Error when doing a search for virtual machines in the vmware client

Problem:
You can search for vms when you connect to vcenter.  What is wrong? Is it your esxi host, your vcenter, your dbs?




You might get
An internal error occurred in the vsphere client. Details: unable to connect to the remote server



Or you might get
Logon to the query service failed.
A connection failure occurred (Unable to connect to the remote server)









Reason:
Check your services
You probably have the Vmware inventory service down on your vcenter.
While you are at it also make sure the serivce Vmware vsphere profile-driven storage is up

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How to run a powershell script for vmware : walkthrough

Here is a walk through on how to make and run a powershell /powercli script
The methods also apply to powershell but this is target towards running powercli commands for your esxi or vsphere hosts.


1. Open Notepad.
2. Add commands to notepad.







3. Save file with a .ps1  extension
In this example I named it snapscript.ps1
4. Open your powercli shell





5. Connect to your host or vsphere istance using the command
Connect-viserve r  HOSTorVSPHERENAME
Example: I'm connecting to my vsphere via ip







You might have to enter credentials:





6.  Once connected run your script by placing .\ in front of the name of the script.
Example: .\snapscript.ps1











7. Your script has run
Any errors will come up in the box with red text ,

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Vmware DRS anti affinity rules wont let you enter maintenance mode for a esxi host

You have a DRS rule that specifies that 2 vms need to be kept apart:
In this case: 250-FT and 250sql3











For larger clusters with multiple hosts it may not make a difference but for a small cluster of 2 hosts, it can  disrupt you  you from upgrading, rebooting , etc.


You can choose yes and ignore the first message popup





But the vm wont move over via DRS
This operation would violate a virtual machine affinity/anti-affinity rule. Migrate SERVER from HOST1 to HOST2
Could not enter maintenance mode.











 Solution:
Manually move over the VM with vmotion
Now the host is in maintenance .

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Hot add of cpu and memory to a virtual machine in vcenter

Why can't you hot add cpu or memory to you esxi host's vm?
Is the option grayed out?


Reason: in vsphere by default a  virtual machine has it's hot add options turned off
















How to enable hot add:
1. You have to power off the vm, no choice here if the option is not enabled.
2. Edit Vm Settings-> options-> Memory/cpu hotplug
3. Click on enable for both options. You can see hot remove is not selectable, that is because the os of the vm doesn’t support it.









Test of hot add of cpu and ram
*your operating system has to support hot add




Before hot add 1 cpu and 2gb ram









Hot add cpu
You can add sockets NOT cores





























Hot add Ram
As you can see I cannot go below the current 2gb
















The ram changed to 8gb

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Installing an ftp server on your esxi host itself

Andreas Peetz setup a way to install a ftp server on you esxi hostitself.
<http://www.v-front.de/2012/11/release-proftpd-ftp-server-for-vmware.html>




Why is there no ftp service on a esxi host?
It isn't advised to keep an ftp service on your actual host.
It leaves another security hole on your host.
Like Peetz says, if you want to upload files, you have many other options available, like the datstore browser or winscp




So why install an ftp service on the host itself?
It is just a proof of concept that it can be done, if for no other reason than it being a learning experience adding offline bundles to your host.


For Peetz's instructions and updates go to his site:  http://www.v-front.de/2012/11/release-proftpd-ftp-server-for-vmware.html




1. Download Proftpd for esxi
ProFTPD 1.3.3 for VMware ESXi 5.x




2. Upload it to your datastore









3. SSH into your host
4. Run this command
esxcli software vib install --no-sig-check -d /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/ProFTPD-1.3.3-8-offline_bundle.zip
What the options mean:
 --no-sig-check     Bypasses acceptance level verification.
-d    Specifies full remote URLs of the depot index.xml or  server file path pointing to an offline bundle. In our case I uploaded the file to datastore1 but it could be any datastore.









Check the security profile for proftp install
You see it listed in the Services as well as the firewall.









Not working?
Port commands keep failing?





 Answer:
Use a program like filezilla.
ProFTPd's default TLS handling rules requires SSL sessions to be re-used. Windows command line ftp doesn’t do that.
<http://www.ateamsystems.com/blog/FireFTP-ProFTPd-Unable-to-build-data-connection-Operation-not-permitted-TLS-negotiation>











Final verdict: works but I wouldn’t use it in production. But it’s a good exercise !

