Category Archives: VMware

Solving the “vami.DNS0.vsphere_Management_Assistance_(vMA)” error

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Today I installed a VMware Management Assistance appliance in my home lab. After powering it on the following error message is showing.

 

I started searching and found an VMware KB article that describes the solution. See VMware KB2007012. There is also a solution posted in the VMware forums, see http://communities.vmware.com/message/1887178 

Solution 1. VMware KB2007012

Cause

This issue can occur if you do not have a predefined set of IP address ranges for the vMA appliance virtual machine to choose from.

Resolution

IP pools provide a network identity to vApps. An IP pool is a network configuration that is assigned to a network used by a vApp. The vApp can then leverage vCenter Server to automatically provide an IP configuration to its virtual machines. You can set up an IP address range by specifying a host address range within a network.

To set up a range:

  1. In the Inventory, select the datacenter that contains the vApp.
  2. On the IP Pools tab, right-click the IP pool you want to edit and select Properties.
    Note:If no IP Pools are present, click Add to add a new IP Pool.
  3. Create a DATA/NFS IP Pool.
  4. Name the IP Pool Name DATA/NFS.
  5. In the Properties dialog, click the IPv4 or the IPv6 tab, depending on your IP protocol.
  6. Enter the IP Subnet and Gateway in the respective fields.
  7. Select the Enable IP Pool check box.
    Note: You must enable this setting to specify an IP address range.
  8. Enter a comma-separated list of host address ranges in the Ranges field. A range is specified as an IP address, a pound sign (#), and a number indicating the length of the range. The gateway and the ranges must be within the subnet, but must exclude the gateway address. For example, 10.20.60.4#10, 10.20.61.0#2 indicates that the IPv4 addresses can range from 10.20.60.4 to 10.209.60.13 and 10.20.61.0 to 10.20.61.1.
  9. Click OK when finished.
  10. Click Associations tab, and select the network that should use the IP Pool.

Now the vMA appliance virtual machine will power on.

Note: Ensure that IPv4 has been enabled for the IP Pool. If this is not enabled, the vApp will fail.

Solution 2. Dissable vApp options.

Edit the settings of the vMA. Go to the options tab and disable vApp options.

 

Template options grayed out

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Today I was trying to remove an old template from my home lab. This was not an easy task because all the options where grayed out. See screenshot of the vSphere Client.


This is also the case in the vSphere Web Client. See second screenshot.

My home lab is running the latest version of VMware vSphere 5.1U1. I checked if the permissions are set correctly, in my case this is correct. I was using the root account of my vCenter appliance. This account had also rights to remove a template. I tried another account, same result.

I started Googling, and found some old posts that described the same problem.

Arne Fokkema created a PowerShell script to solve his problem, but in his case this is for a vSphere 4 environment. See http://ict-freak.nl/2009/08/06/vsphere-deploy-template-grayed-out/
I am using a vSphere 5.1 environment, I tried his solution with some adjustments. Because I have only one template that is not working correctly I had to striped his script into two separate commands. These are:

Set-Template Win2k8R2_Template -ToVM

And

Set-VM Win2k8R2_Template -ToTemplate

After running these commands I was able to delete my template. Problem solved.

vExpert 2013 awardees announced

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Last night John Troyer and Corey Romero of VMware announced the vExpert 2013 awards.

We’re pleased to announce the list of vExperts for 2013. Each of these vExperts have demonstrated significant contributions to the community and a willingness to share their expertise with others. We are blown away by the passion and knowledge in this group, a group that is responsible for much of the virtualization evangelism that is taking place in the world — both publicly in books, blogs, online forums, and VMUGs; and privately inside customers and VMware partners. Congratulations to you all!

And guess what…. I am one of them!! This is my first time and I am very happy and proud of it.

I would like to thank John Troyer, Corey Romero, and the VMware Social Media & Community Team for making this possible.

Congratulations to all the other vExperts! The list of vExperts can be found here.


vmw-vexpert


VCAP5-DCA Objective 5.2 – Deploy and Manage Complex Update Manager Environments

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Knowledge

  • Identify firewall access rules for Update Manager

Skills and Abilities

  • Install and configure Update Manager Download Service
  • Configure a shared repository
  • Configure smart rebooting
  • Manually download updates to a repository
  • Perform orchestrated vSphere upgrades
  • Create and modify baseline groups
  • Troubleshoot Update Manager problem areas and issues
  • Generate database reports using MS Excel or MS SQL
  • Upgrade vApps using Update Manager
  • Utilize Update Manager PowerCLI to export baselines for testing
  • Utilize the Update Manager Utility to reconfigure vUM settings
    Continue reading →

A general system error occured: pending vpxa update.

