalez — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:16:54 GMT

Hi there,

Is there any VMware official guide as to how to perform a HBA replacement in a VMware HA/DRS cluster environment?

Thanking you in advance,

Saludos,

Jose Maria Gonzalez,
Founder and President of JmGVirtualConsulting.com

See http://www.JmGVirtualConsulting.com for official Vi3 and vSphere consultancy
See http://www.josemariagonzalez.es for my blog on VMware training and tips
See http://www.twitter.com/jose_m_gonzalez for some twittering
VMware vExpert 2009
Autor del Libro VMware ESX y VMware VCP Hecho Fácil

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

Increasing vm disk space - problem

LinuxTux — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:56:47 GMT

I've used virtual centre to increase disk space on a new vm. I've got a problem because my redhat vm doesn't recognize this additional space.

I've tried to use gparted but it says it doesn't support lvm.

Does anyone know if there is a similar too to gparted that will support lvm?

Eth0 and Eth1 not found on VMWare 3.5 install on HS22 Blade

fuldagap — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 19:59:30 GMT

I have installed VMWare ESX 3.5.4 on an IBM HS22 blade. The install went fine however it will not find Eth0 or Eth1. After install it says to log into the IP address I assigned during install but the browser does not find the IP. We have checked and double checked the vlan settings on the relevant switch ports. Here is some more info:

Broadcom Netxtreme II 5709 nics (on HCL)

From the CLI I can only ping the assigned IP address, but not the gateway or any other device on the vlan.

Running esxcfg-nics -l shows only the vmnics..not eth0 or eth1

Ifconfig shows only lo, vmnics and vswif..no eth0 or eth1

ifconfig eth0 reports "error fetching interface information, device not found

vmkload_mod -l shows the bnx2 driver (which I loaded manually with the most current file available)

the /etc/vmware/pciid/ folder contains the bnx2.xml and bnx2x.xml files

added rmmod CDCEther insmod CDCEther ifconfig cdceth0 169.254.95.118 up to /etc/rc.local

I have reloaded the operating system three times and have tried on two different, completely new HS22 blades

I suspect I am missing some very simple config but just can't seem to see through the fog.

Any help?

VM disk crash after increasing disk size

mrweetman — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:29:16 GMT

Hi,

Recently we have had some problemes when we increase the disk size on VM's running Windows 2008 server.

It happens when we increase the disks on a running VM and then use diskpart or disk management to increase the NTFS size..

Has anyone experienced anything similar?

The datastore has a minimum of 50GB of free space so I do not belive this to be the problem. The datastores on the host consists of LUN's from a symmetrix SAN.
We run ESX3.5 update 4

Regards

Marius Aulie

Host Error -- Unable to apply DRS resource settings on host (Reason: The operation is not allowed in the current state.).This can significantly reduce the effectiveness of DRS.

levinpeng — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 05:44:58 GMT

I have defined 3 root resource pools in my cluster. The total CPU resource is 60G and I set the Reservation for each root resource pool to 18G. The total memory resource is 80G and set the the momery reservation for each resource pool to 25G.
Recenty, some host often show error. I checked the events of the host and there are a lot items such as:
Unable to apply DRS resource settings on host (Reason: The operation is not allowed in the current state.).This can significantly reduce the effectiveness of DRS.
Unable to apply DRS resource settings on host (Reason: The operation is not allowed in the current state.).This can significantly reduce the effectiveness of DRS.
Unable to apply DRS resource settings on host (Reason: The operation is not allowed in the current state.).This can significantly reduce the effectiveness of DRS.
Unable to apply DRS resource settings on host (Reason: The operation is not allowed in the current state.).This can significantly reduce the effectiveness of DRS.
Unable to apply DRS resource settings on host (Reason: The operation is not allowed in the current state.).This can significantly reduce the effectiveness of DRS.

the details of the event doesn't have more information, so don't know what problem is.

I wonder if the configuration of the resource pools are incorrect. How should I do?

