TimR26 Tracker

copy/snapshot disk from one VM to be used in another VM

TimR26 — Fri, 23 Sep 2022 12:15:37 GMT

Hello,

I have a Linux Yum server on Network A. It has a second disk we use to store all yum content. We have an air-gapped network called Network B. We have an identical Linux Yum server that serves Yum content for that network.

I would like to know if there is a way to snapshot/copy the second disk only from Network A, bring it over to Network B, and replace/update the second disk there? I would do this monthly.

vSAN 7 U2 File Services - Replicate SMB shares between vSAN clusters

TimR26 — Wed, 31 Mar 2021 04:09:43 GMT

I have 7 site that will host vSAN clusters with file services. I want to replace Microsoft File Services with vSAN File Services, but I need to be able to replicate content in a couple of SMB shares from a primary site to all other sites.

Has anybody looked into this?

Re: Server 2019 and vSphere 6.7U3 - Large file transfers cause intermittent disconnects

TimR26 — Thu, 23 Jan 2020 02:00:39 GMT

We are using DL380 Gen10 servers, using 1 x HPE Ethernet 10/25Gb 2-port 640FLR-SFP28 and 1 x HPE Ethernet 10/25Gb 2-port 640SFP28 Adapter. They are connected to a pair of Cisco Nexus 5400 series (not sure the exact model) switches.

Re: Server 2019 and vSphere 6.7U3 - Large file transfers cause intermittent disconnects

TimR26 — Mon, 20 Jan 2020 15:59:35 GMT

Physical switches have jumbo frames enabled, all physical ports have MTU configured to MTU 9000, vDS port groups are configured with MTU 9000. NICs in guest OS are default.

To add, this only happens on Server 2019. Server 2016 and older have no issues.

Server 2019 and vSphere 6.7U3 - Large file transfers cause intermittent disconnects

TimR26 — Mon, 20 Jan 2020 15:38:48 GMT

I'm running about a dozen Server 2019 servers all using VMXNET3 NICs on a vSAN 6.7 U3 cluster, using 4 x 10GB uplinks with MTU 9000. When I attempt to transfer large files (roughly 100MB or more) via RDP with folder redirection with copy/paste, Windows Admin Center file transfer, or setting up a filezilla server on the OS can used a client to upload files, the files will transfer for a second or two, then drops the connection completely. For RDP I observer a frozen screen then reattempts to connect and after a few seconds it usually reconnects with an incomplete file transfer. On Windows Admin Center, I get an error (it uses Powershell to transfer the file and gets errors related), and in FileZilla, observing the mgmt interface, the transfer stalls during the disconnect. during the FTP scenario, I'll use VMRC to connect to the guest OS and monitor the mgmt interface of FTP Server and see delays in the file transfer. I also run a ping from my workstation to the FTP server and will observe random packet loss, specifically 4-5 successful packets followed by 4-5 packets lost and this repeats.

In one sparticular instance, vCenter reported the VM NIC was disconnected from the vDS switch and couldn't reconnect it. I had to remove the vNIC and create a new one for it to connect to the vDS. The file transfer issue persists. I did observe this large file transfer issue on other Server 2019 guest OSes but i'm having a hard time trying to discover the root cause.

I did attempt to upgrade VMtools on my FTP server to 11.0.5 to see if it was a undiscovered issue, but the issue remains. I'm thinking there may be an issue with the Server OS itself, but i'd like to do my due diligence on the VMware side of things before moving on to the OS.

Anyone experience this issue, or can anyone recommend where to start first for adv troubleshooting...a specific log, etc?

Auto Deploy 6.7 U1b - certificate issues at waiter.tgz

TimR26 — Tue, 04 Jun 2019 17:18:37 GMT

I'm developing auto-deploy and i've gotten to the point where a the ESXi installation begins, but stalls when trying to install waiter.tgz. I checked the /var/log/vmware/rbd/rbd-cgi.log file and found this:

beacon:Adding etc/vmware/autodeploy/waiternotify.json

cache_tables:cache request ....

sslutil:cert files are missing from <UID> (autodeployhost.contoso.com)

sslcert:Generating SSL cert for <UID> (autodeployhost.contoso.com)

ERROR:vmcacertutil:Could not generate certificates for: autodeployhost.contoso.com

rc:0

out: b'Error: 5, VMCASignedCertificatePrivate() failedError Code: 5\nMessage: UNKNOWN\n'

Not sure what other info to provide to help determine the issue....any suggestions/guidance?

