VM /ETC

Archive for the ‘VirtualCenter’ Category

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1010718 explains the normal way for disabling and removing a VMware ESX/ESXi vNetwork Distributed Switch (vDS or DVS or VDS – LOL), but when I recently tried to do so I received the following error:

“The resource ‘1′ is in use. DVS [vDS Name] port 1 is reserved by to entity <not-found.> vnic 4000, type:vmVnic”

The screen shot shows the actual error I received.

After thinking about that message, I decided to check to see if any ports were in fact being used on the vDS. Although PortID 1 dvPortGroups did not show it being used as expected, other PortIDs were, in fact, in use. See image below.

I tried messing around with disabling the ports (blocking was the terminology in the vSphere Client, I believe) but I still could not delete the vDS. It was Saturday and I had family stuff to do so I reluctantly gave up at the time. However, 3 days later I was able to easily remove it via the Remove link on vDS Configuration screen just like I was supposed to be able to do all along. Needless to say I was a bit perplexed.

After researching I discovered that

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I haven’t always covered all the vCenter, VirtualCenter, and ESX/ESXi updates in the past. Several updates have been released since the last time I did. VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 6’s announcement caught my attention because of a fix to uploading files with the datastore browser. This issue has been reported in one of the longest comment threads here at VM /ETC. More on that later in this post, but I received the following email notification that VMware VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 6 was released:

VMware VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 6 is Generally Available

We are pleased to inform you that VMware VirtualCenter Server 2.5 Update 6 (English and localized) is generally available as of late night January 29, 2010.

VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 6 provides the following improvements:

• Guest Operating System Customization Improvements
• Support for Firefox 3.x Browsers with VirtualCenter Web Access
• Bug and security fixes

For details regarding the new fixes and improvements, please refer to the release notes.

VirtualCenter Server 2.5 Update 6 is available for download.

For details regarding compatibility, please view vSphere Compatibility Matrixes.

Thanks,
VMware Infrastructure Product Management Team

Some of the highlights for me when reading the Release Notes are:

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This post is just a quick how to reference for manually changing the VMware Update Manager (VUM) patch repository download location. Admins usually need to do this when the vCenter server is low on disk space on the partition that VUM was originally installed on, but there is a second partition that has enough capacity. To move the VUM patch repository follow the following steps found in the VUM Administrators Guide:

When you install Update Manager, you can select the location for downloading patches. To change the location after installation, you must manually edit the vci-integrity.xml
file.

Procedure

1. Log in to the Update Manager server as an administrator.
   
2. Stop the Update Manager service.
   
   1. Right-click My Computer and click Manage.
      
   2. In the left pane, expand Services and Applications and click Services.
      
   3. In the right pane, right-click the VMware Update Manager Service and click Stop.
      
3. Navigate to the Update Manager installation directory and locate the vci-integrity.xml file.
   
   1. The default location is C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\Update Manager.
      
4. Create a backup copy of this file in case you need to revert to the previous configuration.
   
5. Edit the file by changing the following fields:
   
   1. yournewlocation
   2. The default patch download location is: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware Update Manager\Data\
      
   3. The directory path must end with \.
      
6. Save the file in UTF-8 format, replacing the existing file.
   
7. Copy the contents from the old patchstore directory to the new folder.
   
8. Restart the Update Manager service.
   

In order to create customized Windows 2003 and earlier virtual machines (VMs) the Microsoft Sysprep tools need to be added to VMware vCenter (also formerly known as VirtualCenter). Doing so is not a difficult process, but can be a bit confusing if an administrator has never used Sysprep before. Fortunately, VMware has a helpful KB article on the topic that explains where to download the Sysprep files from Microsoft and then where to put the extracted contents of those downloads on the vCenter Server. I’m going to high lite the instructions from VMware for downloading from Microsoft, but then I’ll explain how to get Sysprep from an alternate and arguably easier source – the Windows install CD.

Note that integrating the Sysprep files are still required in all versions of vCenter to customize VMs. This includes vCenter 4 for vSphere. Sysprep is no longer used for Server 2008, however, but VMware has added native customization of Server 2008 VMs in vCenter 4 without adding any additional files.

KB Article 1005593 titled Sysprep file locations and versions not only provides download links and extract to locations but also explains the common symptoms when Sysprep is not installed correctly on vCenter.

• When attempting to customize the deployment of a virtual machine the radio buttons are disabled (greyed out).
• When a virtual machine (VM) is deployed from a Template, you find that the SID is always the same, despite the fact that you chose the option to generate a new SID during Template deployment and guest operating system customization.
• When attempting to create a new virtual machine from a Template in ESX v3.5 you receive the following error message

Warning: Windows customization resources were not found on this server

• Message in the guestcust.log:

deploy doesn’t contain known sysprep files

The KB article explains the cause

Microsoft has a different version of Sysprep for each release and service pack of Windows. According to Microsoft, “You need to use the version of Sysprep specific to the operating system you are deploying”. The differences are not immediately visible in the packaging and documentation of the service packs, so it is necessary to manually investigate.

Use either of the following methods to obtain the appropriate Sysprep files. All instructions in this post assume vCenter has been installed in the default location. Read the rest of this entry »

Eric Sloof’s A whiter shade of green is an informative post about how the Maps tab in VMware VirtualCenter (VC) can be used to visually confirm if a VM can be live migrated between ESX hosts. By selecting a VM in the tree explorer of VC and then clicking the Maps tab (not the Maps button), you can see a diagram of all of the ESX servers, virtual networking, and storage that must be consistently shared between hosts for VMotion to succeed. As my borrowed version of Eric’s orignal screen shot image shows, when all are configured correctly the ESX hosts have green circles around / behind them.

When the green circles do not appear, the Maps view helps troubleshoot what is wrong because you can see exactly which pieces are not connected correctly in the diagram.

What I did not realize, and Eric’s post points out, is that Read the rest of this entry »

So you’ve downloaded your free version of ESXi. Maybe you’ve built a couple of ESX Servers but you haven’t purchased a full VI 3.5 Enterpise license. You might even have an enterprise license but your VirtualCenter (VC) server will be a virtual machine (VM) and you want to build a template VM as a gold image first. These are some of several possible scenarios where it helps to have VC -like functionalities without VirtualCenter. This post is a summary of 3 freely available tools that can provide some of VirtualCenter’s features.

First let me state that there is not an exact substitute for VirtualCenter, and the automation and ease of management VC provides is well worth it’s cost. Now for some alternatives. Read the rest of this entry »

It happens more frequently than I would ever imagine, but from time to time I find clients have not installed the VMware tools in their virtual machine’s (VM) operating system. I find it more often in Linux VMs than Windows, but I’ve discovered it for both types of guests none-the-less. Some times the tools install is overlooked or forgotten, but every once in a while I am told something like “Does Linux needed VMware tools?” or “what do the VMware tools do for me anyways?”.

Well, I do not have any unique insight or clever commentary to add, but I am providing the following cut and pastes from the VMware .pdf Basic System Administration Guide as a easy reference. At the very least this post will save me some time because I won’t have to dig this info out of the .pdf again when I am asked.

The following sections provide info on what you install when you install VMware tools as well as steps for installing the tools for both Windows and Linux VMs. The rest of this post is not my material but comes straight from the linked guide above – although not necessarily in the order it appears in the original document, however. Download and read the current version for yourself! Read the rest of this entry »