Matt Liebowitz (@mattliebowitz) pointed out the following VMware knowledge base article on twitter the other day. The article goes through a few commands that will help you track the snapshot deletion process, always useful when deleting a large snapshot that has been left there a little too long!
Below is a screenshot of the article encase it is removed from the KB.
VMware support have released a multi platform web browser toolbar, i’m not usually a fan of toolbars inside my browser but have been using the VMware one for over a week and have found it very useful.
You are able to download the toolbar for your browser from the following website, http://vmwaresupport.toolbar.fm/ once installed you will see the VMware toolbar at the top of your browser.
You are able to to the following things direct from the toolbar
So if you are involved with VMware products as much as I am or administer a VMware system on a daily basis it is defiantly a nice to have utility.
I have posted a screen shot of this article as I have found it very useful recently. The KB article on VMware’s KB has been taken offline due to complaints of problems occurring. Personally I haven’t had any issues but please use at your own risk.
When trying to upgrade the firmware on a ML100 or DL100 range server (e.g. DL180, ML115) server you may run into an issue that the ROMPaq doesn’t boot and only displays the message “Starting Caldera DR-DOS….” the servers then seems unresponsive. After trying different versions, different USB keys and a new motherboard the issue was rectified by completing the following.
Locate the four switches on the mother board underneath the riser card, between the USB slot and SATA connector.
Set all 4 of the switches into the off position and then use the onboard USB to load the required firmware. There should be no need that I have found to put these switches back into the original configuration.
During a recent install of View 4 I ran into a particular issue with a number of XP workstations that we were installing the View 4 client on. When trying to connect using PCoIP to the View desktops we would receive the following error.
When connecting using RDP it worked fine and using other workstations the connection worked fine.
We also received the following error messages in the event log.
The DLL mentioned in the error should be located in the following location
C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware View\Client\bin
Upon investigation this DLL was missing despite no error reported during the installation. I then tried copying the dll from a working machine to this location and registering it but this didn’t help. A repair or reinstallation hasn’t helped at all.
This is currently being investigated by VMware and I will update the post once I have a resolution. Would love to hear from anyone that has experienced this issue and resolved it.
Update
VMware and Linjo below have come back with the same thing, if you are installing the View Client on a Workstation and wish to use PCoIP your processor needs to support SSE2 and be at least 800MHz. This is listed on page 21 of the admin guide.
It is worth noting that this was only included in version EN-000242-01 of the admin guide and not the original EN-000242-00, unfortunatly I had the original copy!
An easy way to find out if your CPU does support SSE2 is to run this application http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php
Whilst working on a customers site I discovered an issue trying to customize a Windows 2008 Datacenter x64 template, whilst trying to discover if this was an issue with just this OS I have found the following.
The below section is taken from vCenter 4 administration guide
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40/vsp_40_admin_guide.pdf (Page 176)
This is the same section from vCenter 4 Update 1 administration guide
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40_u1/vsp_40_u1_admin_guide.pdf (Page 176)
Note that Windows 2008 support has been removed from the update 1 administration guide.
I would be interested to know if anyone has been able to customize Windows 2008 VM’s using update 1 and if you have what version of 2008 and was your vCenter a fresh install of update 1 or an upgrade.
@vmwareKB on twitter is currently looking into this for me at the moment, will update you with more findings.
Update
A number of people in the comments and on twitter have told me they have been able to customise 2008 standard and enterprise with update 1, I have reinstalled the VMware tools in my Datacenter template and have now successfully been able to customise my VM. So this looks like a section has just been missed from the documentation. Will let you know when I get an official update from VMware on 2008 customisations.
A CPU of the host is incompatible error appears and VMotion stops working after upgrading to vSphere 4.0
Just experienced this issue and found the resolution on VMware’s Kb 1011294 >> http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1011294 posted here for reference and if anyone else runs into the problem.
Symptoms
VMotion fails after upgrading from ESX 3.x to ESX 4.0
You receive an error similar to:
Unable to migrate from to : The CPU of the host is incompatible with the CPU feature requirements of the virtual machine; problem detected at CPUID level.
or
Host CPU is incompatible with the virtual machine’s requirements at cupid level 0x1 register’ecx’
Host bits: 0000:0100:0000:1000:0010:0010:0000:0001
Required: 1000:0100:0000:100x:xxx0:0x1x:xxx0:x001
Mismatch detected for these features:
*General incompatibilities; refer to KB article 1993 for possible solutions.
This issue occurs after upgrading the virtual hardware in the virtual machines
A new virtual machine created on vSphere 4.0 migrates successfully
Resolution
The upgraded virtual machines may have some CPU masks applied which are causing the migration difficulties.
To ensure that VMotion is successful:
Power down the virtual machine.
Click the link to Edit Settings of the virtual machine.
Click the Options tab.
Select CPUID Mask under Advanced.
Click Advanced.
Click Reset All to Default.
Click OK.
Click OK again.
Power on the virtual machine and migrate.
Note: If the issue still exists after trying the steps in this article, file a support request with VMware Support and note this KB article ID in the problem description. For more information, see How to submit a Support Request. For further contact options, see http://www.vmware.com/support/contacts/.
Taken from >> http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1007566
Command to monitor snapshot deletion
Symptoms
During the snapshot deletion process, it is difficult to observe the progress. While the snapshot deletion is taking place, the following may occur:
- The hostd process does not respond
- It is difficult to determine status of snapshot deletion
Purpose
While there is no way to track snapshot deletion progress, you can monitor the directory and wait for the contents to indicate completion.
Resolution
Perform the following:
- Log in as root to the ESX Server using SSH.
- Change directory to the correct folder containing the vmdk file(s).
- Examine the directory listing by issuing the command: ls -al
- Determine if there are any VM_NAME-00000#.vmdk files, VM_NAME-00000#-delta.vmdk file, or similar. Look for numbered files following the dash in the name. These files indicate the presence of snapshots.
- Use the following command to monitor the snapshot deletion process:
#watch "ls -Ghtu –full-time *.vmdk"
Where:
G – inhibits display of group information to shorten the output display
h – prints sizes in a readable format like 1K 234M 2G
t – sorts by modification time
u – with -lt: sorts by and shows access time
full-time – like -l –time-style=full-iso- This command continuously monitors the contents of the directory. You should notice the snapshot files dissapear once they are deleted.
After making changes to the service console IP addresses I have found an issue with the APC agent on the ESX Server. When trying to change the configuration to reflect the new UPS IP addresses I got an error saying unable to edit configuration file. On trying to uninstall the RPM I recived an error saying it wasn’t installed, on trying to re-install it I recieved an error sayig it was already installed. To resolve this I ran the following command on the RPM
rpm -ihv –replacepkgs pcns-2.2.1-100.i386.rpm
This forced a reinstall of the RPM and corrected the issue, I am now able to reconfigure the UPS for network shutdown.
Recently after changing the IP address of several ESX hosts I was experiencing a problem with HA on one of them. Looking in the event log I was getting the following error “Configuration of host IP address is inconsistent on host” after a lot of troubleshooting I found the FT_Hosts still had the old IP’s. After updating this file all sprung into life.
I have since found this post by Duncan Epping that would have helped considerably at the time http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2008/06/04/changing-the-ip-address-of-an-esx-host-and-ha/
Virtualised Reality 