VMware Communities : Thread List - Lab Manager

Storage space used by VMs linked to a template

krdeepak75 — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 23:52:46 GMT

We find that the storage space for VMs linked to a template grows pretty fast when users do things like application installs, copy builds, source control updates etc. I understand that for such large writes we should avoid cloning.

Can we do following to limit the growth rate of the delta disk?

Suppose we create a template with base OS installed. Now a user creates a configuration off the base template and deploys the VM in Lab Manager. The user then adds a new virtual hard disk (this disk is not on the template), configures this disk (say to E: drive) and does all large write activity on E:. I understand that all of E: will be consumed from the shared storage pool all at once. But after that will the delta disks grow at the same rate as it would if E: was configured in the base template?

Is there a way to shutdown Lab Manager gracefully?

SgRddY — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:38:04 GMT

Hello,

I was just wondering if there is a way to automatically trigger Lab Manager to undeploy all runing VM's and shutdown gracefully when the power is running low on the UPS.

I think that you can install agents on ESX/Virtual Center to trigger gracefull shutdown automatically when the power goes out. But what about Lab Manager? How does Lab Manager aware of this? And what will happen when I bring the systems back online and Lab Manager thinks that the VM's are still running but they are not?

In another word, is there a way to tell Lab Manager to undeploy all VM's and shutdown the ESX when triggered by the UPS power outage?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Ken

Windows 2008 Unattend.xml File Location

samualcc — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:38:19 GMT

I know that VMware prefers that the pre and post config functionality be used to customize templates. However I find modifiying the sysprep.inf and unattend.xml files to be much more powerful and flexible when deploying templates. Changing the unattend info for Windows 2003, XP, etc is easy. However I cannot figure out where Lab Manager is pulling the unattend.xml file for Windows 2008 setup.

Now on my lab manager server, I have found the original unattend.xml file. It is located in e:\Program Files\VMware\VMware vCenter Lab Manager\Tools\CustomizeGuest\Windows\Sysprep. However what I cannot figure out is how to load that unattend.xml into Lab Manager once I modify it. I know about the Build Sysprep package option under settings-->guest customization. It work GREAT for 2003, etc but not for 2008.

Any help on this would be great. For those interested in how to properly modify the 2003, XP sysprep file I can post that as well.
Thanks.

How to import VMs from vCenter to LM4?

hansbertrams — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:48:26 GMT

Yesterday I openened a topic on the problems we have with LM4. I was advised to create a new topic on my followup questions.
http://communities.vmware.com/thread/243036?tstart=0

Some machines we place in LM are no longer able to access the domain. These machines are imported from vCenter.

Can anybody withLabmanager tell me how they use it?
Do you import machines from production to LM (fenced) and does it work
without problems? Or do you customize the imported machine, with a new
sid or something else?

VMs are removed from the domain

hansbertrams — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:16:24 GMT

We have LM4 running for a few weeks now on vSphere. The idea is to clone/import VMs from VC to LM, and test patches and updates on these machines. And also use it for Sharepoint development.

We have two clusters a Production Cluster with 3 hosts on vSphere and a LM Cluster with currently 1 host.

But we have the problem that some VMs who are in LM are no longer seeing the domain.

Eventlog message:

_{Event Type: Error}
_{Event Source: NETLOGON}
_{Event Category: None}
~Event
ID: 5719~
_{Date: 11/12/2009}
_{Time: 10:05:57 AM}
_{User: N/A}
~Computer:
XXXXX~
_Description:
~This computer was not able to set up a secure session
with a domain controller in domain XXXXX due to the following:~
~There are
currently no logon servers available to service the logon request.~
~This may
lead to authentication problems. Make sure that this computer is connected to
the network. If the problem persists, please contact your domain administrator.~

The way we create the machines in LM is importing a VM from VC through the webinterface of LM. The configuration is Fenced Allow In/Out.

The machines run fine for a few weeks and then a machine is removed from the domain. It is random which machine it is, sometimes a production machine, sometimes a VM in LM.

I thought that fencing should prevent these kind of problems.

What are we doing wrong??

Message was edited by: hansbertrams

How to set a static IP everytime I create a linked clone of a VM?

Inquisitive3 — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 23:17:27 GMT

Hi,

I am pretty new to Lab manager 4.0. We have a setup where our VM's can only use static IP. So we have static IP pool defined. Is there a way by which I can force IP customization everytime I create a linked clone from a template or from a configuration?

I tried looking at Vmware tools and I know the tools customize VM in configuration first time it is deployed. But can anyone help me with how Vmware tools gets the available IP from the static IP pool?

LM4 adding DV switch & Host spanning to existing environment

bgarner — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 23:23:35 GMT

We have a 6 host Lab Manager 4 cluster that's up and running without Host Spanning networking. I have just received our upgrade for vSphere 4 Enterprise +. Each host has 6 1GBps ethernet ports. They are currently configured with 2 virtual nic's for Service Console, VMkernel & VM network. I would like to roll out the Host Spanning capability.

How should I go about reconfiguring the virtual switches to add the dVswitch?

What's the best way to add Host Spanning to LM4 without disrupting the existing configurations?

Thanks,
Blake

Vmotion/HA/DRS and lab manager.

jjohnson0000 — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 20:33:19 GMT

How well does Lab manager work with Storage Vmotion, HA and or DRS?

Right now I have Lab manager running in a Virtual Machine on an ESX 4.0 machine

The configurations and templates get stored on one of 2 ESX 3.5 machines that I have running.

I have created a new cluster that has HA/DRS enabled on it, and am thinking of moving my ESX 3.5 servers into that cluster to enable HA and DRS, however I am not sure how this will affect lab manager.

Furthermore, can anyone tell me if I can simply relocate my ESX servers in Vcenter over to the new cluster without it affecting anything?

Best Practice for pointing LM to a new vCenter?

jezi — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:15:56 GMT

What is the best way to point Lab Manager 4 to a different vCenter? Our Lab Manager is currently running in our Lab vC and we would like it to run in our Prod vC.

What gets moved or repointed first? Should I move the hosts and then point LM to the new vCenter? Or should I point to the new vCenter and then move the hosts over?

Thanks in advance.

Lab manager website not working

kathirkk23 — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:56:01 GMT

Hi,

I have VC 2.5 with 5 esx 3.5 . I installed Lab manager recently and try to schedule the update but getting
"web site hosting the update signature and update packages cannot be reached" error

the web site for vmware update manager is not working even with direct internet.

https://www.vmware.com/PatchManagementSystem/patchmanagement

_http://pchmgmt-prod-wlc-vip.vmware.com:7004/patchMdSvc?WSDL

_https://xml.shavlik.com/unix/corefiles.xml
can any one help us to configure lab manager.

Thanks in advance
Regards
Kathir

Storage Quotas in LM 4.0

robert jensen — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:14:46 GMT

According to LM 4.0 release notes, its cable of handeling storage Quotes.

http://www.vmware.com/support/labmanager40/doc/releasenotes_labmanager40.html

I can however not find that option.

Can any of you point to where i find it ?

The only option i can find, is a VM quota.

What we are trying to do, is to have a couple of templates, on one LUN, taht other organisations can use.

Every organisation, have there own storage, and must not be able to create configurations, on out shared template LUN.

Storage qouta, would be a way to restrict organisations, from using more storage than they are allowed to, insted of giving them their own lun each.

If storage quotas not posible, can you then se any other way to acchive this ?

Regards

/Robert

How to back up lab manager and linked clones?

jjohnson0000 — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 20:31:04 GMT

I was wondering if anyone can explain to me how you go about backing up lab manager, as well as linked clones within lab manager?

My lab manager is running in a Windows 2003 VM. I know that you can't just simply back up the VM, because if you go to restore there will be issues with the database.

Also, most of the configurations in my lab manager are using "linked clones". How exactly do you go about backing all of those up? Since you have to undeploy the template you use to create the linked clone in, it does not show up in the ESX server. So if I were to back up the ESX server using VCB and such, it would back up the VM's that lab manager created, however it wouldn't back up the disk file (flat file) that the clones are looking to.

This creates an issue.

Even if I were able to backup the VM's, if I lost my lab manager server, it wouldn't do me any good because I wouldn't be able to restore the configurations the way they were before.

So how does VMware recommend you go about backing up Lab Manager?

Problem deploying after upgrading to Lab Manager 4.0

kajh — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 11:02:49 GMT

After upgrading from Lab Manager 3.x to 4.0 we experienced a few minor issues. I managed to solve most of them but one issue still remains. When deploying a config I get and error message and no machines are deployed. If you try to deploy the same config again it works just fine. This only happens now and then and is not a big deal but it is annoying

The error message displayed (see below). Anyone else seen this behaviour?

