afokkema VMware

VMware: Determining the correct version of sysprep to use


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A quote from KB1005593 

This article assumes that you have extracted the contents of the sysprep deploy.cab file to the directory C:\sysprep on the VirtualCenter Server host. You must substitute the actual directory in the instructions below.

  1. Log in to the VirtualCenter Server as Administrator.

  2. Click Start > Programs > Accessories > Windows Explorer.

  3. Navigate to the C:\sysprep directory.

  4. Right-click on the sysprep.exe file and choose Properties.

  5. Click the Version tab. Record the number at the top next to "File Version:"

The following list is a copy from: KB1005593. The list is sorted on Windows version, Download link and vCenter location.

Windows 2000 Server SP4 with Update Rollup 1

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=0c4bfb06-2824-4d2b-abc1-0e2223133afb

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\sysprep\1.1

Windows XP Pro SP2

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=3E90DC91-AC56-4665-949B-BEDA3080E0F6

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\sysprep\xp

Windows 2003 Server SP1

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=A34EDCF2-EBFD-4F99-BBC4-E93154C332D6

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\sysprep\svr2003

Windows 2003 Server SP2

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=93f20bb1-97aa-4356-8b43-9584b7e72556

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\sysprep\svr2003

Windows 2003 Server R2

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=A34EDCF2-EBFD-4F99-BBC4-E93154C332D6

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\sysprep\svr2003

Windows 2003 x64

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=C2684C95-6864-4091-BC9A-52AEC5491AF7&displaylang=en
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\sysprep\svr2003-64

 

Windows XP x64
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=C2684C95-6864-4091-BC9A-52AEC5491AF7&displaylang=en
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\sysprep\xp-64

afokkema Random, VMware

Upgrade ESX3i to ESX4i with the vSphere Host Update Utility


 

In this post I will introduce a new VMware tool called VMware vSphere Host Update tool. With this tool you’re able to update an ESX host without VUM, just like the VMware Infrastructure Update utility. See my previous post here. An other interesting feature of the vSphere Host Update tool is the option to upgrade an existing ESX(i) Host to vSphere.  In this post I will guide you through the upgrade process of an ESXi host which runs from a memory stick.

Start the vSphere Host Update Utility from  Start – Programs – VMware – VMware vSphere Host Update Utility.  When you already accessed your ESXi host with the VI Client, The host are already added to the Host List. If this is not the case, you can add your host via the Add Host… link at the right corner.  So now we’re ready to upgrade. Select the host and press the upgrade button.

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The ESXi 4.0 Upgrade Wizard starts. You’ll have to add the upgrade zip file which you can download from VMware.com if you’re a Beta user.

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Enter the credentials for your host. In the screenshot below, you’ll see an error: The host must be in maintenance mode to perform an upgrade. So when the host is in maintenance mode, we can continue the upgrade process.

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After the Host Compatibility check, the host will be upgraded to vShere.

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After a couple of minutes the host is ready and is running ESXi 4.

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afokkema Powershell, VI Toolkit

Restart VMware Tools on all Windows VM’s


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After reading the post on http://www.virtualvcp.com/content/view/82/1/ about the VMware Tools status “not running” and in particular the part about the preferred work around:

I find that restarting the VMware Tools Service in the guest OS always gets by the problem, but loggin into every single VM that reports the wrong status for it’s VMware Tools could be a bit of a drag. So I choose to do this remotely rather that logging on to each VM.

From any Windows workstation/server, open a command pompt and run:

sc \\{vm-name-or-ip-address} stop "VMTools"
sc \\{vm-name-or-ip-address} start "VMTools"

I thought that can be done via Powershell and the VI Toolkit. So I created the following script that will restart the VMware Tools service on every running Windows VM. 

$vCenter = Read-Host "Enter the vCenter servername"

Connect-VIServer $vCenter

$Service = "VMtools"
$VMs = Get-VM | Where-Object {
        $_.PowerState -eq "PoweredON" `
        -and `
        $_.Guest.OSFullName -match "Windows"
    }
    
foreach($VM in $VMs)
{
    Write-Host "-------------------------------------------"
    Write-Host "Restarting the VMware Tools Service on" $VM
        $Svc = Get-WmiObject -Computer $VM win32_service `
        -filter "name='$Service'"
            $Result = $Svc.StopService()
            sleep 5
            $Result = $Svc.StartService()
    Write-Host "Done.. "
    Write-Host "-------------------------------------------"
}

Disconnect-VIServer -Confirm:$false

This script generates the following output:

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Other useful blog posts or kb articles on this subject:

Source for the restart service part in my script: http://blog.geekpoet.net/2008/10/manipulating-remote-services-with.html

afokkema VMware

ESX 3i: host in HA Cluster must have userworld swap enabled


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After adding my first HP ML 110 ESX3i to my brand new HA cluster I got the following error:

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The host who gives the error, did not have the ScratchConfig.ConfiguredSwapState option enabled.

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This is how you enable this option:

1. In VirtualCenter, select the ESX 3i server with the error.
2. Click the "Configuration" tab page and click "Advanced Settings"
3. Select "ScratchConfig"
4. Set the data store for ScratchConfig.ConfiguredScratchLocation to a valid directory with more than 1GB to hold the swapfile. This location can be local or shared storage.
5. Select the ScratchConfig.ConfiguredSwapState option.
6. Click OK.
7. reboot the 3i server to apply the changes.

Source: http://www.virtualvcp.com/content/view/33/43/

VMware KB: KB1004177

afokkema VMware

How To: Create an ESXi USB Key


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In this short tutorial you’ll learn how to create an ESXi USB Key.

