Category Archives: VMware

vCenter Infrastructure Navigator 2.0 integrated with vSphere Web Client

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Looking back at the screenshot of the vSphere Web Client, we see that the vCenter Infrastructure Navigator 2.0 has identified 27 Known Application Services.

If we want to see how the vCenter 5.1 communicates with other infrastructure elements in the virtual environment, there are two ways to look at it. First from the vCenter 5.1 VM we see that there are a few dependencies.

When examining the Show Dependencies we get the Map view. Here is only a element of the Map View as it scales to over 47 dependencies.

But you can also see the Table View, where we see incoming dependencies and outgoing dependencies.

 

I know this functionality of incoming and outgoing dependencies will be very useful to some of my clients.

 

vCenter Operations Manager 5.6 integrated with vSphere Web Client

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Today VMware released vCenter Operations Manager 5.6 and vCenter Infrastructure Navigator 2.0. These products are now very tightly integrated with the vCenter 5.1 and plug into the vSphere Web Client.

In the screenshot below, you see two new floating windows with the proper information for the element you are managing.

In this case, I’m looking at a my pVDC_1 Cluster, and vCenter Infrastructure Navigator has identified 27 known applications, while vCenter Operations Manager 5.6 is telling me that the health of my Cluster could be better.

In addition, within vSphere Web Client, you can move the floating information panes around to better suit your needs and see what’s important. Or to take advantage of a screensize.

 

vCNS Edge Gateway re-sizing Compact/Large/X-Large

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With the release of the vCloud Director 5.1, a series of networking enhancements to how Organization vDC communicate have been made. This gives Organizations (Tenants) a lot more choice in creating their vApps and even allows connectivity with other Organizations (Tenants).

vCloud Network and Security (vCNS) now provides a Gateway which was previously known as the vShield Edge Gateway. In previous releases of vCloud Director, the vCNS Gateway providing network services and security was not visible to the Organization (Tenant) in vCloud Director. The newer vCNS Gateway has become a first-class entity and is available thru the vCloud Director user interface.

The vCNS Gateway has new capabilities, and now provides up to 10 interfaces to external networks. These interfaces can have IP addresses assigned, they can rate control the limit the bandwidth  to external networks.

The vCNS Gateway provides DHCP service, Firewall rules with 5-tuples, NAT using both Source (SNAT) and Destination (DNAT) rules, Static Routing, VPN Endpoint with support for multiple subnets (spoke design) and Load Balancing services.

The vCNS Gateway (when used with the vCNS Advanced license) even provides High-Availability. This means a 2nd instance of the Edge Gateway is deployed and it’s settings are synchronized with the first one.

When deploying a vCNS Edge Gateway, you can select between two versions, the “Compact” and the “Full”. The “Full” version can provide higher throughput than it’s smaller brother, but it also consumes more resources. The “Full” is also referenced as the “Large” version from within the vShield Manager 5.1 appliance.

And there is even a larger version of the Edge Gateway, the “X-Large” version. This version is not visible from within vCloud Director user interface. So how could a vCloud Director Administrator change the size of a vCNS EdgeGateway ? Well he can using the vShield Manager 5.1 user interface.

  1. Compact resources: 1 vCPU and 256MB of memory
  2. Full/Large resources: 2 vCPU and 1GB of memory
  3. X-Large resources: 2 vCPU and 8GB of memory

Converting the EdgeGateway to Compact, Large or X-Large is very easy. Select the size, and it will re-deploy a new vCNS EdgeGateway.

It first renames the old vCNS EdgeGateway to Redeploying-edge-5-0, then it instanciates the new vCNS EdgeGateway, start the new instance, transfers the settings and switches over, and removes the older version.

Because the X-Large Edge Gateway consumes some serious resources (2 vCPU and 8GB of memory), it seems fair that this operation is not available within vCloud Director, but requires the validation and modification to be done by the vShield Manager Administrator.

 

 

 

 

Some vCenter Operations Manager 5.x tweaks

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Web Interface Timeout Issues

I often use the Web Interface of vCenter Operations Manager to check the infrastructure. Because while the client module exist for the vSphere Client, I don’t find it as optimized in the display and the pane jumping. One of the smaller annoying parts of using vC Ops via the Web Interface is the quick timeout of the user authentication. This can been tweaked by making a small change on the User Interface virtual machine.

Simply edit the /usr/lib/vmware-vcops/tomcat/webapps/vcops-vsphere/WEB-INF/web.xml  file, near the top you will find the following section

<session-config>
<session-timeout>value</session-timeout>
</session-config>

You can increase the time to 60, 90 or 120 minutes or set the time to infinite with a ‘-1’ value.

Once modified, just restart the vCenter Operations Manager Admin interface with the command

vcops-admin restart

This is referenced in the VMware KB Article 2015135.

