ESX3.5 Notes -Part02 April 30, 2008

Lab Manager 2.5.1 does not support ESX Server 3.5.
All hosts in a VMware HA cluster must have DNS configured so that the short host name (without the domain suffix) of any host in the cluster can be resolved to the appropriate IP address from any other host in the cluster.

If a host is added to a cluster, you can no longer create child resource pools of that host. You can create child resource pools of the cluster if the cluster is enabled for Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS).

You cannot use VMotion to migrate a virtual machine with a guest operating system with 16GB of memory or more to ESX Sever 3.5 hosts or earlier. Resize the guest operating system memory or migrate to a compatible version of ESX Server 3.

Using VI Client or VI Web Access ensures that the starting sectors of partitions are 64K aligned, which improves storage performance.

In centralized license server mode, license files are located at the following default location on the machine running the VMware license server: C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware License Server\Licenses. This is different from VirtualCenter 2.0, where the default location of the license file was C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware License Server\vmware.lic. which no longer exists.

The VI Client installer installs Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 on your machine. If you have an older version, the VirtualCenter Server installer upgrades your version to version 2.0.

While installing ESX Server 3.5, the option to create a default network for virtual machines is selected by default. If you proceed with installing ESX Server 3.5 with this option selected, your virtual machines share a network adapter with the service console, which does not provide optimal security.

Manage remote console connections—You can now configure VirtualCenter 2.5 to set the maximum number of allowed console connections (0 to 100) to all virtual machines.

VirtualCenter 2.5 provides an unlicensed evaluation mode that doesn’t require that you install and configure a license server while installing VirtualCenter 2.5 and ESX Server 3.

Virtual Center 2.5 can Manage up to 200 hosts and 2000 virtual machines
ESX Server 3.5 supports 256GB of physical memory and virtual machines with 64GB of RAM.
ESX Server hosts support for up to 32 logical processors
SATA support—ESX Server 3.5 supports selected SATA devices connected to dual SAS/SATA controllers
ESX Server 3.5 introduces support for N-Port ID Virtualization (NPIV) for Fibre Channel SANs. Each virtual machine can now have its own World Wide Port Name (WWPN).

VMotion migration of virtual machines with local swap files is supported only across ESX Server 3.5 hosts and later with VirtualCenter 2.5 and later

Enhanced HA provides experimental support for monitoring individual virtual machine failures. VMware HA can now be set up to either restart the failed virtual machine or send a notification to the administrator.

Storage VMotion simplifies array migration and upgrade tasks and reduces I/O bottlenecks by moving virtual machines to the best available storage resource in your environment.Migrations using Storage VMotion must be administered through the Remote Command Line Interface (Remote CLI)

VirtualCenter 2.5 provides support for batch installations of VMware Tools where VMware Tools can now be updated for selected groups of virtual machines. VMware Tools upgrades can now be scheduled for the next boot cycle

ESX3.5 Notes -Part01 April 30, 2008

IMPROVEMENTS

DRS (Distributed Resource Scheduling)

When maintenance mode was triggered in the past it would only move VMs that were powered on. In this release maintenance mode will also move VMs which are powered off and suspended.

In the past maintenance mode in with manual or partial automated DRS would generate a whole list of 5-Star recommendations. This no longer happens and VMs are just moved automatically. It’s assumed if you are entering maintenance mode you want to evacuate the ESX host of all VM’s.

 

VMware HA Clusters

Number of ESX host supported in a cluster has increased from 16 to 32.

When ESX host use to fail, all vm’s use to get powered on next available host. Now VM’s will get powered on Host where there is large amount of CPU and Memory resources are available. Some intelligence ha s been put into.

 

ALARMS

New sets of alarms has been introduced. One of them to check the VM’s heartbeat. If VM is hung, action of restarting that VM can be triggered.

 

NEW FEATURES

 

Lock Down mode

When this option is enabled you won’t be able to logon using administrative priviliges to ESX host using VC client.

 

DPM (Distributed Power Management) (Experimental feature)

Its job is monitor the clusters usage, and move VMs during non-peak usage to a fewer number of ESX hosts. The unneeded ESX hosts are put into a standby mode, so consume less power in the server room. DPM is integrated into DRS such that other rules such as reservations and affinity rules are obeyed. This can be certainly used for development Cluster.

DPM is initiated based on three conditions

• Guest CPU and Memory usage
• ESX host CPU and Memory usage
• ESX host power consumption

Before ESX host is put in standby mode it takes this decision based last 20 min history. And for Power ON event, it checks other node in cluster every 5 min, to see if it is not overloaded and not violating HA constraints. Like DRS, DPM can also be configured in Manual mode which offers recommendations. Also Particular ESX host can be excluded from DPM. To test DPM it is recommended that you test that each ESX host enters and Exit standby mode. There is extra option available shutdown button for ESX host. As maintenance mode, standby mode can hang as it’s wait either for the operator for move vm or automatic vmotion, if there are any VM running it won’t go into standby mode.

