Test individual virtual machine monitoring

[dmaster]

Hello All,

I have setup a VMware HA cluster (esx 3.5 update 1and vc 2.5 update 1).

i have enabled the VMware HA advanced options to get individual virtual machine monitoring working.

VM HA was configured with the following parameters:

das.FailureInterval = 30 (If there's no heartbeat received withing 30 seconds initiate restart)

das.minUptime = 120 (VM has to be up for at least 120 seconds before HA kicks in, don't set it to short cause it needs this time to stabilize the heartbeat) das.maxFailures = 3 (Maximum amount of resets within the das.maxFailureWindow)

das.maxFailureWindow = 86400 ( 86400 Seconds is 1 day, see das.maxFailures)

das.vmFailoverEnabled = true (Enable VM HA)

Now it's time to test if this is working.. How can i test this..

Probably by crashing a running virtual machine where VMware Tools have been installed and is active. But it's harder than i tought for virtual machine running Windows 2003 R2 with SP2 Enterprise Edition. I am not able to crash my virtual machines, i use windows server 2003 R2 with SP2 Enterprise Edition.

i tried the following, but my virtual machine does not respond on (hold right CTRL + "press two times" Scroll Lock + Scroll Lock).

I also tried the hotfix off microsoft (was waste of my time, SP2 contains newer files).

see :

Is there another way to test if individual virtual machine monitoring is working ? Or the get above solution working on Windows Server 2003 R2 SP2 Enterprise Edition ?

For example simulating a hartbeat failure for the VM ? I tested to disable VMware Tools Service, but this results not in a reset of this virtual machine.

[rdiphoorn]

Hi Dmaster,

Try this to manually crash your server:

In the registry of the VM:

System Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\i8042prt\Parameters

Value Name: CrashOnCtrlScroll

Data Type: REG_DWORD (DWORD Value)

Value Data: (0 = disabled, 1 = enabled)

If set to enabled, you can generate an crash with holding down the RIGHT ctrl key on your keyboard and pressing scroll lock twice.

[dmaster]

Hoi Richard,

Thanx for the reply, but your solution is described in the microsoft link i allready included.

I tested it but it will not result in a bsod... notthing happens.. i think this is not working for this specific windows 2003 release..

any other clues ?

[rdiphoorn]

Dennis,

Stupid question maybe; have you rebooted the server after applying the registry settings?

I've tried the trick here on a Windows Server 2003 Standard R2 SP2 edition, and it works.

[dmaster]

Did you test it on VMware ESX server with the same windows 2003 R2 SP2 Enterprise Edition ?

I only tested directly with virtual center in the console screen, was not able to test this with RDP..

[rdiphoorn · Accepted solution]

Dennis,

Simple solution related to RDP connections: To be able to use Scroll Lock inside a RDP connection you will have to activate scroll lock when the focus is inside the RDP connection.

This can't be checked; the only way to check this is to have Excel available on the machine you are RDP'ing to. Excel is the only application today which is using Scroll Lock.

After you have activated the Scroll Lock key, crashing the machine is possible with the trick from Microsoft.

[dmaster]

Finally problem solved.. thank you Richard..

This works now fine over RDP and directly in the console tab of the ESX host or the virtual center server with the VI-client.

with VI-client: get the focus of the VM in virtualcenter console tab.

then press scrol lock once after this press right ctrlscrol lockscrol lock

this will result in the VM crash..