Before we start you need the following tools:

  • 7-Zip
  • Winimage
  • VMware ESX 3i installer CD

After installing the tools we need to extract the *.dd file. Open the VMware-VMvisor-InstallerCD-3.5.0_UpdateX-XXXXXX.i386.iso with 7-Zip. Right click on install.tar and press Open Inside. Remember the Ctrl+PgDn shortcut.

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Open usr\lib\vmware\installer. Select VMware-VMvisor-big-3.5.0_Update_4-153875.i386.dd.bz2 and press Ctrl+PgDn again.

Extract the VMware-VMvisor-big-3.5.0_Update_4-153875.i386.dd file.

 

Now we have the *.dd file and we can write it back to an USB Key.

Open WinImage and pres Disk followed by Restore Virtual Hard Disk image on physical drive…

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Select the USB Key. In my case it’s a SanDisk Cruzer.

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Open de *.dd file and answer Yes on the LAST WARNING.

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When the wizard completes without an error. The USB Key is ready to use.

 

Update:

if you’re running Windows Vista or Windows 7 x64 you might get an error like this:

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If someone knows a solution for this problem please leave a comment. If you run this tutorial on a Windows XP machine, it will work as expected.

afokkema VMware

List of VMware FT compatible CPUs


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Gabrie  has created a nice post about CPU compatibility with the new feature FT in vSphere.

With VMware vSphere there is a new exiting function called VMware Fault Tolerant or VMware FT. With VMware FT you can protect a VM against failure by running this VM in lockstep with an exact copy on a different host. Every interrupt in the source VM is immediately replicated to the destination VM, which is “invisble” on the network. Should the host with the source VM fail, then the destination VM will become visible on the network and the users will not experience any downtime. Also a new destination VM is created on a different (third) host and will be kept “in lockstep”.

Now when selecting new servers or in my case a whitebox for my own testlab at home, one should pay attention to the CPU that is in the system, because not all new CPUs have this feature….

Read the rest of the article here: http://www.gabesvirtualworld.com/?p=456

afokkema VMware

VMware vSphere Health Check Report v1.0


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@lamw (twitter account) has created and published the first vSphere Health Check Report script.  The script reports on the following:

 

  • New New licensing format/summary
  • New EVC Enabled information
  • New Cluster VM monitoring
  • New Cluster Host monitoring
  • New # of VMotions within a cluster
  • New Datastore uncommitted info
  • New CPU power management info
  • New VM info (FT, Record/Replay, Clean Poweroff)
  • New Host IPv6, FT, SSL Thumbprint
  • New Host Profiles
  • New vApp information
  • New Distributed vSwitch information
  • vCenter Build/Release
  • Active Sessions
  • ESX/ESXi Build/Release
  • Cluster(s) Name/Statistics (Hosts,CPU and MEM availabity, HA,DRS and DPM enabled, Resource Pools, Health)
  • ESX/ESXi Hardware configuration (NICs/HBAs)
  • ESX/ESXi Hardware Health Sensor via CIM
  • ESX/ESXi State
  • ESX/ESXi Configurations (for detailed information, use detail-hosts option)
  • ESX/ESXi Multipathing Info (only available in host or detail-hosts option)
  • ESX/ESXi Datastore summary
  • ESX/ESXi LUN summary
  • ESX/ESXi Portgroup summary
  • ESX/ESXi Hostd logs
  • CDP Summary
  • Recent Tasks
  • Virtual Machine summary
  • VM Storage summary
  • VM Network summary
  • VM w/Snapshots
  • VM w/Snapshot delta age
  • VM w/RDMs
  • VM w/NPIV enabled
  • VM w/connected CD-ROMs
  • VM w/connected Floppys

You can find more info here: http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-9842

afokkema VMware

VMware: Troubleshooting ESX Server


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While reading my rss feeds in Feedreader, I saw this article:  http://www.virtualinsanity.com/index.php/2009/04/21/troubleshooting-esx/

I was at the Louisville VMUG on Friday talking about Troubleshooting ESX.  In my preparation for the event, I was looking for a good PowerPoint presentation I could reuse and I stumbled across a sweet little gem of a document.  Dudley Smith, a VMware Technical Account Manager (TAM) out of Virginia, created a cool one page Mind Map for Troubleshooting ESX.  Does it address every potential issue you’ll come across?  No, of course not.  But it’s a heck of a good place to start.  One look at his Mind Map and I thought to myself, “that would be a great thing to have printed out and hanging over every VMware admin’s desk.
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You can download the pdf’s here:

http://www.virtualinsanity.com/index.php/2009/04/21/troubleshooting-esx/

afokkema VMware

VMware: vSphere


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Quote from: http://vmware.com/products/vsphere/

VMware vSphere is the next evolutionary step in IT computing; enabling customers to bring the power of cloud computing to their IT infrastructures. Building on the power of VMware® Infrastructure, VMware vSphere dramatically reduces capital and operating costs, and increases control over IT infrastructures while preserving the flexibility to choose any OS, application and hardware.

Build on a proven virtualization platform to provide the foundation for internal and external clouds, using federation and standards to bridge cloud infrastructures—creating a secure private cloud. Organizations of all sizes can achieve the full benefits of cloud computing, delivering the highest levels of application service agreements with the lowest total cost per application workload.

Available in several different editions, VMware vSphere delivers targeted benefits to small business and mid-size and enterprise business customers.

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The new vSphere community is already live. Go check it here: http://communities.vmware.com/community/vmtn/vsphere

Before installing (if you have the software) be sure to check the Upgrade Center. You can find more info here: