DrorAmbar Tracker

Re: Upgrade from 6.7 to 7 on Dell server

DrorAmbar — Wed, 28 Dec 2022 00:06:40 GMT

Thank you everyone. I appreciate your feedback.

Kudos to you all!

Re: Upgrade from 6.7 to 7 on Dell server

DrorAmbar — Tue, 27 Dec 2022 21:57:02 GMT

As I mentioned in my original post, my CIO wants it and that is a discussion for another time

Upgrade from 6.7 to 7 on Dell server

DrorAmbar — Tue, 27 Dec 2022 20:27:43 GMT

Hello everyone,

We have a standalone Dell PowerEdge server that was purchased from Dell with custom image ESXi 6.7 on it.

We want to upgrade it to ESXi 7.

My CIO wants to take this opportunity and move away from the Dell's custom image to a standard ESXi installation.

Is there a best practice or are there any recommendations on how to perform this task successfully that will allow me to keep the current guests without having to recreate them?

Thanks!

Re: ESXi 6.7 creating a snapshot taking a long time

DrorAmbar — Tue, 27 Sep 2022 17:16:40 GMT

Thank you @ptarnawski @RajeevVCP4 and @Sam0054

Your answers addressed all my concerns.

You guys are awesome!

Re: ESXi 6.7 creating a snapshot taking a long time

DrorAmbar — Tue, 27 Sep 2022 17:14:28 GMT

Got it @Sam0054

Thanks!

Re: ESXi 6.7 creating a snapshot taking a long time

DrorAmbar — Fri, 23 Sep 2022 20:06:57 GMT

Hi @RajeevVCP4 no I haven't tried that.

I am not familiar with that option, can you please provide more information about it or any references to how it's done?

I am assuming that I will have to enable SSH for that.

Re: ESXi 6.7 creating a snapshot taking a long time

DrorAmbar — Fri, 23 Sep 2022 20:04:36 GMT

Thank you @ptarnawski for the explanation

Making sure that I understand you correctly: If I take a snapshot unchecking the memory state, then perform "delete all" - will the VM be turned off when it's done or that is not even a concern in this case?

Re: ESXi 6.7 creating a snapshot taking a long time

DrorAmbar — Wed, 21 Sep 2022 18:27:08 GMT

Hi ptarnawski,

No, that was the very first snapshot

ESXi 6.7 creating a snapshot taking a long time

DrorAmbar — Wed, 21 Sep 2022 01:55:54 GMT

Hello all,

I am having an issue with snapshots on one of my servers are taking a very long time to create.

The server is a PowerEdge R540, 10 CPUs x Intel(R) Xeon(R) Silver 4210 CPU @ 2.20GHz, 64 GB RAM.

I am taking a snapshot of a Windows 2016 guest and it's taking about two hours to complete.

Same setup on three other hosts not as robust as this one took a few minutes with the "Snapshot the virtual machine's memory" option selected.

I read a post suggesting to remove to have that option removed. Is there any reason to be concerned performing the process that way?

So I'm not sure what are the possible reasons causing this to take place to begin with.

Any guidance will be appreciated in advance!

Re: Copy VMware folder from ESXi 6 to ESXi 6.7

DrorAmbar — Thu, 25 Feb 2021 17:29:39 GMT

Thank you for answering my questions.

Appreciate all the help!

Re: Copy VMware folder from ESXi 6 to ESXi 6.7

DrorAmbar — Wed, 24 Feb 2021 19:22:20 GMT

@ashilkrishnan Thank you for your guidance.

I am not that experienced with this platform, so I may ask obvious questions and repeat things just to make sure I understand.

So if I copy the VM folder to the new installation, is the link below the right procedure?

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/6.7/com.vmware.vsphere.html.hostclient.doc/GUID-207605A0-A152-474E-AFFC-82AD304228DD.html

The thing is that the hosting machine is a stand-alone server on that site and since it needs a storage upgrade, I am replacing its hard drives, rebuilding the array, then I'm going to install a fresh copy of 6.7 that will replace the old 6.0. I could create a new VM but that would add 2 -3 hours to the original schedule vs just copying the folder and adding it to the new installation.

Thanks again for your help!

Copy VMware folder from ESXi 6 to ESXi 6.7

DrorAmbar — Tue, 23 Feb 2021 23:44:26 GMT

Hello all,

I have a server that is running ESXi 6.0 and hosts a VoIP Windows 2012 R2 server and a couple of virtual switches.

I have to upgrade its storage which means that I will have to reinstall the OS from scratch therefore I am going to take the opportunity and install ESXi 6.7 Essentials.

My question is if I can save a copy of the VoIP server folder prior to the upgrade, and then use it on ESXi 6.7?

Thanks!

Re: Windows 10 pro guest on ESXi 6.7 loses network connectivity with static IP

DrorAmbar — Thu, 29 Oct 2020 19:10:03 GMT

I was about to update this post and close it but you beat me to it

Yes, that is correct.

Before I assigned this IP I pinged it and because there was no reply I assumed it was available.

I checked my documentation and found out that it was actually in use.

As soon as I selected an available IP address the issue was resolved.

Thank you André for the quick response!

Windows 10 pro guest on ESXi 6.7 loses network connectivity with static IP

DrorAmbar — Thu, 29 Oct 2020 18:52:59 GMT

Hello all,

I recently installed Windows 10 Pro on a VM hosted on ESXi 6.7.