 

 Log Files Location

With the release of vCenter Operations Manager 5.0. and later, the log files have been moved to their own partition, so that if there are lots of logs, they do not file the system partition of the two virtual machines in the vApp.

The logs have been moved to /data/vcops/logs

  • catalina-web.log
  • localhost-web.log
  • manager-web.log
  • host-manager-web.log

This is referenced in the VMware KB Article 2032786.

 

Adding Storage for vCenter Operations Manager

Things have changed a lot since the first version of the vCenter Operations Manager 1.0. The data stored on both virtual machine that forms the vApp is now using the Logical Volume Manager, so adding more space to the Analytics VM or the User Interface VM, is very easy. Simply add a new Disk (Thick Provision Eager Zeroed for performance) to the virtual machines. On restart the new disk will be added the the data_vg (data volume group).

Let’s just check the Analytics VM before adding a new disk


localhost:~ # <strong>lvdisplay</strong>
--- Logical volume ---
LV Name /dev/data_vg/data
VG Name data_vg
LV UUID aTXaIF-ZhHn-uUhg-0F6o-qHjy-9sI8-Q0QmlN
LV Write Access read/write
LV Status available
# open 1
LV Size 400.00 GB
Current LE 102399
Segments 1
Allocation inherit
Read ahead sectors auto
- currently set to 1024
Block device 253:0

localhost:~ # lvs
LV VG Attr LSize Origin Snap% Move Log Copy% Convert
data data_vg -wi-ao 400.00G

localhost:/data # df -k
Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda3              8111996   2177068   5522864  29% /
udev                   3580976       100   3580876   1% /dev
tmpfs                  3580976         0   3580976   0% /dev/shm
/dev/sda1               132206     18149    107231  15% /boot
/dev/mapper/data_vg-data
412845232 100011536 291862384  26% /data

When I power-down the Analytics VM, I added a 16GB hard disk to the VM, after restart we clearly see the new size.


localhost:~ # <strong>lvdisplay</strong>
--- Logical volume ---
LV Name                /dev/data_vg/data
VG Name                data_vg
LV UUID                aTXaIF-ZhHn-uUhg-0F6o-qHjy-9sI8-Q0QmlN
LV Write Access        read/write
LV Status              available
# open                 1
LV Size                415.99 GB
Current LE             106494
Segments               2
Allocation             inherit
Read ahead sectors     auto
- currently set to     1024
Block device           253:0

localhost:~ # lvs
LV   VG      Attr   LSize   Origin Snap%  Move Log Copy%  Convert
data data_vg -wi-ao 415.99G

localhost:~ # df -k
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda3 8111996 2177952 5521980 29% /
udev 3580976 104 3580872 1% /dev
tmpfs 3580976 0 3580976 0% /dev/shm
/dev/sda1 132206 18149 107231 15% /boot
/dev/mapper/data_vg-data
429355112 100014632 307530516 25% /data

This is referenced in the VMware KB Article 2016022.

Upgrading vCenter Operations Manager to 5.0.2

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Yesterday, VMware released version 5.0.2 of the vCenter Operations Manager. Here are the release notes for version 5.0.2.  Reading the release notes, I’m looking forward to the New Text Widget in the Enterprise version of the product.

Here are the three key benefits put forward by VMware

  • Actionable intelligence to automated manual operations processes
  • Visibility accross infrastructure and applications for rapid problem resolution
  • Proactively ensures optimal resource utilization and virtual and cloud infrastructure performance

So if you are running version 5.0.0 or 5.0.1, you can easely upgrade to the latest version using the VMware-vcops-5.0.2-770497.pak (386MB) file.

First you need to download the VMware-vcops-5.0.2-770497.pak file from the VMware Portal

vCenter Operations Manager 5.0.2 PAK download

At this point I highly recommend that you make a clone of your vCenter Operations Manager 5 servers, in case the upgrade fails. Once the upgrade is started there is no way to turn back or to downgrade back to 5.0.0/5.0.1

You then need to connect to the vCenter Operations Manager Administration panel.  https://vcops.domainname/admin/

Connect to the vCenter Operations Manager Administration

From the Update Tab, you can select the path to the VMware-vcops-5.0.2-770497.pak file.

Select update package VMware-vcops-5.0.2-770497.pak

When you start the update you get the warning box to remind you to make a backup of your vCenter Operations Manager environment.

One Way Ticket, so Backup

It starts uploading the .pak file

uploading…

You get to accept the EULA once more.

EULA

Final warning message before starting the upgrade process.

Warning Message

The upgrade process has started on my vCenter Operations Manager 5.0.1

Updating from 5.0.1 to 5.0.2

Once the upgrade process is done, it will log you out of the Administration portal and you will see a

Data Migration in Progress message

You can relog into the vCenter Operations Manager Administration web portal to follow more closely what it’s doing from the Update tab.

