Today I added some vSphere 5.0 u1 hosts in a new created cluster, the SAN will be delivered next week so I didn’t have central storage, to finish my new cluster setup I configured HA and DRS. After configuring HA I received this warning message:
The number of heartbeat datastores for host is 0, which is less than required: 2
Solution:
To (temporary (until the SAN is installed)) hide the warning message I configured the HA – Advanced Option:
- Log in to vCenter Server
- Right-click the cluster and click Edit Settings
- Click VMware HA > Advanced Options
- Under Option, add an entry for das.ignoreInsufficientHbDatastore
- Under Value, type: true
More information: VMware
Today I installed a new Dell PowerEdgde R620 host with vSphere 5.0 update 1. The Intel Ethernet I350 adapter was recognized and installed correct but the Broadcom 5720 wasn’t. I downloaded the latest Broadcom driver CD from VMware and uploaded the extracted content to my local datastore.
To install the drivers I used the following command:
esxcli software vib install -v /vmfs/volumes/pathtodatastore/NIC/net-tg3-3.120h.v50.2-1OEM.500.0.0.472560.x86_64.vib
^ full path to the file must be specified
After reboot the Broadcom adapter was installed successfully:
More information: VMware
Last week I configured for a customer some new VLAN’s and created on each host new vSwitches with new portgroups, to migrate all VM’s in cluster with network label “VM Network” to “Production” I’ve created this script to automate this for all virtual machines with specific network label in cluster:
Original situation:
Script:
#====================================================================#
# SCRIPT: PowerCLI_Mass_change_network_label.ps1 #
# FUNCTION: Mass change network label Network A to Network B #
# OWNER: Sander Daems #
# VSPHERE: 5.0 Update 1 build 623860 #
# CREATED: 10/01/2013 #
# MODIFIED: 10/01/2013 #
# VERSION: v.1.0 #
#====================================================================#
# CHANGELOG: #
# #
# v.1.0 #
# - Script created; #
# #
#====================================================================#
# HOST - Specify host and connect #
#====================================================================#
$vCenterServer = Read-Host "Enter vCenter Hostname / IP"
Connect-VIServer $vCenterServer
#
#====================================================================#
# CUSTOM DEFINITIONS #
#====================================================================#
$Cluster = "Cluster01"
$SourcePortgroup = "VM Network"
$DestinationPortgroup = "Production"
#
#====================================================================#
# SCRIPT #
#====================================================================#
Get-Cluster $Cluster | Get-VM | Get-NetworkAdapter | Where {$_.NetworkName -eq $SourcePortgroup } | Set-NetworkAdapter -NetworkName $DestinationPortgroup -Confirm:$false#====================================================================#
Result:
New situation (All VM’s in cluster):
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.1 was released last month, after upgrading my hosts I had some really annoying issue’s, I couldn’t connect my iSCSI (QNAP) datastores and the hosts failed with a PSOD.. once I checked the HCL at the VMware website I saw that my HP DL360 G5 isn’t supported anymore.. time to rollback the latest installation.
Solution:
(Re)boot the host and press R to start the Recovery Mode..
Installed hypervisors:
HYPERVISOR1: 5.0.0-623860
HYPERVISOR2: 5.1.0-799733 (Default)
CURRENT DEFAULT HYPERVISOR WILL BE REPLACED PERMANENTLY
DO YOU REALLY WANT TO ROLL BACK?
Press Y to start the roll back
Result:
The host is downgraded and back online again with VMware vSphere ESXi 5.0.0
During upgrade my HP DL360 G5 ESXi 5.0 u1 hosts to ESXi 5.1 I received a purple screen with warning message:
The system has found a problem on your machine and cannot continue.
VMware ESXi requires the Execute Disable/No Execute CPU feature to be enabled
Solution:
Restart the host, press F9 to boot in BIOS mode
Advanced Options > Processor Options > No-Execute Memory Protection, then configure: Enabled
More information: VMware
vCenter Server Appliance 5.0 Update 1a is the first major update since vCenter Server Appliance 5.0 was released
VMware vCenter Server 5.0 Update 1a is a patch release and offers the following improvements:
- vCenter Server 5.0 Update 1a introduces support for the following vCenter Databases
- Oracle 11g Enterprise Edition, Standard Edition, Standard ONE Edition Release 2 [11.2.0.3] – 64 bit
- Oracle 11g Enterprise Edition, Standard Edition, Standard ONE Edition Release 2 [11.2.0.3] – 32 bit
- vCenter Server Appliance Database Support: The DB2 express embedded database provided with the vCenter Server Appliance has been replaced with VMware vPostgres database. This decreases the appliance footprint and reduces the time to deploy vCenter Server further.
- Resolved Issues: In addition, this release delivers a number of bug fixes that have been documented in the Resolved Issues section.
Read more…
Last week I was migrating some servers from ESX 3.02 to a vSphere 5 cluster, after importing the the exported VM’s I received this error message:
The device or operation specified at index ’2′ is not supported for the current virtual machine version ‘vmx-04′. A minimum version of ‘vmx-06′ is required for this operation to succeed.
A general system error occurred: Invalid fault
Solution:
The VMware Converter I used was version 4.3.0 build-292238
After installing VMware Converter 5.0.0 build-470252 I was able to start the import virtual machine in the new vSphere 5 cluster
The import finished successfully
Today I was importing some virtual machines (delivered by a 3rd party company) to the new vSphere 5 environment of a customer, the import was successful but after a vMotion I received this warning:
Module Migrate power on failed.
vMotion migration [168099940:1334234558581378] failed. The checkpoint data length (16384 bytes) or the offset (16776528 bytes) exceeds the maximum checkpoint data length (16777216 byte).
Solution:
The owner of the template installed the OS with a 1920 x 1080 resolution, after changing the resolution to 1280 x 1024 the GFX memory usage degraded to normal (under 30 MB).
After changing the resolution I was able to migrate the virtual machines,
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Last week I created a little “how-to” for some system engineers to install/upgrade VMware Tools in their test environment. Here’s the translated (public) version:
- VM Summary: VMware Tools – Running (unsupported)
- Select VM > Guest > VMware Tools Install. The Infrastructure Client will mount VMware Tools ISO inside the VM
- Create a directory, type in: mkdir /mnt/cdrom next you need to mount the CD-Rom drive, type in:
mount /dec/cdrom /mnt/cdrom
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