afokkema VMware

VMware: Remove Snapshot stuck at 95%


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This morning a woke up and grabbed my BlackBerry to see if there was any news (mail / twitter). The first e-mail I read was one from our monitoring system that one of the VM’s did not respond anymore. So I started a remote session and logged on to vCenter. There I saw a running task which was running since last night :-S.

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These are the steps I took to solve this issue:

  1. Connect to the ESX Host via SSH.
  2. Run this command Service mgmt-vmware restart to restart the service
  3. If the VM is still okay then you don’ t have to restart the ESX Host, otherwise restart the ESX Host.
  4. Open the snapshot manager of the VM and create a new snapshot
  5. Now delete all snapshots
  6. Poweron the VM

 

I want to thank @Depping, @diederikm, @laurensdekoning and @sanderdaems for pointing me in the right direction.

afokkema VMUG, VMware

Release: vCenter 2.5 Update 5


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Be sure to read the release notes: vi3_vc25u5_rel_notes.html especially the Know Issues: vi3_vc25u5_rel_notes.html#knownissues 

What’s new:

Support for High Consolidation in VMware HA Clusters – VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 5 includes significant performance and scalability improvements to VMware HA. Use VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 5 for environments with more than 35 virtual machines per host in an HA cluster.
For information on the ESX Server host settings required for this scalability improvement, see ESX Server host settings required for environments with up to 80 virtual machines per host in an HA Cluster (KB 1012002).

You can download the new version here: http://www.vmware.com/download/vi/

afokkema VMware

PowerCLI: Two “vHardware” One-Liners


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The first one-liner will return all the Virtual Machines which are not upgraded to vSphere yet.

Get-View -ViewType VirtualMachine | Where-Object `
{-not $_.config.template -and $_.Config.Version -eq "vmx-04" } | Select Name

The second one-liner will return all the Virtual Machines which are not upgraded to vSphere and where the VMware Tools are not upgraded. 

Get-View -ViewType VirtualMachine | Where-Object `
{-not $_.config.template -and $_.Config.Version -eq "vmx-04"`
-and $_.Guest.ToolsVersion -lt "8193"} | Select Name

 

Update: If you want to count the Virtual Machines then you can run this one-liner:

(Get-View -ViewType VirtualMachine | Where-Object `
{-not $_.config.template -and $_.Config.Version -eq "vmx-04"`
-and $_.Guest.ToolsVersion -lt "8193"} | Select Name).Count

 

These two one-liners are part of a much bigger script. So keep an eye on http://ict-freak.nl 😉

afokkema VMware

PowerCLI: Add multiple values to a VMX file


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@bjornbats asked me if I knew a way to add multiple values to a VMX file via PowerCLI. I remembered a blog post from Carter at http://blogs.vmware.com/vipowershell/ about this subject. So I tested the code and changed it a little bit. Now you can create a CSV file with the Keys and Values you want to change and the script will add them to the VMX file.

The CSV file I used looks like this:

Key,Value
isolation.tools.copy.disable,true
isolation.tools.diskShrink.disable,true
isolation.tools.diskWiper.disable,true
isolation.tools.paste.disable,true
isolation.tools.setGUIOptions.enable,true
log.keepOld,10
log.rotateSize,100000

The script below will add the entry’s from the CSV file to every VMX file, even when the VM is still running. I don’t know if you need to reboot the VM to apply the changes. So if someone can test that for me, please leave a comment with the results.

$vCenter = Read-Host "Enter your vCenter servername"
Connect-VIServer $vCenter

$import = Import-Csv "C:\Scripts\PS\vmxsettings.csv"

$vms = Get-View -ViewType VirtualMachine | where {-not $_.config.template}

$vmConfigSpec = New-Object VMware.Vim.VirtualMachineConfigSpec

    foreach($item in $import){

        $extra = New-Object VMware.Vim.optionvalue
        $extra.Key=$item.Key
        $extra.Value=$item.Value
        $vmConfigSpec.extraconfig += $extra
    }

    foreach($vm in $vms){

        $vm.ReconfigVM($vmConfigSpec)
    }

Disconnect-VIServer –Confirm:$false

When you start the script, you will notice that vCenter is very busy reconfiguring the virtual machines:

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You will notice The operation is not… warning in the recent tasks window. This is because the Get-View -ViewType VirtualMachine will also add the Templates.

