Network Interface Cards

VMware virtualizes two Network Interface Cards (NICs) from the hardware world:
1. The vlance adapter (a virtualized AMD 79C970 PCnet32 adapter)
2. The e1000 adapter (a virtualized Intel e1000 adapter)

The remaining vNICs VMware offers are built from the ground up, including the VMXNET3, the third generation of paravirtualized NIC adapter from VMware.
More vQuotes

VMware VI3 license files

VMware VI3 license files by default are in UNIX format, without DOS/Windows return codes at the end of each line. DO NOT edit license files using Notepad or the license file may become corrupt and unreadable by the VMware License Server. Use WordPad or a third-party text editor that supports UNIX newlines.

"Oh, and by the way," the same applies to ESX kickstart files.

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/8996281
More vQuotes

CHAP for iSCSI security

ESX can be configured to use CHAP for iSCSI security. CHAP authenticates with a 3-way handshake at the time of the initial link, and may happen again any random time afterwards. The verification is based on a shared secret (essentially, the CHAP password). CHAP provides protection against playback attacks by incrementally changing the identifier and by using a variable challenge value.
More vQuotes

Microsoft AD authentication

Integrating Microsoft AD authentication in the ESX Service Console used to be somewhat of a daunting task. Today, the steps have been greatly condensed & I find it a cinch:

1. Create a local user account on the ESX host for each AD user account you would like to authenticate
2. Use esxcfg-auth to configure the ESX host to be AD integrated

Or, implement vSphere 4.1's new AD integration feature via the vSphere Client
More vQuotes

Unable to remove a vDS

Problem: You're unable to remove a vDS.
Error: "The resource vim.dvs.distributedvirtualport xxx is in use" (but it's not!)
Resolution: It's a bug. One of the following will safely fix the condition:
1. Connect directly to the host using the vSphere client and perform the necessary removal.
2. Click on the host Configuration tab, vDS button, Manage Physical Adapters. Perform the necessary removal.
More vQuotes

Resize a .vmdk virtual disk file

Resize a .vmdk virtual disk file at the ESX Service Console with the following command:

vmkfstools -X 50G mydisk.vmdk

The numerical value represent the new size of the disk, not the relative change in size. Size can be specified in G,M, or K (guess what these mean?). In ESX 2.x, disks could be increased and decreased in size, however, as of ESX3 and beyond, disks can only be increased in size.
See http://bit.ly/X5Hoa
More vQuotes

New in VMware vSphere 4.1

What's New in VMware vSphere 4.1

vStorage APIs for Data Protection (VADP) Enhancements - VADP now offers VSS quiescing support for Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 servers. This enables application-consistent backup and restore operations for Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 applications.
More vQuotes

Advanced Configuration

NetApp & EMC NFS VMkernel Advanced Configuration Best Practices

NFS.HeartbeatDelta - 12 (default 5)
ESX checks for reachable storage every 12 seconds
NFS.HeartbeatTimeout - 5 (default 5)
Number of seconds before a heartbeat times out & another is sent
NFS.HeartbeatMaxFailures - 10 (default 3)
Number of consecutive heartbeat failures required to mark datastore as unavailable
More vQuotes

ESX snapshots

ESX snapshots by default are created in the virtual machine directory, even if the virtual machine directory & virtual disks are located on different datastores.

To change the location of the snapshot, add (or edit) the following line to the .vmx file of the VM:
workingDir="[new_path_location]"

Force a re-read of the virtual machine configuration by issuing the command:
vimsh -ne "vmsvc/reload [VmId]" see also May 13th
More vQuotes

Load averages in ESXTOP

Load averages in ESXTOP are 6-second sample calculations based on the total number of cores in the host in the last 1, 5, and 15 minutes. For example, values of .50, .50, .50 would mean 50% host utilization evenly in the last 15 minutes. A reading of 1.00, .50, 0.03 would indicate an idle host 15 minutes ago and a fully utilized host as of 1 minute ago.
More vQuotes

Decrease VM evacuation times

Decrease VM evacuation times by increasing concurrent vMotion migrations per host (get VMware support approval first):
-On vCenter server, edit c:\docs & settings\all users\application data\vmware\vmware virtualcenter\vpdx.cfg
-Insert the following lines between the [vpdx] XML tags:
[ResourceManager]
[maxCostPerHost]24[/maxCostPerHost]
[/ResourceManager]
Cold Migration has a cost of 1. Hot Migration has a cost of 4.
More vQuotes

Storage alternatives

Use cheaper/slower/less redundant storage alternatives (sometimes referred to as "cheap and deep storage") for your templates, .iso files, and, potentially, snapshots or VMkernel swap. Save the higher performing and more expensive storage for your running VMs.
More vQuotes

VMware Tools for Linux

VMware Tools for Linux comes in the form of two available packages: The RPM Installer (has an .RPM file extension) and the TAR Installer (has a .tar.gz extension). Some will argue that the RPM installer is easier to use; however, not all Linux distros can take advantage of the RPM installer.

