Tag Archives: VMware

VMworld 2015 General Sessions

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This week is VMware organizing there yearly event VMworld. I can’t attend, but I’ve watched both keynotes with all the new things. VMware has published the General session from Monday, August 31 on there YouTube channel.

It was a very interesting keynote with a lot of new things…

Resetting an expired password in vCenter 5.1 Single Sign-On (SSO)

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A customer of ours was unable to login to their VMware vCenter 5.1 environment. I researched the environment and concluded that there SSO password was expired.

Error messages in the vSphere webclient: “provided credentials are not valid”. Also the admin@system-domain account was unable to logon, same error message. And I was 100% sure this was the correct password.

I started searching the VMware KB articles and found one that describes how to reset the password. See VMware KB2035864.

Resetting an expired password in vCenter Single Sign-On (SSO) (2035864)

Details

  • vCenter Single Sign-On account (SSO) passwords expire after 365 days, including the password for admin@system-domain.
  • In vSphere 5.1, you see this error on a login attempt with an expired password:
    Web Client: “provided credentials are not valid”
  • In the vsphere_client_virgo.log, you see the error:
    SOAP fault javax.xml.ws.soap.SOAPFaultException: Authentication failed

Solution

vCenter Single Sign-On administrator users can change expired passwords for System-Domain users. Request that an administrator resets your password.

If you are a vCenter Single Sign-On administrator user, use the ssopass command-line tool to reset the password.

On the Windows host running vCenter Single Sign-On:

  1. Open an elevated command prompt and run the command:
    SET JAVA_HOME=C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\jre
    Note: This is the default path of the JRE folder for vCenter Server 5.1. If vCenter Server has been installed in a custom location, change command accordingly.
  2. Navigate to the ssolscli directory
    c:\>cd C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\SSOServer\ssolscli
  3. Run the following command:
    ssopass -d https://FQDN_of_SSO_server:7444/lookupservice/sdk username
  4. Type your current password, even if it is expired.
  5. Type the new password, and then type it again to confirm.

Note: If the above steps fail to update the password, see Logging in to the vSphere Web Client using admin@system-domain fails with the error: associated users password is expired (2060150).

From the vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA):

  1. Log in to the vCenter Server Appliance as root.
    Note: The default password is vmware.
  2. Navigate to this directory:
    /usr/lib/vmware-sso/bin
  3. Run this command:
    ./ssopass -d https://FQDN_of_SSO_server:7444/lookupservice/sdk username
  4. Type the current password for the user, even if it is expired.
  5. Type the new password, and then type it again to confirm.

This document helped me to regain access to the VMware vCenter environment. Problem solved.

Downloading VMware software with the VMware Software Manager tool

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I was reading the VMware blogs and ran into a very useful blog post. This blogpost was titled: Downloading a VMware Suite with the Push of a Button using VMware Software Manager. That sounds realy interesting, especially now that VMware vSphere 6.0 is available for download.

 

What does the VMware Software Manager do?

  • Provides an easy to use interface to find, select & download the content needed to install or upgrade a VMware suite
  • Verifies the suite or product was downloaded without corruption
  • Automatically detects the release of new VMware suites, products and versions and displays them for download

This sounds very promising. You can download the tool from the VMware Site. It is free to use.
After a very simple installation, the managers starts your internet explorer. You need to login with your My VMware credentials. 


After login with your My VMware credentials, an overview is given with the software where you are entitled to. 


You can than simply select the product or the version. 


Push the download button, and the download starts.. 


The files are placed in the Depot directory that is configured at the setup.
This method safes me a lot of searching and downloading.. VMware states in there blog post that more products will be added.
Conclusion, a very useful tool to keep up with all the VMware Software releases.

Solving the vSphere Web Client cannot connect to the vCenter Single Sign On server error.

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After a power failure in my home lab, I tried to login to my vCenter Appliance and get this error “The vSphere Web Client cannot connect to the vCenter Single Sign On Server”.


The solution for this problem is quite simple. For the vCenter Appliance, log in to the Management page of the vCenter Appliance. Stop and Start the vSphere Web Client Services. 


For the Windows based vCenter, restart the vSphere Web Client Services.
After a few minutes everything is ok. Problem Solved.

** Edit 02-03-2016 **

Reboot of the vCenter Appliance should also solve the problem.

VMware vExpert 2015 Announcement

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Yesterday the VMware vExpert for 2015 were announced. And YES I am one of them for the third time.

The complete list of all the vExperts can be found here.

