Monthly Archives: January 2015

cbt

Patch Released – Major bug in VMware’s CBT function. KB2090639

VMware have finally released a patch to fix the Major CBT bug that causes your backups to be corrupted because the changed blocks are reported incorrectly.

Within the release notes for the 5.5 latest patch, its kind of hidden away to the point that  I missed it the first time.

When you use backup software that uses the Virtual Disk Development Kit (VDDK) API call QueryChangedDiskAreas(), the list of allocated disk sectors returned might be incorrect and incremental backups might appear to be corrupt or missing. A message similar to the following is written to vmware.log: 

DISKLIB-CTK: Resized change tracking block size from XXX to YYY 

For more information, see KB 2090639.

You can get the patches below for your version of choice, however there is no fix for ESXi 4.x yet.

ESXi 5.0 Patch 10 – Patch information

ESXi 5.1 Update 3 – Patch Information

ESXi 5.5 Patch 4 – Patch Information

You will need your my.vmware.com login details to access the patch repository to download the zip file, then just import it into your VMware Update Manager within Admin View.

2015-01-29_11-05-47

Regards

Dean

logo active directory

DCPromo Fails – The directory service is missing mandatory configuration information

On a Server 2008 R2 machine, I had an issue demoting from being a Domain Controller, after moving the FSMO roles onto a new machine. This was after a second domain controller died. I am not sure of the previous history of where the FSMO roles were for this client.

Two new DC’s were created and promoted, after cleaning up DNS to remove the old configuration of the dead DC.

The Error

I was provided with the following error in a dialog box and in the event log

dcpromoerror

Continue reading DCPromo Fails – The directory service is missing mandatory configuration information

networkvirt

Revision notes from VMware Network Virtualization Fundamentals Course

VMware released a free course around Network Virtualization Fundamentals, which maps to the first steps on the ladder for all things NSX. It is also recommended by VMware to take the course before taking on the VCA-NV.

I urge anyone looking into NSX to take this course, you can’t argue with the price after all!!! Secondly, although there are many NSX posts online name, Brad Hedlund has some of the best posts in my opinion.

Check the NSX-Link-O-Rama aswell.

And finally, the NSX Compendium over at Network Inferno

Below are my notes I took whilst going through the course.

The Basics
Virtual switch
  • Ports organised into port groups
  • Uplinks connect virtual switch to physical network
  • Connections to support virtual infrastructure

Virtual standard switches – configuration per host, therefore needs to be replicated exactly to all hosts

  • Port groups
  • VMkernel Ports
  • Uplink Ports
  • Policies at virtual switch level can be over-ridden  at port group level
  • VLAN’s set at port group level and VMKernal Port level only
  • No support for things like STP, as virtual switches cannot be connected to one another, nor do they learn MAC addresses.

vsphere-network-standard-switch

Continue reading Revision notes from VMware Network Virtualization Fundamentals Course

veeam 2014 logo color tag

Veeam Hidden Feature – Backup Validator

So the other day I was using the Veeam Backup Extractor Tool, located in the installation folder, when I noticed another .exe file that I hadn’t paid attention to previously.

  • Veeam.Backup.Validator.exe

This a CLI based tool, and does exactly as the name suggests, validates backups.

You can access it by running command prompt;

  •  CD “C:\Program Files\Veeam\Backup and Replication\Backup”
  • Veeam.Backup.Validator.exe and your arguments(to see the full options, see at the bottom)

This is a handy little tool for validating the backup files, and can probably be scripted as well. However unlike the SureBackup feature, it will not guarantee that once the files have been restored, the Virtual Machine’s operating system is intact and in a working condition.

An example of its use

Continue reading Veeam Hidden Feature – Backup Validator

read

Blog posts I’ve been reading and sharing recently

Since before the Christmas break, I’ve not had a great deal to write about, in terms of break fix, as I’ve been busy studying to pass my CCNP exams, and now I’m under way with taking on further exams.

At the same time, I’ve also found some of my posts appearing on a daily round-up of blog posts on Michael White’s site notesfrommwhite.net. So I’ve decided to do something similar, sharing links to some of the content I’ve found interesting and content I’ve been sharing at work recently.

This won’t be a regular thing they’ll I’ll be doing, but more ad-hoc, as I find that the tabs on my laptop and phone fill up quickly with a plethora blog posts which peak my interest, usually found on twitter, so this is what I’ll be sharing.

The Posts and Sites

First off, you need to check out Michael White’s website, found some great stuff through his newletters;

notesfrommwhite.net Continue reading Blog posts I’ve been reading and sharing recently