*Unable to deploy virtual machines in resource pool
"LM".*

InternalError: Folder nc_2008 x64 SP1 does not exist in our inventory,
but vCenter claims that it does.

*Unable to deploy virtual machines in resource pool
"LM".*

InternalError: Folder Win98 does not exist in our inventory, but vCenter
claims that it does.

Error when sending notification to "Everyone in Lab Manager"

Scissor — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 01:38:06 GMT

I'm running Lab Manager 3.0.2.56.

I find that if I try to send an e-mail notification to "Everyone in Lab Manager" (or "Admins in Lab Manager") that I receive the following error (see attachment), and no one with an e-mail address starting after "n" receives an email.

Failed to send email. Verify the SMTP settings and try again.
Failed to send email: The server rejected one or more recipient addresses. The server response was: 550 5.7.1 Unable to relay for nobody@nowhere

None of my users have that nobody@nowhere e-mail address configured for them. I then took a look at the backend database and see that there is a "system" user with this e-mail address (see attachment).

I can't find anywhere in the Lab Manager web interface to change this "system" user's e-mail address. Do you think it would be safe to clear out the e-mail field for this user by editing the database? I suppose I could also replace nobody@nowhere with my own e-mail address, but that isn't a long term solution (if I ever left the company then this problem would pop up again).

Any suggestions?

Missing authentication header.

cesarcesar — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 09:27:21 GMT

I am getting the following error when i try to use the "ListConfigurations" method. Any resons why?

Missing authentication header. ---> Missing authentication header.

Below is the PHP code I am using.

<?php /***** code from - http://code.google.com/p/phlabmanager *****/
require_once("labmanager.php");

$hostname = "wv-labmgr-01.wv.sitename.com";
$username = "myuname";
$password = "rgh7hj6d";

$lm = new labmanager($hostname, $username, $password, "ITGO-TTS", "Main");
echo $lm->ListConfigurations(1);
?>

<?php /******** labmanager.php ********/

class labmanager
{
public $client;
public $debug_mode;

public function debugXMLDump(&$request, &$client)
{
global $debug_mode;

if ($debug_mode == true)
{
$request = $client->__getLastRequestHeaders();
file_put_contents('headers.xml', $request);

$request = $client->__getLastRequest();
file_put_contents('request.xml', $request);

$request = $client->__getLastResponse();
file_put_contents('response.xml', $request);
}
}

function __construct($hostname, $username, $password, $organization, $workspacename, $debug=false)
{
global $client;
global $debug_mode;

$debug_mode = $debug;

unset($soap_dat);

$soap_dat = $username;
$soap_dat = $password;
$soap_dat = $organization;
$soap_dat = $workspacename;

$namespace = "http://vmware.com/labmanager";

if ($debug == true)
{
$client = new SoapClient("https://$hostname/LabManager/SOAP/LabManager.asmx?wsdl", array('trace' => 1));
}
else
{
$client = new SoapClient("https://$hostname/LabManager/SOAP/LabManager.asmx?wsdl");
}

$authvar = new SoapVar($soap_dat, SOAP_ENC_OBJECT);

$header = new SOAPHeader($namespace, 'AuthenticationHeader', $soap_dat);

$client->__setSoapHeaders($header);
}

public function ListConfigurations($value)
{
global $client;

try
{
$result = $client->ListConfigurations(array("configurationType" => $value));
}
catch (SoapFault $e)
{
echo $e->getMessage();
$this->debugXMLDump($result,$client);
return NULL;
}

if (is_array($result->ListConfigurationsResult->Configuration))
{
foreach ($result->ListConfigurationsResult->Configuration as $config)
{
$this->printContainer($config);
}
}
else
{
foreach ($result->ListConfigurationsResult as $config)
{
$this->printContainer($config);
}
}
}

}

?>

Track the number of Deployments over a period of time

praman — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 11:34:52 GMT

Hi All,

I need to track the number of deployments in Labmanager since 01-01-2009 till date, is there a way to generate this report in LM or by executing a query in the DB? Also if possible, i would like to know which are most commnly deployed templates and the number of times they have been deployed?

I did get in touch with support, but they did not have a soultion for this and asked me to open a FR. but, any help to generate this report, is highly appreciated.

I use VMware, Inc.® Lab Manager 3.0 (3.0.0.2056)

Regards,
Pattabhi Raman

Lab Manager on ESXi

Sanju84 — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 22:39:43 GMT

Hi ALL

I am working on my masters project trying to facilitate virtual labs. I have as of now configured an esxi 4.0 for running host machines and am able to connect to the machines. I read on a post that esxi is not supported in vmlabmanger. However the user guide says it could be used as a host.

I now wonder if I can go ahead and use labmanager for the deployment of the labs.

Could you please guide me with the installation requirements and a procedure for running vmlabmanager on windows server 2003 and connect it to ESXi host

Thanks

LM4.0 --> Where is the attach local CD/Floppy to VM??

touimet — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:12:16 GMT

New installation of vCenter Lab Manager 4.0 and it appears that the VM web console is lacking the ability found in the vSphere client to attach a local CD/Floppy drive to the VM. Are we REALLY stuck with using ONLY the LM Media library thus forcing users to create ISO's of all their physical media?? And what about an easy creation of vfloppy disks that the end users can handle? This all seems backwards and screeming for a HUGE improvement.

Thanks!

Lab Manager 3 reports - SQL Queries - looking for some help

DJLO — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 01:39:13 GMT

Hi Everyone

Our management has asked for metrics on the use of Lab Manager so I started looking around and noticed that none of the 3rd party tools support Lab Manager. I started to poke around the SQL database and managed to extract some info however my SQL knowledge is very limited. I am wondering if anyone out there has written their own queries or can help me sort some things out.

I thought I would start a community thread as i'm sure I am not the only one out there looking to do this.

This first query gives you the usernames and deploys in order

SELECT *
FROM Jobs
WHERE (starttime > '02/01/2007') AND (object NOT LIKE 'VirtualRouter%') AND (operation LIKE 'JOB_Deploy') AND (object_type_full = 'Virtual Machine') and (status 3)

This query gives you the daily deployments per organization

SELECT convert(char(10), starttime, 101) as MonthYear, count(operation) as Deployments, bucket_name AS Organization
FROM Jobs
WHERE (operation LIKE 'JOB_Deploy')AND starttime BETWEEN '12/01/2006' AND '12/01/2009' AND (status 3)
GROUP BY convert(char(10), starttime, 101),bucket_name
ORDER BY MonthYear

This last query shows total deployments listed by username (someone helped me with this)

SELECT U.username, COUNT(J.job_id) AS Deploys
FROM Jobs J INNER JOIN
Usr U ON J.user_id = U.user_id
WHERE (J.object_type_full = 'Virtual Machine') AND (J.operation = 'JOB_Deploy') AND (starttime BETWEEN '12/01/2006' AND '12/01/2009')
GROUP BY U.username

I would like to know how to get some of the following:

Top 10 Users (Query 3 lists the total deployments per user but i don't know how to have it display this)
number of images created monthly (VM Templates / Workspace Configurations)
number of images captured to the library monthly
Biggest VMs
Number of logins daily (to Lab Manager)
Top 10 images checked out
Images not used in x days

Any help would be greatly appreciated

Windows 2008 R2 frezzing

CapiZikus — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 13:38:04 GMT

I'm experiencing with VM frezzing at the lab manager, secificly on windows 2008 R2, anyone get this issue?
I'm on LM4, vCenter4 and esx 4

Thanks

What is the "namespace" in SOAPHeader

cesarcesar — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 21:25:40 GMT

In the LabManager SOAP API, what is the "namespace" referenced in the AuthenticationHeader? What do i set this variable as? thanks.

how does SSmove move data

mrweetman — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:52:19 GMT

Hi,

I am running lab manager version 2.5 so this might be the wrong forum, but please bear with me.

I am in the process of moving lab manager from one SAN to another (got a new one:) ) and I know one can use SSmove to move one whole datastore at a time (Moving threes is supported from LM3.0 and above but unfortunately there is no time to upgrade).

Tthere are great amounts of data to move and I have only limited time periods to work so I wonder; Does SSmove work on the ESX level or does the data move through the "labmanager server"?
I ask because I believe the ESX would move the data faster than the Labmanager server (which is virtual)

Regards
Marius Aulie

Lab Manager RDP Breaking Fence?

jmvirtual — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 06:02:13 GMT

Hello All,

I've deployed in a Fenced only configuration 4 configurations each having one copy of the same Virtual Machine. The machines have SQL Server installed and MSDTC. I can work on the VM's fine in console mode all day. However, As soon as I RDP to a VM it breaks the MSDTC components. I get Ident Errors, COM errors, but overall DB connectivity works fines. Its just some functions in the virtual machine no longer work because of MSDTC being out of service. I worked on the issue for weeks I finally got thinking it my might have something to with having the console session open and RDP at the sametime. Maybe some how the user is still logged on and when I create teh RDP session I'm creating another instance...

