Unregister Virtual Machine

[sagar666]

Hi Guys,

Some one removed virtual machine from Vcenter server.But that vm is very critical is any way to retrieve?.At least is there any idea to find where that vm located in local datastore or san data store  and its path?

For refference am attaching screen shot..Please help me out.

[schepp]

Hi,

you can use LucD's powerCLI script to register unregistered VMs: http://www.lucd.info/2011/08/11/vmx-raiders-revisited/

Or download RVTools - Home and do a health-check to show "zombie VMs" (VMs that are not registered)

If you're not into PowerCLI, the rvtools are probably the faster choice.

Regards

[sagar666]

I did health check from rvtools.But not finding that vm name

[sagar666]

Hi i can able to see the path and files but when right click on files add to inventory is not highlighting.

[f10]

Hi,

Since you already know the timestamp and if you have the /var/log/hostd.logs OR /scratch/log/hostd.log you can grep for the unregister key word and you would get the complete path of the VM that was unregistered. Alternatively you can also use the following egrep command to get the name of the VM where you can replace win7 with the VM name.

# egrep -w 'displayName=win7' /vmfs/volumes/*/*/*.vmx

egrep: /vmfs/volumes/52df5de8-38ab7f24-9596-00262d092df0/NTAP-MGMT/NTAP-MGMT.vmx: Device or resource busy

egrep: /vmfs/volumes/iscsi_1_vmw_7mode/NTAP-MGMT/NTAP-MGMT.vmx: Device or resource busy

Does this help?

-Arun

http://highoncloud.blogspot.in/

About VMware Virtualization on NetApp

[f10]

Oops, I didnt read your comment properly. Now that you have already located the VM and its path but since the add to inventory option is greyed out there is probably an existing lock on this VM. Use VMware KB: Investigating virtual machine file locks on ESXi/ESX to troubleshoot this issue. It will help you identify the lock and to kill the process.

-Arun

http://highoncloud.blogspot.in/

About VMware Virtualization on NetApp

[sagar666]

One more Vm also removed but that Vm is not visible in any datastore

[zXi_Gamer]

Hi i can able to see the path and files but when right click on files add to inventory is not highlighting.

It is highly likely that this VM is now registered to some other host and that is the reason, you are unable to register the vm in this host. Check if you are able to see a .vswp file in the VM folder, then yes the VM is powered on in some other host,

To know the host which is managing the vm, browse to the vmware.log of the VM and look for "vmk0" string. That will give you the host IP managing the VM

2014-01-24T05:20:58.769Z| vmx| I120: IP=x.x.x.xx(vmk0)

[sagar666]

Add to inventory solved.But one of our user removed vm from vcenter and it moved to other  host or vcenter .I want to see where that vm moved ......how to find that vm .its very critical vm

[zXi_Gamer]

So basically, you have only the IP/remote access of the Virtual Machine  [or not], but you know only the VM name and you do not know which ESX or VC is managing it, but you want to know where the VM is residing now.

Now.. I do find that a bit not so ethical, unless you have access to the database which should be common for most of the VCs, then you can follow this workaround:

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=200418...

Else, I would suggest to take up with your Admin.

[admin]

I would try grepping the VM name

• grep -i <virtual_machine_name> /vmfs/volumes/*/*/vmware-*.log

Thanks,
Avinash