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"No bootable device" after successful ESXi 5 installation

 Did you just install esxi 5 successfully then cant boot into your host?
Looks like some people on this thread were able to get it working.
http://communities.vmware.com/message/2149004


From ldaprat
"With ESXi 5, ESX no longer uses MBR for boot, it has gone to GPT-based partitions instead.    Which is fine, if your BIOS (and mine) supported it correctly.      More details here:  http://communities.vmware.com/message/1822854?tstart=0


There are two ways past this:
1) try changing your BIOS to enable UEFI support - then re-install completely.     This did not work for me, I got purple screen of death when trying to do the ESXi install.    (I chalk this up to problems with UEFI implementation in the BIOS revision on my older motherboard.)


2) Re-install ESXi 5, and during initial install press Shift-O when prompted.   Add formatwithmbr to the options, proceed with install."




*note if you delete


Why does this happen?
By default ESXi 5.0 uses GPT based partitions tables and not MBR like it did previously.  This allows you to have disks which are greater than 2TB in size, but some systems are incompatible with it (possibly including yours) or need to have the correct BIOS setting.


You can try changing your BIOS to see if it's compatible with EFI or will work in "legacy/compatibility mode".  Alternatively you can reinstall and use the "formatwithmbr" setting at the boot prompt which will cause the partitions to be set up the way they were in ESX 4.x.  -PatrickD
Pasted from <http://communities.vmware.com/message/1822854>








Looks like it works on various intel mobos
Intel DG35EC
Intel DQ35J0
Intel DP35DP
Intel D965WH
Intel DB75EN
Those are the ones reported above, probably works with more.


My own tests with runweasel formatwithmbr   This is good:







This is what comes up when you press shit+o





Now add formatwithmbr





 now install normally.




























**********************************************************************************
My own tests with runweasel removed and ONLY formatwithmbr   DON’T DO THIS






Typing in formatwithmbr after removing runweasel
Hit enter











It installed itself without input I DID NOT GET THIS, which I did when I left the runweasel command







When I install with formatwithmbr, I don’t have a local datastore though esxi does load right into esxi,
But upon reboot it doesn’t see anything  and goes to PXE















******************

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VSphere 5.1 vMotion Best Practices

This is my notes on the white paper: VMware vSphere 5.1 vMotion  Architecture, Performance and Best Practices

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/techpaper/VMware-vSphere51-vMotion-Perf.pdf

As vmotion is different slightly in 5.1 vs 5.0 due to enhancements , I wanted to go over everything to get a good handle on the new features

There are some diagrams in the pdf that would be good to check out

My own comments I italicized.It is for my own understanding of how vmotion in 5.1 works vs standard vmotion in 5.0 and svmotion

Migrates live virtual machines, including their memory and storage, between vSphere hosts without any requirement for shared  storage.

During storage migration, vSphere 5.1 vMotion maintains the same performance  as Storage vMotion, even when using the network to migrate.

Before 5.1:

live-migration solution was limited to the hosts that shared a common set of datastores. In addition, migration of an entire virtual machine

required two separate operations, for instance vMotion followed by Storage vMotion, or vice versa.

With 5.1

enabling live migration of an entire virtual machine across vSphere hosts without any requirement for shared storage.

vMotion Architecture

. The execution state primarily consists of the following components:

Ÿ    The virtual machine’s virtual disks

Ÿ    The virtual machine’s physical memory

Ÿ    The virtual device state, including the state of the CPU, network and disk adapters, SVGA , and so on

Ÿ    External network connections

How Storage vMotion migrates storage

uses a synchronous mirroring approach to migrate a virtual disk from one datastore to anotherdatastore on the same physical host.

Uses two concurrent processes.

First, a bulk copy (also known as a clone)

Concurrently, an I/O mirroring process transports any additional changes that occur to the virtual disk, because of the guest’s  ongoing modifications.

IO mirroring:

I/O mirroring process accomplishes that by mirroring the ongoing modifications to the virtual disk on both the source and the destination datastores.

 Storage vMotion mirrors I/O only to the disk region that has already been copied by the bulk copy process.

Guest writes to a disk region that the bulk copy process has not yet copied are not mirrored becausechanges to this disk region will be copied by the bulk copy process eventually.

How are guest writes copied then?

A synchronization mechanism is implemented that prevents the guest write I/Os from conflicting with the bulk copy process read I/Os when the guest write I/Os are issued to the disk region currently being copied by the bulkcopy process.