ESX 3.X on IBM DS3300?

mcocat — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 19:04:07 GMT

Has anyone setup ESX with an IBM DS3300? It is not on the HCL yet but I am curious if anyone has had success with it?

High CPU usage on Server 2003 guest

DanielJay — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 14:36:58 GMT

Over the past 2 weeks we have had a Windows 2003 Termial Server running with a rather high CPU usage and rather slow performance. All of the other VMs on the machine are running smooth. After doing some searching I ran across Virtual machine CPU usage spikes and remains abnormally high after VMotion in a VMware DRS enabled cluster. We have upgraded to VirtualCenter 2.5.0 Update 5 but have not restarted either the guest or the host since the upgrade. My boss has not wanted to take the server offline as of yet. Is a restart required of the guest and/or host in order to fully resolve these issues?

Data Store Reservation?

kdmillar — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:43:03 GMT

Hi,

I was wondering if there is a setting that allows you to impose a data store free space reservation? We have a number to ESX clusters with multiple administrators creating VM's. Frequently we find data stores where the free space has dropped below our 30GB guidance. I would like to know if there is a way to force Virtual Center to not allow the creation of a new VM disk on the data store if it will drop it below our 30 GB threshold?

Thanks

SCSI card to VM

ZBali — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 18:16:29 GMT

Hi All!

Today I will have a task about:

There is a SCSI card that I have to put it in an ESX 3.5 host and give it to a VM (linux) for useing a tape library. They would liketo try out his linux driver and linux application with that scsi card and scsi tape drive on a linux.

Is it possible to dedicate a card for a VM without any virtualisation layer? (I think it is not, but you know it better than me)

Is there any documentation about this in vmware?

I have to say sorry about I didn't look for any solution on the net but I haven' t too much time and I have limited internet connection so I thought that community is the fastest source...

Thanks,

ESX 3.5 - To see Red Hat Version....

rumak — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:19:38 GMT

Hallo,

how can i identify my Red Hat Version on service console in ESX3.5 ??

Migrating a running 2.5.x virtual machine to ESX 3.x?

PSCJJ — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:14:49 GMT

Hello all,

We have production ESX 2.5 Hosts which i am trying to perform Migration Upgrade to ESX 3.5.

Both ESX 2.5 and ESX 3.5 hosts have access to the same LUNs. No RDM, No virtual CD - floppy image files connected

I have setup lab and mimic the production environment, with ESX 2.5 and ESX 3.5 hosts with Vcenter and followed the instruction on knowledge base article:

"How do I migrate a running 2.5.x virtual machine to ESX 3.x?"

Problem:

I am able to perform the Cold migration (while the VM is off) without any problem, but i am not able to migrate the VMs while they are powered on.

Error mesg is "a specified parameter was not correct. datastore"

Please let me know what you guys think ?

Thank you

VMs extremely slow after reboot. Also, boot order of VMs?

JoeyJoeJoe70 — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:02:05 GMT

Recently had to power down and restart all of our ESX servers and the VMs on one of them are coming up extremely slowly and all tasks on the VMs are taking a very long time to complete. Even simple stuff like changing NIC settings or starting/restarting VMs takes up to ten minutes to complete.

The ESX server was shut down gracefully, so its not as if the plug was pulled or anything drastic like that.

Second, I have a virtual app that, pre-reboot of ESX, used to work fine, but since has started timing out on PXE boot and I get "operating system not found"

HA Agent Error

omera — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:01:20 GMT

Hi ,

I am configuring Vmware HA in my customer environment. We have 6 ESX 3.5 hosts. I have created HA Cluster and install agent to them. 5 of 6 ESX host have no problem, but i could not install HA agent ons of the hosts. I got the error message below. I have removed the host from Vcenter and add again. I also restart the host and try again.It doesn't works.

Does anybody have any idea about the problem.

VcbRestore console mode : failed /usr/sbin/vcbRestore: line 1: 22377 Aborted

arno49 — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 10:11:52 GMT

Hello,

I would restore my virtual host backup by vcbmount.Everhting is OK. But, when I use vcbRestore i have a message failed.