Each of these vExperts have demonstrated significant contributions to the community and a willingness to share their expertise with others.

I would like to thank Corey Romero and the rest of the VMware Social & Community Team for making this possible.
Congratulations to all the other 2015 vExperts.

What’s new in VMware vSphere 6?

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Yesterday VMware announced VMware vSphere 6. Here is an overview of the main improvements and new features (over 650 new features and innovations).

Scalability 

  • vSphere Clusters: Up to 64 nodes and 8000 VMs
  • Hosts: 480 physical CPUs, 12 TB RAM, 64 TB datastores, 1000 VMs and 32 serial ports. vGPU Nvidia support
  • VMs: Up to 128 vCPUs and 4 TB vRAM

vCenter Server

  • Platform Services Controller (PSC). The Platform Services Controller (PSC) contains common Infrastructure Services such as:
    • Single Sign-On
    • Licensing
    • Certificate Authority
    • Certificate Store
    • Service (Product) Registration
    • Other future services
    • PSC is a central part that is used for example by vCoud Suite parts such as vCenter, vRealize Operations, etc.). For most environments (8 or less vCenter Servers) a vCenter Server with 1 embedded PSC is sufficient.
  • Enhanced Link Mode (ELM). Enhanced Link Mode (ELM) will support Windows and vCSA deployments and require a Platform Services Controller (PSC).
  •  vCenter Server Appliance (vCSA):
    • ISO file that contains a guided installer
    • Embedded vPostgres database. As external database Oracle is supported.
    • Enhanced Linked mode support
    • VDP support for backup and recovery of the vCSA

 Storage

  • Storage I/O Control (SIOC).  Per VM storage reservation
  • NFS 4.1 with Kerberos support. NFS client support for NFS 4.1
  • Virtual Volumes (VVols) and Storage Policy-Based Management. Enables VM-aware storage. VVOl is offered by storage vendors such as NetApp, Dell, PureStorage, EMC, Nimblestorage, IBM and Tintri
  • Virtual SAN (VSAN) 6 contains the following improvements:
    • Scalability improvements


    • New On-Disk format for higher performance, efficient and scalable high performance snapshots and clones.
    • All flash support
    • Usability improvements in Web Client such as:
      • Storage consumption information
      • Resync status information
    • Failure Domains. Allow grouping of hosts into different logical failure zones. This ensures replicas from a VM are not provisioned onto the same logical failure zone. Failure Domains are no metro/stretched clusters! Failure Domains is also known as rack awareness.
    • Disks serviceability. Map the location of a magnetic or flash device from the Web Client on failures, SSD, local etc.
    • VSAN is sold as separate product and not included in the license

Availability

  • 64 node cluster support and 6000 VMs
  • VMware VM Component Protection (VMCP)
  • vMotion Across vCenter Servers.
  • vMotion across virtual (distributed) switches
    • No need of shared vMotion is needed
  • Long-Distance vMotion up to 100ms RTTs
    • Benefits: Permanent migrations between data centers
    • Disaster avoidance (DA)
    • SRM/DA testing
    • Multi-site load balancing
  • Fault Tolerance (FT) increase support for 1, 2 and 4 vCPU VMs
  • Integration with vCloud Air (replication and backup)
  • vSphere Replication. 5 mins increments (5.5 was 15 minutes) and 2000k replicated VMs per vCenter
  • App HA. Support for more business critical applications

Network

  • Network I/O Control (NIOC). Per VM and Distributed Switch bandwidth reservation

Management

  • vSphere Web Client enhancements such as better performance and tagging improvements.
  • The vSphere Client C# is still available in this release. No new features are in this release. Hardware versions 9 to 11 features are read-only or unavailable in the vSphere Client C#.
  • Multi-Site Content Library. Stores and sync VMs, Templates, OVFs, ISOs and scripts from one central location and sync the content across other vCenter Servers (sites)
  • vSphere 6 has support for Hardware Version 11. Main improvements of Hardware Version 11 are:
    • Maximum video memory up to 2 GB (512 MB in Hardware Version  10)
    • PCI pass-through 16 devices (6 in Hardware Version  10)
    • 32 serial ports (4 in in Hardware Version  10)

When you compare vSphere 5.0, 5.1, 5.5 & 6, vSphere 6 makes a giant leap forward.