No synchronization is needed for guest read I/Os, which are issued only to the source  virtual disk.

Vmotion 5.1 storage migration

vSphere 5.1 vMotion uses a network transport for migrating the data.

In contrast to Storage vMotion, vSphere 5.1 vMotion cannot rely on synchronous storage mirroring because the source and destination datastores might be separated by longer physical distances.

Relies on an asynchronous transport mechanism for migrating both the bulk copy process and I/O mirroring process data.

Does Vmotion 5.1 ever use synchronous ?

vSphere 5.1 vMotion switches from asynchronous mode to synchronous mirror mode  whenever the guest write I/O rate is faster than the network transfer rate (due to network limitations) or I/O throughput at the destination datastore (due to destination limitations).

 vMotion 5.1 typically transfers the disk content over the vMotion network. However it optimizes the disk copy by leveraging the mechanisms of Storage vMotion whenever possible.

Vmotion 5.1 if it has access to source and destination datastores

 if the source host has access to the destination datastore, vSphere 5.1 vMotion will use the source host’s storage interface to transfer the disk content, thus reducing vMotion network utilization and host CPU utilization.

if both the source and destination datastores are on the same array that is capable of VAAI, Motion 5.1  will offload the task of copying the disk content to  the array usingVAAI.

Migration of Virtual Machine’s Memory

[Phase  1] Guest trace phase

guest memory is staged for migration

Traces are placed on the guest memory pages to track any modifications by the guest during the migration.

 [Phase 2] Pre-copy phase

Because the virtual machine continues to run and actively modify its memory state on the source

host during this phase,

memory contents of the virtual machine are copied from the source ESXi host to the destination ESXi host in an iterative process.

Each iteration copies only the memory pages that were modified during the previous iteration. [except for the first iteration probably]

[Phase 3]  Switch-over phase

the virtual machine is momentarily  quiesced on the source ESXi host,

the last set of memory changes are copied to the target ESXi host,

Now  virtual machine is resumed on the target ESXi host.

vSphere 5.1 vMotion begins the memory copy process only after the bulk copy process completes the copy of the disk contents. The memory copy  process

runs concurrently with the I/O mirroring process (where the changes to the disk after clone are )

Stun During Page-Send (SDPS)

 In most cases, each pre-copy iteration (memcopy)should take less time to complete than the previous iteration.

[ Sometimes vm ] modifies memory contents faster than it can be transferred

SDPS will kick-in and ensure the memory modification rateis slower than the pre-copy transfer rate.

This technique avoids any possible vMotion failures.

Upon activation, SDPS injects microsecond delays into the virtual machine execution and throttles its page dirty rate to a preferred rate, guaranteeing pre-copy convergence

[in effect it retards the vm slowing it down]

Migration External Network Connections

[No interuptions] as long as both the source and destination hosts are on the same subnet.

 After the virtual machine is migrated, the destination ESXi host sends out a RARP packet to the physical network switch thereby ensuring that the switch updates its tables with the new switch port location of the migrated virtual machine.

Using Multiple NICs for vSphere 5.1 vMotion

Ensure that all the vMotion vmknics on the source host can freely communicate with all the vMotion vmknics on the destination host. It is recommend to use the same IP subnet for all the vMotion vmknics.

vSphere 5.1 vMotion over Metro Area Networks

vSphere 5.1 vMotion is latency aware and provides support on high-latency networks with round-trip latencies of up to 10 milliseconds.
 update:
***you have to have supported hardware from cisco or f5

.
Maximum latency of 5 milliseconds (ms) RTT (round trip time) between hosts participating in vMotion, or 10ms RTT between hosts participating with Enterprise Plus (Metro vMotion feature with certified hardware from Cisco or F5)

// Linjo
http://communities.vmware.com/message/2152545

5.1 vMotion Performance in Mixed VMFS Environments

5.1 vMotion has performance optimizations that depend on a 1MB file system block

VMFS 5 block vs VMFS 3 with 2MB block: 1block VMFS5 cut migration 35%

Other tips

Switch to VMFS-5 with a 1MB block size. . VMFS file systems that don’t use 1MB block sizes cannot take advantage of these performance optimizations.

provision at least a1Gbps management network.

