ESX

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Tenim :

El ESX parla de ... sockets, cores and cpus ...

• System x3850 M2 at-a-glance guide. System x3850 (8864) at-a-glance. x3850 (8864) Compatibility sw & hw.
• 3850 M2 support. url
• eX5 Portfolio Overview: system x3850 X5, x3950 X5, x3690 X5, and BladeCenter HX5 - redbook (memory configuration)
• IBM System X at-a-glance guide : pdf.
• System x3950 M2 and x3850 M2 Technical Introduction - Red Paper
• Installation Guide - IBM System x3850 M2 and x3950 M2 (7141, 7233, 7234). url. PDF.
• Problem Determination and Service Guide - IBM System x3850 M2 and x3950 M2 (Type 7141, 7233, 7234). url. PDF.
• User's Guide - IBM System x3850 M2 and x3950 M2 (7141, 7233, 7234). url. PDF.
• Quick Installation Guide - Brocade 8 Gb FC Single-Port and Dual-Port HBAs for IBM System x url. PDF.
• Tuning IBM System xServers for Performance. url
• x3650-m2 at a glance.
• IBM System x3950 M2 and x3850 M2 Technical Introduction.
• Rack power configurator.
• Compatibility for hardware, applications, and middleware [*****], xSeries, OS info : ESX 4.1 required by x3850 X5.

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The Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) is a small, independent micro-controller used to perform low-level system monitoring and control functions, as well as remote IPMI interface functions. It uses multiple I2C bus connections to communicate out-of-band with other onboard devices. The BMC provides environmental monitoring for the server. If environmental conditions exceed thresholds or if system components fail, the BMC lights the light path diagnostic LEDs to help you diagnose the problem and also records the error in the BMC system event log.

x3850 M2 Tech Intro

The x3850 M2 and x3950 M2 have the Remote Supervisor Adapter II service processor as a standard component. This adapter is installed in a dedicated PCI-X slot, and provides similar functionality as the Remote Supervisor Adapter II PCI option available for other System x servers. However, only the Ethernet and video connectors are used on the x3850 M2 and x3950 M2. The other external ports (including remote power and the ASM interconnect) are not supported on these servers.

x3850 M2 Tech Intro

System Management Bridge BMC CLI and Remote Console Utility v2.0.25.1 - SMBridge :
SMBridge provides server management ability via two distinct modes of operation, a "Command Line Interface" mode (CLI) and an "Interactive Server" mode (Server).
CLI Mode: In CLI mode, SMBridge supports out-of-band (OOB) access (through LAN or serial port) to a remote server. It enables SMBridge users to execute IPMI control commands in a native command line to manage the remote server. To ease the use of this utility, SMBridge also supports an interactive usage, invoked by -interactive option.
Server Mode: In server mode, SMBridge is started as a background service or daemon after SMBridge package is installed. This service/daemon can be connected using any standard telnet client. After connected, user will be provide a command line interface with SMBridge> prompt. All commands provided in CLI SMBridge interactive mode can also work for server mode. In addition, two commands are added: console and reboot. These two commands allow administrators to view and change the BIOS settings, access to Linux serial console and Microsoft's EMS/SAC interfaces.

The IMM and IMM2 consolidate service processor functionality previously provided by the combination of the Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) and the Remote Supervisor Adapter II in IBM System x and BladeCenter products - url

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Dynamic System Analysis (DSA) - (Seccin "DSA Preboot") : url + "Standalone v4 ISO" = ibm_fw_dsa_dsyt91l_4.00_anycpu_anyos (152.170.496 bytes)

Dynamic System Analysis - Installation and Users Guide - Version 3.0.

