Posts Tagged ‘ntp’
ESX 3.5 U3 Patch fixes I/O Failures and VI Client NTP Configuration
February 2nd, 2009 | 
Author: A new patch for VMware ESX 3.5 Update 3 was released last week that fixes the previously reported iSCSI and FC Alert – “Queue for device has been blocked” issue. The fix was part of a bundle of patches released for ESX 3.5, ESXi 3.5 and ESX 3.0.x products.
Duncan’s summary post over at yellow-bricks.com pointed me to the new VMware KB article specific to the patch with the I/O alert fix: VMware ESX 3.5, Patch ESX350-200901401-SG: Updates VMkernel, VMX, and hostd
Upon reading the KB article I noticed that the VI Client NTP configuration issue I have posted about, and continue to run into, has also been fixed.
Read VMware’s KB for all “the other issues” corrected along with some information about applying the patches with or without Update Manager.
Posted in 
Tags: 
Changing NTP Server in ESX 3.5 fails with error “failed to change host configuration”
I ran into another ESX configuration issue this week that seems to continue to hang around even though it was identified quite a long time ago. After a fresh install of two different ESX 3.5 Update 2 servers (installed from the 110268 build .iso), I was configuring NTP time sync from the VI Client (installed from the VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 3 119825 build .iso) and was unable to change the NTP server. The error message window told me “failed to change host configuration”. Most frustrating to me is the fact that I have been able to change the NTP configuration from the VI client in past versions of ESX 3.5.
I was able to manually change the NTP configuration by digging out the related recommendations from the VMTN Communities thread VMware Communities: ESX 3.5 – Time Configuration = “Failed …. I have summarized my resolution steps in the rest of this post. Note that I did not have to modify all of the files and settings (steptickers, esx firewall) as previously required (and scripted) when manually changing NTP sync in ESX version 3.0.X.
Early in the VMTN thread was the advice: Read the rest of this entry »
Manually adjust ESX local time
VM-Aware.com posted Amending ESX Time which is a great guide for setting the time on an ESX host when you can not automatically sync with a NTP server. The post explains how to use the standard Linux date command. Personally, I can never remember the parameter order when using date because it’s not the expected mm/dd/yy format. Finally, the guide shows how to use the hwclock command to make sure the ESX internal clock matches the newly adjusted OS time.
Follow the link above for the original post. I have slightly modified the command syntax in the following steps here based on my experience. Read the rest of this entry »
Use the VI Client to grow a virtual disk
Some of the following text and instructions were copied in part from the post VMware ESX 3.5 and VirtualCenter 2.5 small features guide by Eric Siebert found on searchvmware.techtarget.com.
“Prior to 3.5 you had to use the Service Console vmkfstools command to increase the size of a vmdk file. But now the VI Client can be used to grow virtual disks. Keep in mind that growing a virtual disk only increases the size of the vmdk disk file. It will not automatically increase the size of your OS disk partitions. This must be done manually afterwards. A variety of methods can be used, including OS tools, boot CD’s (e.g. Knoppix) and other utilities.”
Personally I recommend the GParted LiveCD for working with your OS disk partitions. It is an open-source utility similar to Partition Magic that will work on all file systems.