Horizon 7.8 Connection Server - no HTML5

TimR26 — Fri, 31 May 2019 13:56:59 GMT

Running a small POC lab and did a "next -> next -> go" install of the connection server. When I log into the flash based admin console, everything is fine, but the HTML Console option in the top right is missing. I browsed to c:\program files\vmware\vmware view\server\broker\webapps and found that the newadmin folder is also missing.

Any chance I missed something during install?

Re: vCenter 6.7U1 file based backups using FileZilla FTPS Server

TimR26 — Fri, 01 Feb 2019 14:20:02 GMT

*UPDATE*

I disabled IPv6 on the VCSA and grep'd the file again to ensure the IPv6 entry is gone (which it was), and the backup completed.

I've been told that disabling IPv6 can mess up patching? Can anyone clarify? If so, is this still a thing in 6.7?

Re: vCenter 6.7U1 file based backups using FileZilla FTPS Server

TimR26 — Fri, 01 Feb 2019 13:41:44 GMT

Two addresses return, IPv4 and IPv6.

vCenter 6.7U1 file based backups using FileZilla FTPS Server

TimR26 — Wed, 30 Jan 2019 16:06:16 GMT

I've configured FileZilla accordingly, created a backup schedule for testing. The backup was estimated to be approx 365mb in size. The schedule kicked in and started uploading content to the FTPS server. At the 297mb mark, vcsa start deleting all the content and spits out and error, "BackupManager encountered an exception." The logs on FileZilla do not show anything unusual, but checking the /var/log/vmware/applmgmt/backup.log, I found this entry:

BackupManager encountered an exception: While reading from '/etc/systemd/network/10-eth0.network' [line 8]: option 'address' in section 'Network' already exists

I checked the file the error is referencing and that particular line is the IPv4 address of the vcsa.

I'm stumped.

Any suggestions?

SDDC 4.3 and Horizon, Physical Compute, and Auto-Deploy

TimR26 — Fri, 18 Jan 2019 17:44:27 GMT

We would like to leverage the SDDC design to provide different shared edge/compute clusters to represent different environments like dev, test, pre-prod, and prod.

We currently have a physical workstation for each environment and would like to implement a horizon solution to virtualize all workstations except prod. We would hope this solution could be hosted/integrated into our SDDC design.

Also can we manage/deploy physical compute payloads in a SDDC? I know vRA can be used to deploy physical resources, but I would like to know how we can incorporate that, as well as the protection of these workloads. Virtual payloads can be protected by NSX, but can we do the same for physical?

We have SAN storage, could we use the management cluster to host tools used to manage SAN infrastructure? Same question regarding network/security device tools.

I know there would be a tone of follow up questions to provide the right answer, i'm more looking at it as, are these use cases common when it comes to building SDDC? or are these completely out of scope and designed/implemented outside of the SDDC design completely. Does anybody have any reference docs/whitepapers/vids on these types of use-cases I could reference?

Re: Auto-Deploy Image building and UMDS/VUM

TimR26 — Mon, 14 Jan 2019 13:21:59 GMT

Ok, follow up. Can I use the content downloaded via UMDS to build an auto-deploy image? Are there any challenges to using this content (file format, tracking versions of files, etc), versus the ISO images from the patch website? I find the website very easy to use, but hate the manual downloading. I like UMDS because I can schedule the downloads, pick and choose the content I want, but I'm not familiar enough with the content itself to know if I can use it for auto-deploy images.

Auto-Deploy Image building and UMDS/VUM

TimR26 — Fri, 11 Jan 2019 15:19:16 GMT

We want to use auto-deploy for provisioning ESXi Hosts. We are on an air-gapped network Should/Could we use content downloaded from UMDS to build / update our auto-deploy images or should we manually download content from the vmware patch site (along with any vendor drivers, etc.)

vRA7.1 - RHEL 6 blueprint - using software component to config kerberos and join AD (weird problem)

TimR26 — Wed, 01 Feb 2017 18:58:46 GMT

I have two blueprints:

1. RHEL6 blueprint with a script "living" on the guest OS that configs Kerberos and integrate with AD. Lets call it AD-Join. There is also a text file with the password to the service account we use for Kerberos authentication. The AD-Join script it is executed by a vRO workflow within the blueprint.