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First test :

Complete one:

Some hand work:

ESXi :

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The name ESX originated as an abbreviation of "Elastic Sky X" ...
ESX is an enterprise-class, type-1 (or bare-metal) hypervisor (or virtual machine monitor)

En principi treballem amb ESX v 4.0 :

Que accepta els següents Sistemes Operatius:

• Windows Server 2008 R2
• Windows 7
• Windows Server 2008
• Windows Vista
• Windows Server 2003
• Windows XP
• Windows 2000
• Windows NT 4.0
• Windows ME
• Windows 98
• Windows 95

url : Guest Operating System installation guide + supported Guest Operating Systems

• reboot ESX v4.0
• wait for GRUB screen
• move arrow down to point to "Troubleshooting Mode"
• enter "a" letter, indicating "kernel arguments" or "boot options"
• type a "space" followed by the text "single" and then "intro"
• you'll get "sh-2.05b#" prompt - type "passwd" and then entre the new password twice
• now, at the "sh-2.05b#" prompt, type "reboot"

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Ens cal v5 per :

• Windows 8

Ens cal v5 per :

• hardware version 9
• assign 1 TB of RAM to VM

Ens cal v5.5 per :

• Apple

Com "matar" una VM:

Veure la versio del ESXi:

Aturar la maquina :

When VMware vClient tries to connect to ESX 5.5 server, the error message reads like: vSphere Client could not connect to 192.168.1.100. An unknown connection error occurred. The client could not send a complete request to the server. The underlying connection was closed: An unexpected error occurred on a send.

The solution is to edit /etc/vmware/rhttpproxy/config.xml in ESX server to insert

Then, restart the service

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The "I Moved It" option should be used when there is any license item related to the MAC, as the MAC will be preserved (this can lead to interesting problems ...)
The "I Copied It" option should be used when you intend to run more than one copy of the VM in your vSphere environment.

La recomendación es mover la imagen porque sino el windows (a veces) pierde la licencia. Si creas una copia necesitas una nueva licencia.
Compte : using "moved", the MAC gets copied, so mind not to start both VMs at the same time or "generate" new mac (win-7).

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<vm>.ova requires ESX 4.1

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When creating a new virtual disk (VMDK) there are a few options for how the virtual disk is created and when the space is allocated.

• Thick Provisioned Lazy Zeroed:
  Allocates the disk space statically (no other volumes can take the space), but doesnt write zeros to the blocks until the first write takes place to that block during runtime (which includes a full disk format).
• Thick Provisioned Eager Zeroed: (Recommended for I/O intensive workloads)
  Allocates the disk space statically (no other volumes can take the space), and writes zeros to all the blocks.
• Thin Provision:
  This method provides quick access to the virtual disk and increases storage utilization by allocating disk space on demand.
  Allocates the disk space only when a write occurs to a block, but the total volume size is reported by VMFS to the OS. Other volumes can take the remaining space. This allows you to float space between your servers, and expand your storage when your size monitoring indicates theres a problem. Note that once a Thin Provisioned block is allocated, it remains on the volume regardless if youve deleted data, etc.

By definition, you would expect Thick Provisioning Eager Zeroed to be the fastest.

bibl

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Multiple servers can read/write the same filesystem simultaneously, while individual virtual machine files are locked.

wiki

VMFS 3, being LVM-based, cannot properly deal with partitions of > 2TB.
ESX/ESXi has a limit of 2TB VMFS volumes. What you can do is create a 2TB VMFS extend and then extend it to include the other space if you want all 4TB in one volume.

VMware vSphere 5.5 goes up to 64 TB

When you create a VMFS datastore on your VMware ESX servers many administrators select the default 1MB block size without knowing when or why to change it. The block size determines the minimum amount of disk space that any file will take up on VMFS datastores. So an 18KB log file will actually take up 1MB of disk space (1 block) and a 1.3MB file will take up 2MB of disk space (2 blocks). But the block size also determines the maximum size that any file can be, if you select a 1MB block size on your data store the maximum file size is limited to 256GB. So when you create a VM you cannot assign it a single virtual disk greater then 256GB. There is also no way to change the block size after you set it without deleting the datastore and re-creating it, which will wipe out any data on the datastore.

