4.1

Enabling Local/Remote Tech Support Mode in ESXi 4.1

I have seen quite a few people wondering if there is a way to enable TSM from the vSphere Client. I would have to say, “YES THERE IS!” VMware posted a KB Article regarding this specifically as it was updated as of 4.1 to allow for the toggling of this from the vSphere Client. Here is what you can do to enable TSM:

  1. Select the host and click the Configuration tab.
  2. Click Security profile > Properties.
  3. Click Local Tech Support or Remote Tech Support (SSH) and click Options.
  4. Choose the desired startup policy and click Start, then click OK.
  5. Verify that the daemon selected in step 3 shows as running in the Services Properties window.
Another thing that I have seen lately is people wondering why they enable TSM and it suddenly stops working.  This is because TSM has a default timeout that it uses in order to maintain a level of security regarding this method of connecting to a host.  To adjust this timeout you can do the following:
  1. Select the host and click the Configuration tab.
  2. Click Advanced Settings.
  3. Change the UserVars.TSMTimeOut field to the desired value in minutes.
  4. Click OK.
Once you have enabled Local or Remote TSM you can connect via the DCUI for Local TSM and through ssh for Remote TSM.  Use these methods wisely as there are many things that can be effected by usage of these methods.  If you are unsure of doing something then stop and either post up here in the comments or drop a line in the VMTN Community Forums.  Myself and many others check the VMTN forums constantly to offer help on various issues.  Yours could be one of them!!!

ESXi 4.1 Patches Applied…VMware Tools disappear!

I ran into an issue today when patching a couple of standalone ESXi hosts. There were no VMs built out on these hosts yet so I took the quick second to update the hosts with the latest patches before the 4.1 Update 1 patches.

Poof!

Went to deploy a virtual machine and install VMware Tools, no go! Was presented with the wonderful:

Unable to install VMware Tools. An error occurred while trying to access image file “/usr/lib/vmware/isoimages/windows.iso” needed to install VMware Tools: No such file or directory. If your product shipped with the VMware Tools package, reinstall VMware ESX, then try again to install the VMware Tools package in the virtual machine.

This has actually been an issue that, from searching, seems to be something that likes to poke its head out from time to time. The cause is typically from a botched bundle installation. Some of the goofy things I saw were the /productLocker directory was not accessible and neither were any of the directories in which it was symlinked to. After a few minutes of poking around I decided to run the bundle installation one more time. Installed the bundle and rebooted and VIOLA…the symlinks were accessible and mounting of the VMware Tools installer ISO was working again.

If you run into this problem I would try the following:

  1. Reboot the ESXi host and see if this rectifies the situation.
  2. If the above does not resolve the issue, reapply the patch bundles you just got finished applying.

This may not resolve the issue for everyone but it seem to work on the two ESXi hosts that I had this happen on.  If it doesn’t sound off in the comments and we can see if we can get you moving along!

Veeam saves the day!

This past weekend I was faced with a challenge of moving from an old unsupported SAN on a 3.5 deployment to a new supported SAN and a new 4.1 deployment. I was in dire need for a quick solution for migrating data from one SAN to another. Some would say, “Just use Storage vMotion to move the VMs from the old storage to the new.” I get that, but, I was unable to utilize that feature because the old deployment was not licensed for it.

[blocknote class="red" title="Solution"]In comes Veeam Backup & Replication to save the day.[/blocknote]

The deployment was a small deployment, around 20 VMs. The solution I ended up with was using the VM Copy functionality to copy the VMs from the old SAN to the new SAN. Once the data was copied over, I added the VMs to inventory, upgraded VMware Tools, and then upgraded Virtual Hardware. Powered everything up and viola…migrated VMs now running in 4.1 on the new SAN.

Using the VM Copy function was extremely easy to get setup and started.  The steps that I took to get it moving were:

  • Install Veeam Backup & Replication
  • Add old VirtualCenter Server in order to access old SAN VMFS Datastores
  • Add new vCenter Server in order to access new SAN VMFS Datastores
  • Configure a VM Copy Job
  • Sit back and relax while Veeam did the work

I won’t go into detail on how to install Veeam as this is covered in many places online.  I will, however, go through the steps on creating the VM Copy Job.

The first step was to configure the VM Copy Job, as seen here:

Create a VM Copy Job

After clicking Next you will be asked what Processing Mode you will be using.  In my particular case, I had Veeam installed on a VM and so I picked Virtual Appliance Mode with Network Failover.

Selecting a Processing Mode

The next step in this simple process is to add the VMs that you want to copy.  This is a pretty self explanatory step, here is what you should see:

Add VMs that you want to copy

After adding the VMs you will be asked for a destination.  This, of course, will be your new SAN and new hosts.  Just select the host and datastore you want to copy the VMs into.

VM Copy Destination Selection

After adding the VMs that you want to copy with this job, you will continue on and be presented with a screen that will ask you if you want to use VSS in the VM to get a transactional consistant copy.  In my particular case, I had a maintenance window for the downtime of the VMs so I powered them down to do the copy, therefore, I didn’t select anything.

Utilize VSS if you want a transactionaly consistant copy

The final configuration step is to determine if you want to schedule it to run automatically or not.  This can come in handy if you want to have the job start after hours when you won’t be in front of a machine.  In my case, I was sitting right in front of my machine at home.

Schedule the job to run anytime you want

And the finale, you are now one click away from having Veeam do some work for you.  Just click Finish or select the checkbox to run the job as soon as you click Finish.

Fin

Pretty simple process and it definitely made it easy for me to get around the typical tools you would use to do a migration such as Storage vMotion and VMware Converter.  Once you have the VMs over you can then browse your datastores and add the VMs to inventory.  In this instance, I had to upgrade VMware Tools and upgrade the virtual hardware to complete the process.  Confirmed everything was working as normal and called it a day!  Thanks Veeam for saving the day yet again!

[note class="download"]You can download a trial of Veeam Backup & Replication direct from Veeam’s Website![/note]

If you have any questions or comments then please feel free to post up in the comments!

Enabling SNMP in ESXi 4.1

I decided to gather some information about a server that was sitting in Morgantown, PA due to a couple of errors we were receiving.  I needed to get it pretty quick and so I decided to grab it through SNMP.  I had to enable it through the vMA since the host was running ESXi.  Here’s how:

  1. Connect to your vMA instance through Putty, SecureCRT or whatever app you use.
  2. Add the server:  vifp addserver vs-esxi.vsential.com
  3. Set your target:  vifptarget -s vs-esxi.vsential.com
  4. Configure SNMP Community:  vicfg-snmp -c vscomname
  5. Configure SNMP Trap Host:  vicfg-snmp -t TrapHostIP@161/vscomname
  6. Enable SNMP on the ESXi host:  vifcfg-snmp -E

You may need to restart the services on the ESXi host via services.sh on the host.  You can show the configuration by typing:  vicfg-snmp -s

That’s it…now you can snmpwalk the host from the Trap host you configured earlier by typing:  snmpwalk -v2c -cvscomname vs-esxi.vsential.com

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions then please sound off in the comments!

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