ESXi

I've got the Free Esxi running here at my home lab. It supports 3 op systems: XP Pro, Windows Server 2008, and Small Business Server 2008.

The other night I had a power failure and the computer shut down without the op systems shutting down properly. When I brought the computer backup I encountered problems with all 3 op systems.

XP - complained about insufficient RAM - resolved by editing the settings of the XP virtual and adding more RAM to the video

Server 2008 - "lost" the VMWare Tools - even though they showed up under "Add/Remove Programs", had to uninstall and reinstall VMWare Tools

SBS 2008 - had to manually restart a service on it.

Has anyone else had a host machine power down unexpectedly and then find that the op systems are funky or have "uninstalled" apps, etc. etc?

VMWare doesn't automatically grab old snapshots or do anything that takes the install back in time, does it? It "felt" like I went back in time, kinda sorta.

I'd appreciate any insights on this.

Thank you.

Mike Gallery

Instead of one operating system reading and writing to disk you have 3. It is very easy to have issues after a sudden power off. Operating systems use their own internal write caching to delay disk writes. That will be lost and can likely cause file corruption. If you have a RAID controller that does write caching but does not have a battery backed module that data will be lost. If you want to protect yourself get a UPS and have the VMs shut down on a power failure.

The only way that ESXi would "go back in time" would be if you set up your disks in kiosk mode ( Independent nonpersistant).

I was thinking the same thing as what you suggested. I do have an APC UPS on this setup but the one I"m using has a very short battery life because it's old. >-:

Do you have any idea how this would be done? My understanding is that a USB port can't be shared among 2 or more op systems on a host. So, if I were to run an APC UPS that would, in a non-virtual environment, shut down the op systems via a USB command, how would that same UPS send "shut" down commands to three or more op systems on a host? I guess I better call APC and see what they say.

Thanks.

Mike

APC does have software for ESXi. As far as I remember it does not work on the free product since ESXi free does not include access to the APIs. You can look at ESXi Control http://blog.peacon.co.uk/wiki/Esxi-control.pl

I talked to APC.

The key to doing this with APC is to get their network management adapter.

http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/APC-Network-Management-Card-2-remote-management-adapter/1730635.aspx

You give it an IP and then it can shutdown up to 50 op systems over the LAN when the necessary software is installed on the op systems.

I'm planning to use Essentials when I finally deploy ESXi so I'll have the API's for this and other purposes.

I don't know yet if the APC software will gracefully shut down the op systems and *then*, after those are down, shut down the VMWare host machine. That would be pretty tricky . . .

As long as the op systems are shut down I think I'm ok. Is there ever a problem with an ESXi host machine coming back up from a dirty shutdown if the op systems have all be shut down nicely? I wouldn't think there would be . . .

Thank you.

Mike Gallery

The APC software initiates a shutdown of the host. The Startup / Shutdown Settings in the vSphere Client govern guest shutdown.

Since ESXi loads directly into RAM there should be not be any consequences to the ESXi host with a sudden power off.

I think I see what you're saying. If I have Essentials, which has the API's, the APC software would shut down the guest op systems via the ESXi interface, just like I can do with Power, Shut Down Guest, with the VSphere client, right?

Thanks. <-:

Mike Gallery

ESXi interface, just like I can do with Power, Shut Down Guest, with the VSphere client, right?

That is correct.