Because of this you should choose your block size carefully when creating VMFS datastores. The VMFS datastores mainly contain larger virtual disk files so increasing the block size will not use all that much more disk space over the default 1MB size. You have the following choices when creating a datastore:

• 1MB block size 256GB maximum file size
• 2MB block size 512GB maximum file size
• 4MB block size 1024GB maximum file size
• 8MB block size 2048GB maximum file size

Besides having smaller files use slightly more disk space on your datastore there are no other downsides to using larger block sizes. There is no noticeable I/O performance difference by using a larger block size. When you create your datastore, make sure you choose your block size carefully. 1MB should be fine if you have a smaller datastore (less than 500GB) and never plan on using virtual disks greater then 256GB.

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• Console access to the Service Console
• SSH to the Service Console
• VMware Virtual Infrastructure (VI) Web Access to the ESX Server
• VMware Virtual Infrastructure Client (VI Client) to the Server (requires .Net)
• VMware Virtual Infrastructure Client (VI Client) to the Virtual Center Server (VC Server)

5 Ways to Administer a VMware ESX Server

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I just set up an ESX 4.1 Server and added another user via vSphere Client. Ticking "enable shell access" would enable SSH Access for this user. The user was not allowed to log in. After digging trough the PAM configuration I found out that adding a user via vSPhere Client does not create the necessary entry in /etc/security/access.conf So adding "+:username:ALL" fixed the issue.

ESX CLI commands :

Compte : any changes made to the configuration of the host will not be seen by vCenter Server or the host itself until you restart the vmware-hostd daemon. By restarting this daemon, the configuration file /etc/vmware/esx.conf will be re-read.

The vSphere CLI command set allows you to run common system administration commands against ESX/ESXI systems from an administration server of your choice. You can run most vSphere CLI commands against a vCenter Server system and target any ESX/ESXi system that system manages. vSphere CLI commands are especially useful for ESXi hosts because they do not include a Service Console. vSphere CLI commands run on top of the vSphere SDK for Perl. The vSphere CLI, vSphere SDK for Perl, and some prerequisite software are included in the installation package on Windows and on supported Linux distributions.

After you have installed the package, which includes the vSphere SDK for Perl, you can run vSphere CLI commands or run scripts from the operating system command line. Each time you run a command, you specify the connection options directly or indirectly. When you run commands, you must specify the ESX/ESXi host against which you want to run the command and the user name and password for authentication.

When you run a vSphere CLI command, authentication happens in the order of precedence presented in {Table 1-1, "vSphere CLI Authentication Precedence"}

Authentication	Description	See
Command line	Password (--password), session file (--sessionfile), or configuration file (--config) specified on the command line.	Using a Session File on page 14
Configuration file	Password specified in a .visdkrc configurationfile.	Using a Configuration File on page 15
Environment variable	Password specified in an environment variable.	Using Environment Variables on page 15
Credential store	Password retrieved from the credential store.	vSphere Web Services SDK Programming Guide and vSphere SDK for Perl Programming Guide.
Current account (Active Directory)	Current account information used to establish an SSPI connection. Available only on Windows.	Using Microsoft Windows Security Support Provider Interface (SSPI) on page 16
Prompt the user for a password.	Password is not echoed to screen.

local vsp_40_u1_vcli.pdf

If you have a non-working NIC, you can try :

It fixed (with a complete restart) a problem we had !

May give you better output to determine the where and what of your disks.

Command details :

This command is one of the most useful commands in the Service Console

Command details :

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• service network restart
  The service X restart command is an excellent command that allows you to restart any service running on your ESX Server. In our case, we are using the network keyword to restart network services. This is the command you should run after making changes to your ESX networking configuration. You can also do network start or network stop. This brings down all network interfaces, then brings up the interfaces configured to start at boot.
• ifconfig
  This command is used to view the status of all network interfaces on the system. However, it can do a lot more than just view an interface, it can reconfigure interfaces, bring them down, or back up. You can change the IP address of your interfaces with ifconfig.
• esxcfg-vswif
  Allows you to view the status of or reconfigure the VMware Service Console (SC) network interface. That SC network interface is called "vswif" and the first interface is always "vwsif0". To view the status of it, you can use the -l (L for list) command
• esxcfg-vswitch
  This command is used to view the status of or reconfigure the VMware virtual switches (called vswitch). These vswitches are used to connect the physical NIC in the server (called vmnic) to the ESX port groups (such as the "Service Console" and the "VM Network" port groups). To view the status of your vswitches, you can use the -l (L for list) command.
• esxcfg-nics
  This command is used to view the status of or reconfigure the VMware Physical Network interface cards that are installed in the physical server. These physical NICs are called "vmnic" and they start with "vmnic0". The vmnics are connected to vswitches to connect the physical network to the virtual networks. To view the status of your vmnics, you can use the -l (L for list) command.