Feature

VMware vSphere 5.0

VMware vSphere 5.1

VMware vSphere 5.5

VMware vSphere 6.0
VM HW Version

Virtual Hardware 8

Virtual Hardware 9

Virtual Hardware 10

Virtual Hardware 11
vCPU

32 vCPUs

64 vCPUs

64 vCPUs

128 vCPUs
VM Memory

1 TB

1 TB

1 TB

4 TB
Graphics Support

Software based 3D graphics

Hardware based 3D graphics

Improved 3D graphics Support

WDDM 1.1 GDI graphics acceleration
Cluster Nodes

32 Nodes

32 Nodes

32 Nodes

64 Nodes
Max CPU per Host

160

160

320

480
Max Mem per Host

2 TB

2 TB

4 TB

12 TB
Max vCPU per FT VM

1 vCPU

1 vCPU

1 vCPU

4 vCPU
vCSA with Embedded
Database

5 hosts and 50 VMs

5 hosts and 50 VMs

300 hosts and 1000 VMs

1000 Hosts and 10000 VMs
Content Library

NA

NA

NA

Content Library introduced with
vSphere 6.0
VSAN

NA

NA

VSAN 5.5

VSAN 6.0
vMotion Enhancements

vMotion Supported

vMotion without Shared Storage

vMotion without Shard Storage
Long Distance vMotion (10ms RTTs)

vMotion across vCenters vMotion
across Virtual Switches Long
Distance vMotion (100+ms RTTs)
Virtual Volumes (Vvols)

NA

NA

NA

Available with vSphere 6.0
NFS Support

NFS v3

NFS v3

NFS v3

NFS 4.1 Support Multipathing and
Kerberos Authentication
vCenter Single Sign-on

NA

Introduced with 5.1

SSO with Improved architecture

SSO incudes as part of
Platform Services Controller

 

More information:

Try the new VMware vSphere 6.0 features, go to the VMware Hand on Labs!

VMware Template unable to Convert to Virtual Machine

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Sometimes the following will happen:

You have a couple of templates and want to update them, you right click the VMware Template and the option to convert to Virtual Machine is grayed out. In this case it was a VMware vSphere ESXi 5.5U2 environment.

Also the Rename and other options are grayed out. How to solve this issue?

Try to deploy a virtual machine from this template. After you successful deployment the options are available again. Strange, but in my case it works..

Solve the “System logs on ESXi Host are stored on non-persistent storage” message

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Recently I had to install a few VMware ESXi 5.5 host on removable SD cards. After the installation finishes and you connect the first time with the vSphere Client, a message is displayed.


This means that the log files are written on the SD card. After a reboot the log files disappear. This could be a problem when trying to trouble shoot a problem and the ESXi host has rebooted.

So how to solve this configuration issue. See VMware KB2032823 for instructions. This is very easy and highly advisable.

Verify the Location of System Logs in the vSphere Client

  1. In the vSphere Client, select the host in the inventory panel.
  2. Click the Configuration tab and click Advanced Settings under Software.
  3. Make sure that Syslog.global.logDir points to a persistent location.
    The directory should be specified as [datastorename] path_to_file where the path is relative to the datastore. For example, [datastore1] /systemlogs.
  4. If the Syslog.global.logDir field is empty or explicitly points to a scratch partition, make sure that the field ScratchConfig.CurrentScratchLocation shows a location on persistent storage.

Verify the Location of System Logs in the vSphere Web Client

  1. Browse to the host in the vSphere Web Client navigator.
  2. On the Manage tab click Settings.
  3. Under System, click Advanced System Settings.
  4. Make sure that Syslog.global.logDir points to a persistent location.
  5. If the field Syslog.global.logDir is empty or points to a scratch partition, make sure that the field ScratchConfig.CurrentScratchLocation shows a location on persistent storage.

    Note: You must reboot the host for the changes to take effect.

Solve the Flex-common-lib-x.x.x.swf fail to load error 2032

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When connecting to the vSphere web client with Firefox the following error could occur. RSL https://vcenterserver:9443/vsphere-client/locales/rsl/flex-common-lib-5.5.0.swf failed to load. Error #2032

This happened to me after an upgrade to the latest version of VMware vCenter.


A quick search on google resulted in a solution. Clear your cache from your browser. In my case Firefox. Reload the site, and problem solved.

VCAP5-DCA Objective 9.1 – Install ESXi hosts with custom settings

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Knowledge

  • Identify custom installation options
  • Identify ESXi Image Builder requirements

Skills and Abilities 

  • Create/Edit Image Profiles
  • Install/uninstall custom drivers
  • Configure advanced boot loader options
  • Configure kernel options
  • Given a scenario, determine when to customize a configuration

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