Updating checks and processes

The full update details will show something like this:

[box]

vCenter Operations Manager Administration
Version 5.0.2, Build 770497
Update
----------------------------------------------------------------------
UPDATE STATUS
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Update attempted on Fri Jul  6 08:38:46 UTC 2012
Downloading update .............................................. done
Checking EULA Acceptance ........................................ done
Checking disk space on '/' in UI VM ............................. done
Checking disk space on '/' in Analytics VM ...................... done
Checking disk space on '/data' in UI VM ......................... done
Checking disk space on '/data' in Analytics VM .................. done
Extracting package .............................................. done
Validating update files ......................................... done
Preparing update environment .................................... done
Stopping administration service ................................. done
Installing update ............................................... done
Starting administration service ................................. done
Stopping core services .......................................... done
Installing update ............................................... done
Upgrading CapacityIQ database ................................... done
Upgrading database .............................................. done
Deleting stale VM entities from database ........................ done
Starting core services .......................................... done
Update operation ................................................ done
Starting administration service ................................. done
Starting core services .......................................... done

[/box]

After which your vCenter Operations Manager will be running version 5.0.2

vCenter Operations Manager 5.0.2 Status Tab

 

 

Nexenta stats running sample VMware Data Recovery backup

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Following my Nexenta storage for the vLab article. I was asked how my ARC and L2ARC where doing.

General ZFS ARC Information

Here are two more screenshots that I just took on my infrastructure, while doing the initial backup of a 40GB virtual machine with VMware Data Recovery.

  • I had the Nexenta management interface on the General Stats
  • Running Richard Elling’s zilstat.ksh via SSH at the top left
  • Running the arcstat.pl by Mike Harsch via SSH at the left
  • And at the bottom left, you can glimpse the VMware Data Recovery job running on a 40GB VM (Initial run).

zilstats.ksh and arcstat.pl while running a VMware Data Recovery initial backup

I also took the opportunity to screenshot the disk and Virtual LUN stats page on the Nexenta page.

Disks and Virtual LUNs

These stats above are far from the most impressive results I’ve had with my NexentaStor server.

 

vCenter VM Hardware Upgrade results in Hung vCenter services

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Yesterday, while upgrading a new vCenter virtual machine that was created on an ESX 3.5 host, to a new ESXi 5.0 host, we found ourself with a VM that was refusing to start any services.

The virtual machine is running

  • Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1
  • vCenter 5.0 Update 1
  • SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1 (10.50.2792)
  • and the whole suite of vCenter services (vum, syslog, dump, web service).

The virtual machine was created  on an ESX 3.5 (Build 604481) and was configured as a VM Version 4.  The target platform was a new ESXi 5.0 Update 1 host (Build 623860). So we cold migrated the vCenter to the new system, via a shared VMFS3 datastore.

At this point, the virtual machine was running fine as a VM Version 4 on the ESXi 5.0 Update 1.

I then started the upgrade process, with the installation of the VMware Tools, to ensure I had all the proper drivers in the VM. I then powered off the virtual machine, and upgraded the hardware to VM Version 8.

vCenter - VM Version 8

The system restarted but there was an issue with the various services. I could not open the network settings, I could not uninstall the VMware Tools as the Windows Installer service was not running. My data and database log disks where not visible, I could not open the disk management control panel.

After much troubleshooting, restarting the virtual machine in safe mode and various other tests, my colleague found this very interesting article Windows Server 2008 computer hang during startup while “applying computer settings” and services configured to start automatically fail to start http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2004121 

The following two paragraphs are taken from the Microsoft Support Article.

Cause

The problems described in the symptoms section occur because of a lock on the Service Control Manager (SCM) database.  As a result of the lock, none of the services can access the SCM database to initialize their service start requests. To verify that a Windows computer is affected by the problem discussed in this article, run the following command from the command Prompt:

[box]sc querylock

The output below would indicate that the SCM database is locked:

QueryServiceLockstatus – Success

IsLocked : True

LockOwner : .\NT Service Control Manager

LockDuration : 1090 (seconds since acquired)

[/box]

Let me fix it myself

you can modify the behavior of HTTP.SYS to depend on another service being started first.  To do this, perform the following steps:
[box]

  • Open Registry Editor
  • Navigate to HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\HTTP and create the following Multi-string value: DependOnService
  • Double click the new DependOnService entry
  • Type CRYPTSVC in the Value Data field and click OK.
  • Reboot the server

[/box]

NOTE: Please ensure that you make a backup of the registry / affected keys before making any changes to your system.