When MSDTC breaks I have to delete the clone and import it from the template again. Which um takes sometime. Anyways I ended up discovering that it only happens when I RDP into the VM. If I hadn't recorded it I wouldn't believe it either. Its like somehow my RDP connection allows the machines to see each other which will of course break MSDTC. I've used Sys Prep though its not recommended, I've tried changing the GUID, I've tried linked vs full clones, in short everything that I can think of...

Deploy Multiple IP Adresses on a single vnic

dotbrianw — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:19:13 GMT

Hi!

Still a bit new to the vmware world. Tried to find an answer for this but haven't had success. So here goes.

Using LM 3.0. We're creating some templates and trying to consolidate a copy of our production server environment into 2 VMs. For each site in the production environment we need to assign an ip address for IIS/Apache to use along with DNS. I see that you can add additional nics but the maximum of 4 limitation isn't going to work as we need a few more IPs generated from the pool. My question is, is there a way to get a lab manager template to assign multiple ip addresses from the pool to a single vnic when we deploy it to a new configuration? Any help is greatly appreciated.

Labmanager 4.0, error or normal behaviour?

kajh — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 11:21:59 GMT

Hello all.

In the VSphere client I noticed the following for my running VMs (see below). It seems that a console connection is opened every 20 seconds. This happens for all running VMS as long as a user have the console active in his/her browser. Is this normal or should I spend some time to look into it?

03.11.2009 12:17:59 Administrator Remote console has been opened for this virtual machine on esx.xxx.local info
03.11.2009 12:17:58 Administrator Remote console has been opened for this virtual machine on esx.xxx.local info

03.11.2009 12:17:38 Administrator Remote console has been opened for this virtual machine on esx.xxx.local info
03.11.2009 12:17:37 Administrator Remote console has been opened for this virtual machine on esx.xxx.local info

For the record, this is pasted from VSphere client -> <running config> -> Tasks & Events tab

Wbr

Kaj

Multiple LM instances, single pool of users

jschlach — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 22:49:02 GMT

Does anybody have a group of users accessing more than one instance of Lab Manager? I'd love to bounce some ideas off of you.

Lab Manager, vCenter, and API's

dcap — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:46:14 GMT

Two Quick questions I'm hoping someone can answer for me.

1. Is Lab Manager managed through vCenter Client or does it have a separate plug-in to the VI Client?

2. If I want to integrate those VM's to my systems management console, would I use the vCenter API or does Lab Manager have a separate API?

Consoles will not display on IE7 version 7.0.5730.13

Kstrickland — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:02:48 GMT

I have a end user using IE 7.0.5730.13 He has been able to work fine for the past few weeks, but this afternoon it decided to stop showing the consoles, he can see the thumbnails fine. I had another user using Chrome that had the same issue, but moving to IE 7 worked fine.

We are using VMware, Inc.® Lab Manager 3.0 (3.0.2.56)

Change Network Label on running VM

THAGDF — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:31:58 GMT

I have a problem with changing the assigned Network to a virtual NIC when the virtual machine is running. In the vCenter it is possible to change the Network-Label of a vNIC in a running state. But with the Lab Manager i had to shutdown the machine to change that network label. The Lab Manager disables the Network-Label if the VM is running so I can't change it although the vCenter Server is able to realize that.

Is there a work-around or something like that to handle this feature with the Lab Manager?

VMXNET 3 and LabManager

MLaskowski012 — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 13:54:34 GMT

I'm assuming that the VMXNET 3 NIC is not supported by LabManager 4. Since I get Error 5014: No Valid Network Interface Card. But figured I'll ask anyways to see if there is a trick to make it work.

Port is Busy: All pipe instances are busy on Lab Manager

SgRddY — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 15:56:32 GMT

Hello,

I am getting this error message below on the host of Lab Manager and not sure what is causing it. I am running Lab Manager 3.01 and ESX3.5U3. It caused the Lab Manager website/console not available to users. Is there a solution for this?

Thanks.

Event code: 3005
Event message: An unhandled exception has occurred.
Event time: 3/31/2009 4:19:40 PM
Event time (UTC): 3/31/2009 11:19:40 PM
Event ID: 151e95e72d724395b03991e8200e5cfe
Event sequence: 564978
Event occurrence: 410
Event detail code: 0

Application information:
Application domain: /LM/W3SVC/1/Root/LabManager-1-128829953888811250
Trust level: Full
Application Virtual Path: /LabManager
Application Path: C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Lab Manager Server\WebSrvr\
Machine name: LMCONSOLE

Process information:
Process ID: 1836
Process name: w3wp.exe
Account name: LMCONSOLE\VMwareLMWeb

Exception information:
Exception type: RemotingException
Exception message: Port is Busy: All pipe instances are busy.

Request information:
Request URL: https://lmconsole:443/LabManager/ControlPanel/Machines/MachineDetails/ConsolePage.aspx?id=8911&LMAJAX=1&CCContentId=CCContentAlert_1000000
Request path: /LabManager/ControlPanel/Machines/MachineDetails/ConsolePage.aspx
User host address: 10.168.81.170
User: brads
Is authenticated: True
Authentication Type: Forms
Thread account name: LMCONSOLE\VMwareLMWeb

Thread information:
Thread ID: 33
Thread account name: LMCONSOLE\VMwareLMWeb
Is impersonating: False
Stack trace: at System.Runtime.Remoting.Proxies.RealProxy.HandleReturnMessage(IMessage reqMsg, IMessage retMsg)
at System.Runtime.Remoting.Proxies.RealProxy.PrivateInvoke(MessageData& msgData, Int32 type)
at LabManager.Backend.Interfaces.IRemotingFactory.GetRootObject()
at LabManager.Web.Util.BackendSession.Init(Int32 userId, Int32 bucketId)
at LabManager.Web.Util.BackendSession.Init(HttpSessionState session)
at LabManager.Web.Page.AuthenticatedPage.OnInit(EventArgs e)
at LabManager.Web.Page.ContentPage.OnInit(EventArgs e)
at LabManager.Web.ControlPanel.DeploymentCenter.MachineDetail.ConsolePage.OnInit(EventArgs e)
at System.Web.UI.Control.InitRecursive(Control namingContainer)
at System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint)

Custom event details:

For more information, see Help and Support Center at

LiveLinks and configuration name length

jschlach — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:04:29 GMT

Using LM 3.0.2.56 --

We have very long configuration name lengths, and when one with a 64 character name is captured to the library and LiveLink generated, we find that the LiveLink is undeployable because it violates the length limit. I have a user who somehow has two configs whose names start with "LiveLink-" and are 65 characters each. I'm not sure how those came to be until I investigate further.

Has anybody seen this behavior before?

Initialization Wizard > Prepare hosts problem

lggkkk — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 05:57:12 GMT

Hi there,

Having problem setup Lab Manager, got to the step 6: Prepare Hosts, I can't tick the 'Prepare' in the list, it's greyed out, and the 'User Name" displays 'Unsupported". For the Username and Password, I have tried root credential of the ESXi host and administrator on the domain, when I click 'Next>', it returns the error 'You need to select at least one host'. Screenshot is attached.

I installed ESXi host first, and then VirtualCenter, and then Lab Manager, all installed ok. Datacenter in VirtualCenter was setup ok. I added domain administrator in VirtualCenter administrator at Datacenter level. I can use root user to logon directly to ESXi host from guest and VirtualCenter server, and use domain administrator to logon VirtualCenter from guest and VirtualCenter server.

ESXi server is 3.5.0, VirtualCenter is 2.5.0-104263, and Lab Manager is 3.0.1-378. All evaluate version. Any idea?

Thanks.

Capture to library has been going for over 18 hours

pkelly08 — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:45:34 GMT

One of my users had attempted to capture a workspace configuration to a library about 18 hours ago; it is still 'capturing' as I write this. Normal powered-off configs take roughly 10-15 seconds to capture and powered-on configs take a couple minutes, no longer. Something is obviously stuck, but before I go making hasty decisions like restarting LM or other stuff, I'd like to see if anyone has seen this before or has any suggestions on what I should do or what is causing this. Thank you

Versions:
Lab Manager 4.0.0.1140
VC - vCenter Standard 4.0
ESX - vSphere Enterprise 4.0

Backing up Lab Manager using esXpress, Veeam, vRanger (non VCB)

Peter.Grant — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 08:08:26 GMT

Hi,

I've seen the KB article bout backing up Lab Manager. It basically says to use array backups or agent based backups and that you can't use VCB.