The new machine gets an IP address from DHCP as followed, running ipconfig:

IPv4 10.1.12.129

Subnet Mask 255.255.255.0

Default Gateway 10.1.12.1

When I assign it a static IP (10.1.12.87) connectivity is lost and this is what I get running ipconfig:

IPv4 169.254.116.155

Subnet Mask 255.255.0.0

Default Gateway 10.1.12.1

Also, when I check the adapter Status -> Details I notice that there's a line Autoconfiguration IPv4 169.254.116.155

As soon as I change it back to DHCP, it acquires the same IP above (.129) and everything is working again

I verified that it's not a DNS issue.

I tried to disable and reenable the network adapter, but with no success.

If it's relevant, the vSwitch includes a dedicated NIC, uplink to the Core switch, the port is untagged.

Any help will be highly appreciated!

Re: ESXi 6.0, and using QNAP for snapshots storage

DrorAmbar — Thu, 18 Jun 2020 00:10:17 GMT

I am using thick provision lazy zeroed so I guess space availability is relevant in this case.

I did try expanding when the guest was powered down and got the error message of not enough space for page file again when I powered it up.

From what you wrote and what I experienced I've concluded that the actual max size in my case is the available space in the datastore when all guests are powered up, subtracting the memory size.

Once I followed that calculation I didn't run into any issues.

The workarounds I figured out are either reduce the memory size for any of the guests if possible, or increase the datastore size if possible.

With that said, the only reason I use thick provision lazy zeroed is because that's how the vendor who set up these machine did it, since I guess this is the option selected by default.

So my questions are:

Is there any advantage in using thin provisioning over thick other than the available size and expansion?

Is there a downside using thin provisioning?

If I'm better off using thin provisioning, is there a way to convert a thick provisioning to thin?

Also, what is the difference between thick/lazy and thick eager?

Thanks!

Re: ESXi 6.0, and using QNAP for snapshots storage

DrorAmbar — Wed, 17 Jun 2020 01:19:58 GMT

First of all I wanted to thank everyone who took the time to reply to all my questions.

Thanks to you guys I was able to start my project and so far everything is going well.

I did run into a situation though when I increase the provisioning size of a disk from 80 GB to 110 GB where the max allowed is 114 GB, and then the vm wouldn't start.

I apologize in advance for not having a screenshot of the error message, I had a WTF moment and closed it... if I remember it correctly if had to do with not enough disk space or something like that.

I hope that you understand why I didn't try to recreate the issue, so no screenshot.

I restored the original files so disk size was set to 80 GB again, however the provisioned size was still set as 110 GB in 'Edit settings' and could not be reduced.

I then used vmkfstools to increase the size to 96 GB which met my requirements and everything worked fine after that.

So although the actual new disk size is 96 GB, the provisioned size remained 110 GB in 'Edit settings' and the only option is to increase the size of the disk.

My questions are:

Why wasn't I able to increase the disk size to the max or even to less than that?

If the max is not the actual max size I can set it to, is there a calculation that I can use to find out what is the actual max size allowed for that machine?

Why is the provisioned size is still set as 110 GB in 'Edit settings' even though the actual size is 96 GB? Is there a way to have it show the actual size again?

Thanks!

Re: ESXi 6.0, and using QNAP for snapshots storage

DrorAmbar — Mon, 18 May 2020 23:35:06 GMT

I have another question: What is the functionality of the Consolidate option in Snapshot?

It sounds like Delete All is basically consolidating snapshots but I am sure that there's a difference if that option is there, or am I wrong?

Re: ESXi 6.0, and using QNAP for snapshots storage

DrorAmbar — Thu, 14 May 2020 18:50:55 GMT

I see, so in this case it is better to take the snapshot when the vm is powered down since it's a phone system.

Is it also preferred in this case to Delete All while it's powered off, since my understanding that due to the size of the delta file after 3.5 years, the machine will probably lag and freeze?

I can fail over all the accounts on that server to a different site so services will not be interrupted.

And generally speaking, is there also an advantage in Deleting All on a phone system VM while it's powered off?

Re: ESXi 6.0, and using QNAP for snapshots storage

DrorAmbar — Thu, 14 May 2020 16:38:11 GMT

Got it.

So to conclude everything that was said earlier:

I should Delete All snapshots and that would bring the parent VM to the last state when the VM was on the snapshot.

Andre's suggestion to take the snapshot when the VM powered off is specific to this case - generally speaking, snapshots are taken when the VM is running.

Snapshots should not be kept for 3.5 years... What is the longest time recommended to keep a snapshot?

Another question: suppose the upgrade fails and I want to delete the snapshot without having it effecting the parent VM, so I am guessing that I revert to the parent VM, then hit "Delete All"?

And finally, what was the record for the longest VM running on a snapshot before me?:smileylaugh:

Re: ESXi 6.0, and using QNAP for snapshots storage

DrorAmbar — Wed, 13 May 2020 21:34:58 GMT

LOL...Thank you?...:smileylaugh:

OK, so I take it that Delete All will consolidate the data from the snapshot and will actually bring the parent VM to the working state the snapshot was in.

I also understand that it is recommended to take snapshots when the VM is powered down. Is it also recommended to Delete all when the VM is shutdown as well, or it doesn't matter in this case?