This is advised because vSphere 5.1 vMotion uses the Network File Copy (NFC) service to transmit the virtual machine's base disk and inactive snapshot points to the destination datastore. Because NFC traffic traverses the management network, the performance of your management network willdetermine the speed at which such snapshot content can be moved during migration.

If there are no snapshots, and if the source host has access to the destination datastore, vSphere 5.1 vMotionwill preferentially use the source host’s storage interface to make the file copies, rather than using themanagement network. (if it has access to destination datastore)

When using the multiple–network adaptor feature: 

configure all the vMotion vmnics under one vSwitch   

create one vMotion vmknic for each vmnic. 

In the vmknic properties, configure each vmknic to leverage a different vmnic as its active vmnic, with the rest marked as standby. This way, if any  of the vMotion vmnics become disconnected or fail, vSphere 5.1 vMotion will transparently switch  over to one of the standby vmnics. However, when all your vmnics are functional, each vmknic will route traffic over its assigned, dedicated vmnic.

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Move esxi hosts between vcenter datacenters without loosing vcenter history.

The standard way to move a host between vcetner datacenters would be to remove the host and readd it.  JDLangdon came up with a interesting question on trying to keep the historical data
<http://communities.vmware.com/message/2147267#2147267>


*note this does not apply to moving between different Vcenter instances.


So I have this host, 10.250.14.1 under datacenter 250DC
Suppose we want to move it to 0DC







Here is the historical data before moving it.
Its only been up for a few days, but you may want to move a host that’s been up for years.
A lot of data to loose.





Place the host in maintenance mode.









Move the host out of it's cluster









I was able to drag it into the new  datacenter


*it did fail the first time with "the operation is not supported on the object"
But then I tried again.

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Log errors in hostd.log : Unable to parse X value

Was looking at someone else's hostd.log and found that they had a lot of errors like this

2012-11-08T13:34:34.377Z [76155B90 error 'Default' opID=HB-host-14@46810-6f9cf212-65] Unable to parse MaxRam value:

2012-11-08T13:34:34.377Z [76155B90 error 'Default' opID=HB-host-14@46810-6f9cf212-65] Unable to parse MaxRamPerCpu value:

2012-11-08T13:34:34.377Z [76155B90 error 'Default' opID=HB-host-14@46810-6f9cf212-65] Unable to parse MinRamPerCpu value:

Looking here: http://communities.vmware.com/message/2053791

Seems like the answer support gave was that

" This is a known cosmetic issue and can be safely  ignored as there is no underlying issue with the license being used, it could be resolved in the next release update. "

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Network problems with HP DL380p Gen8 and esxi 5

Interesting thread by Daza On the  HP DL380p Gen8 and esxi 5

Here: http://communities.vmware.com/thread/408890

What is interesting is I thought it would have been fixed by now since its been a few months and is HCL certified but looks like people still have the issue.

"Basically since the upgrade (or I should say, fresh installation of ESXi 5) there's been 2 networking based issues that have occured.

 1. Randomly a vmnic will lose connectivity to the physical network.

2. The physical network can no longer talk to the VM network through a vSwitch

"

The current workaround for the issue is to disable NetQ on the adapters.

Looks like Broadcom is working on releasing a patch/fix for the same.

-nshetty

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Windows 8 installation on esxi 5.0 is doable

Lets find out.
This should also work for esxi 4.1 and vmware workstation 8-6 though I haven't tried them.




Virtual Machine settings
Unless specially mentioned I am using the default


Create the VM for windows 8







Using custom









Name it









Using virtual machine 8







Guest Operating system: select other 64







Giving it the e1000 adapter







Choose LSI-SAS for your controller











Get bios 440 rom
From here: http://communities.vmware.com/message/2142390
Upload it to the folder where your vm's vmx is.











Edit Config file
Add the following to your config:  -Thanks Jmattson!


bios440.filename = "<full path to rom image>"
mce.enable = TRUE
cpuid.hypervisor.v0 = FALSE
vmGenCounter.enable = FALSE


Edit your vm    select configuration parameters






















Install of win 8
If you cannot boot your iso try this:
 http://sparrowangelstechnology.blogspot.com/2012/07/boot-virtual-machine-from-iso-tips-on.html


















Win 8 installed!



















*note:
You may encounter "DPC watchdog timeouts" in your Windows 8 guest with this approach, so it's not the ideal solution . -jmattson


Pasted from <http://communities.vmware.com/message/2142610#2142610>

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