I'm about to deploy a LM solution for a customer and want to use a virtualisation backup solution such as esXpress. (or Veeam, vRanger). I've heard that this doesn't work and I'd like to understand if this is true and why not? Is it to do with the snapshots? Is there a work around?

My requirements are to backup selected VMs within the Lab Manager deployment and also the Lab manager database, config library itself.

Thanks

Peter

Keep low, move fast, trust no one!

Empty Virtual Switches leftover in vCenter

pkelly08 — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 20:13:42 GMT

LM ver. 3.0.1.378

VC ver. 2.5.0 Bld 119598

ESX ver. 3.5.0 Bld 163429

We just recently remediated a good amount of updates against our LM cluster's ESX hosts. After the maintenance, we're noticing semi-sporadic issues with LM deploying fenced configurations. During a deployment, I can see that it attempts to create a virtual switch that already exists, which fails, but then doesn't seem to put the VM's into the port group of the already existing vSwitch.However the VirtualRouters are put into the correct Physical Network's vSwitch. The solution simply has been to undeploy/redeploy the config, works every time.

We've been working like this for a few days now and it's becoming more of an impact than originally estimated. Now when I go into vCenter and examine the ESX host's Networking Configuration tab, I am now seeing roughly 25 empty vSwitches across 3 of the 5 hosts that are currently in the cluster. Manually removing them doesn't seem to help. The leftover vSwitches are a mixture of both Physical Networks and Virtual Network Templates that we've built up.

Has anyone ever seen this? Is this something resolved in LM4.0?

Thank you in advance.

Patrick

Cannot ping GW from VM's in fenced mode

khai — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 22:51:27 GMT

Hi All,

I'm having a problem getting to the gateway from the VM's deployed in fenced mode in lab manager. Here's the info, hopefully someone has ran into this before.

- GW - IP 10.59.70.1

When I deploy VM1 & VM2 in fenced mode (allow traffic in and out), I was able to ping VM1 from VM2 and vice versa. From either VM1 or VM2, I was able to ping the physical server .70.55 addresss, which means I was able to get out of the vRouter. But I cannot ping the GW (gateway) from VM1 or VM2. What's going on?

Btw, if I deploy in un-fenced mode, everything works fine.

I'm including the traceroute output for more info.
======
C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator.PS.000>tracert 10.59.70.55

Tracing route to w2k3 [10.59.70.55]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 10.59.70.148
2 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms FEDWEST960 [10.59.70.55]

Trace complete.

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator.PS.000>tracert 10.59.70.1

Tracing route to 10.59.70.1 over a maximum of 30 hops

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 10.59.70.148
2 * 10.59.70.146 reports: Destination host unreachable.

Trace complete.

Delete Library Configuration?

Muzika — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:30:49 GMT

Lab Manager 4.0

I have a configuration in the library that is in use by other users. I updated the original template that I initialy captured into the library and would like to replace the configuration currently being used in the library with the updated one. Can I delete the original configuration in the library without impacting the users that have checked a copy of it out?

Being hesitant about this I captured the updated template to the library but get duplicate IP errors after I deploy even when fenced. I'm assuming it's because both configurations in the library were captured from the same template.

Just looking for a way around this... or best practices when updating a library configuration.

PHP Wrapper for interacting with LabManager SOAP API

cesarcesar — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:53:22 GMT

I am new to vmware. I am attempting yo use a SOAP wrapper built for PHP, but I am having some issues with it. The wrapper is found at, http://code.google.com/p/phlabmanager/. There's not much to the script, but im just getting a white screen. I think it has to do with some configurationvalues it needs. I have listed them below in hows that someone has used vmware and knows what i need.

To give a little background on the project, VMware is installed on Server A. I am using phLabManager from a directory on Server B.

1. I assume the hostname is that of Server A? Something like http://147.34.xxx.xxx correct?

2. Is username, password that of the server, or the users vCenter login?

3. "organisation_name" and "workspace_name" are a litle confusing. When in LabManager and clicking on the Workspace link it shows my Workspace name as ITGO-TTS / Main, but i have no Organisation Name. Now if i click on VM Templates link, I now have an Organisation as ITGO-TTS, but no Workspace Name. Where do i get these values?

4. GetConfigurationByName() should this be set to either a Template Name or Workspace -> Configuration Name right?

Thanks for the help.

LM thinks a host is in maintenance mode...but it's not

pkelly08 — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:21:52 GMT

Just upgraded to LM 4.0 over the weekend. I have a simple problem with hopefully a simple solution. LM thinks that one of my hosts is "Entering maintenance mode" but it's clearly not. In vCenter I've put it in and took it out of maint mode multiple times. I've rebooted the host and disconnected/reconnected it from vCenter as well. But LM still seems to think that it's entering maintenance mode. This was found by some users who were getting HA violation constraint errors. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

"Login failed for user VMwareLMWeb" after a database restore

DaveCooke — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 00:40:36 GMT

After I restored a lab manager database I receive the following message before I even get a chance to log into Lab Manager:

Exception Details: System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException: Cannot open database "LabManager" requested by the login. The login failed.
Login failed for user 'VMLAB\VMwareLMWeb'

I'm not sure how to fix this, or what the cause might be. Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Dave

Adding RHEL5 VM in a fenced configuration.

nilesh_joshi — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 12:45:49 GMT

Hi,

I am trying to add a RHEL5 VM in a fenced configuration.

I have deployed a configuration in fenced mode with allow 'in and out'. That configuraation has 4 windows VMs. Now I am trying to add RHEL5 VM to that configuration. But some how after adding the machine I can not access it from outside fence. VMware tools are installed and VM has been forecefully customized while deployment.

Am I missing some step?

-Nilesh

LM 4 Guest Customization Question

virtualbryan — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 01:36:46 GMT

Customization Question:

LM4, condiguration can't use fencing. We are using Static IP Pools.

I want to force recustomization on deploy to set a new IP, but don't want to sysprep for a new SID or reboot. I select Force reconfiguration and select none for the sid generation method and nothing happens.

Do I need to select a SID gen method to get a new IP through reconfiguration? Does anyone know how to force a new IP from a static pool without a full reconfiguration?

Thanks!

Upgrade Lab manager 3 to Lab Manager 4

eyalvaknin — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 19:53:28 GMT

Hello All.

I need some help to plan upgrade:

i have lab manager 3 with VI Environment 3.5 Update 4, I have 5 ESX servers.

i already have new vCenter VC server and 5 vSphere ESX Servers connected to that VC.

i need to upgrade the LM 3.0 to LM version 4.0 and also upgrade the 5 ESX servers that are already working with the LM 3 to vSphere 4.0 and point the LM to work with the new vCenter becouse I cannot upgrade the old VC server it serv more production ESX servers.

i need your help to understand if i point the LM to work with different VC it will destroy my existing configuration ?

i need to know the best way to do this.

what are the step that i should take to do this proccess ?

thanks all

Lab Manager connecting to vCenter Server

DaveCooke — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 18:32:19 GMT

I had a server running running Lab Manager 2.5 on a ESX 3.5 host connected to a VirtualCenter. I upgraded Lab Manager to 3.0, but didn't configure the server because I didn't have a license key for 3.0 (but have one for 4.0). I then removed it from the old VirtualCenter and added the host to a vCenter Server 4.0 and proceeded with the Lab Manager 4 upgrade. When I finished the upgrade and launched the browser to configure the Lab Manager server I received this message: "vCenter Lab Manager failed to establish a connection to vCenter "". Verify that you have a running vCenter version 4.0 and correct login credential." I don't know how to fix this. Is there a way to point the Lab Manager server to vCenter without being in the Lab Manager interface?

Thanks,

Dave

Removing trees and garbage collection in LM4

CH-Dave — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:44:33 GMT

I'm trying to remove an entire tree structure from our vSphere environment which is based on an obsolete template to free up space on our datastores.

I used the "context" function and determined which users to contact and advise to delete their old VMs. I also deleted the template itself (but of course that only removes it from the Lab Mgr UI and does not delete from disk until no VMs depend on it).

With all the VMs and template deleted, I waited an hour for the garbage collection service to do it thing. Nothing happened. Using the vSphere Client, I could still see the folder "1039" that contains the template. I restarted the garbage collection service on the Lab Mgr server. It's been 24 hours now and the files are still on the datastore.