My /etc/vwmware/backuptools.conf is OK ( no space and caractere special)

I mount a file system from SMBFS is ok

but when I run :

vcbRestore -s /mnt/TPL_Sles10SP2_x64 -L 6

I have :

--2009-10-01 03:55:26.680 'App' 3076457280 info-- Current working directory: /etc/vmware
--2009-10-01 03:55:26.686 'vcbRestore' 3076457280 info-- Connecting to host 192.168.1.9 on port 443 using protocol https

--2009-10-01 03:55:26.687 'vcbRestore' 3076457280 trivia-- Initializing SSL context
--2009-10-01 03:55:26.688 'App' 3076457280 info-- Vmacore::InitSSL: doVersionCheck = true, handshakeTimeoutUs = 120000000
--2009-10-01 03:55:26.690 'SOAP' 3076457280 trivia-- Sending soap request to ~~TCP:192.168.1.9:443~~: retrieveContent
--2009-10-01 03:55:26.702 'SOAP' 3076457280 trivia-- Received soap response from ~~TCP:192.168.1.9:443~~: retrieveContent
--2009-10-01 03:55:26.707 'vcbRestore' 3076457280 info-- Connected using API Namespace vim25.
--2009-10-01 03:55:26.708 'vcbRestore' 3076457280 info-- Authenticating user administrateur
--2009-10-01 03:55:26.709 'SOAP' 3076457280 trivia-- Sending soap request to ~~TCP:192.168.1.9:443~~: login
--2009-10-01 03:55:26.759 'SOAP' 3076457280 trivia-- Received soap response from ~~TCP:192.168.1.9:443~~: login
--2009-10-01 03:55:26.763 'vcbRestore' 3076457280 info-- Logged in!
--2009-10-01 03:55:26.766 'vcbRestore' 3076457280 info-- Catalog parsed successfully
--2009-10-01 03:55:26.767 'SOAP' 3076457280 trivia-- Sending soap request to ~~TCP:192.168.1.9:443~~: retrieveContent
--2009-10-01 03:55:26.772 'SOAP' 3076457280 trivia-- Received soap response from ~~TCP:192.168.1.9:443~~: retrieveContent
--2009-10-01 03:55:26.774 'vcbRestore' 3076457280 verbose-- Looking up host servervw07.groupe-esa.com (192.168.1.90)
--2009-10-01 03:55:26.775 'SOAP' 3076457280 trivia-- Sending soap request to ~~TCP:192.168.1.9:443~~: findByIp
--2009-10-01 03:55:26.779 'SOAP' 3076457280 trivia-- Received soap response from ~~TCP:192.168.1.9:443~~: findByIp
--2009-10-01 03:55:26.780 'vcbRestore' 3076457280 verbose-- Found host servervw07.groupe-esa.com (192.168.1.90) in this VirtualCenter instance.
--2009-10-01 03:55:26.783 'SOAP' 3076457280 trivia-- Sending soap request to ~~TCP:192.168.1.9:443~~: GetName
--2009-10-01 03:55:26.785 'SOAP' 3076457280 trivia-- Received soap response from ~~TCP:192.168.1.9:443~~: GetName
--2009-10-01 03:55:26.787 'SOAP' 3076457280 trivia-- Sending soap request to ~~TCP:192.168.1.9:443~~: GetConfig
--2009-10-01 03:55:26.922 'SOAP' 3076457280 trivia-- Received soap response from ~~TCP:192.168.1.9:443~~: GetConfig
/usr/sbin/vcbRestore: line 1: 22377 Aborted LD_LIBRARY_PATH=:/usr/lib/vmware/hostd VCB_PASSWORD="$PASSWORD" /usr/lib/vmware/vcb/vcbRestore -h "$VCHOST" -u "$USERNAME" -s "$legacy_dir" -L "6" --

Why ? I dont understand

Thank you for you help.

VI Client connectivity Issue to ESX 3.5

BharathMusthy — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 08:26:59 GMT

Hi Guys,

I've installed VI Client 2.5 on my Kubuntu v 9.10 and bypassed the SSL part by modding the proxy.xml. At the VI Client login prompt, I specify http://<ESX 3.5 server's IP>, root/password.

