Remediate task fails with error “Cannot execute upgrade script on host.”. This is an unidentified issue as of now and no KB article available. Workaround is manually disable HA agent on host and start remediate task again.
Disable HA agent manually using ssh session.
#cp /opt/vmware/uninstallers/VMware-fdm-uninstall.sh /tmp
#chmod +x /tmp/VMware-fdm-uninstall.sh
#/tmp/VMware-fdm-uninstall.sh
Requirements:
A. A valid open Windows 2003 license [MS Volume License]
B. A valid W2k3 Volume License CD or ISO
Steps:
1. Use VMware converter to convert your server to a virtual machine.
2. Connect to converted VM
3. While still in the “Edit Settings” screen, go to the “Options” tab, then click on “Boot Options” and click the box to force you into the bios settings.
4. Open the console for the VM and start the machine
5. Boot to BIOS, make CD ROM is the first boot device.
6. Save settings and exit, Let it boot, press any key to boot from the CD
7. Choose “Install”, and then repair it.
8. Enter the CD Key in which you enter your Volume License key
9. Install VMware Tools.
10. Shutdown old server and change the address in Windows to that of the old server, test application.
ESX/ESXi 4.x and later version included a feature called HotPlug. In some deployments virtual NICs can appear as removable devices on the System Tray in Windows guest operating systems. Problems can occur if you mistake this device for one that you can safely remove
Disable HotPlug capability using the vSphere Client:
devices.hotplug and a value of false. .vmx file: .vmx) in a text editor. The default location is:/vmfs/volumes/datastore_name/vm_name/vm_name.vmx devices.hotplug = "false"Locate the converter-worker.xml file. By default, it is located at:
cd "/vmfs/volumes/Datastore Name/Directory Name/" ls -ltotal 320
-rw------- 1 root root 8684 Aug 30 10:53 examplevm.nvram
-rw------- 1 root root 21474836480 Aug 30 10:26 examplevm-flat.vmdk
-rw------- 1 root root 482 Aug 30 11:26 examplevm.vmdk
-rw------- 1 root root 0 Aug 30 10:33 examplevm.vmsd
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 2724 Aug 30 12:20 examplevm.vmx
-rw------- 1 root root 264 Aug 30 12:20 examplevm.vmxf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 39168 Aug 30 10:53 vmware.log vmkfstools -E OldName.vmdk NewName.vmdkvmkfstools -E examplevm.vmdk examplevm-renamed.vmdkls -ltotal 320
-rw------- 1 root root 8684 Aug 30 10:53 examplevm.nvram
-rw------- 1 root root 21474836480 Aug 30 10:26 examplevm-renamed-flat.vmdk
-rw------- 1 root root 482 Aug 30 11:26 examplevm-renamed.vmdk
-rw------- 1 root root 0 Aug 30 10:33 examplevm.vmsd
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 2724 Aug 30 12:20 examplevm.vmx
-rw------- 1 root root 264 Aug 30 12:20 examplevm.vmxf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 39168 Aug 30 10:53 vmware.logA previous installation of VMware Tools has been detected.
The previous installation was made by the tar installer (version 4).
Keeping the tar4 installer database format.
You have a version of VMware Tools installed. Continuing this install will
first uninstall the currently installed version. Do you wish to continue?
(yes/no) [yes]
If you select yes, the following error message appears:
Error: Unable to find the binary installation directory (answer BINDIR)
in the installer database file "/etc/vmware-tools/locations".
Uninstall failed. Please correct the failure and re run the install.
Execution aborted.