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ESX Server 1.5 troubleshootong guide

• click Edit Settings on the VM and then click on the network adapter. The default option for MAC addressing is automatic. You should be able to click the radio button for a manually created MAC address on that same screen and set it there.
• using VMX file :
  • remove the VM from inventory (don't delete)
  • using the Datastore Browser, or WinSCP, or SSH and VI, or FastSCP, browse to /vmfs/volumes/<datastorename>/<vmname>
  • edit the <vmname>.vmx file (using your tool of choice) - you'll find the mac address specified in here - so just make sure to keep syntax etc correct.
  • right click the .vmx using the Datastore browser and import it.

You use the vmkfstools utility to create and manipulate virtual disks, file systems, logical volumes, and physical storage devices on the VMware ESX hosts. Using vmkfstools, you can create and manage virtual machine file system (VMFS) on a physical partition of a disk. You can also use the command to manipulate files, such as virtual disk files, stored on VMFS-2, VMFS-3, and NFS.

The vmkfstools i command will allow you to clone the VMs disk to another VMFS datastore.

How to display "Observed IP Ranges" ?

Ken's Virtual Reality :

The Great vSwitch Debate Part 8 (Final) - importance of naming standards;
part 7 - configurations for systems with two, four, and six pNICS;
part 6 - first host configuration;
part 5 - various networks that you have to contend with in an ESX environment as well as an approach to help in deciding which networks to combine, if you have to;
part 4 - fault detection and the Cisco Discovery Protocol;
part 3 - various load balancing options that are available in a VMware vSwitch;
part 2 - vSwitch security features (Promiscuous Mode, MAC Address Change, and Forged Transmits) as well as network traffic shaping options;
part 1 - vSwitch functions, Port Groups, VLAN tagging/trunking, valid communications paths, and some other basic vSwitch information.

To bind some VM to a NIC and other to the second NIC you have to build 2 vSwitch (but you loose NIC failover capacity) or build 1 vSwitch with 2 portgroup.

There are 3 type of portgroup:

• VM portgroup - the IP is inside the VM
• SC portgroup - you must specify the IP for management
• vmkernel portgroup - you must specify an IP for iSCSI storage, and/or NFS storage, and/or VMotion

For CLI I suggest to see also Perl or PowerShell extention, cause API and SDK is more documented than the simple CLI.

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Sample code, scripts and resources.

Recommended sequence - KB 1004340 :

• verify the VM is running : # vmware-cmd -l
• get VM's .vmx path, as /vmfs/volumes/<UUID>/<VMDIR>/<VMNAME>.vmx
• determine VM's state : # vmware-cmd <path.vmx> getstate
• stop VM : vmware-cmd <path.vmx> stop
• determine VM's state : # vmware-cmd <path.vmx> getstate
• stop VM : vmware-cmd <path.vmx> stop hard
• determine VM's state : # vmware-cmd <path.vmx> getstate

Si volem recollir informacio dels problemes amb la comanda "vm-support":

• determine the WorldID with the command: # vm-support -x
• kill the virtual machine by using this command in the home directory of the virtual machine: # vm-support -X <world_ID>
  This can take upwards of 30 minutes to terminate the virtual machine.

El mètode mes dur amb ESX :

• donar la comanda /usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmdumper -l
• veure la part "vmxCartelID=5413"
• aturar la VM amb # /usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmkload_app -k 9 ####, on #### seria 5413 en el nostre cas.