I then get the background screen aftr the inventory is loaded for ESX server but at the end of that loading, I get the error message:-

VMWare Infrastructure Client could not establish a connection with server "IP".

Details: The server took too long to respond.

I'm not sure why I'm getting this as I have restarted the mgmt service on the ESX server.

I have no issues using the VI Client on my other OSs viz: Win2K3, XP (that are on the same box as my Kubuntu).

Can you please let me know what is going wrong or help me out here? Also let me know what else do I have to provide to help me resolve this issue.

Thanks guys.

Bharath

Memory shown by guest is smaller than configured memory

daugavpils — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 09:41:41 GMT

Hi,

We are hosting our vms with the external provider and we requested to assign 1024 MB to the virtual host ( RHEL)

Aftter this has been done, I logged on to the guest and /cat/meminfo showed less that:

cat /proc/meminfo
MemTotal: 896108 kB
MemFree: 18848 kB
Buffers: 304120 kB
Cached: 378700 kB
SwapCached: 0 kB
Active: 253004 kB
Inactive: 486740 kB
HighTotal: 0 kB
HighFree: 0 kB
LowTotal: 896108 kB
LowFree: 18848 kB
SwapTotal: 2097144 kB
SwapFree: 2097144 kB
Dirty: 252 kB
Writeback: 0 kB
AnonPages: 56932 kB
Mapped: 14356 kB
Slab: 120860 kB
PageTables: 4008 kB
NFS_Unstable: 0 kB
Bounce: 0 kB
CommitLimit: 2545196 kB
Committed_AS: 149664 kB
VmallocTotal: 34359738367 kB
VmallocUsed: 1784 kB
VmallocChunk: 34359736183 kB
HugePages_Total: 0
HugePages_Free: 0
HugePages_Rsvd: 0
Hugepagesize: 2048 kB

I have asked provider what is the reason and that was their answer:
"Memory is less on the vm servers as there is an overhead (128-200 MB) that is deducted from the total memory, if you need more RAM you will need to request accordingly."

This explanation does not seem to be right, as my understanding is that overhead happens on hypervisor and guest should receive all configured memory if there is no limits set by resource management policies.

They sent me a VMclient screenshot that shows

Memory : 1024MB

Overhead: 104.53MB

Host memory usage: 855MB

Guest memory usage:471 MB

Is there misconfiguration on their side or am I missing something here?

DRS error

pjudge — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 22:25:41 GMT

Hi,

We have a 4 node cluster and one of the nodes has the following error:

unable to apply DRS resource settings on host <hostname> in <datacenter> reason, operation failed since another task is is progress.

From what I can see in the VI client, no other tasks are running.

Any help much appreciated.

Thanks

ESX 3.5 connectivity issue with SAN

zikria — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 05:59:22 GMT

Hi Guys,

Just recently Dell replaced a set of faulty RAM on one of our ESX 3.5 Host and since then the server can not see the SAN storage.

I'm not getting much help from Dell tech support and i was wondering if someone could help me to reolve this issue. I thought initially

the issue could be because the fibre cables might be plugged in wrong but this was not the case. I have reboot the host few time and

also rescan the hba via VC. Also, ran the DSET on the host and SP collect on SAN. Everything seems to be fine but they only thing i noticed from

SP collect, it's indicating the host is not logged in. I'm not sure what this is indicating to??

Regards

FZikria

ESX server VM unresponsive

sc_2111@vmtn — Mon, 28 May 2007 08:13:11 GMT

We have a server in a cluster of two which randomly has a problem with Vms running on it .
All at once the VM become unresponsive and cannot be taken offline in any way . Not only they cannot be reached remotely but also the VMVware console doesn't work.
The "stop" button doesn't work.

The questions are :
- How can we force the vm to be taken offline via command line ?

On the esx console we found this error , but we don't know if is much related with the VM problem

hda: cdrom_pc_intr: the drive appears confused (ireason = 0x 1)
hda: lost_interrupt

Thanks

Roles and Responsibilites of ESX administrator

BSRKrishna — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 06:11:44 GMT

Hi 2 all,

I am not sure i can ask this question in this fourm...

Can any one share the L3 ESX administrator ROLES and Responsibilities ..

Thanks & Regards,
BSR Krishna

Monitoring ESX via SNMP instead of the Web API?

RattusXanthurus — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 21:34:37 GMT

We have been using the check_esx3 Nagios plugin written by www.op5.com to monitor a bunch of ESX hosts. Occasionally they have been having problems with the service console running out of memory and VMWare thinks it is because of our monitoring. They suggested we switch over to monitoring via SNMP isntead of using the web API. However I can't seem to find any of the things we're monitoring via the API, in SNMP.

Can anyone help provide me with what SNMP OID's would give us this information? Or could someone confirm this info is only available via the API? I have done a full snmpwalk of the default MIBs as well as all of the VMWARE custom MIBs, but it just doesn't seem to contain all of this data.

Since SNMP doesn't seem to have all of this, maybe there are command line commands we could run instead on the service console that would be easier on it than the web API calls? If someone could tell me how to check all of these items via command line (vmware-vim-cmd etc) I could make some scripts to monitor all of that this way instead.

Here is what we are monitoring and graphing with Nagios, approximately once every 2-3 minutes per ESX host:

esx3_host_runtime_status:

esx3_host_runtime_issues:

esx3_host_runtime_con:

esx3_host_runtime_maint:

esx3_host_io_usage:

esx3_host_net_usage:

esx3_host_runtime_health:

esx3_host_nics:

esx3_host_cpu:

esx3_host_memory:

esxcfg-rescan vmhba2 shows nothing?

peterlyttle — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:11:13 GMT

Hello,

Currently I have 7 servers (ESX3.5u4-199239) all facing the same problem, each server has 2x HP FC2142SR HBAs each connected to a switch which is inturn connected to each controller on my EVA4400 (4 paths total). From Command View I can see all the WWNs from the hosts that are presented to the vDisks so I can rule out any zoning/presentation issue.

Here are some outputs -

esxcfg-rescan vmhba1

Rescanning vmhba1 ...

On scsi2, removing: 0:1 0:2 0:3.
On scsi2, adding: 0:1 0:2 0:3.

esxcfg-rescan vmhba2

Rescanning vmhba2 ...
On scsi3, removing:.
On scsi3, adding:.

esxcfg-vmhbadevs

vmhba0:0:0 /dev/sda
vmhba1:0:1 /dev/sdb
vmhba1:0:2 /dev/sdc
vmhba1:0:3 /dev/sdd

We had been getting SCSI Reservation errors and the VMWare tech suggested rebooting all the hosts (which I did) but this didnt resolve the issue.

On reboot dmesg doesnt show any reservation errors nor does esxcfg-info | egrep -B5 "s Reserved|Pending"

Anyone have any ideas?

can't install vmware converter agent

olano — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 02:23:27 GMT

Hi,

I just want to convert a windows physical machine to virtual machine in VI3. But when I begin the installation of vmware converter agent failed. Is there anyone know why? If any special steps need to do, like open some kind of ports.....

Here is the log:

15 ~~2009-10-29 10:19:22.803 'App' 3008 info~~ agentManager,83 AgentManager Install Agent on tnwiavsomc01
15 ~~2009-10-29 10:19:22.803 'App' 3008 info~~ agentDeploymentWin32,47 AgentDeployment Connect to ADMIN$ on tnwiavsomc01 as tnwiavsomc01\lanl
15 ~~2009-10-29 10:19:29.850 'App' 3008 info~~ ,0 SMB manager: Error connecting to share \\tnwiavsomc01\ADMIN$: 1203
15 ~~2009-10-29 10:19:29.850 'App' 3008 error~~ agentDeployment,366 AgentDeployment Deployment on tnwiavsomc01 failed: Unspecified error in remote execution mechanism
15 ~~2009-10-29 10:19:29.850 'App' 3008 error~~ agentDeployment,158 AgentDeployment Install of Agent failed on tnwiavsomc01
15 ~~2009-10-29 10:19:29.850 'App' 3008 error~~ agentManager,106 AgentManager Install Agent failed: converter.fault.AgentDeploymentFault
15 ~~2009-10-29 10:19:29.850 'wizardController' 3008 verbose~~ AgentManagerProxy::InstallAgent: Agent deployment status: 4.
15 ~~2009-10-29 10:19:50.585 'wizardController' 7680 verbose~~ VimConnectionStore stopping keepalive
15 ~~2009-10-29 10:19:50.585 'wizardController' 7680 info~~ Scheduled timer canceled, StopKeepAlive succeeds

Thanks!

Lan

Can't add NFS Mount

bertschj — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:50:29 GMT

Trying to add another NFS mount to a 3.5 server. I have an existing one on a Windows 2003 server that mounts fine. The error I get during creation is:

Error during the configuration of the host: Cannot open volume: /vmfs/volumes/f33bc09a-59b57f41<

Any ideas? This is also to a 2003 server but different box.

Service Console Isolation Clarification

Ripper98 — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:51:17 GMT

I have read the Security Hardening Guide but I have a few of questions about isolating the service console isolation.
1. What are the security risks? I found that logs are sent in clear test which is a risk but in a fully routed network once the logs leave the service console network they can be captured or read on the syslog network, unless a ipsec tunnel is created between teh two systems. Another risk I read is that if the service console is on the same vswitch or network as an internet type VM workstation the service console could be exposed to the internet. Any other risks?

2. If the service console is isolated on its own vswitch/network but the network outside of the vm environment has other systems not necessarily vm systems is this still considered a risk or does the physical environment also need to be isolated to only management traffic? To clarify if the service console is on a 192.168.1.0/24 network and that network have physical systems connected to that same 192.168.1.0/24 network is the service console at risk? Again what are the risks and does it matter that the physical network fully switched and uses port isolation? If a company has a fully routed network does the isolation really provide added security? To be compliant with the Security Guide is the key to keep the management network/traffic isolated from internet accesses?

For some reason I am having trouble getting this concept and the security risks. Thanks in advance for help in understanding service console isolation.

ESX 3.5 update 2 losing settings in Virtual Machine Startup/Shutdown option

caddo — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 21:42:18 GMT

In a simple 2 node HA Cluster sometimes when both hosts are turned off when they are turned back on they don't star VMs as they usually do; when i go check Virtual Machine Startup/Shutdown options it's blank!!!

Someone seen this before? Conside that this behavior is random since once configured the Startup/Shutdown option works just fine.

How do I determine which physical NIC a guest is utilizing?

ewedemeyer — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 19:45:23 GMT

I have 3 physical nics - vmnic3, vmnic4 & vmnic5 attached to the same virtual switch.

From what I understand a guest will "attach" to one of these physical nics via the virtual switch. Is there a way to determin which one?

How to disable Physical Address Extension (PAE) in guest VM?

cabraun — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:29:19 GMT

Recently I moved serveral Citrix Application Server VMs from our ESXi environment into our new ESX environment.

Today we had some users complain about a Citrix application was not working and was giving a memory error when they tried to run it. After looking into the problem we discovered that when we view the properties on all of the VMs in ESX that they are all PAE enabled, even though there is no /pae switch in the boot.ini. I then looked at the remaining VMs in ESXi and none of them indicate that they are using PAE and I have confirmed that the Citrix VMs in question were not using PAE when they were on ESXi.

A bit of googling indicated that is we disable Data Execution Prevention (DEP) with the /noexecute=alwaysoff switch in the boot.ini that would resolve our problem. So we tested that and sure enough, the memory error went away and people could use the Citrix App that they could not use before when the /noexcute switch was set to optout.

So something about the combination of ESX forcing PAE down our throat and the way that it plays with DEP is causing this problem.

Since the particular Citrix Application VM only has 1GB of vRAM, I don't see the need for PAE and I would like to know if there is a way to tell ESX to not use it?