After having made the registry modification and a final restart, the virtual machine was working again as expect. This was a very strange and bizarre error I have never heard someone run into. So here it is resumed, and may it be usefull someday to someone else…

 

 

 

Upgrading vCloud Director Cell from RHEL 5.6 to RHEL 5.7

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With the release of vCloud Director 1.5.1 last night, the operating system for the vCloud Director Cell now supports Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.7 (x86_64). If you are running your current cell with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.6, and you want to upgrade to the most recent release that is supported, here are the steps. Yet, you have to be careful not to upgrade to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.8, which as been release the 21st February 2012. RHEL 5.8 is not on the official supported list by VMware.

In the following screenshots we will use the yum update tool to make sure we upgrade to RHEL 5.7 only.

The first screenshot shows the current kernel 2.6.18-308.el5 for RHEL 5.6, and the configuration of the yum.conf file that has an explicit exclude=redhat-release-5Server* rule. We also see that we now have the redhat-release-5Server-5.6.0.3.

Current vCD-Cell settings for RHEL 5.6

We will now modify the /etc/yum.conf so that we can download the redhat-release-5Server-5.7.0.3.x86_64.rpm file. We comment out the exclude file, and we install immediately the release file for RHEL 5.7

vCD-Cell upgrading from RHEL 5.6 to RHEL 5.7

Now it’s important to immedialty renable the exclusion of the redhat-release-5Server, so that you will not by accident upgrade to RHEL 5.8

Ensure that yum cannot retrieve RHEL 5.8

Now you can run the yum upgrade to your own pace, and be sure that you are staying on the supported release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux for the vCloud Director 1.5.1

 

vCenter Operations Manager 5 vApp Start Order settings

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When you deploy the vCenter Operations Manager 5.0 vApp in a vSphere 5 Cluster, the vApp import creates a few settings. Here is the screenshot of the default start order.

vCenter Operations Manager 5.0 vApp Start Order Settings

I’m adding this post, because in the past few days I have had to do a Storage vMotion of the Analytics VM, and I had to temporarily remove it from the vApp. Once I had migrated the Analytics VM, I insert the VM back in the vApp. But this changed the default start order, and the Analytics VM had default settings, such as Shutdown Action operation:PowerOff, and a different Startup sequence. You can see the default settings in the screenshot below, when I add another VM to the vApp.

vApp Start Order Settings you do NOT want

So make sure that your vApp Startup settings are properly configured when you tamper with the vApp.

 

Windows Server 8 Beta (Server Core) AD-DS install inside Workstation 2012 Tech Preview

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I’ve spend a frustrating day with Workstation Tech Preview 2012 and with Windows Server 8 Beta en_windows_server_8_beta_x64_dvd_810648.iso

I’ve create numerous virtual machines named DC1, as I’m trying to use the Microsoft Windows Server “8” Beta Base Configuration Test Lab Guide (TLG) that is located at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=236358.

I have used these VMs with the VMware Tools from the TechPreview, without the VMware Tools, and with a Custom implementation without the SVGA graphic drivers. I’ve attemped my test on both the Windows Server 8 Beta with GUI and in Server Core.

Workstation 2012 Tech Preview and Windows Server 8 Beta AD-DS install blank screen bug

As soon as I try to install and configure the Active Director Domain Services, the VM needs to reboot. Once it has rebooted, it goes in a blank screen, and there is nothing I can do. Workstation thinks the VM is running, but there is no response via the GUI in the VM, no response to ping traffic to the VM or RDP.

I installed Workstation Technology Preview 2012 on two different computers and re-downloaded the en_windows_server_8_beta_x64_dvd_810648.iso from Microsoft twice. I just can proceed with using the Workstation Technology Preview 2012 to test Windows Server 8 Domain controllers.

I made a small video of the process, which is appended to this article.

Windows Server 8 Beta (Server Core) AD-DS install inside Workstation 2012 Tech Preview

In addition it’s available on Youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qvptvC0Usc

Here I’m trying to install the Active Directory Domain Services on a Windows Server 8 Beta running inside the VMware Workstation 2012 Tech Preview. The install of the AD-DS and DNS service work fine, but when the domain controller reboots, there is no GUI left. In this VM the VMware Tools where not installed.

 The commands used in this video are

00:03 ipconfig

00:08 sconfig

00:30 Install-WindowsFeature AD-Domain-Services -IncludeManagementTools

01:55 Install-ADDSForest -DomainName corp.contoso.com

Once the newly promoted domain controller reboots, the GUI does not come back, and the IP addresse cannot be pinged anymore.

Workstation 2012 Tech Preview Blank Screen

 

Update: Well in VMware Workstation 2012 Tech Preview, if you select the a Windows 7 version or Windows Server 2008 version instead of the Windows 8 setting, your V will NOT go black screen on the dcpromo.