The below shows how to build an ESX vSphere lab based on virtualising vSphere (nesting) within vSphere.
Nested ESX Servers
The host hardware that will be running VMware ESX server as the virtualization platform for the vSEL must support hardware-based virtualization assist as well as ‘nested’ or ‘extended’ page tables. This is a feature only available [...]
Archive for November, 2009
Nested vSphere Lab
Posted in ESX / ESXi, tagged nested, vSphere lab on November 29, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
vSphere 4.0 Update 1 PSOD Issue
Posted in ESX / ESXi, tagged ESX, PSOD, Update, vSphere on November 26, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Got this from our TAM today:
Not sure if you’ve downloaded Update 1 yet, there’s an issue that was discovered last night, please see below.
Please postpone deployment of Update 1 until further notice.
Who is affected:
Customers who are using VMware vSphere ESX 4.0 and are wanting to install update 1, via VMware Update Manager (VUM).
Problem description:
Upgrading ESX [...]
SCSI Reservation Conflicts
Posted in Troubleshooting, tagged Troubleshooting, SCSI, reservation, conflicts on November 25, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Not sure where I got this from, but its great troubleshooting info for SCSI conflicts.
To identify if SCSI reservation conflicts are preventing a LUN from being accessed:
Verify that the LUN is detected by the ESX host at boot time.
For ESX 3.x, run the command:
# cd /vmfs/devices/disks
# ls vmh*
The output appears similar to:
vmhba0:0:0:0
vmhba0:0:43:0
vmhba0:0:52:0
For ESX 4.X, run [...]
ESX Logs
Posted in Troubleshooting, tagged logs, Troubleshooting on November 24, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
The following logs are available within ESX, along with brief description of what they log.
VMkernel – /var/log/vmkernel
Records activities related to the virtual machines and ESX server. Rotated with a numeric extension, current log has no extension, most recent has a “.1″ extension.
VMkernel Warnings – /var/log/vmkwarning
Records activities with the virtual machines, a subset of the VMkernel [...]
Changing snapshot location without VM downtime
Posted in Scripting, tagged PowerCLI, Script on November 21, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Ever needed to change the location where a snapshot resides, but can’t power down the VM to update the VMX file? The answer is this great script from Hugo Peeters which will modify the VMX file and change the location of the working directory while the VM is still running.
Get the script and more info [...]
VMware View 4.0 Released
Posted in ESX / ESXi on November 21, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
VMware have announced View 4.0 is now released. New features include:
VMware View with PCoIP – PCoIP provides an optimized desktop experience for the delivery of the entire desktop environment including applications, images, audio, and video content for a wide range of users on the LAN or across the WAN. PCoIP can compensate for an increase [...]
Ctrl-Alt-Del with vSphere
Posted in ESX / ESXi on November 20, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Something I stumbled across tonight, which I’ve heard mentioned a few times now..
The CTRL-ALT-DEL combination pressed on a vSphere ESX console will reboot the host even if it has VM’s running !! (not good!)
To correct this you can edit the /etc/inittab file and comment out the “ca::ctrlaltdel:/sbin/shutdown -t3 -r now” line with a hash (#) [...]
PowerCLI Update 1
Posted in ESX / ESXi on November 20, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Another update tody, U1 for VMware’s PowerCLI application…
There are some great new features included in U1..
Managing the failover and load-balancing policies of VirtualSwitch and VirtualPortGroup objects with Get-NicTeamingPolicy and Set-NicTeamingPolicy.
Copying files in and out of guest operating systems with Copy-VMGuestFile.
Restarting [...]
vSphere 4.0 Update 1 released
Posted in ESX / ESXi on November 20, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Today VMware have released the update 1 for vSphere ESX and vCentre.
New features in vSphere U1 include:
VMware View 4.0 support – This release adds support for VMware View 4.0, a solution built specifically for delivering desktops as a managed service from the protocol to the platform.
Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2 support –This release adds [...]
Draw your VI environment with a script
Posted in ESX / ESXi, tagged Document, PowerCLI, Script on November 19, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
How cool is this… using one script you can have your VI environment mapped in to a Visio file with the corerct VMware stencils
Check out the script and more info here