To increase the width of the device field in esxtop to show the complete naa id:
CMDS/s : This is the total amount of commands per second and includes IOPS (Input/Output Operations Per Second) and other SCSI commands such as SCSI reservations, locks, vendor string requests, unit attention commands etc. being sent to or coming from the device or virtual machine being monitored.In most cases CMDS/s = IOPS unless there are a lot of metadata operations (such as SCSI reservations)
DAVG/cmd :This is the average response time in milliseconds per command being sent to the device
KAVG/cmd :This is the amount of time the command spends in the VMkernel
GAVG/cmd :This is the response time as it is perceived by the guest operating system. This number is calculated with the formula: DAVG + KAVG = GAVG
If the response time increases to over 5000 ms (or 5 seconds), VMware ESX will time out the command and abort the operation. These events are logged; abort messages and other SCSI errors can be reviewed in the following logs:
You need to run the following command for each disk that you’re having issues with (this overwrites the partition table with a standard msdos one which VMware can work with); NOTE: This will ERASE ALL DATA on the disk in question so be careful to select the right disks.
# partedUtil mklabel /dev/disks/<disk id> msdos
To get a list of your disks;
#ls /dev/disks
During installation of ESXi 5.1 U 1 on HP DL360 G5, I received a purple screen with above warning message
Solution: BIOS> Advanced Options > Processor Options > No-Execute Memory Protection>Enabled
The following table of vCenter (VC) performance counters lists the counters with a description of their purpose.
CPU Statistics
| Level | Counter name in API | Description | Units |
| 1 | cpu.ready.summation | Ready time is the time spend waiting for CPU(s) to become available in the past update interval. | millisecond |
| 1 | cpu.usagemhz.average | The CPU utilization. The maximum possible value here is the frequency of the processors times the number of cores. As an example, a VM using 4000 MHz on a system with four 2 GHz processors is using 50% of the CPU (4000 / (4 * 2000) = 0.5) | megaHertz |
| 1 | cpu.usage.average | The CPU utilization. This value is reported with 100% representing all processor cores on the system. As an example, a 2-way VM using 50% of a four-core system is completely using two cores. | percent |
| 2 | cpu.reservedCapacity.average | CPU Reserved Capacity | megaHertz |
| 2 | cpu.idle.summation | CPU Idle | millisecond |
| 2 | cpu.swapwait.summation | Swap wait time is time that the world spent waiting for memory to be swapped in. When the VM is waiting for memory, it is not doing work. | millisecond |
| 3 | cpu.system.summation | System time is the time spent in VMkernel during the last update interval. This does not include guest code execution. | millisecond |
| 3 | cpu.wait.summation | Wait time is the time spent waiting for hardware or VMkernel lock thread locks during the last update interval. | millisecond |
| 3 | cpu.extra.summation | CPU extra is the time above the statically calculated entitlement. Entitlement is the share of processing time that a VM should get as a result of its vCPU count and assigned shares. You should not use or care about this counter in any of your own analysis. | millisecond |
| 3 | cpu.used.summation | CPU Used | millisecond |
| 3 | cpu.guaranteed.latest | Guaranteed time is reported as the amount of the reservation time that the VM used in the past update interval. As an example, if 2000 MHz have been reserved for the VM on an four-way, 2 GHz host, that's 25% of the CPU resource. In a 20s update interval, there are 80,000 ms available on this four-way system. That means 20,000 ms of time has been reserved. If a VM used only half of its available cycles, the guaranteed time is 10,000 ms. | millisecond |
| 4 | cpu.usage.none | CPU Usage (None) | percent |
| 4 | cpu.usage.minimum | CPU Usage (Minimum) | percent |
| 4 | cpu.usage.maximum | CPU Usage (Maximum) | percent |
| 4 | cpu.usagemhz.none | CPU Usage in MHz (None) | megaHertz |
| 4 | cpu.usagemhz.minimum | CPU Usage in MHz (Minimum) | megaHertz |
| 4 | cpu.usagemhz.maximum | CPU Usage in MHz (Maximum) | megaHertz |
Memory Statistics
| Level | Counter name in API | Description | units |
| 1 | mem.consumed.average | The amount of machine memory that is in use by the VM. While a VM may | kiloBytes |
| 1 | mem.overhead.average | The memory used by the VMkernel to maintain and execute the VM. | kiloBytes |
