topic Re: CPU limit to "0" in ESXi Discussions

CPU limit to "0"

Raudi — Thu, 09 Apr 2020 12:14:17 GMT

Hi,

i just wanted to remove a CPU limit from a VM and set this to "0", i was thinking "0" is unlimited, i didn't noticed the drop down field whe i can select unilimited.

Now i got a problem!

A VM with a CPU limit to "0" freezes and it can't be modifyed, switched off or something else. Nothing can be done with that VM.

To resolve that issue i killed the VM tasks on the ESXi host.

Now i know this, i'm not doing it again, but perhaps there are others... VMware, please prevent here to enter a "0" in die limit!

Kind regards

Stefan

Re: CPU limit to "0"

scott28tt — Thu, 09 Apr 2020 12:48:50 GMT

I've seen people do this before, yep it's a VM killer!

Re: CPU limit to "0"

Raudi — Thu, 09 Apr 2020 15:41:48 GMT

If it is only a VM killer, a problem inside the VM, it will be no problem... Then i can say, my fault, reconfigure and restart the VM.

The really big problem was, that the VM can't be managed. I logged in to the host and tryed to power off the VM, not possible...

I am of the opinion, this behavior must be prevent.

Re: CPU limit to "0"

scott28tt — Thu, 09 Apr 2020 16:38:08 GMT

I meant the VM as a manageable entity, not only the guest OS and all services - everything about it as an object.

Re: CPU limit to "0"

Raudi — Fri, 10 Apr 2020 09:01:18 GMT

So what sense make it, to make it possible, to enter here a "0", with such fatal impact.

What can i do that my suggestion will be heraed/discussed etc.

But when you tell me that this a VM killer, so VMware seems to be aware of that problem.

Will there be a change in the future?

Re: CPU limit to "0"

scott28tt — Fri, 10 Apr 2020 09:08:19 GMT

Me telling you what I’ve said doesn’t mean that VMware are aware, nor do I have any idea whether the setting will be changed in future.

I used to work for training partners as an instructor, that’s when I saw this happen, it was probably on ESX v3 at the time.

Log a support request (if you have a contract).

Re: CPU limit to "0"

Raudi — Fri, 10 Apr 2020 09:44:26 GMT

O.k. the customer has a contract, but i was thinking, when vmware is aware of this problem, there is no need to open a case and i can spend my time for more important things.

Re: CPU limit to "0"

scott28tt — Fri, 10 Apr 2020 09:51:29 GMT

I am repeating myself, just because I have seen this before (a long time ago) does not mean “VMware is aware” - consider also that this is a community forum, not an official support forum.

I am stepping off this thread now.

Re: CPU limit to "0"

Raudi — Tue, 14 Apr 2020 06:58:55 GMT

Sorry for my bad english, my last post should be read as comment, not as question....

Re: CPU limit to "0"

continuum — Wed, 15 Apr 2020 16:51:50 GMT

I would suggest to regard this issue as just another flaw in the web ui.

If you run into issues like this - unregister the VM and edit the vmx-file manually and register the VM again.

Re: CPU limit to "0"

Raudi — Sun, 26 Apr 2020 07:42:30 GMT

But in this situation the VM was powered on, i can't unregister.

The only way was to "kill" the VM tasks on the host. When the VM is powered off, i was able co correct the setting.

If you have a test environment, power on a test VM, when running set a CPU limit to "0", save and try to do something with that VM after that change.

Re: CPU limit to "0"

corbeg — Tue, 05 Jan 2021 16:11:45 GMT

i had this issue today on 2 VMs

the first i managed to shutdown and change the CPU limit to unlimited ok (the second I had to reboot host)

if you initiate a shutdown in VC the job will just fail, but if you initiate a reset or hard stop the job will hang (important).

if you follow this advice Unable to Power off a Virtual Machine in an ESXi host (1014165) (vmware.com)

then as long as there is a job queued to perform this action you should be ok.

otherwise if you kill the VM then you still can't power it off from the host and you have to evacuate all the other VMs on the host and reboot

(be careful if you have HA enabled as will failover with the same settings! i just managed to make the change before HA kicked in).

Re: CPU limit to "0"

depping — Wed, 06 Jan 2021 09:01:27 GMT

I am happy to file a bug against this, but I guess even 1MHz as a minimum wouldn't help much as it would probably bring the VM also to a full stop

Re: CPU limit to "0"

depping — Wed, 06 Jan 2021 09:12:57 GMT

Requested a warning to be added. In general I have advocated to move these settings somewhere else to begin with, there aren't many useful usecases for limits.

Re: CPU limit to "0"

Raudi — Wed, 06 Jan 2021 15:12:21 GMT

I don't think that someone will enter here a CPU limit of 1 or 10, the problem is that i was thinking 0 will disable the limit -> "0=unlimitd"

I think it will be o.k. that a 0 will not be accepted or 0 will be interpreted as unlimited.

Re: CPU limit to "0"

depping — Thu, 07 Jan 2021 08:19:14 GMT

To be honest, I went through the workflow, and when you click the dropdown it is pretty obvious (to me) that 0 is not disabled, but I have asked to get is clarified.

Re: CPU limit to "0"

Raudi — Thu, 07 Jan 2021 10:43:48 GMT

As i wrote in my first post: "i didn't noticed the drop down field where i can select unilimited."

Direct above is the "Reservation", where 0 is no reservation, it is a filed to enter a value by hand, here i don't expect a drop down field.

But this is a misatke which will be done only a single time, this i will remeber for ever.

Re: CPU limit to "0"

PcChip — Tue, 01 Jun 2021 19:21:23 GMT

Yeah, I just did this today thinking that entering "0" was unlimited

now it's stuck and I have to go through those annoying steps

Re: CPU limit to "0"

corbeg — Wed, 02 Jun 2021 07:58:20 GMT

ugh have they still not fixed this? hmm

Re: CPU limit to "0"

depping — Wed, 02 Jun 2021 12:52:07 GMT

Unfortunately not fixed, I filed a bug for it a while back, asked the engineers to look at it again.