El mètode mes dur amb Linux :

• donar la comanda ps auxwww | grep Cog
• veure la part "process_ID" que surt al principi de la línia, després de l'usuari.
• aturar la VM amb # kill <PID>, esperar 30 segons i donar # kill -9 <PID>

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On your own workstation, open a command prompt, and type nbtstat-A (ip address of ESX host). That will give you that MAC for that ESX host (or whatever owns that IP).

Then you use putty login to the console of that host and do esxcfg-nics -l to list the Network interfaces on that host. If that IP is listed for that MAC, and you can see it as one of the interfaces for the same ESX host, then that means that's the IP currently assigned.

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I just wanted to access my ESX 4.0 server via https. Unfortunately I received a "503 Service unavailable" error. First I checked if the service was running:

It wasnt running so I started it:

But why did this happen? Well page 7 of the vSphere Web Access Guide revealed it. As of ESX 4.0 this service has been disabled by default. If you do however need it on a regular base it might be a smart thing to enable it:

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1. Verify the format and content of /etc/hosts.

   Here is an example of the /etc/hosts file:

   127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost 192.168.1.10 server.domain.com server

2. Verify the contents of /etc/sysconfig/network. Confirm that the proper values for your environment exist for the fully qualified hostname and gateway.

   Here is an example of the /etc/sysconfig/network file:

   NETWORKING=yes HOSTNAME=server.fqn.domain.com GATEWAY=192.168.1.1 GATEWAYDEV=vswif0

3. Verify that /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-vswif0 has the correct settings for IP address (IPADDR), subnet mask (NETMASK), and network (NETWORK).

   Here is an example of the ifcfg-vswif0 file for a static IP:

   DEVICE=vswif0 BOOTPROTO=static BROADCAST=192.168.1.255 IPADDR=192.168.1.10 NETMASK=255.255.255.0 NETWORK=192.168.1.0 ONBOOT=yes PORTGROUP="Service Console" MACADDR=00:50:56:4a:66:ba

   For a dynamic IP it could look like this:

   DEVICE=vswif0 MACADDR=00:50:56:4b:99:48 ONBOOT=yes PORTGROUP="Service Console" BOOTPROTO=dhcp DHCLIENT_IGNORE_GATEWAY=yes DHCPV6C=no IPV6INIT=no IPV6_AUTOCONF=no PEERDNS=yes

4. To display the actual IP, run the command:
   [root@server root]# ifconfig -a

5. To display the routing table, run the command:
   [root@server root]# route n

   The output looks similar to:

   Kernel IP routing table Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface 192.168.1.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 vswif0 169.254.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.0.0 U 0 0 0 vswif0 0.0.0.0 192.168.1.1 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 vswif0

   Ensure that the second column of the row flagged with UG matches the gateway address for your environment.

6. Verify that the DNS information in /etc/resolv.conf is correct for your environment.

   Here is an example of the /etc/resolv.conf file:

   search domain.com nameserver 192.168.1.2 nameserver 192.168.1.3

   Note: By default, up to three nameservers can be added to resolv.conf. The compile time parameter MAXNS defines how many nameservers can be used.

7. Verify network connectivity between systems, using the ping command to www.google.es or to the default gateway or DNS.

Note: Changes to the network and/or ifcfg-vswif0 files require a restart of the network service. To restart the network service, run the following command:

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The esxcfg-vswif command allows you to view the status of or reconfigure the VMware Service Console network interface. That SC network interface is called vswif.

The esxcfg-vswitch command is used to view the status of or reconfigure the VMware virtual switches (called vswitch). These vswitches are used to connect the physical NIC in the server (called vmnic) to the ESX port groups (such as the "Service Console" and the "VM Network" port groups).

The esxcfg-nics command is used to view the status of or reconfigure the VMware Physical Network interface cards that are installed in the physical server. They are called vmnic.

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Modern Linux distributions use udev naming devices. The udev on SUSE 11 uses MAC addresses to identify ethernet cards. After cloning, the MAC address changes and udev creates a new ethernet device named eth1 instead of eth0.