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1018414
See also: http://bit.ly/9BKczp
More vQuotes

ESX file info

Find out Size, Used, Available, and %Used of your ESX file system (including VM datastores) with the following command (-h displays more human friendly information):

vdf -h

In ESX, the command df -h provides similar output but omits datastore information in the results, hence only local Service Console storage information is displayed.

In ESXi, df -h displays datastore utilization.
More vQuotes

Recent vCenter Server builds

Recent vCenter Server builds (English) & release dates
vCenter 4.1, 7/13/10, Build 259021
vCenter 4.0 u2, 6/9/10, Build 264050
vCenter 4.0 u1, 11/19/09, Build 208167
vCenter 4.0, 5/21/09, Build 162902
vCenter 2.5 u6, 1/29/10, Build 227666
vCenter 2.5 u5, 7/10/09, Build 174768
vCenter 2.5 u4, 2/23/09, Build 147633
vCenter 2.5 u3, 10/3/08, Build 119598
vCenter 2.5 u2, 7/25/08, Build 104263
http://bit.ly/aK8zQ
More vQuotes

Disable the ESX firewall

*Temporarily disable the ESX firewall with service firewall stop or the following commands:
-esxcfg-firewall -allowIncoming
-esxcfg-firewall -allowOutgoing
*Permanently disable the firewall with chmod 644 /etc/init.d/firewall
(re-enable with chmod 744)
*Enable the ESX firewall with the following commands:
-service firewall start (if it was stopped)
-esxcfg-firewall -blockIncoming
-esxcfg-firewall -blockOutgoing
More vQuotes

Troubleshoot a vSphere cluster

To troubleshoot a vSphere cluster showing Noncompliant on the Profile Compliance tab, check the following:

FT logging NIC speed is at least 1000 Mbps
At least one shared datastore exists.
FT logging is enabled
vMotion NIC speed is at least 1000 Mbps
All the hosts in the cluster have the same build for Fault Tolerance (pre 4.1)
The host hardware supports Fault Tolerance
vMotion is enabled

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1017471
More vQuotes

New in VMware vSphere 4.1

What's New in VMware vSphere 4.1

Storage I/O Control - provides QoS capabilities for storage I/O in the form of I/O shares & limits that are enforced across all virtual machines accessing a datastore, regardless of the host on which they are running. Using SIOC, vSphere administrators can ensure that the most important virtual machines get adequate I/O resources even in times of congestion.

http://bit.ly/d16N7f
More vQuotes

VMware vSphere 4.1

What's New in VMware vSphere 4.1

vMotion Enhancements significantly reduce host evacuation time, with support for more simultaneous VM migrations and faster individual VM migrations. The result is a performance improvement of up to 8x for an individual VM migration, and support for 4 to 8 simultaneous vMotion migrations per host, depending on the vMotion network adapter (1GbE or 10GbE respectively).

http://bit.ly/9q9HW8
More vQuotes

HA isolation response

Determining detailed build number information for VMware ESX hosts

In some cases, after patches have been installed on an ESX host, different build numbers are reported for different components of ESX Server. These KB articles provide details of the build information for ESX:

ESX 4.x: http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1012514

ESX 3.x: http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1001179
More vQuotes

VMware Express

On this day in 2010, VMware announced that VMware Express will hit the road this week. VMware Express is a state-of-the-art mobile datacenter, demo lab and briefing center designed to bring desktop virtualization and cloud computing solutions from VMware directly to customers and partners across the United States and Canada. VMware Express Virtualization Tour 2010 will stop in 150 cities.

http://bit.ly/bUBbtw
More vQuotes

Machine performance statistics

Without a vCenter Server, only the past 1 hour of Host and Virtual Machine performance statistics are available for the vSphere Client to collect from the host.
More vQuotes

Health of a vCenter database

Investigating the health of a vCenter database server

VMware vCenter Server woes can sometimes stem from back end database issues. VMware KB 1003979 provides many tips in troubleshooting vCenter in a Microsoft SQL Server environment.

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1003979
More vQuotes

Add a static route

Add a static route for an additional Service Console interface with the following command:

/sbin/route add -net [subnet ID] netmask [subnet mask] gw [gateway for 2nd COS]

Example:
/sbin/route add -net 10.10.24.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 gw 192.168.0.2

Make the above change persistent by adding it to /etc/rc.local
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1005212
More vQuotes

Free LUNs!

"Hey! Free LUNs!" or "There's no such thing as a free LUN"

Be sure to maintain good documentation and solid procedures when using RDMs. The intrinsic risk with RDMs is that any LUN presented to ESX(i) and not formatted as a VMFS volume will appear as available storage to administrators in the vSphere Client.
More vQuotes

Microsoft Network Load Balancing

When virtualizing Microsoft Network Load Balancing (NLB) in unicast mode, be sure the effective "Notify Switches" switch port policy for this VM (whether by portgroup or by vSwitch) is set to "No" or else the VM will have various networking issues with other network hosts.

NLB in multicast mode is not impacted by this setting.
More vQuotes