Attached is a screenshot of the files in folder 1039 and as you can see some delta disks still exist in folders 1072, 1094, and 3250. The problem I'm facing now is, short of checking the properties of every VM in Lab manager, how do I track down where those deltas reside in Lab Manager (since I should never manually delete files off the datastore directly using the vSphere Client)? I've checked the VM properties of every Library and looked for snapshots -- still no luck.

Slow performance after SAN move

jwstern — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 06:45:46 GMT

My Lab Manager environment was working great. Then I had to move the esx 3.5 servers and fibre SAN to a new location. When I brought everything up in the new

environment the performance of my VMs was terrible! I see no errors on the SAN and all the data is there but the vms are unusable. What could be the cause?

Customization seems to be failing on Ubuntu Linux

brucefulton — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 22:18:15 GMT

We upgraded to vcenter4/LM4 and continue to have problems with connectivity upon creation of a template or configuration. I will post the linux and windows problems separately.

1. For ubuntu linux, ver 8.04lts, 512MB memory, 8gb virtual disk size, creating a new template from the ISO is hit or miss on being able to reach the outside world. We are using a static ip pool and I select an available IP address on creation of the template. Sometimes, it will connect (e.g. has connectivity through the gateway to the dns server and beyond) and sometimes it won't (won't even reach the gateway). Sometimes I need to either redeploy it several times, or just give up and create another. If once working, undeployed and published, and then redeployed, it may or may not connect (the IP address is still available). sometimes, multiple redeploys will work. Our IP pool has 254 available addresses and we are currenly using only a handful. We are only using un-fenced single VM configuration right now.

2. After I publish and try to create a config (i've deleted the 70- and 75-persistent net rules files from the template, which is a known issue with cloned or moved Ubuntu vms), it appears that customization completely or mostly fails. The config will retain the ip address set in the template, even though the config has pulled a new static IP. What is most curious is that most of the time, the config actually will connect to the outside world with the template ip address, and can be reached from outside on that address. However the ip pool page shows it with the newly assigned IP and the IP that is actually connecting is missing from the assigned list. If I manually edit the config to match the new ip address, the config will no longer connect to the outside, and won't reach the default gateway. Sometimes, multiple redeploys, with or without forced recustomization eventually works and sometimes it doesnt. Once successfully deployed, it retains connectivity after shutting down or rebooting, although it won't necessarily reconnect if I undeploy and redeploy, even if originally working. I've attached two screen shots that demonstrate the problem.

Delete Media

hamilton00 — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:38:19 GMT

I'm trying to remove media from lab manager that i no longer need but when trying to delete the file i get an error "cannot delete file. media_store media.iso"

Only thing i can think is that it is attached to a VM somewhere but how can i find out which one?

Slow login via web console 4.0

jezi — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:09:11 GMT

Upgraded Lab Manager to 4.0 last week. Since the upgrade any new local account or new account pulled from AD sits for eternity after entering credentials. Any ideas?

Curiosity Question - Why does Lab Manager 4 not support Nexus

SpringFever — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:26:58 GMT

I suspect it has to do with the "helper" VMs deploye to help manage the host spanning networks, but I wasn't sure why this would not work with the Nexus. Thanks in advance.

Error in Lab Manager 4

jkrolak — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 14:20:06 GMT

I just recently installed Lab Manager 4. When I go to Global....All Configurations and select All Configurations in This Organization, I get an error that says:

Failed to retrieve logon user information. Could not find Bucket Member in database given the parameters.

I can't find this error anywhere on the web and haven't been able to solve this. I think it's causing problems in the behavior of the All Configurations screen. I get the same error message no matter which user account I log in with. Originally, we did not have email addresses associated with our AD accounts when I set up LM4. After getting this error, I've deleted all the accounts, added email addresses to all pertinent AD accounts and re-imported them from AD. I still get the same error and it doesn't allow me to do anything with existing configurations. For example, I cannot delete the Sample Configuration that comes pre-setup, even though I'm a System Administrator.

Anyone have a clue about this?

4.0 ESX Password Change in LM

jezi — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 20:31:36 GMT

I reset the password for one of 2 hosts in my Lab Manager Cluster (also 4). When I try to reset the pass the only way I have seen possible (resources, hosts, properties) the option is grayed out and says the host is unavailable. Any assistance would be much appreciated. (All in Lab Manager)

I just upgraded my entire lab emvironment to 4 this week.

Thanks

vcenter 4.0 and lab manager 3.0?

Odurasler2 — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:57:07 GMT

not sure if this has been asked, but does anyone know if i can run vCenter 4.0 with ESX host 3.5 hosting my Lab Manager Vms running on LM 3.0?

how to change specific user deployed VMS quota Lab manager V3??

clevi — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 14:54:03 GMT

Hello,

i'm having a problem with user quota and its driving me crazy:(

after we upgrade to Lab manager V3, seems like i cannot change VMs quota for a specifc user and i can only do that for organization.

looks like deployed VM quota and stored VM quota inherited from the quota of the organization himself.

it is possible to change this value for the OU but not for specific user! i though that how it does on this version of lab manager.

BUT, the wierd thing is that a few days ago i did it! i have no idea how but i've added new user and suddenly i was able to change this valued cause they were blank and not grayed out!

but i cant remember how i did it

anyone can help me??

thanks a lot

Cannot deploy workspaces, cannot capture libraries

garthman — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 19:54:55 GMT

I'm getting a variety of errors, none of which makes much sense. This all started after I had to change my administrative passwords ( root on esx, administrator ID's used in VirtualCenter, userid and password that allow LM to talk to VC ). Because of the sequence of how I did this, I wound up with partially undeployed workspaces. I went through and was able to force them to undeploy. After that, things appeared to be working fine for a day or two.

Then I started getting ssh timeouts on the ESX hosts. So I rebooted them and they came up working just fine.

I wound up having to reboot the Lab Manager machine as well and that seems to have been about the time the funky errors started showing up.

When I try to capture a library, I get "the given key was not in the dictionary". If I try to deploy a workspace, I get "Folder.registerVm task on RegisterVM_Task failed: The specified key, name, or identifier already exists.." If I undeploy a configuration, that works fine.

My ESX hosts appear to be working fine and VirtualCenter isn't reporting any issues, just Lab Manager. I've looked in the Lab Manager logs and I see the .Net crashes leading to "object not set to a reference of an object" but nothing helpful. Same thing with the two messages above, I can see the crash information but have not found any information on how to address it.

The closest information I've found was about how the fencing was exhausted and how to increase this setting. I haven't done that yet but I'm considering it.

Any ideas?

I'm considering rebuilding the Lab Manager machine on faster hardware but I'm not sure of the best way to maintain the existing data I already have. That may be a second issue but I wanted to throw it out there for discussion.

Garth

VM Deployment

jmvirtual — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 06:12:08 GMT

I'm using lab manager to deploy a demo environment. My issues are mostly around fencing and IP addresses.

First off I have 1 VM to deployed to 16 people for demo's. The VM cannot change names durring Deployment which I believe means that I need to create 16 Configurations. The VM's do not need to communicate with each other but the machines need to be accessible via RDP from the physical network. So the problem is that this is requiring 4 IP's from the physical network 2 for the virtual routers and 2 for the virtual machines. Where am I going wrong I thought I would need only 2?

Domain Member

arjanhs — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 13:40:39 GMT

Can i place an workstation which exist outside the fence as an member for an domain which exists inside the workspace behind an fence?

In other words can domain members exist over a NAT connection?

Arjan

The configuration was automatically undeployed

PUYNORMAND — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 11:14:24 GMT

Hi All,

The following error/event seems to happening with an increasing frequency, the machines redeploy ok following the error and we cant seem to find a common denominator for the problem...

Any Ideas as to why it occurs (and how to fix it ?)

Regards

	The configuration was automatically undeployed: Port group "nlbawgdelm01 Default-26LM49-F21" contains invalid virtual machine.
		1/13/2009 5:45:33 PM Configuration: ERP_LN_FP3_FR The configuration was automatically undeployed: Port group "nlbawgdelm01 Default-26LM49-F21" contains invalid virtual machine.

The configuration was automatically undeployed: Port group "nlbawgdelm01 Default-14LM49-F12" contains invalid virtual machine.
		1/14/2009 11:14:43 AM Configuration: SL_8.00.10_20080818_Build45 (plewis) The configuration was automatically undeployed: Port group "nlbawgdelm01 Default-14LM49-F12" contains invalid virtual machine.

Lab Manager requirements

vmproteau — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 17:40:09 GMT

We are looking at a minimal Lab Manager configuration for a client. We will be Hosting, installing, and managing the environment. We'd like to start minimally and expand the environment if it gains interest.

Licensing: My understanding is we'll need at least a VSphere 4.0 Standard licence as well as a Lab Manager license correct? Anything else?
Infrastructure: We'd like to have a single VSphere Host and run everything on local disk to start. Is this a supported configuration?
Expansion: Will it be relatively simple to add a 2nd VSphere Host and move to shared storage later? Just wanting to verify there is a path to get there without a complete rebuild.
Can I isolate seperate client environments and grant permissions accordingly?

I'm also trying to estimate how much we will need to actively manage this once we have it in place. My assumption Lab Manager is designed so the end user can build there own test environments with little outside assistance.

Let battle commence - Lab Manager on VMs

StephenMoll — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 18:02:08 GMT

I am trying to get to grips with and learn as much as I can about VMware products.

I currently have a set up of two servers with 2 x quad core XEONs and 8GB RAM each sharing a 2TB SAN.

One of the servers is running three VMs, two of which have been there for a while, these being a W2K3 Active Directory/Domain Controller. The other is a WXP VM running vCenter server, all of this is licensed.

I was tasked to have a look at Lab Manager to see if it would be suitable for some of the work we do here.

So now there is a third VM on server-1 which has W2K3 running a evaluation installation of Lab Manager 4.

All though I am of course not fully conversant with Lab Manager, it appears to be largely working, but I have found that one of the servers cannot be prepared, even though it is in the resource pool.

Before I really delve into why this is: Can I ask if this is because of the three VMs already running on it? I.e. Is it not possible for a host to be managed by Lab Manager if it being used to host a VM on which the Lab Manager installation is running in the first place?

multiple drives in template not appearing in deployed configuration

jvanqua — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 19:55:49 GMT

We are using labmanager 3.0 and I am having an issue with multiple drives not apprearing in a confuration built from a template.

My template defines 3 drives, 25, 30, and 100GB. My template is shared and published.

I go to workspace and create a configuration from the published template. I deploy the configuration and login to the VM. I only see the c drive. No other drives appear. I go to device manager and I see the virtual drive driver loaded 3 times so it seems like they should be there, but they are not. has anyone else seen this? Is there a setting I missed on the configuration or template plage?

Tia,

Joe

Lab Manager deploy approaches

JohnnyBravo — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 13:27:43 GMT

Hi,

Im just looking for some tips from people who have experience on projects deploying Lab Manager into a Dev\Test environment and what approach they took into ensuring everything was covered etc. Any advice would be apprecaited

Thanks

Unable to power on configuration

billk — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 16:10:35 GMT

We recently upgraded to lab manager 4 and vsphere (ESX 4.0) and are unable to power on a configuration that was powered off and undeployed prior to the upgrade. This is the message I am getting for all 3 virtual machines in the configuration:

VirtualMachine.powerOn task on PowerOnVM_Task failed: The operation is not supported on the object.

I tried to deploy, undeploy, tried upgrading virtual hardware, capture as a vm template, but none of them work. I still get the above error.

Any ideas where to look for more information or how to fix this?

Lab Manager Server p or v???

JohnnyBravo — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 13:18:09 GMT

Are there any best practices or recommendations in regards to the lab manager server running on a physical or virtual server?

Thanks

LabManager 3: Error: The numPort value: 8608 in spec exceeded maxPorts 8192

ArrowSIVAC — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 15:16:38 GMT

Configuration: Three IBM HS21XM Blades. Two physical NICs one dvSwitch with Host Spanning enabled.

LabManager: VMware-vCenter-Lab-Manager-4.0.0-1140

ESX: esx-DVD-4.0.0-164009

I have about 25 VLANs that I add for the VMWare farm hosts. I moved both physical NICs ont the dvSwitch and valdiated vMotion / DRS/ HA work without error.

I started creating Port Groups on the dvSwitch device and corresponding Hot Spanning Network for each of my 25 PortGroups (VLANS)

After adding 16 I get the error

Activity Deployed Network 029ATLLABUsers (19)

Job ID 102

Type Network

Job Status Failure

Location Global

Owner Administrator

Details dvs.VmwareDistributedVirtualSwitch.addPortgroups task on AddDVPortgroup_Task failed: fault.LimitExceeded.summary

The numPorts value: 8608 in spec exceeded maxPorts 8192

I poked around in configuration settings and there is no way to limit port count per "Port Group" as a setting.

In vCenter I can see the following in "information" for a Port group, but NOT change it.

002ATLCOREInfrastructure-5LM15

Name 002ATLCOREInfrastructure

VLAN Type 2

Number of ports: 512

Port binding: Static binding

.......

At the most the number of hosts that will ever be put into a Port Group will be MAYBE ... 20... so can I limit the Port Group count down to 25 or so?

Or is there another way to fix this?

Programmatically create a configuration from templates?

ACKH — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 10:25:08 GMT

Hi all,

Is there a way to programmatically create a Lab Manager configuration out of templates? I can't find anything in the SOAP API documentation. Currently we are using Lab Manager 3.0.

Thanks!

Wait until computer is booted

ACKH — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 10:45:26 GMT

Hi all,

Using the SOAP API I can successfully boot and shutdown computers in configurations (using methods “ConfigurationPerformAction” and “MachinePerformAction”). However, these methods return as soon as the command is sent. They do not wait until the computer is booted. Is there a way to do this? I mean I don't want the program to sleep 30 seconds and then check if it is booted successfully.

Thanks!

Using SOAP I seem to be limited to two actions at any one point

AHutton — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 12:49:06 GMT

I have an sutomation system using the SOAP api, and it seems like no matter how many commands I issue only 2 or 3 of them are every being acted on at any one time and all the others queue up. Is this a hard limit, is this a setting I have set somewhere? Any helpw ould be appreciated.

The relationship between Lab Manager and VMware Center

maru3 — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 05:04:28 GMT

We are using LabManager 3.0.1 and Virtual Center 2.5.

Could you tell me if the vmotion in VC is reflected in LabManager ?

If we remove a host from a cluster, could you tell me if this change in VC is reflected in LabMnager?

All of a sudden I can't obtain or set an IP

sens007 — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 18:21:45 GMT

Running Lab Manager 2.5 w/ RHEL 4.6 64bit guest

Nothing has changed but one of my users deployed some new VMs from an existing template that worked for quite some time.
She called me telling me that she wasn't able to obtain an address from our DHCP server. I checked and sure enough, the VMs never made contact with my DHCP server.
I went as far as setting a static and NOTHING! All I get is "no link present, Check cable?"

Thinking it was a fluke I decided to create new VMs from other templates. Guess what, same thing. I then get a call from another user who said another VM that had been running for some time
just lost network connection. Sure enough I wasn't able to obtain an IP or set it to static. I have 100+ other VMs that are running fine. I have no idea why these new VMs and the existing VMs just stopped working!

Create workspace in Lab Manager API

stlvmware — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 20:12:06 GMT

Looking through the API's of both Lab Manager 3.0 and 4.0 I'm not seeing a way to create a workspace and / or configuration. Am I missing something here? I see a way to make changes to a workspace or deployment.

multiple snapshot of guest OS

mateenhussain — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:59:32 GMT

Hi

This might be a naive question, as I'm a beginner to Lab manager.

I have created a client with Windows XP OS. And I want to take multiple snapshots of the guest OS (with different things installed). Does Lab manager allows to create multiple snapshot of a guest OS? If yes, how do we do it (all I can do right now is create a single snapshot and any subsequent snapshots overwrites it). If No, is there a workaround for it?

Another question is, I accidentally wrote over an existing snapshot..... Now how do I revert back to the original one? Any ideas

Thanks,
Mateen

Thin Provisioning in Lab Manager

scottkey2003 — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 11:30:00 GMT

I have created templates within Lab Manager and VCenter that are thin provisioned but the machines that are created from these templates are all thick. REading other forums says that the vmdk's have to be edited. Is this the case? Is there a plan to have this step automated in a future release?
Scott

Help deploying unfenced configs from library to new unfenced config

limeylimey — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 00:37:51 GMT

1. create VM template (w2k03r2)

(IP's are assigned from pool (120 free addresses))

3. create new configuration from 4 x w2k03r2 templates

4. Save configuration to library "mytest"

5. Change library "mytest" to "unfenced only"

6. From library "mytest" select "clone to workspace"

7. Clone to workspace completes

8. Deploy the new configuration in my workspace

9. deployment fails with error:

Unable to deploy configuration unfenced of mytest

Unable to deploy virtual machines in resource pool "blah".

The operation could not be performed because network resources were in use.

The operation could not be performed, because MAC address "00:50:56:0e:00:49" was in use. There is probably another configuration deployed related to this one.
The operation could not be performed, because the IP address "10.22.50.124" was in use. There is probably another configuration deployed related to this one.