To ensure network connectivity for the SUSE 11 virtual machine clone after the reboot, you must modify the entries in the /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules file.

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The / (or 'root') partition stores the ESX system and all files not stored in another custom partition. If this partition is filled to capacity, the ESX host could crash. It is imperative to prevent this.
I would also recommend to rename the local VMFS partition during installation. The default name is 'Storage1', and my recommendation would be '<hostname>-localstorage'.

When you install ESX 4 you should choose Advanced for the installation type so you can delete the default partitioning.

URL, URL,

• LUN size : usually a value between 400-800GB could be reasonable.
• LUN number : usually more that one, but not too much...

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1. On a Windows box, download the patch bundle directly from VMware. This will be .zip file.
2. On a Windows box with the vSphere client installed, use the vSphere client's datastore browser to upload the .zip file to a datastore on an ESX 4 host.
3. Obtain local console access, or SSH (putty), to the ESX 4 host that the bundle file was uploaded to.
4. Verify that the ESX 4 host disk free space is acceptable (2X the size of the bundle), using the command:
   vdf -h
5. Move the bundle file off of the datastore and into /var/updates, using the command:
   mv /vmfs/volumes/datastore/ESX400-200909001.zip /var/updates
6. Verify that the patch bundles aren't already installed (or if they are required), using the command:
   esxupdate query
7. If applicable, use the vSphere client to put the ESX 4 host in maintenance mode. Alternatively, use the command:
   vimsh -n -e /hostsvc/maintenance_mode_enter
   The following commands may also be used to list and then shut down virtual machines. This is for environments without VMotion or for single hosts.
   vmware-cmd -s listvms vmware-cmd <full path to .vmx file> stop soft
8. To determine which bulletins in the bundle are applicable to this ESX 4 host, use the command:
   esxupdate --bundle file:///var/updates/ESX400-200909001.zip scan
9. To check VIB signature, dependencies, and bulletin order without doing any patching (a dry run), use the command:
   esxupdate --bundle file:///var/updates/ESX400-200909001.zip stage
10. If the stage (dry run) found no problems, then the bundle can be installed using the command:
    esxupdate --bundle file:///var/updates/ESX400-200909001.zip update
11. When (or IF) prompted to reboot, use the command:
    reboot
    Note: Not all patches will require an ESX host reboot.
12. After the system boots, verify patch bundles were installed with the command:
    esxupdate query
13. If applicable, take the ESX host out of maintenance mode with the command:
    vimsh -n -e /hostsvc/maintenance_mode_exit
14. If applicable, restart virtual machines using the vSphere client or the following command:
    vmware-cmd <full path to .vmx file> start
15. Delete the bundle zip file from the /var/updates folder, using the command:
    rm /var/updates/*.zip
16. Verify that host disk free space is still acceptable, using the command:
    vdf -h

    URL

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A vegades ens convé entrar en la BIOS de una màquina virtual. Per facilitar aquesta operació, fem servir aquest truc:

1. right click on the VM, and open its Properties
2. open "Configure and Edit Settings"
3. in the "Options" tab, select "Boot Options" on the left
4. on the right, check "Force BIOS Setup"

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To enable FTP client, SSH or system console, do:

• start vSphere Client
• select Server, as "bcnlab001"
• click on "Configuration" tab on your right
• under Software part, click on Security Profile menu
• activate SSH or FTP client or enable system console (Alt+F1)

OR from command line in ESX Server please type

To save this configuration, type

After this you will be able to ssh even across the reboot

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Read ... Backup solutions for VMware ESXi.

VMware Consolidated Backup Documentation.

