VMware

Run the esxcli storage vmfs extent list command to generate a list of extents for each volume and mapping from device name to UUID. You see output similar to: Volume Name VMFS UUID Extent Number Device Name Partition ———— ———————————– ————- ———————————— ——— esxi-local 4e0d86e1-0db6f826-6991-d8d3855ff8d6 0 mpx.vmhba2:C0:T0:L0 3 datastore1 4d4ac840-c1386fa0-9f6d-0050569300a7 0naa.6006016094602800364ce22e3825e011 1 vmfs5 4dad8f16-911648ca-d660-d8d38563e658 0naa.600601609460280052eb8621b73ae011 1

Had some troubles with an ESXi 5.5 host the past week and rebuilt some of the networking which included removing a vmkernel and re-adding to a standard vSwitch and then setting up VMotion and Management tags on it. Came across the following error on my host in vSphere Client: To resolve this issue, I needed…

ESXi 4.1 and 5.0 Enable SNMP SSH to host and edit the SNMP.XML file: vi /etc/vmware/snmp.xml Make the following changes: <config> <snmpSettings> <enable>true</enable> <communities>public</communities> <targets>192.168.1.100@public</targets> </snmpSettings> </config> Restart management agents with the following command: /etc/init.d/hostd restart On ESXi 5.1 and 5.5 enable SNMP SSH to host and run the following command: esxcli system snmp set –communities=public…

First open up Disk Management in Computer Management in your guest Windows environment. Right click the volume on the disk you want to shrink. Windows will inform you the maximum amount it can shrink the disk by. Choose an amount that you wish to actually shrink it by and click Shrink. Windows will start the…

I’m working on converting a physical 2008 R2 server to a virtual machine for ESX 4.1.  I installed vCenter Converter Standalone 4.3 on this machine and ran through the wizard.  When I got to the disk configuration, nothing was listed. Some research pointed me to this VMware KB article indicating to check the logs which…

I’m starting to plan for an upgrade of VMWare ESX 4.1 U1 to ESXi 5.0 and since ESXi 5.0 makes this possible to do an in place upgrade, I’m hoping things will go smoothly for my environment. Here’s a checklist/pre-requisite for upgrade. Upgrade vCenter Server (vCenter Server 4 does not support connecting to ESXi 5…

Installation of Proxmox VE 3.2 on an ESX 4.1 host. Note that KVM in Proxmox VE is not supported due to VT-x virtualization not being supported in ESX 4.1. ESXi 5.0+ support VT-x virtualization which would allow for Proxmox VE KVM support. OpenVZ containers in Proxmox still work without issue.

I got kicked in the face by this again, and I even had the resolution documented internally.  Lost 45 minutes looking through logs before I finally search VMware KB for it.  Argv! Unexpected exception: converter.fault.clonefault (converter.fault.CloneFault) { dynamicType = , faultCause = (vmodl.MethodFault) null, description = Unknown exception, msg = , This is caused by…

This is a great KB article from VMware worth reposting.  I’m going to start analyzing storage I/O more today on all the arrays I have and LUNs.  Article Source:  http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1019687 Setting the congestion Threshold Value for Storage I/O Control Details The congestion threshold value for a datastore is the upper limit of latency that is…