The admin guide seems to say that when you use a "clone" that it is only for "fenced" configurations, but the LM GUI allows me to save my unfenced config to a template and also and change the template setting to "un-fenced", having done that i expect LM to then dip into the IP pool and assign a free IP address and also change the mac address as they are directly connected to the network.

(if i undeploy the original configuration it will deploy the one i created from the template,but that means i can only have 1 active at any time which sort of defeats the point of me using the library function, they become mutually exclusive)

confused and way too much coffe

UnFenced Costomization-Scripting challenges

rbkinsey — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:27:44 GMT

One way I plan on utilizing lab manager is to use it in an Un-Fenced environment for application UAT testing. For this to happen I need to modify the Customization Script. I was curious on how others were modifying this to change system name, OU location, time zone, personal settings, Domain, etc... If anyone can point me in the right direction it would be greatly appreciated.

Are others trying to do this as well?

What do other businesses use this product for?

Thanks, Rob

Lab Manager v3 licensing question

tascheHyaene — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 17:27:02 GMT

Good afternoon everyone, happy Tuesday...

I recently started work at a facility with existing Lab Manager v3 licensing, but no functioning deployment.

Attempting a Lab Manager install against a VI3 cluster of two dual-CPU servers, I immediately received an error about exceeding licensing. I double-checked the licensing information and there are two merged single-CPU allotments for the license. My question is - does the number of CPUs in the license apply to the Win2K3/8 host server on which Lab Manager is running, or to the ESX servers it's running against?

Thanks in advance, stay virtualized.

managing LM resources by limit users and suspend?

stanley12345 — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 14:10:39 GMT

I am working with lab manager and had a couple of questions: Is there a way to limit the number of users that can login into lab manager? I have limits on the number of VMs that users can deploy, but multiple users can login, deploying their limit and this will overload my ESX server.

Also when a user suspends their configuration, are any resources used? Is it similar to being undeplyed, except that it is attached to Virtual Center? I looked in VC and it says that memory and CPU resources are not being used.

Thanks for all your help.

Change vcenter server

billk — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 21:44:45 GMT

After we upgrade our virtual center 2.5 u4 system to 4.0 and lab manager to 4.0, is there an easy way for me to point lab manager to a different vcenter server as the previous one has a bunch of junk in it that is really not needed. The database is stored on a SQL Server 2005 enterprise instance on a separate vm.

Let me know if this can be done easily.

Static Fenced External IP

csimwong — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 21:26:12 GMT

Sometimes it's necessary to undeploy and redeploy VM's in the Configuration space due to system maintenance or user's forgetting to renew the lease. Each time this happens, the external IP changes and they need to go back in and see what the new IP is in order to RDP to it. I see the option to set a static IP address for a VM, but is it possible to set a static external IP in a fenced configuration? Any advice or info would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Console View shows as black or disconnected on lab manager sessions run from a different domain?

wcryer — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 16:38:53 GMT

In our current test setup we have a qa lab which runs on its own domain. Within that domain any lab manager sessions can see the screen view of VMs in the console window. However, as soon as I try to go to console view on a computer outside the lab, running on a different domain, the VM screen shows up as black or it will say the console is disconnected. Now, I am not sure whether domain has anything to do with this issue, i just know that, that is one difference between the two environments. I know the firewall is not actively blocking anything but an overall setting might be having an effect? I have tried deleting and reinstalling the vmware add-on and am looking for more suggestions to troubleshoot this problem.

Thanks for any and all suggestions,

will

deployment problem!

clevi — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:23:26 GMT

Hello

i'm using VMware Lab Manager 3.0 using ESX 3.5 and VI client 2.5 and i've cncountered some wierd problem.

i have a configuration with 6 virtual machines. all this machines were created from different templates which resides on a few datastores. (not all template on the same datastore)

this configuration was deployed successfully.

now, i've cloned from the library 1 virtual machine to this configuration at my workspace.

when i'm trying to deploy this machine also its failed with the following error message:

The configuration you are trying to deploy requires consolidation of one or more virtual machines. You can consolidate either the configuration or the virtual machine "machine01".

the only time i've encountered consolidate issuw was when the chain length of some VMS has reached his limitation of 30.

its not happenes in that case, my chain length of this VMs and all the VMS on that configuration are 8.

when trying to clone this virtual machien from the library to another configuration at my workspace everything is working fine.

does anyone have any idea what cause this problem?

i'm starting to think that this is got something to do with the different datastores, altough i've always worked like that and never had problem.

please help!

Thanks

Planned support for Windows 7 / 2008 in LM 3.02?

DJLO — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 19:54:18 GMT

Hi All

I understand it is not common practice for VMware to discuss up and coming releases but i was wondering if we can get any feedback here.

Will the LM 3.x stream support Windows 7 and 2008 in a subsequent update or has this been decided it's for vSphere only?

With the release date getting closer and closer, many of our lab users are asking about official support from VMware. I know the new Workstation and Fusion beta fully support Windows 7 as we are fortunate to have been invited to the beta program.

Any tips or help would really be appreciated

Best way to migrate to new datastores

Scissor — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 01:08:50 GMT

I have a question about the best way to move VMs to new datastores in Lab Manager.

Running LabManager 3.0.1.378

From the screenshot, you will see that I originally created two large LUNs (1 TB each) to use with Lab Manager (Disk1 and Disk2). One of my 1 TB LUNs currently has something like 140 Guests on it. I have since come to the conclusion that having so many machines share a single LUN is the cause of my IO contention/slowdowns, so I want to move to using smaller 200GB LUNs.

Of course, this setup is currently being used for QA testing, so I want to avoid having to power off any VMs if possible. What is the best way to migrate the VMs off my large 1 TB LUNs and onto smaller 200 GB LUNs with a minimum amount of end user downtime?

A few questions:

1. Can I simply toggle off the "VM Creation Enabled" option on Disk1 and Disk2 right now without breaking people who currently have their Guests deployed on them? I would toggle on the "VM Creation Enabled" option on my new smaller LUNs at the same time. That way any future deployed Guests would be created on my smaller disks, yet existing Guests already deployed on Disk1 and Disk2 should continue to work, right?

2. There are a few high IO Guests that I would like to move as soon as possible. Should I consider using the "Consolidate" function within LabManager if I want to get them moved sooner? Or would "undeploying" and "redeploying" the Guests after performing the changes in question 1 accomplish the same thing? Or would cloning them over to a non-LabManager ESX Host be the best idea?

3. If I want to eventually destroy my Disk1 and Disk2 (so I can reuse the space for smaller LUNs) then I am going to have to use SSMove.exe, right? I ran SSMove and poked around a bit . I saw that one of my source trees is almost 500 GB in size (see screenshot) Is there a way to break it up so it can be moved onto several 200 GB LUNs? Of course, using SSMove requires all Guests in the Tree to be undeployed first, and I would think that moving a 500 GB tree would take a significant amount of time.

Comments? Suggestions?

Thanks in Advance!

IP adress assignment behind fence

kasperottesen — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 06:07:29 GMT

Hello

I am new on LM and have a question, I hope someone could help me find the answer on.

If I deploy a VM behind a fence it gives me an internal and external IP address 192.168.1.2 for internal and 192.168.1.3 for external. Shall my VM (inside the operating system) have the internal IP assigned or should I leave the VM with its existing IP adress from the production environment 10.0.0.2, (This VM is a clone from production)?

I do not understand how it can NAT traffic if I dont assign the internal IP to the VM.

Kasper

LM 4.0 auto installs MS SQL 2005 Express - How to stop this

Lex_Frost — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 15:12:09 GMT

While preforming our first attempt to upgrade our Lab Manager 3.0.2 server to Lab Manager 4.0, it installed MS SQL 2005 express and moved our database to that instance of SQL. We already have our 3.0.2 database running on MS SQL 2005 Enterprise because it out grew the 4GB cap that MS SQL 2005 Express has. Durning the upgrade there was no way to tell it to use the MS SQL 2005 Enterprise instance, it just automatically installed and used the SQL Express software, which will not work for us. Is there a way to tell it to use the MS SQL 2005 Enterprise instance instead and not install MS SQL Express? We would really prefer not to have to waste the time installing SQL Enterprise again just to upgrade the Express instance that seems to be forced on us.

Sadly our upgrade failed anyways so we are able to do a fresh upgrade now. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Lab Manager 4 as a CM tool?

stanj — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:49:05 GMT

Does anyone know if Lab Manager 4 can do source code Software Configuration Mgt?

We were using a CM tool called StarTeam for tracking code, updated, bugs, etc for our projects.