And here you can see the added lines into your VMX file:

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afokkema VMware

PowerCLI: Change VMware Tools Options


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In this post you will learn how to change the VMware Tools settings in the Options menu which you can find in the vSphere Client:

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You can enable or disable these features via the following PowerCLI script:

$vCenter = Read-Host "Enter vCenter Server name"

Connect-VIServer $vCenter

$vmConfigSpec = New-Object VMware.Vim.VirtualMachineConfigSpec
$vmConfigSpec.Tools = New-Object VMware.Vim.ToolsConfigInfo
$vmConfigSpec.Tools.AfterPowerOn = $true
$vmConfigSpec.Tools.AfterResume = $true
$vmConfigSpec.Tools.BeforeGuestStandby = $true
$vmConfigSpec.Tools.BeforeGuestShutdown = $true
$vmConfigSpec.Tools.SyncTimeWithHost = $true
$vmConfigSpec.Tools.ToolsUpgradePolicy = "Manual" # "UpgradeAtPowerCycle"

Get-VM | % { (Get-View $_.ID).ReconfigVM($vmConfigSpec)}

Disconnect-VIServer -Confirm:$false

 

Just change the $true values to $false if you want to disable the feature. If you want to change the Tools Upgrade Policy to Upgrade at startup just remove "Manual" # and it should change the Policy.

This is what you see when the VM is still active:

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This script will change the configured settings on All the VM’s.  If you want to change the settings on a particular VM just change Get-VM into Get-VM vmname

afokkema VMware

vCenter 4 on Windows x64 and 32 bit DSN


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Today I installed a Windows Server 2008 x64 VM to use as vCenter 4 server. Everything went fine until the DSN option gave me the (Please create a 32 bit system DSN) message.

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I created the DSN via: Start – Run – msodbcad32. The weird thing I noticed was the small amount of options available, only two as you can see in the picture below.

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To solve this issue, start Odbcad32.exe from the following location %systemdrive%\Windows\SysWoW64\Odbcad32.exe instead of Start –Run – Odbcad32.

Now we have the options we need:

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Create a new system DSN for vCenter and vCenter Update Manager. Start the vCenter installer and select the right DSN:

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More information about this issue can be found in: KB942976

 

Source: http://www.vmwarewolf.com/32-bit-odbc-dsn-for-vsphere/

afokkema Microsoft

Powershell: Working with Excel and error HRESULT: 0x80028018


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If you want to use Microsoft Excel in your Powershell scripts. 

$Excel = New-Object -Com Excel.Application
$Excel.visible = $True
$Excel = $Excel.Workbooks.Add()

 

You can run into the following error:

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The work around for this issue was changing the Regional Options back to United States International.

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Microsft created a work around. More info can be found in in: KB320369

guillermooo has created a port to Powershell. Just copy the following code and you should be able to open Excel and create a new workbook.

I didn’t test this script block so let me know if it works 😉

$ci = new-object system.globalization.cultureinfo "en-US"

$e = New-Object -COM "Excel.Application"
$e.Visible = $True
$e.UserControl= $True
$books = $e.Workbooks
$books.PSBase.GetType().InvokeMember( `
       "Add", `
       [system.reflection.bindingflags]::InvokeMethod, `
       $null, $books, $null, $ci)

Source: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/687891/exception-automating-excel-2007-with-powershell-when-calling-workbooks-add

afokkema VMware

PowerCLI: Generate an Excel sheet with VM info


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The following script is part of another script but I wanted to show you some nice Powershell stuff in combination with Microsoft Excel.

This script will generate an Excel sheet with some VM information. It will color the cell red if the Powerstate equals to NotRunning.

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

Connect-VIServer $vCenter

$xlCSV = 6
$xlXLS = 56
$csvfile = "C:\beforeHWchange.csv"
$xlsfile = "C:\beforeHWchange.xls"

$Excel = New-Object -ComObject Excel.Application
$Excel.visible = $True
$Excel = $Excel.Workbooks.Add()

$Sheet = $Excel.Worksheets.Item(1)
$Sheet.Cells.Item(1,1) = "Status"
$Sheet.Cells.Item(1,2) = "VMName"
$Sheet.Cells.Item(1,3) = "VMHostname"
$Sheet.Cells.Item(1,4) = "IPAddress"
$Sheet.Cells.Item(1,5) = "MacAddress"
$Sheet.Cells.Item(1,6) = "TotalNics"
$Sheet.Cells.Item(1,7) = "vNicType"
$Sheet.Cells.Item(1,8) = "NetworkName"
$Sheet.Cells.Item(1,9) = "vNicConnected"
$Sheet.Cells.Item(1,10) = "ToolsVersion"
$Sheet.Cells.Item(1,11) = "ToolsStatus"
$Sheet.Cells.Item(1,12) = "ToolsRunningStatus"
$Sheet.Cells.Item(1,13) = "OS"
$Sheet.Cells.Item(1,14) = "ESXHost"

