dvs

vCenter lost DVS configuration – Fixing the hosts

Networking, VMware, , , , ,

So I hit an interesting issue whilst performing a VMware upgrade from 4.0 to 5.5. There was a legacy issue left where vCenter had lost its knowledge/configuration of the DVS Setup.

Im not entirely sure what happened or when, as it was an existing environment, I only know I had to fix it. (Many thanks to the help from my good friend over at www.vmtechy.com for refreshing me on the ESX 4.0 command line to fix this).

The Symptoms

Within the vCenter Client, on the host summary tabs.

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When looking at the Virtual Machine settings.

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Continue reading vCenter lost DVS configuration – Fixing the hosts →

disk vol

Extending your Server 2003 Disk Partitions using Dell Extpart

Storage, Windows, , ,

So we all know that we should be migrating away from Server 2003 as its end of life June 2015. But until then we still need to manage it.

So lets look at how to extend your hard drives into unpartitioned space using the Dell Extpart tool.

Note: This is probably not supported by VMware, so use at your own risk

So create your unpartitioned space, i.e in VMware, extend the hard drive.

Rescan your disk in Computer Management so the unpartitioned space appears. Right clicking on the drive, you will see there is no extend option, as found in Server 2008 and up.

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VMwareHorizonView

Installing VMware Horizon View Composer fails with Error 1920

VMware, , , , , ,
The issue

So today I was installing VMware Horizon View Composer on my Server 2012 R2 vCenter machine, where the SQL database is also local to this machine.

And I came across the below error,

"Error 1920, Service VMware Horizon View Composer (svid) failed to start. Verify that you have sufficient privileges to start the system service"

Which I something I’ve dealt with before, but I must admit I forgot the fix, and was looking into the following area’s;

  • Check account is Administrator and has “Log on as a Service” right
  • Check there is no pending restarts
  • Check ODBC is set up correctly and gives a successful message when testing

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The fix

Continue reading Installing VMware Horizon View Composer fails with Error 1920 →

Vmware Update Manager Utility

VMware Update Manager – Fixing vCenter Plugin Issues

VMware, , ,

VMware Update Manager is one of the most necessary tools in your environment, it’s also built really well and can be customized to fit your environment.

However there are times that the update manager plugin within vCenter Client can break. So lets look at a hidden tool to fix most of your Update Manager woes.

For this post, I am demonstrating how to fix a faulty database connection, after windows updates broke the Update Manager Service.

The ODBC connects to the DB fine, however Update manager shows the following in the plugin manager and when you try to enable it.

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So here the issue is pretty obvious, no connection to the database. Which we know is online.

So to get Update Manager to reconnect to the database, we can do this using;

C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\Infrastructure\Update Manager\VMwareUpdateManagerUtility.exe

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Running this application/executable displays a dialog box which allows you to change 4 settings;

  • Proxy Settings
  • Database Settings
  • Re-Register to vCenter Server
  • SSL Certificate

These options are pretty self-explanatory. For the SSL Certificate, this is where you want to replace the self signed with a company compliant certificate.

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So for me, all I had to do was re-enter the details for the database, and click apply, and you can see that it was successful. I went back into vCenter Plugin Manager and Enabled the plugin.

This main reason behind this post was to highlight the tool for you guys, its small and simple, but removes any hardships of having to reinstall the product or powershelling your way out of trouble.

 

Regards

 

Dean


01 esx4 install e1416438261523

Back to the Future – Configure ESX 4.0 iSCSI Multipathing

Networking, VMware, , , , , , , ,

So I’m in the middle of an upgrade of environment that has;

  • 2 x Hosts on ESX 4.0
  • SAN using SAS connections to Hosts
  • No resources available for failover and testing
  • Limited network ports

I’m installing;

  • 3 x Hosts on ESXi 5.5
  • Nimble SAN – iSCSI

So to move all the virtual machines from the SAS SAN to the Nimble, I need to move the VM’s whilst turned on,

I’ve setup the iSCSI networking on the ESX host,

  • Creating VMKernal ports with IP addresses,
  • Mapping a VMNIC to each VMKernel directly
  • Setting MTU size to 9000

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