Added after original post -

I have just tried replacing the /noexecute=optout or /noexecute=alwaysoff switch in the boot.ini with /execute and that does in fact remove PAE, but it also turns off DEP which we would prefer not to do if possible

what service to start

Lotus91000 — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:13:37 GMT

Hi there,
I would like to know what service to start after editing FT_HOSTS?
Cheers

Will ESX 3.5 recognize additional HDs on PowerEdge 2900 (not joined to a RAID 1 config) ?

ESOcarlos — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:05:03 GMT

Good morning gurus/VM-masters

I'm still a novice to the VM world :3

The setup:

Dell PowerEdge 2900 running VMware ESX Server 3i 3.5.0 build-153875
Two hard drives setup in RAID 1
Only one datastore living in RAID1

The question:

I have an extra hard drive that I want to add. http://Cheetah 15K.6, SAS (Serial Attached SCSI)
I was wondering if it where possible to add the extra hard drive and create a new datastore to add new VMs on it?
Will ESX recognize it as additional storage?
Will it hurt/mess with the existing RAID1 configuration?
Or is it straight-forward, plug-in the HD
Thank you!

ESX 3.5 U 5?

ppwilson — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 01:09:25 GMT

Does anyone know if there is going to be an update 5 to ESX 3.5 to support Windows 2008 R2? I would update to 4.0 but our SAN configuration isn't supported, not yet anyway.

Thanks

How can you clean up old LUN numbers?

jamieorth — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:33:38 GMT

I have a case where the storage admin had unmasked some old LUN's from the ESX hosts prior to removing the datastore. Now when new storage was presented to the ESX hosts with what are probably LUN numbers that have been used we can't add the storage.

This is what we get -

Create VMFS Datastore "Error during the configuration of the host:Cannot open volume: /vmfs/vloumes/4aafd8e--745aff4e-09a6-001e4f27972a

Also, when running esxcfg-vmhbadevs -m there are several 'StorageInfo' warnings with Skipping dir: /.........etc, etc, etc....

How can you clean out LUN numbers that are not in use any longer?

Regards...

Jamie
If you found this information useful, please consider awarding points for "Correct" or "Helpful".
Remember, if it's not one thing, it's your mother...

Remove Snapshot - Status: A file was not found

aitch — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 09:43:16 GMT

Hello,

This is my first post in the community so apologies in advance if this is the wrong place for this discussion.

We have four ESX 3.5 hosts in a HA cluster and we have two SLES10 VMs running which have snapshots on.

I tried to remove a couple of snapshots on both of the hosts, but I get "A file was not found"

The snapshots also still exist under the snapshot manager.

Does anyone have any ideas on this one? I googled and used the search on here and many instances came up for this subject, but the error happened upon a reconfigure rather than a snapshot removal.

Thanks

Haydn

Why

Lotus91000 — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 14:18:42 GMT

Hi There,
Is that nirmal that I don;t have anymore this aam folder in this path?
etc/opt/vmware/aam

I have changed the IP address of my ESX Server and take out from the cluster and now, I have a HA issue. I saw a thread where I have to edit the FT_HOSTS., but I don't have any more this aam folder. The filder exist in the other ESX within the cluster.

Need your help

Please I need your help

Lotus91000 — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:34:47 GMT

Hi Here,

I think that I'm gone die because I started last week my IP Migration in Our ESX environment and the HA fails.
I have 4 Cluster. In the first Cluster, there are 6 ESX Servers and I just Changer the IP address of one of this ESX Host. I can ping everything:
1-The other ESX Server,
2-The Server Center
3-The other Servers.

I have tried many solutions:
1-Take out the Server and take it back in the Cluster:Nothing,
2-Reconfigure in VI the HA: Nothing,
3-I try this Solution where We have to edit the "Advance Option of the HA": Nothing,
4-I also find something on the Web wher ewe have the check the aam and F_Hosts file, I didn't see anything special.

I don't know what else I have to check.
Please your help will be appreciated.