Three ways to temporarily move VMs off a VMware ESX host :

• Method 1: Create a network-based data store + "vmkfstools i"
• Method 2: Use VMware Converter
• Method 3: Use a secure copy (SCP) file transfer utility - Veeam Fast SCP : more than 6 times faster than SCP

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1 :

2 :
configure SNMP,

3 :
Upload smtp_send.pl script to /usr/local/bin, and upload Lite.pm from the MIME package to /usr/lib/perl5/5.8.0/MIME/, the "5.8.0" directory could be different on your ESX build, it depends on which version of perl is running.
Now open up the firewall for smtp out to be able to send email:

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1. Connect to your server via SSH or go to the servers console
2. Edit /etc/snmp/snmp.conf and add a community string to the rocommunity value
3. Enable SNMP to start automatically when the server starts with chkconfig snmpd on
4. Either reboot the server (so that the SNMPd will start automatically) or start the SNMP daemon by typing service snmpd start

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Now you can use snmpget, snmpset and snmpwalk.

Search for "Configuring the ESX Server SNMP Agent" in Search VMware. The VMware SNMP agent sets up a single default read-only community named public. This means that, by default, all incoming requests must include public as the community name. These read-only requests can only retrieve the values of variables.

VMware ESX Server (not ESXi) comes with two SNMP agents. One agent is based on net-snmp (a well-known Linux SNMP agent with excellent documentation on the Internet). The other SNMP agent is very simple and only supports traps. This is the same agent that ESXi offers. In this article, I will be configuring the more advanced SNMP agent net-snmp. For documentation on how to configure the slimmed down ESX agent and ESXi agent see VMware's article on using SNMP with ESXi. Still, keep in mind that with that agent you won't be able to monitor your server using an application like I demonstrate below. You will only be able to configure ESX or ESXi to send traps to your NMS.

How to enable SNMP in ESX Server via SSH
Other than going to the server's console, configuring SNMP via SSH is the only way to do it. Once connected to the ESX Server using SSH you can use standard Linux commands to configure SNMP. While you can get very complex in the configuration of SNMP (using version 3 with encryption and such), I will just cover the standard SNMP configuration.
The SNMP daemon is NOT running by default so until you follow these instructions, your SNMP monitoring application won't be able to talk to your ESX Server.
First, I would edit the /etc/snmp/snmpd.conf file using nano or vi. For example: . . .
At minimum, enter the read-only community string (ROcommunity). I entered the system contact, the system location, read only community string, and trap community string.
At this point, the SNMP daemon is configured but not yet started. You could start the SNMP daemon manually by simply typing: Or However, you actually want the SNMP daemon to start automatically every time the server boots. To do this, type: . . .
At this point, SNMP reads are configured (we didn't configure traps) and the SNMP daemon will start when the server boots.
You could reboot the server if it isn't yet in production or you could use the snmpd start command above. Either way, to make sure it is running, you can do a ps ef | grep snmp and see your SNMPd running, like this: Or, you could run: . . . There are also lots of SNMP commands in ESX. In /usr/bin you will find commands like snmpstatus, snmptest, and snmpwalk. Here is the full list: . . .
Actually, these aren't ESX specific; these are Red Hat Enterprise Linux commands. That means that you can reference the net-snmp documentation for complete instructions on how all of these commands work. If you wanted to configure ESX to send traps to your NMS, you would edit the trapcommunity and the trapsink in the /etc/snmp/snmpd.conf file. The trapsink is the hostname of the NMS. To enable or disable traps completely in ESX server, you can edit /etc/vmware/hostd/config.xml. For more information on this, see the VMware's Using SNMP with ESX Server 3 documentation.

How to monitor VMware ESX Server using SolarWinds VM Monitor You could use just about any SNMP monitoring tool to monitor VMware ESX Server- WhatsUP, Solarwinds Orion, Nagios and others. I chose to use a simple free tool that I recently learned about. This tool is from Solarwinds and it is called SolarWinds VM Monitor. You can download it free and the limitation is that it only monitors a single VMware ESX Server at a time. I like the simple slick interface of VM Monitor. It reminds me of a Windows sidebar gadget or Mac OS widget.

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How to know ESX version ?

In the ESX 4.0 service console: Get summary information about the system level of the system by typing vmware -l.

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For more information on determining detailed build number information for ESX hosts, see KB 1001179.