2. RHEL 6 blueprint with no scripts or text file "living" on the guest OS. I have a software component that runs AD-Join with secure string property for the service account password.

Blueprint #1 runs without issues and users can log into that server using AD credentials.

Blueprint #2 runs, but I get issues with the AD-Join script within the software component. I have a function in the AD-Join script for the specific task of joining AD (other functions within the script prep for AD join, plus other things.) which is where I've isolated the problem to. For context, here is the function:

The broken function:

echo $password | kinit $username
klist
host=`hostname`
host=$host\$
sleep 20s
net ads join -k
sleep 30s
kinit -k $host

This produces the following error message:

net ads join -k: Failed to join domain: failed to join domain <domain> over rpc: Access denied

kinit -k $host: kinit: Generic preauthentication failure while getting initial credentials

For troubleshooting I added klist so I can see the output. I was able to verify that the ticket was created and is valid.

If I log into the server and run these commands manually, everything works. I thought maybe the Kerberos ticket wasn't replicated across my DCs, so I increased the sleep commands to 5mins each just to be sure, and no difference.

*NOTE* Just to be clear, the broken function works perfectly, as written above, in blueprint #1 (where the AD-Join script "lives" on the host). This error only happens when running the AD-Join script in a software component.

After lots of research I was able to solve my issue:

This is the working function:

echo $password | kinit $username

klist

host=`hostname`

host=$host\$

sleep 20s

net ads join -k -U $username%$password

sleep 30s

kinit -k $host

This did not produce any errors.

I'm trying to understand why I need to specify the -U $username%$password when using a software component to run the script versus running the script within the guest OS.

Any suggestions?

SQL 2014 blueprint

TimR26 — Tue, 20 Dec 2016 14:48:47 GMT

I'm using the sample blueprint available on the exchange website as reference. One change I made is that the guest machine uses a vsphere customization spec to join a domain. Everything works as designed in the sample, but as soon as try to specify a domain account for the SQL service account or a domain account for the SQL sys admin account the deployment fails. I suspect that the guest machine is not a member of the domain when the software component kicks in.

Is there a way to ensure the machine has completed any vsphere specific customization (join the domain) before the software component kicks in?

vra 7.1 - Expired Blueprint - Request to expire a deployment and all constituent resources failed

TimR26 — Tue, 20 Dec 2016 14:07:07 GMT

I had some blueprints that were stuck "in progress" so I did some research and found an article (http://open902.com/vra7-delete-stuck-in-progress-deployments/) to delete the entries. The procedure worked perfectly except for the fact that the deployments I deleted had leases on them. Now that the lease has expired, vRA is issuing requests to expire the deployments but keep failing b/c the deployments do not exist. This happens every three hours.

Request - Expire - <deployment name>

Status: Failed

Request initialization failed: Rejecting blueprint request [ID]. There are other active requests on the corresponding deployment.

Any suggestions before I contact Support?

Re: Adding a user to a newly provisioned VM

TimR26 — Wed, 14 Dec 2016 13:56:28 GMT

Hey,

I see this is an old discussion so I'm not sure I'll get a response. With vRA 7.x can a software component do what you did here?

Re: How to license windows under vRA?

TimR26 — Fri, 09 Dec 2016 00:28:00 GMT

could you not supply the license key in the vsphere customization spec?

Re: How do you create a vm with no disks in VRA 7

TimR26 — Tue, 22 Nov 2016 13:13:38 GMT

I've never tried this so I'm just talking out of my @$$ but the blueprint requires at least one disk so build your machine with one disk. When the blueprint is deployed, include a script/workflow to power off the machine and delete the disk.

I'm sure there is a better way and I'll look into it, but this is just an idea to get the gears spinning.

Re: vra 7.1 - Domain Users cannot login

TimR26 — Tue, 22 Nov 2016 12:42:40 GMT

Check to see if the any of the newly added accounts user id match with the id of locally created vRealize Automation accounts. If so remove the local accounts and only use the domain accounts to authenticate them.