 

Enabling the iSCSI Software Initiator no longer by default opens the iSCSI port of 3260 on the firewall. This now has to be done using the command:
esxcfg-firewall -e swISCSIClient

Helpful links April 24, 2008

Recently cames across good links on VMware ESX you might wish to add them to your google reader or google home page

 

http://www.ntpro.nl/blog/

http://www.run-virtual.com/

http://www.gabesvirtualworld.com/

http://www.vinternals.com/

http://servervirtualization.blogs.techtarget.com/2008/04/22/attend-the-best-of-vmworld-virtually/

http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-2562 ESX3.5 and VC links

 

My understanding of VMMark April 21, 2008

Article is below only for review purpose and just to give me own review of vmmark, it is no means any kind analysis of VMMark. I would refer this and time to time for my own purpose.

It is used for measuring the scalability of workload on a given system and also application performance.

What is tile? In simple words six virtual machine running on test machine and one client(Physical Server) which will load these six virtual machine. These 5 Virtual Machine will hold diverse workload e.g.

1. Webserver
2. Java Server
3. File Server
4. Database Server
5. Mail Server
6. Test Server

This forms a mixed workload typically found in datacenter. Performance of each workload is measured and then combined with other workloads to form single score for a tile. Mulitple tile can be run simultaneously.Each workload is constraint to execute at less than full utilization of the Virtual Machine.However for workload throttling, you would need to add tile, if the system is not over committed then overall score including the new tile should be good. Number of tile and performance of each Virtual Machine forms overall VMMark score.

Now why one would or should use this VMMark ?

Simple if you wish to compare different hardware configuration(assuming you have same number of socket/core) to understand scalability,performance of application of the under test hardware. But this is in general which have customized software packs and Virtual Machine configuration, But what happens when you have customized builds of OS, customized builds of other application in your office,shop. This would be right platform to compare those on different hardware platform.

How do you interpret these scores ?

Higher VMMark score implies we can run more Virtual Machines. To get high score we typical load the system with more tiles. However when you get same score on different hardware with different number of tiles, then the one with lowest number of tile is suggested as best platform for Virtualization. One with higher tile count might have been over comitted or was not properly balanced.

 

Reference : HP’s VMMark Document ; VMMark FAQ

 

 

 

ESX and Virtual Center Build version Number April 19, 2008

Determining Detailed Build Number Information for VMware ESX Server 3.0.x Hosts

Good KB article available on the VMWare site

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1001179

 

query RPM Packages April 14, 2008

[root@UDA account]# rpm -qi zip-2.31-1.2.1
Name        : zip                          Relocations: (not relocatable)
Version     : 2.31                              Vendor: Red Hat, Inc.
Release     : 1.2.1                         Build Date: Sun 12 Feb 2006 09:36:31 PM CET
Install Date: Fri 02 Mar 2007 08:39:59 PM CET      Build Host: hs20-bc1-6.build.redhat.com
Group       : Applications/Archiving        Source RPM: zip-2.31-1.2.1.src.rpm
Size        : 303340                           License: distributable
Signature   : DSA/SHA1, Mon 06 Mar 2006 10:22:55 PM CET, Key ID b44269d04f2a6fd2
Packager    : Red Hat, Inc. <http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla>
URL         : http://www.info-zip.org/pub/infozip/Zip.html
Summary     : A file compression and packaging utility compatible with PKZIP.
Description :
The zip program is a compression and file packaging utility.  Zip is
analogous to a combination of the UNIX tar and compress commands and
is compatible with PKZIP (a compression and file packaging utility for
MS-DOS systems).

Install the zip package if you need to compress files using the zip
program.

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[root@UDA account]# rpm -ql zip-2.31-1.2.1
/usr/bin/zip
/usr/bin/zipcloak
/usr/bin/zipnote
/usr/bin/zipsplit
/usr/share/doc/zip-2.31
/usr/share/doc/zip-2.31/BUGS
/usr/share/doc/zip-2.31/CHANGES
/usr/share/doc/zip-2.31/LICENSE
/usr/share/doc/zip-2.31/MANUAL
/usr/share/doc/zip-2.31/README
/usr/share/doc/zip-2.31/TODO
/usr/share/doc/zip-2.31/WHATSNEW
/usr/share/doc/zip-2.31/WHERE
/usr/share/doc/zip-2.31/algorith.txt
/usr/share/man/man1/zip.1.gz

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cat /etc/vmware/netmap.conf to view contents of file

grep .name /etc/vmware/netmap.conf
find -name “*.vmx”

If you need to create an archive containing a group of files, type

tar cvf filename.tar directory
tar cvf archives/vm-configs.tar vmware

tar tvf filename.tar to view the contents of the file

ps -ef to view all process running on the service cosnole
ps -efH to know parent process

to list all progam running the background

jobs

to restart service

service service-name restart
e.g. service http.vmware restart

to start service at boot time

chkconfig service-name on

available services can be found at ls /etc/init.d

view disk

vdf -h

view the content of vmfs volume

vmkfstools -l vmfs_label
vmkfstools -l vmhba0:0:11

To find the size of the directory

du -sk directoryname

ESX TIPS April 7, 2008

Maximum amount of memory you can assign to service console is 800MB, 1600 MB is should be the

swap file size. VCB is license per host and not per processor as are VC,ESX,DRS,HA It is important to

note that virtual center uses a heartbeat per 5 min to check if license is up and changes are made to licenses.

