Category: Virtualization

VMware VirtualCenter Service will not start

VMware VirtualCenter Service will not start.
The VMware VirtualCenter Server service terminated with service-specific error The system cannot find the file specified..

I found that this is because IIS Admin and World Wide Web publishing service was installed on the vCenter Server.
Stop and disable these services, then start VMware VirtualCenter Server.
Errors from Eventvwr:

Use VMware VMRC Viewer Outside of Browser

I was trying to find a way to configure the vSphere Web Console plugin port it connects to since I run a non-standard port for SSL on the vCenter server. This is what I came up with after doing some research.
First thing’s first, download and install the console plugin.
Windows
https://[IP]/ui/plugin/vmware-vmrc-win32-x86.exe
Linux (more info for linux: http://www.geeklab.info/2010/02/running-vmware-remote-console-outside-the-browser/)
https://[IP]/ui/plugin/vmware-vmrc-linux-x86.xpi
This allows me to change the port that VMware VMRC web console plugin uses to connect because I can create a shortcut to the vmware-vmrc executable and pass the needed arguments.
I can run the following command to access my virtual machine (given that I know the MOID):

c:program files (x86)common filesvmwarevmware remote console plug-invmware-vmrc.exe -h 1.2.3.4:11443 -M vm-1234

VMware Tray Dump Files Chewing up Space

I was checking out a server today (2003)  and noticed that it was a tad low on disk space on the OS disk.  It’s a terminal server and it is not heavily used (heavily meaning many users) but there are a handful of users who are in it multiple times throughout the day.
I ran my standard temporary files cleanup batch file to clear up any user profile temp files as well as Internet Explorer temp files.  Freed up about 500MB which was nice but I was still not satisfied with total available disk space remaining so I investigated further.  Fired up the trusty TreeSize Free and let it scan C: disk.

Upon inspection I saw one particular user had almost 100MB data files in their profile directory under Application Data\VMware.  There were tons of vmwaretray-xxx.dmp files.  The files were about 650KB each!

After some quick research online, I discovered the reason these files are there are because when the user logs onto the terminal server they do not have permission to read a particular key from the registry that the VMware Tray icon accesses at logon.
One option was to change the permissions so users could read the key, but I am not fond of that, plus on an update I’m sure it’d come back around to bite me in the ass.

The other option, I found out, is that I can disable the VMware Tray icon from loading when a user logs on which will in turn not generate a VMwaretray dump file.  Sweet!
I wanted to see how bad the damage was from these VMwaretray dump files so I first set a filter in TreeSize Free to only calculate VMWARETRAY\* files.  4GB+!!!  HOLY SH*T!

Now, I’ve added this path into the cleanup script I typically run and it cleared up the files with no problem.

To make VMware Tray icon not load for users, you can modify the registry.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\VMware, Inc.\VMware Tools

Look for ShowTrayIcon and set it’s value to 0 (zero).

Next time users log on this should not load the tray icon.  =)

Server 2008 R2 Performance Tuning

Here’s some of the things I do to a new Server 2008 R2 install (physical and/or virtual settings are mixed in; (VIRTUAL ONLY) specifies I only do configuration change on Virtual systems).

  • Disable Screen Saver, Personalize -> Screen Saver -> None
  • Sound, Do not start Audio Service -> Sound
  •  No Sounds
  •  Display Performance, System -> Advanced System Settings -> Performance Settings -> Adjust for Best Performance
  • Power Options -> High Performance
  • Power Options -> Changed when the computer sleeps -> Turn off Display = Never
  •  Pagefile, System -> Advanced -> Performance -> Set no pagefile (VIRTUAL ONLY)
  •  Disable System Screensaver Regedit -> HKEY_USERS\DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop -> Delete SCRNSAVE.exe
  •  Stop Audio Service in services.msc, set to Manual
  •  Remove ipv6 support
  •  Start Menu -> remove quick launch
  •  Drive Indexing, My Computer -> C: Properties -> Unselect Index this drive… -> Apply recursively -> ignore all permission errors
  •  Run as administrator ‘cmd.exe’ -> powercfg -h OFF to disable hibernation and delete hiberfil.sys from C:
  •  reboot
  •  delete pagefile.sys on c: (VIRTUAL ONLY)
  •  defrag C: (I use contig http://live.sysinternals.com/contig.exe and run contig -s c:\*.*)
  •  clear c:\users\administrator\appdata\local\temp folder
  •  enable remote desktop, right click my computer -> properties -> advanced properties -> remote tab
  •  activate windows
  • Run as administrator ‘cmd.exe’ and copy/paste the following: 
    powercfg -setactive scheme_min
Powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor 45bcc044-d885-43e2-8605-ee0ec6e96b59 100
Powercfg -setactive scheme_current
Powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor 893dee8e-2bef-41e0-89c6-b55d0929964c 100
Powercfg -setactive scheme_current
Powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor bc5038f7-23e0-4960-96da-33abaf5935ec 100
Powercfg -setactive scheme_current
powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current 8c5e7fda-e8bf-4a96-9a85-a6e23a8c635c 54533251-82be-4824-96c1-47b60b740d00 893dee8e-2bef-41e0-89c6-b55d0929964c 100
Powercfg -setactive scheme_current