$intRow = 2

$WorkBook = $Sheet.UsedRange
$WorkBook.Interior.ColorIndex = 19
$WorkBook.Font.ColorIndex = 11
$WorkBook.Font.Bold = $True


#$vms = Get-Folder Lab | Get-VM
$vms = Get-VM

foreach($vm in $vms){

  $vmnic = Get-NetworkAdapter -VM $vm
  $vmview = get-VM $vm | Get-View

if($vm.Guest.State -eq "NotRunning"){
  $Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow, 1) = [String]$vm.Guest.State
  $Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow, 1).Interior.ColorIndex = 3
}
elseif($vm.Guest.State -eq "Unknown"){
  $Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow, 1) = [String]$vm.Guest.State
  $Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow, 1).Interior.ColorIndex = 48
}
else{
  $Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow, 1) = [String]$vm.Guest.State
  $Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow, 1).Interior.ColorIndex = 4
}

$Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow, 2) = $vmview.Name 
$Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow, 3) = $vmview.Guest.HostName
$Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow, 4) = [String]$vm.Guest.IPAddress
$Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow, 5) = $vmnic.MacAddress
$Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow, 6) = $vmview.Guest.Net.Count
$Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow, 7) = [String]$vmnic.Type
$Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow, 8) = $vmnic.NetworkName 
$Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow, 9) = $vmnic.ConnectionState.Connected

if($vmview.Config.Tools.ToolsVersion -eq "8193"){
  $Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow, 10) = [String]$vmview.Config.Tools.ToolsVersion
  $Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow, 10).Interior.ColorIndex = 4
}
else{
  $Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow, 10) = [String]$vmview.Config.Tools.ToolsVersion
  $Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow, 10).Interior.ColorIndex = 3
}

if($vmview.Guest.ToolsStatus -eq "toolsNotInstalled"){
  $Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow, 11) = [String]$vmview.Guest.ToolsStatus
  $Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow, 11).Interior.ColorIndex = 48

}
elseif($vmview.Guest.ToolsStatus -eq "toolsNotRunning"){
  $Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow, 11) = [String]$vmview.Guest.ToolsStatus
  $Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow, 11).Interior.ColorIndex = 3    
}
elseif($vmview.Guest.ToolsStatus -eq "toolsOld"){
  $Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow, 10) = [String]$vmview.Config.Tools.ToolsVersion
  $Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow, 10).Interior.ColorIndex = 45
  $Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow, 11) = [String]$vmview.Guest.ToolsStatus
  $Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow, 11).Interior.ColorIndex = 45    
}
else{
  $Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow, 11) = [String]$vmview.Guest.ToolsStatus
  $Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow, 11).Interior.ColorIndex = 4
}    

if($vmview.Guest.ToolsRunningStatus -eq "guestToolsRunning"){
  $Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow, 12) = $vmview.Guest.ToolsRunningStatus
  $Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow, 12).Interior.ColorIndex = 4
}
else{
  $Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow, 12) = $vmview.Guest.ToolsRunningStatus
  $Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow, 12).Interior.ColorIndex = 3
}

$Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow, 13) = $vmview.Guest.GuestFamily
$Sheet.Cells.Item($intRow, 14) = $vm.Host.Name

$intRow = $intRow + 1}

$WorkBook.EntireColumn.AutoFit()

sleep 5

$Sheet.SaveAs($xlsfile,$xlXLS)
$Sheet.SaveAs($csvfile,$xlCSV) 

Disconnect-VIServer -Confirm:$false

 

The output will look like this:

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afokkema VMware

Error when deploying an OVF on vSphere


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If you want to deploy an OVF template within vSphere, you might get the following warning/error:

You don’t hold privilege ‘ Datastore > Allocate space’ on the Datastore connected to the selected Cluster.

See the screenshot below:

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The solution is simple, click on Inventory followed by Host and Clusters:

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Start the deploy OVF wizard again and the error/warning will not show up.