HA Services running on the hosts itself and are NOT part of virtual center(VC), they are just configured using VC .

However DRS is controlled and managed by Virtual Center. DRS is driven by default interval of 5 min or when host

is added/moved from the cluster. So ideally DRS queries cluster 12 times in a hour. Based on this it prioritize series

of recommendations to level load across the cluster.

 

After logging level,Virtual Machine is the major factor in deciding the Virtual center database. Beware changing your logging level wipes out all your previous logged data.

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One of the physical NICs will be allocated exclusively to the ESX console. It is through this ESX Server Service Console NIC that all connections to the ESX node are made, as well as SCP, SSH, or any other tool to access the ESX Server’s file system.

vmxnet virtual NICs can be utilized only after you install the VMware tools onto your virtual machine. When you replace Vlance NIC type to vmxnet NIC, you would have to re-ip the Virtual Machine. 

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What is trunk port ?

It is port configured to carry traffic from multiple VLAN’s. This means every packet flowing through this port is tagged and other end(typically switch) knows where this packet belongs to. So in order to enable VLAN’s in Port which connects to NIC on ESX should be trunked(802.1q VLAN Trunk). Never forget to assign Native VLAN. Anything on Native VLAN is not tagged and whichever packet is not tagged it is not seen by Guest on ESX. And also configure port to allow other VLAN on it, this makes sure that all VLAN’s can been seen by the port.

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What happens when you do “Service network restart” ?

It restarts eth0, service console nic and lo which is loopback adapter.

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VMWare Tools, VLANS November 21, 2007

Few good articles i came across and found rich in knowledge, would like to share with you all

Configuring VLANs in VMware Infrastructure 3 (VI3)

 

How to Install VMWare Tools Through Windows Group Policy

Logs,vpxd November 1, 2007

Where is the vm-support dumping it’s data ?

= > /var/lib/vmware/hostd/docroot/downloads

Vpxd-#.log is circular in nature, which means they start over again with vpxd-0.log when the size limit is reached. You either check the vpxd-index file for checking what the current log index is or easier is to sort by date.

Virtual center logs rotate at 5MB and also when vpxd is started

How to’s October 31, 2007

How to find version of virtual center you are running?

D:\Program Files\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter 2.0>vpxd.exe -v
VMware VirtualCenter 2.0.1 build-32042

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Few ESX Commands

vmkping - use vmkernel to ping a device

esxcfg-vswif for configuring network interface

vm-support to run diagnostic commands

esxupdate -l query query patches installed on ESX Server

esxcfg-rescan vmhba1 to rescan HBA’s

ps -ef | grep hostd To check hostd is running

esxcfg-mpath -l to list path details

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Important Log and their locations

VMKernel Logs = > /var/log/vmware/

VIClient logs = > /var/log/vmware/hostd.log

Virtual Center interaction logs = > /var/log/vmware/vpx/vpxa-*.log

VMWare Patch activity logs = > /var/log/vmware/esxupdate.log

[root@esx2007a config]# cat vmware-sites
FULLTIME_SITES_TID 00000061
+ 1:8042,8042,8043 esx2007e vmware #FT_Agent_Port=8045
+ 2:8042,8042,8043 esx2007d vmware
+ 3:8042,8042,8043 esx2007b vmware
+ 4:8042,8042,8043 esx2007a vmware
+ 5:8042,8042,8043 esx2007c vmware

License server logs = > %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Application Data\VMware\VMware License Server\lmgrd.log

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STORAGE

When ESX Server scans the SAN, each HBA reports all LUNs visible on the storage network; each LUN reports an ID that uniquely identifies it to all nodes on the storage network. After detecting the same unique LUN ID reported by the storage network, the VMkernel automatically enables multiple, redundant paths to this LUN, known as multi-pathing.ESX Server uses a single storage path for a particular LUN until the LUN becomes unavailable over this path. After noting the path failure, ESX Server switches to an operational path.

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VIRTUAL CENTER:

SQL Server authentication will work predictably on local and remote database servers. NT authentication requires VC to run with a service account that has access to the DB; “Local System”account does not have access to remote servers.

vpxd.exe VirtualCenter Server service

vpxd.cfg VirtualCenter Server configuration

vpxa VirtualCenterAgent

If you create partition from virtual center then that partition is automatically aligned, in case you are creating partition using vmkfstools then you will have to manually align the partition using fdisk. But this is not enough you also have to align partition at guest level as well, which can be easily achieved using diskpart if the os is windows.