| 1 | mem.swapinrate.average | The swap in rate reports the rate at which a VM's memory is being swapped in from disk. | kiloBytesPerSecond |
| 1 | mem.swapoutrate.average | The swap out rate reports the rate at which a VM's memory is being swapped out to disk. | kiloBytesPerSecond |
| 1 | mem.usage.average | The percentage of memory used as a percent of all available machine memory. Available for host and VM. | percent |
| 1 | mem.vmmemctl.average | The amount of memory currently claimed by the balloon driver. This is | kiloBytes |
| 2 | mem.granted.average | The amount of memory that was granted to the VM by the host. Memory is not granted to the host until it is touched one time and granted memory may be swapped out or ballooned away if the VMkernel needs the memory. | kiloBytes |
| 2 | mem.active.average | The amount of memory used by the VM in the past small window of time. This is the "true" number of how much memory the VM currently has need of. Additional, unused memory may be swapped out or ballooned with no impact to the guest's performance. | kiloBytes |
| 2 | mem.shared.average | The average amount of shared memory. Shared memory represents the entire pool of memory from which sharing savings are possible. The amount of memory that this has been condensed to is reported in shared common memory. So, total saving due to memory sharing equals shared memory minus shared common memory. | kiloBytes |
| 2 | mem.zero.average | The amount of zero pages in the guest. Zero pages are not represented in machine memory so this results in 100% savings when mapping from the guest to the machine memory. | kiloBytes |
| 2 | mem.unreserved.average | Memory Unreserved (Average) | kiloBytes |
| 2 | mem.swapused.average | The amount of swap memory currently in use. A large amount of swap memory is not a performance problem. This could be memory that the guest doesn't need. Check the swap rates (swapin, swapout) to see if the guest is actively in need of more memory than is available. | kiloBytes |
| 2 | mem.swapunreserved.average | Memory Swap Unreserved (Average) | kiloBytes |
| 2 | mem.sharedcommon.average | The average amount of shared common memory. Shared memory represents the entire pool of memory from which sharing savings are possible. The amount of memory that this has been condensed to is reported in shared common memory. So, total saving due to memory sharing equals shared memory minus shared common memory. | kiloBytes |
| 2 | mem.heap.average | Memory Heap (Average) | kiloBytes |
| 2 | mem.heapfree.average | Memory Heap Free (Average) | kiloBytes |
| 2 | mem.state.latest | Memory State | number |
| 2 | mem.swapped.average | Memory Swapped (Average) | kiloBytes |
| 2 | mem.swaptarget.average | Memory Swap Target (Average) | kiloBytes |
| 2 | mem.swapin.average | The rate at which memory is being swapped in from disk. A large number here represents a problem with lack of memory and a clear indication that performance is suffering as a result. | kiloBytes |
| 2 | mem.swapout.average | The rate at which memory is being swapped out to disk. A large number here represents a problem with lack of memory and a clear indication that performance is suffering as a result. | kiloBytes |
| 2 | mem.vmmemctltarget.average | Memory Balloon Target (Average) | kiloBytes |
| 2 | mem.sysUsage.average | Memory Used by vmkernel | kiloBytes |
| 2 | mem.reservedCapacity.average | Memory Reserved Capacity | megaBytes |
| 4 | mem.usage.none | Memory Usage (None) | percent |
| 4 | mem.usage.minimum | Memory Usage (Minimum) | percent |
| 4 | mem.usage.maximum | Memory Usage (Maximum) | percent |
| 4 | mem.granted.none | Memory Granted (None) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.granted.minimum | Memory Granted (Minimum) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.granted.maximum | Memory Granted (Maximum) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.active.none | Memory Active (None) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.active.minimum | Memory Active (Minimum) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.active.maximum | Memory Active (Maximum) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.shared.none | Memory Shared (None) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.shared.minimum | Memory Shared (Minimum) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.shared.maximum | Memory Shared (Maximum) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.zero.none | Memory Zero (None) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.zero.minimum | Memory Zero (Minimum) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.zero.maximum | Memory Zero (Maximum) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.unreserved.none | Memory Unreserved (None) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.unreserved.minimum | Memory Unreserved (Minimum) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.unreserved.maximum | Memory Unreserved (Maximum) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.swapused.none | Memory Swap Used (None) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.swapused.minimum | Memory Swap Used (Minimum) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.swapused.maximum | Memory Swap Used (Maximum) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.swapunreserved.none | Memory Swap Unreserved (None) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.swapunreserved.minimum | Memory Swap Unreserved (Minimum) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.swapunreserved.maximum | Memory Swap Unreserved (Maximum) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.sharedcommon.none | Memory Shared Common (None) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.sharedcommon.minimum | Memory Shared Common (Minimum) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.sharedcommon.maximum | Memory Shared Common (Maximum) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.heap.none | Memory Heap (None) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.heap.minimum | Memory Heap (Minimum) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.heap.maximum | Memory Heap (Maximum) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.heapfree.none | Memory Heap Free (None) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.heapfree.minimum | Memory Heap Free (Minimum) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.heapfree.maximum | Memory Heap Free (Maximum) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.swapped.none | Memory Swapped (None) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.swapped.minimum | Memory Swapped (Minimum) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.swapped.maximum | Memory Swapped (Maximum) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.swaptarget.none | Memory Swap Target (None) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.swaptarget.minimum | Memory Swap Target (Minimum) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.swaptarget.maximum | Memory Swap Target (Maximum) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.swapin.none | Memory Swap In (None) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.swapin.minimum | Memory Swap In (Minimum) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.swapin.maximum | Memory Swap In (Maximum) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.swapout.none | Memory Swap Out (None) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.swapout.minimum | Memory Swap Out (Minimum) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.swapout.maximum | Memory Swap Out (Maximum) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.vmmemctl.none | Memory Balloon (None) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.vmmemctl.minimum | Memory Balloon (Minimum) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.vmmemctl.maximum | Memory Balloon (Maximum) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.vmmemctltarget.none | Memory Balloon Target (None) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.vmmemctltarget.minimum | Memory Balloon Target (Minimum) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.vmmemctltarget.maximum | Memory Balloon Target (Maximum) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.overhead.none | Memory Overhead (None) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.overhead.minimum | Memory Overhead (Minimum) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.overhead.maximum | Memory Overhead (Maximum) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.consumed.none | Memory Consumed (None) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.consumed.maximum | Memory Consumed (Maximum) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.consumed.minimum | Memory Consumed (Minimum) | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.sysUsage.none | Memory Used by vmkernel | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.sysUsage.maximum | Memory Used by vmkernel | kiloBytes |
