Increase memory in vCenter VM

[WonderVM]

I have a vCenter 5.5 VM with only 4gb of RAM allocated.

I want to upgrade this.

Firstly what is the recommended memory to allocate (SQL on another server).

The memory option is greyed out (permissions are fine) when the vcenter server is on so I cant edit it.

I cant shut it down either because I will not be able to access the settings without web client.

Memory Hot Plug is not enabled either.

What are my options.

D

[Linjo]

You could edit the vmx-file manually.

[schepp]

Another option would be:

- to take a look on which host the vCenter is running

- shutdown the VM

- connect directly to the host with the vSphere Client and edit die RAM of the VM

- start the VM

Tim

[iiliev]

Or (since this is a forum about vCenter Orchestrator) you can use 'Change RAM' stock vCO workflow.

1. Deploy vCO appliance VM
2. Register the host where your vCenter VM is deployed in vCO
3. Power off your vCenter VM
4. Run 'Change RAM' vCO workflow.

[schepp]

Woops, sorry Illian, I just moved the thread to the vCenter Server area

[WonderVM]

Has version 10 tools on it so I can only edit in Web Client

[GMCON]

Here are two separate ways you can be able to upgrade the memory on vCenter

VMware KB: Downgrading the virtual machine hardware version in ESX/ESXi

VMware KB: Editing virtual machine settings fails with the error: You cannot use the vSphere client ...

[King_Robert]

you have to shutdown the Vcenter server VM to increase the RAM.

Just shutdown the VM and edit settings for RAM whatever you want to add.

There will be no impact on the ESX host and other VM by all this.

[FoaRyan]

"Just shutdown the VM and edit settings for RAM whatever you want to add."

And how would you do that when the VM you shut down *is* vCenter? In 5.5 you can't edit the VM's without vCenter because you need the web client.

There should be an easy solution for this, and from what I'm reading throughout this forum, VMWare hasn't thought of it yet: a scheduled memory increase. We need an option IN THE WEB CLIENT (since we have to use it now), to say "The next time this VM reboots, change the ram from amount X to amount Y." Ironically, this option is exactly how you upgrade the VM hardware from version 8 or 9 to 10, etc.

[Linjo]

As a few of us have pointed out you can manually edit the vmx-file.

Its simply a text-file that you download from the datastore, change what you need. upload again and then start your vCenter.

// Linjo

[FoaRyan]

Yes, thank you. I appreciate the help, and I may end up doing that. It's just that prior to upgrading to 5.5 there was no need to manually edit any files to make these changes. I think it's the wrong direction for VMware management is all I'm saying.

[VRBitman]

You don't need to do it with 5.5 either, if you don't want to. As the others have pointed out, it's merely an alternative to the classic method of editing the settings.

And remember vCenter is just a server for centralized management. You can still perform maintenance by connecting directly to the ESXi hosts.

So, as Tim Scheppeit nicely explained, the easiest thing for you to do is:

- take a look on which host the vCenter is running

- shutdown the vCenter VM

- connect directly to the host with the vSphere Client and edit the RAM of the VM

- start the VM

[vcpsfitz]

As WonderVM stated, the Virtual Machine that Virtual Center is running on is using hardware version 10, which will not allow him to update the memory settings without using the web client.

IMHO he has 3 options:

Edit the .vmx file to change the memory settings.

Use standalone converter to change the hardware version back to version 8 or 9, then complete the memory upgrade.

Create a new Virtual Machine as version 8/9, configure the correct resources, then attach the vmdk's.