We are may be moving to Lab Manager for software development on VMs..

thanks

System Administrator cannot create new organization

ITRC_Architect — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 19:00:56 GMT

I have a fresh install of Lab Manager 4.0 against vSphere.

I am logged in as the original user with the System Administrator Role.

"New Organization..." is greyed out and when I hover over the button, I am told "You must be in the Global Organization to create a new Organization."

Say what? I see only one organization on the screen and that is "Default".

Any idea what is up?

Thank you,

Fowler

Deploying template failes - Permission to perform this operation was denied.

nathanw — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 06:58:26 GMT

I have embarked on an upgrade to vShere and we have upgraded our vCenter to 4.0. this appears to have broken all the permissions in the LAB Manager server

Currently running LabMan 3.0 (3.0.1.378)

I have checked the permission requirements in the LabMan 3.0 guide and reassigned all required permissions and then some.

We are using an AD account that is not locked out and communication between Labman and the server is occurring.

However when we try to deploy any VM's including a newly created Template we get the error Permission to perform this operation was denied.

Any ideas?

I have restarted the mgmt-vmware service after making changes to permissions.

Resource pools...best practices for larger LM deployments...

jbrown2 — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 22:18:24 GMT

So I noticed the other day (while studying update my VCP) that the maximum supported number of child objects in a resource pool is 256 for ESX 3.5 (1024 for vSphere). How do you guys handle this for Lab Manager deployments when there are going to be more than 256 VM's in the environment?

Currently I have 4 Organizations in my Lab Manaber 3.0.2 environment and I've created a resource pool for each org in order to break them them up in case I need to separate out the hardware or prioritize/cap one Org in the future as the environment grows. It's been 6 months since we turned on our LM environment and we almost exclusively used fenced configurations in order to allow multiple copies of the configurations to be deployed at the same time. One of our Org's has really taken off and currently has 439 VM's in their resource pool with basically half of them being virtual routers.. I'm not terribly worried about it since we've been over 256 VM's for a couple of months in this Org and I plan to move this environment to vSphere in the next 4-6 weeks but as I'm adding additional capacity to the environment and migrating to LM 4.0 I'd like to take the chance to modify my resource pools so that they can scale for the next year or two until the next upgrade cycle.

Here are my current thoughts:

create # number of new resource groups within each Org's main resource group based on expected growth over the next 2 years

enable the Orgs to use the new resource pools and remove rights to the top level resource pool...maybe during my downtime to move to vSphere...

manage any limits/reservations for the various orgs based on the top level resource pool that I create for each Org (currently I haven't limited any org as my intention is to ensure the environment isn't resource constrained)

Thoughts? Examples of how you've done this your environment? We currently have 1TB of RAM behind this system and are planning an upgrade to a total of 2.5TB of RAM which I forcast will cover our growth through 2010.

Deployment and storage leases configured by Organization

aseaz404 — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 05:18:25 GMT

As we have different group of folks isolated in their own orgs (using lab manager 3.0.2.56) with different requirements we're trying to set different deployment and storage lease values by orgs. Thus far we've been unsuccessful and it's been crippling. Any suggestions, recommendations, etc. would be greatly appreciated.

Cannot export a template with Lab Manager v3

nja — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 08:00:19 GMT

Hi all,

I have a problem with my Lab Manager, i can't export my templates. I get a "Alert! There are no available drive letters" error.
The only solution for this proble that i've found is to uninstall a MS KB on the Lab Manager server. But i cannot uninstall any KBs for two reasons:

1. Security guidelines 2. Not enough rights on the server.

Does anybody knows any other workaround instead of uninstall any hotfix on the server?

Thanks and regards
-nja

Quota per VM / Deploying

Poceti — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 13:37:27 GMT

Hello,

I'm evaluating different Virtualizations solutions, and I'd like to know something: is there a way, using Lab Manager, to set a quota per VM ? If I have x licences for a software, can I set up the VM where I installed this soft to be run x times max ?

Another small question is, what do I need to deploy such a solution, with 1 server and n machines ? (including: do i need ESX ? ESXi ?). I experiment big difficulties to join anyone who could answer those two little questions in VMWare...

So, thank you in advance for any precise answer

Wrong host selected when connecting virtual networks to physical

schmidwi — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 13:07:11 GMT

I was deploying some VMs this past week using the "connect virtual networks to physical" option, and Lab Manager attempted to deploy the system on an ESX host where the physical network was not present.

A little more on my configuration:

I have a small Lab Manager deployment with two hosts (esx1 and esx2). These machines are operating independantly of each other(not a cluster). One reason for this is the segregation of physical networks. ESX1 is connected to a public network called "esx1net". ESX2 is connected to a public network called "esx2net". Due to company firewall rules, these two networks are physically segmented and cannot be put on the same ESX host.

Normally, when I deploy a virtual machine, if I select the network esx2net, Lab Manager knows to deploy the VM on ESX2. What I was doing this weekend required that I keep the IP address(es) of a group of VMs and allow them to communicate with eachother on a private network (192.168.1.x). I've done this successfully in the past with the connect virtual to physical option. The problem is this time, when I connected the machines to the physical network esx2net, Lab Manager attempted to deploy my vms on the ESX1 server (not physically connected to this network).

The work-around was to disable esx1 while I did the deploy, and that worked fine. but it's not a very clean way to deploy my systems. Can anyone shed some light on why Lab Manager might have tried to deploy on an ESX box that was not physicall connected to the network? Is this a bug, or just my misunderstanding?

~Thanks.

lab manager only connect to one Virtual Center at a time?

stanley12345 — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 19:38:34 GMT

Hi . I am using Lab Manager 3.0 (3.0.1.378) , and seem to able to connect to one Virtual Center at a time. Can I connect to multiple Virtual Center servers using one Lab Manager instance?

Create a new Global Organization and Renaming current

vmpowered — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 17:07:54 GMT

Does any know if this is possible.

Create a New Global configuration and rename the existing.

This starts from around an upgrade from LM 3.0 to LM 4.0, where all configurations were and still are in the global organization.

Now the are going to use Organization structures and want to take all of the configurations that are existing in global and instead of cloning just rename the existing Global to a new org name and create a new global. Probably not possible put am putting the question out anyways.

Thanks

Lab Manager 4 - Scenario and Usage

lamw — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 01:35:36 GMT

Hi,

I would like to perform the following task and would like to know if this is the best approach or if there is more efficient method in accomplishing the same task.

I currently have a few VM templates that have been imported into Lab Manager 4 (Full Clone) through 'Lab Manager Administrator' role and I've created various workspaces where these VM Templates are shared and accessible. I then create (Linked Clones) for each type of VM in each of workspaces

WorkspaceA:
      BaseA
          linked cloned------->BaseA-VM1 
      BaseB
          linked cloned------->BaseB-VM1
WorkspaceB:
      BaseC
          linked cloned------->BaseC-VM1
      BaseD
          linked cloned------->BaseD-VM1

These 'BaseX' templates are currently in an undeployed state (off). I've also created a few additional VM(s) that are cloned (Linked Clone) but left them in an undeployed stated. When a user needs to access a specific VM, they can see if there are any available (Linked Clones) and deploy (power on) and do their work and can either undeploy discard-state or just undeploy & delete. If there are additional user's that need the same VM(s) but see that they're in use, they can create a clone (Linked Clone) and deploy and use the VM.

Is there a more efficient method for this type of scenario and usage?

=========================================================================
William Lam
VMware vExpert 2009
VMware ESX/ESXi scripts and resources at: http://engineering.ucsb.edu/~duonglt/vmware/
vGhetto Script Repository
VMware Code Central - Scripts/Sample code for Developers and Administrators
VMware Developer Comuunity
Twitter: @lamw

If you find this information useful, please award points for "correct" or "helpful".

Roll Back to v3

Kstrickland — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 17:11:18 GMT

One of our Techs decided to try and upgrade to v4, due to our use of VDI we have not upgraded our server to v4, which mean the upgrade to 4 on our Labmanager server fails. He aslo didn't make a snapshot of the server. Can anyone tell me if i uninstall v4 and reinstall v3 if it deletes all user data. templates, workspaces, media stores.

Full Clone Option Is Grayed Out (Template Deploy)

MHIT — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 18:08:15 GMT

When deploying a configuration users are unable to select FULL CLONE because it is grayed out. As an Administrator, I can select this option every time so I thought it might be a permissions problem. I have looked at all the permissions and do not see anything that might make a difference. Does anyone have any insight to this issue?

Errors installing Lab Manager 4.0

manewman — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 12:54:20 GMT

Lab Manager 4.0 installation is throwing an error during the "Select Resource Pool" install.

See attachment.

If this is not the correct area to post, please let me know where?

Thanks,

Mark