| 4 | mem.sysUsage.minimum | Memory Used by vmkernel | kiloBytes |
Disk Statistics
| Level | Counter name in API | Description | units |
| 1 | disk.maxTotalLatency | The highest reported total latency (device and kernel times) in the sample window. | milliseconds |
| 1 | disk.usage.average | Average disk throughput over the sample period. | kiloBytesPerSecond |
| 2 | disk.read.average | Average disk throughput due to read operaitons over the sample period. | kiloBytesPerSecond |
| 2 | disk.write.average | Average disk throughput due to write operations over the sample period. | kiloBytesPerSecond |
| 2 | disk.commands.summation | Disk Commands Issued | number |
| 2 | disk.commandsAborted.summation | The number of aborts that have occurred in the last window of time. Abort commands are issued by the guest when the storage system has not responded within an acceptable amount of time (as defined by the guest OS or application.) | number |
| 2 | disk.busResets.summation | Disk Bus Resets | number |
| 2 | disk.deviceReadLatency.average | Device read latency. This is the time the physical device from the HBA to the platter takes to service an IO request. | millisecond |
| 2 | disk.kernelReadLatency.average | Kernel read latency. This is the time the VMkernel takes to service an IO. This is the time between the guest OS and the device. | millisecond |
| 2 | disk.totalReadLatency.average | Total read latency. The sum of the device and kernel read latencies. | millisecond |
| 2 | disk.queueReadLatency.average | Queue Read Latency | millisecond |
| 2 | disk.deviceWriteLatency.average | Device write latency. This is the time the physical device from the HBA to the platter takes to service an IO request. | millisecond |
| 2 | disk.kernelWriteLatency.average | Kernel write latency. This is the time the VMkernel takes to service an IO. This is the time between the guest OS and the device. | millisecond |
| 2 | disk.totalWriteLatency.average | Total write latency. The sum of the device and kernel write latencies. | millisecond |
| 2 | disk.queueWriteLatency.average | Queue Write Latency | millisecond |
| 2 | disk.deviceLatency.average | Physical Device Command Latency | millisecond |
| 2 | disk.kernelLatency.average | Kernel Disk Command Latency | millisecond |
| 2 | disk.queueLatency.average | Queue Command Latency | millisecond |
| 3 | disk.numberRead.summation | The number of IO read operations in the previous sample period. Note that these operations may be variable sized up to 64 KB. | number |
| 3 | disk.numberWrite.summation | The number of IO write operations in the previous sample period. Note that these operations may be variable sized up to 64 KB. | number |
| 3 | disk.totalLatency.average | This is the average total latency over the sample window. Total latency is the sum of kernel and device latency for both read and write commands. | millisecond |
| 3 | disk.write.average | Disk Write Rate | kiloBytesPerSecond |
| 4 | disk.usage.none | Disk Usage (None) | kiloBytesPerSecond |
| 4 | disk.usage.minimum | Disk Usage (Minimum) | kiloBytesPerSecond |
| 4 | disk.usage.maximum | Disk Usage (Maximum) | kiloBytesPerSecond |
Network Statistics
| Level | Counter name in API | Description | units |
| 1 | net.usage.average | Network Usage (Average) | kiloBytesPerSecond |
| 2 | net.droppedRx.summation | The number of received packets that were dropped over the sample period. | number |
| 2 | net.droppedTx.summation | The number of transmitted packets that were dropped over the sample period. | number |
| 2 | net.received.average | Average network throughput for received traffic. | kiloBytesPerSecond |
| 2 | net.transmitted.average | Average network throughput for transmitted traffic. | kiloBytesPerSecond |
| 3 | net.packetsRx.summation | Network Packets Received | number |
| 3 | net.packetsTx.summation | Network Packets Transmitted | number |
| 4 | net.usage.none | Network Usage (None) | kiloBytesPerSecond |
| 4 | net.usage.minimum | Network Usage (Minimum) | kiloBytesPerSecond |
| 4 | net.usage.maximum | Network Usage (Maximum) | kiloBytesPerSecond |
Other Statistics
| Level | Counter name in API | Description | units |
| 1 | sys.uptime.latest | Uptime | second |
| 1 | sys.heartbeat.summation | Heartbeat | number |
| 1 | clusterServices.cpufairness.latest | CPU Fairness | number |
| 1 | clusterServices.memfairness.latest | Memory Fairness | number |
| 1 | clusterServices.effectivecpu.average | Effective CPU Resources | megaHertz |
| 1 | clusterServices.effectivemem.average | Effective Memory Resources | megaBytes |