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When you upgrade a VMware vSphere environment the following error can occur when you just updated the VMware vCenter server.


In my case this was an upgrade of VMware vCenter 4.1 to VMware vCenter 5.1 with VMware vSphere ESX 4.1 hosts. In the installation of vCenter I checked the option to upgrade the vCenter agents on the hosts automatically. After the installation of vCenter I checked the status of the hosts. The following error was showing.


This sometimes happens. I started searching for a solution. I found VMware KB1002672 and VMware KB1003714 that describes my problem.

Reading both KB articles my first try was to manually restart the vpxa agent and the management agents. See VMware KB1003490

When reading the different articles my ESX host was already unreachable for my vCenter server. Communication to the host was no problem.

So I started SSH and restarted the management Agents. Then I restarted the vpxa agent service. Both where successful. Now select Connect in vCenter. The installation of the new vpxa agent started again and now it was successful after a couple of minutes. Problem solved.

If there are still problems, see VMware KB1003714 for a manual installation of the vpxa agent.

Disabling SSL encryption on VMware Converter Standalone 5.x to increase cloning performance

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When you perform a P2V of a physical server to a virtual server the performance is not to great. It could be a lot better when you turn of the SSL encryption.

This post is a note to myself. Turn of SSL encryption when doing a P2V and you don’t want to wait a long time 🙂

Source: VMware KB2020517

Purpose

By default, the VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 5.0 default the converter worker encrypts the data stream using SSL. Encrypting the traffic increases security, but it can decrease performance.

This article provides steps to disable SSL encryption in VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 5.0.

Resolution

To disable SSL encryption for the converter worker:

  1. Locate the converter-worker.xml file. By default, it is located at:
    • Windows 7 and 2008 Server – C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware vCenter Converter Standalone
    • Windows Vista, XP and 2003 Server – %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\VMware\VMware vCenter Converter Standalone
    • In older Windows versions – %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Application Data\VMware\VMware vCenter Converter Standalone
  2. Take a backup of the converter-worker.xml file.
  3. Open the file in a text editor and locate the tag pair <useSsl></useSsl>. It is located inside the <nfc> tag and has a value of true.
  4. Change the value to false.
  5. Save and close the file.
  6. Restart the VMware vCenter Converter Standalone Worker service on the machine.

VMware has also created a Youtube movie.


VCAP5-DCA Objective 4.2 – Deploy and Test VMware FT

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Knowledge

  • Identify VMware FT hardware requirements
  • Identify VMware FT compatibility requirements

Skills and Abilities

  • Modify VM and ESXi host settings to allow for FT compatibility
  • Use VMware best practices to prepare a vSphere environment for FT
  • Configure FT logging
  • Prepare the infrastructure for FT compliance
  • Test FT failover, secondary restart, and application fault tolerance in a FT Virtual Machine

Continue reading →

VCAP5-DCA Objective 4.1 – Implement and Maintain Complex VMware HA Solutions

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Knowledge

  • Identify the three admission control policies for HA
  • Identify heartbeat options and dependencies

Skills and Abilities 

  • Calculate host failure requirements
  • Configure customized isolation response settings
  • Configure HA redundancy
    • Management Network
    • Datastore Heartbeat
    • Network partitions
  • Configure HA related alarms and monitor an HA cluster
  • Create a custom slot size configuration
  • Understand interactions between DRS and HA
  • Analyze vSphere environment to determine appropriate HA admission control policy
  • Analyze performance metrics to calculate host failure requirements
  • Analyze Virtual Machine workload to determine optimum slot size
  • Analyze HA cluster capacity to determine optimum cluster size
    Continue reading →

Solving the Invalid configuration for device ‘0’ error

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Today I noticed something strange in our brand new VMware vSphere 5.1 environment. I was trying to patch a Windows 2012 template when I noticed it didn’t have a network connection. This VM is using a Distributed Switch Configuration.



So I checked the VM settings, and indeed it wasn’t connected.

So I checked the Connected box, and the following error appears. Invalid configuration for device ‘0’. See screenshot.

The solution for this error is simple. Connect the network card to another network. Than place it back to the original network. Now it works again.
For more information about this error see the following articles: