by Rich Kreider
I had 8 paths go down to a dead state on an ESXi host. The paths were MRU via Fiber Channel to a storage array. One path worked and it was configured as RR path.
I knew this wasn't a physical issue, it had to be a software/configuration issue on my host because there were:
No storage array errors
Additional hosts in the cluster had no problems
One path still worked from the HBA
Looking at the log (/var/log/vmkernel.log) I searched for one of the LUN identifiers, in my case ":L30" which Continue Reading...
During datastore creation in vSphere using the Nimble vCenter plugin, I get the following error:
A general system error occurred: esxi1: CHAP setting not compatible. hba=vmhba33
In vSphere Client I went to my ESXi host then Configuration, Storage Adapters, iSCSI Software Adapter. Taking a look at vmhba33 Properties then CHAP... I see that there was a CHAP setting in there for an old Drobo system I had connected at one point.
Changing the option to Do not use CHAP resolved my issue. I'm not Continue Reading...
Here's an ESXi console script to loop through each Nimble eui.* adapter and set IOPS=0 and BYTES=0 (per Nimble recommendations).
for x in `esxcli storage nmp device list | awk '/Nimble iSCSI Disk/{print $7}' | sed -e 's/(//' -e 's/)//'`; do
echo $x
esxcli storage nmp psp roundrobin deviceconfig set -d $x -t bytes -B 0;
esxcli storage nmp psp roundrobin deviceconfig set -d $x -t iops -I 0 ;
esxcli storage nmp psp roundrobin deviceconfig get -d $x;
done
Note: If you change the order above and set Continue Reading...
In order to work around the issue processor power management has to be disabled in system UEFI and vSphere Client.
To change power policies using server UEFI settings:
Turn on the server.
Note: If necessary, connect a keyboard, monitor, and mouse to the console breakout cable and connect the console breakout cable to the compute node.
When the prompt 'Press <F1> Setup' is displayed, press F1 and enter UEFI setup. Follow the instructions on the screen.
Select System Settings --> Operating Continue Reading...
I've spent some time exploring and studying the use and configuration of VMware Flash Read Cache (vFRC) and its benefits. These are my notes.
Useful Resources
VMware Flash Read Cache 1.0 FAQ
vSphere 5.5 Flash Read Cache Documentation
On a guest virtual machine, vFRC is configured in Disk configuration area. The virtual machine needs to be on version 10 hardware. vSphere needs to be minimum version 5.5.
Benchmarks
I took a baseline benchmark of a simple Windows Server 2016 virtual machine Continue Reading...