| 1 | clusterServices.failover.latest | Current failover level | number |
| 3 | sys.resourceCpuUsage.average | Resource CPU Usage (Average) | megaHertz |
| 3 | managementAgent.memUsed.average | Memory Used (Average) | kiloBytes |
| 3 | managementAgent.swapUsed.average | Memory Swap Used (Average) | kiloBytes |
| 3 | managementAgent.swapIn.average | Memory Swap In (Average) | kiloBytesPerSecond |
| 3 | managementAgent.swapOut.average | Memory Swap Out (Average) | kiloBytesPerSecond |
| 3 | rescpu.actav1.latest | CPU Active (1 min. average) | percent |
| 3 | rescpu.actpk1.latest | CPU Active (1 min. peak) | percent |
| 3 | rescpu.runav1.latest | CPU Running (1 min. average) | percent |
| 3 | rescpu.actav5.latest | CPU Active (5 min. average) | percent |
| 3 | rescpu.actpk5.latest | CPU Active (5 min. peak) | percent |
| 3 | rescpu.runav5.latest | CPU Running (5 min. average) | percent |
| 3 | rescpu.actav15.latest | CPU Active (15 min. average) | percent |
| 3 | rescpu.actpk15.latest | CPU Active (15 min. peak) | percent |
| 3 | rescpu.runav15.latest | CPU Running (15 min. average) | percent |
| 3 | rescpu.runpk1.latest | CPU Running (1 min. peak) | percent |
| 3 | rescpu.maxLimited1.latest | CPU Throttled (1 min. average) | percent |
| 3 | rescpu.runpk5.latest | CPU Running (5 min. peak) | percent |
| 3 | rescpu.maxLimited5.latest | CPU Throttled (5 min. average) | percent |
| 3 | rescpu.runpk15.latest | CPU Running (15 min. peak) | percent |
| 3 | rescpu.maxLimited15.latest | CPU Throttled (15 min. average) | percent |
| 3 | rescpu.sampleCount.latest | Group CPU Sample Count | number |
| 3 | rescpu.samplePeriod.latest | Group CPU Sample Period | millisecond |
| 4 | sys.resourceCpuUsage.none | Resource CPU Usage (None) | megaHertz |
| 4 | sys.resourceCpuUsage.maximum | Resource CPU Usage (Maximum) | megaHertz |
| 4 | sys.resourceCpuUsage.minimum | Resource CPU Usage (Minimum) | megaHertz |
Reference: http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-5600
Here’s an interesting Linux tidbit that not many ESX admins realize.
reboot is not the same as init 6
In Linux, the init 6 command gracefully reboots the system running all the K* shutdown scripts first, before rebooting. The reboot command does a very quick reboot. It doesn’t execute any kill scripts, but just unmounts filesystems and restarts the system. The reboot command is more forceful.
So, should I use reboot or init 6? – neither! My advice is to use the shutdown command. shutdown will do a similar job to init 6, but it has more options and a better default action. Along with kicking off an init 6, the shutdown command will also notify all logged in users (logged in at a tty), notify all processes the system is going down and by default will pause for a set time before rebooting (giving you the chance to cancel the reboot if you realize that you made a mistake). Jolly civil.
-
How does this advice apply to VMware ESX servers you ask? Well I’m not a VMware kernel developer so to be honest I’m not the best person to ask (if you do know murky details, then please let us know in the comments). However I will say this; I will always use shutdown -r first and foremost. It’s just a better habit to get into.
Is there a difference on an ESX server? Yes, but as I said I’m entirely sure how it affects the VMkernel processes. The reason I definitely know – a couple of times I’ve had to use the reboot command to force an unresponsive ESX shutdown -r.
P.S. This also applies to init 0 / halt (i.e. use shutdown -h instead).
***************
Update: Following Andrew’s comments below I’ve done a bit more digging. He’s correct that the default action of the reboot command has now changed to call the shutdown command. This upstream change (presumably because its a safer default action as I explained above) is now reflected in a lot of the current distributions, including the Service Console that comes with ESX 4.0. So if you want to force a reboot you have run reboot -f.
Here’s the section on ESX4 man page explaining the change:
NOTES
Under older sysvinit releases , reboot and halt should never be called directly. From release 2.74 on halt and reboot invoke shutdown(8) if the system is not in runlevel 0 or 6. This means that if halt or reboot cannot find out the current runlevel (for example, when /var/run/utmp hasn’t been initial ized correctly) shutdown will be called, which might not be what you want. Use the -f flag if you want to do a hard halt or reboot.
Does it change my advice? No.
