Category Archives: VMware

backup error

ESXi 6.0 – More CBT woes

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Post update 14th May 2015

VMware have released a hotfix KB2116126.

Removed information regarding old CBT workaround for Veeam is incompatible

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So it’s come to my attention that the new and mighty ESXi 6.0 has a CBT fault as well. This time its effects are different than previous versions, but causes you backups to either fail, or take a considerably longer time to complete.

Here is the official KB from VMware: KB2114076 – Backing up a virtual machine with Change Block Tracking (CBT) enabled fails after upgrading to or installing VMware ESXi 6.0 (2114076)

The Cause

Below is VMware official note on the issue, which isn’t very promising, and will affect any backup technology using snapshots within VMware.

This issue occurs due to heap exhaustion when attempting to enable Change Block Tracking (CBT). 

If a virtual machine with a large number of virtual disks reached an upper threshold, enabling CBT fails because of heap exhaustion. This issue also occurs with multiple virtual machines with CBT enabled. In case of Windows virtual machines with VSS enabled, taking a quiesced snapshot creates double the amount of memory overhead.

Note: The virtual disks can be spread across virtual machines or can be in a single virtual machine.

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You can look in your VMKernel.log from the host the affected VM is on to see various warnings about CBT.

WARNING: CBT: 191: No memory available! Called from 0x418010db750e

Here I’ve used the System Centre Configuration Manager Trace32 Tool for viewing the VMKernel.log

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Continue reading ESXi 6.0 – More CBT woes →

2015 04 09 14 53 48

Cisco UCS – Install ESXi 6.0

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So I’ve just deployed a Cisco UCS B Series system, which is on the HCL as supported by VMware for ESXi 6.0

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However there is no install media available as for previous ESXi versions.

How to install ESXi 6.0 on Cisco UCS

Quite simple actually, I installed the Customised version of ESXi 5.5 update 2d onto the B series servers, and then deployed vCenter 6.0, after setting up update manager, I imported the standard ESXi 6.0 ISO, and upgraded the hosts using update manager.

After a week, I can report that I’ve found no issues with this at all.

I posted on reddit about the location or availability of the media, and someone suggested this method of install, further more another user stated their Cisco Account Manager said everything should work with the standard ESXi install for the B200 M4 blades and not need additional drivers.

Hope this clears it up for some users who are hunting around for install media or an explanation that doesn’t yet officially exist.
Regards

Dean


2015 03 12 23 16 34

Deploying VCSA 6.0 fails with supplied system name is invalid

VMware, , , ,

2015-04-14_16-28-02_01

 

A nice and simple one, the supplied system name (which is the FQDN of the VCSA)  is invalid.

This is because when deploying a new VCSA from scratch, your DNS records should already be created, as the new ISO based installer for the appliance runs a number of scripts to setup vCenter services and the Platform Services Controller.

So you get this error either because your DNS Settings are wrong, or you have not created your DNS records for your vCenter and PSC if it is an external server.

 

Regards

Dean


VMware Update Manager

Using VMware Update Manager to automatically download Dell Drivers to ESXi

VMware, , , , , , ,

Last year I wrote about how to use VMware Update Manager to download HP Drivers for ESXi,

Since then I’ve also found out you can add the following Dell repository into VMware Update manager;

  • http://vmwaredepot.dell.com/index.xml

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Regards

<a href=”https://twitter.com/saintdle”>Dean</a> (<a href=”http://lnkd.in/bUUrNkB”>Linkedin</a>)

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Upgrade VCSA to VMware vCenter 6

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So I jumped right in and upgraded my VCSA 5.5 to VCSA 6, you can find the official documentation and upgrade steps here.

Pre-Reqs from VMware

  •  Verify that the clocks of all machines on the vSphere network are synchronized. See Synchronizing Clocks on the vSphere Network.
  • Verify that the ESXi host on which you deploy the vCenter Server Appliance is not in lockdown or maintenance mode.
  • Verify that the vCenter Server SSL certificate for your existing vCenter Server Appliance is configured correctly. See VMware Knowledge Base article 2057223.
  • If you use an external database, back up the vCenter Server Appliance database.
  • Create a snapshot of the vCenter Server Appliance.

What you need before you start

Continue reading Upgrade VCSA to VMware vCenter 6 →