Firstly, ESX 3.x still uses the old style reboot command and doesn’t link to shutdown (as Greg points out the comments, this change was actually made much earlier on) . Secondly, if your anything like me you are logging into a mix of unix/linux style command lines on servers, SANs, etc; you don’t want to guess what their version of reboot does. Thirdly, I’d still argue that
shutdown -r +1 “*** reboot for RAM upgrade by Forbes ***”
is still a better habit to get into.
Lastly, if you’ve read this far and survived or re-visited for the update, here is an extra tip for you. Try this at the command line:
last -x|grep -e shutdown -e reboot
A feature comparison of the three main competitors in the hypervisor space, Citrix, Microsoft and VMware.
Updated to the latest two versions, Citrix XenServer 5.6 & 6.0, Microsoft Hyper-V 2008 R2 SP1 & 2012 and
VMware vSphere 5.0 & 5.1. Read more
VMware Tools installation on Oracle Linux fails. The vmware-install.pl installation script causes errors like below.
Searching for GCC...
The path "" is not valid path to the gcc binary.
Searching for a valid kernel header path...
The path "" is not a valid path to the 2.6.32-200.13.1.el5uek kernel headers.
Solution:
Update Linux as below:
yum -y install gcc
yum -y install kernel-uek-devel-`uname -r`
yum -y install kernel-uek-headers-`uname -r`
And then repeat installation.
After completing installation, verify the version of VMware tools installed as below.
vmware-toolbox
Restart VMware tools if required.
/etc/init.d/vmware-tools restart.
I’ve been meaning to dig into something technical for a long time as a more than welcome change in daily routine. I’ve been on the hunt for a new house (in Utrecht), have been busy with the VMware Enterprise Solution Provider partnership and did a complete rebuild of my internal Lab Manager environment. Also, I’m beginning my preparations for the VCDX Design Exam (which I’m going to take at the end of February). A couple of months ago, I visited the subject of RDM’s from a different angle (link), but now I wanted to give a more complete report on the matter. Read more
With vSphere 5 comes a new virtual machine hardware version... version 8. The vCPU configuration has changed a bit in the new layout and you can totally see why. When creating a new VM, or editing virtual machine hardware, you can now choose a virtual socket and core allocation to the VM instead of just choosing a "vCPU count". Read more
This article describes copying the appropriate disk controller driver from a working virtual machine onto a physical or virtual machine prior to conversion to resolve a STOP 0x7B failure when using VMware Converter or if the SCSI adapter has been changed. This issue can occur when the appropriate drivers cannot be located by Windows upon boot-up and must be manually copied in order for it to be resolved. Read more
This disk provisioning process fully allocating and zeroing out all the data inside the disk array at the time the disk is provisioned. This is an important distinction because a regular thick disk will require a short pause as its data expands to zero out data on the array. This isn't the case in an eager zeroed disk, where the space on the array has already been provisioned and the data zeroed out. The difference in performance between a thick disk and an Eager Zeroed thick disk is very small, but some applications, such as Microsoft Cluster Services and VMware Fault Tolerance, still require eager zeroed thick provisioned disks.
I have read various posts on the disk align issues and have 5 questions. Read more
Trying to install Veeam Backup and FasctSCP on Windows 2008 Server and getting error message while configuring service account.
LogonUser: (0x569): Logon failure: the user has not been granted the requested logon type at this computer.
To solve this you will need to change the Local Security Policy of the server.
Open Local Security Policy or run secpol.msc. Navigate to Security Settigns>Local Policies>User Right Assiggment and add the account to allow 'Log on as a service' rights.
If you started a huge copy between data-stores and want to cancel it, you will not able to do it from VI client or from host console. You can’t switch on the copying VM because the files will be locked by copying job. Only workaround for this is to restart management agent service from host console. SSH to host and run below commands.
#service mgmt-vmware stop
Once service is stopped run below command
#service mgmt-vmware start
This will temporarily disconnect VI client if you are directly connected to host.