Recover root pwd url : bring down the server, enter single user mode ("a" to enter kernel args to Grub, "single" to select mode), use the passwd command, and reboot.

How to check disk space on ESX ? url.

How to send an Email from ESX ? url.

How to migrate a VM hardware to v7 (ESX) ? url : (a) stop the VM, (b) right click on it, (c) select "Upgrade Virtual Hardware".

Diferencies entre

• Essentials
• Essentials Plus
• Standard
• Advanced
• Enterprise (***)
• Enterprise Plus

ask forum

pubs; download ; upgrade to 4.1 :

1. Upload Items :
   • pre-upgrade-from-ESX4.0-to-4.1.0-0.0.260247-release.zip
   • upgrade-from-ESX4.0-to-4.1.0-0.0.260247-release.zip
2. enter the host into "Maintenance Mode" :
   vimsh -n -e /hostsvc/maintenance_mode_enter
3. run "esxupdate" on "pre-upgrade" :
   esxupdate --bundle=<upgrade bundle path> update
4. run "esxupdate" on "upgrade" :
   esxupdate --bundle=<upgrade bundle path> update
5. exit the "Maintenance Mode" :
   vimsh -n -e /hostsvc/maintenance_mode_exit
6. reboot the host :
   reboot -f now

url ;

VMware vSphere 5.0 only supports the ESXi hypervisor architecture. Existing ESX deployment of vSphere 4.x or older will have to be migrated to ESXi in order to upgrade to vSphere 5.0. For more information on ESXi and how to migrate, visit the ESXi InfoCenter

• Service Console is removed
  You can perform most tasks that you performed in the Service Console by using esxcli commands in the ESXi Shell, by using vCLI commands, and by using VMware PowerCLI commands.
• ESXi does not have a graphical installer

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Per accedir des Putty amb SSH al ESXi, o fer servir WinSCP p. ex. per poder fer una còpia duna màquina virtual, hem de fer (veure URL) :

1. entrar a la consola del host ESXi
2. pulsar ALT+F1
3. entrar "unsupported"
4. entrar la clau de pas de root
5. editar /etc/inetd.conf
6. treure '#' del davant de '#ssh'
7. matar inetd :
   1. a. ps ef | grep inetd
   2. b. kill -9 <num>
8. engegar inetd : '$ inetd'

URL or URL or URL

How to enable SSH for root user :

1. go to the service console on the physical server and log in
2. vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config
3. change the line that says PermitRootLogin from "no" to "yes"
4. restart the sshd service by typing: services.sh sshd restart

First, modify sshd_config :

Then create it

Finally

To enable SSH for "sebas" user (as putty access), provide Administrator rights to it (AD at v4.1) :

wiki

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In order to have better logging, the following files must have increased their size/number :

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Per obligar a una rotacio dels logs i/o comprovar si hi ha algun error a la configuracio, fem :

Jo tenia un error de nom de fitxer duplicat a /etc/logrotate.d/ que em posava a /var/log/messages :

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Modify "/etc/logrotate.d/vmkernel" :

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VMware ESX Architecture.
In the original ESX architecture, the virtualization kernel (referred to as the vmkernel) is augmented with a management partition known as the console operating system (also known as COS or service console). The primary purpose of the Console OS is to provide a management interface into the host. Various VMware management agents are deployed in the Console OS, along with other infrastructure service agents (e.g. name service, time service, logging, etc). In this architecture, many customers deploy other agents from 3rd parties to provide particular functionality, such as hardware monitoring and system management. Furthermore, individual admin users log into the Console OS to run configuration and diagnostic commands and scripts.

VMware ESXi Architecture.
In the ESXi architecture, the Console OS has been removed and all of the VMware agents run directly on the vmkernel. Infrastructure services are provided natively through modules included with the vmkernel. Other authorized 3rd party modules, such as hardware drivers and hardware monitoring components, can run in vmkernel as well. Only modules that have been digitally signed by VMware are allowed on the system, creating a tightly locked-down architecture. Preventing arbitrary code from running on the ESXi host greatly improves the security of the system.

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See : ESXi vs Full ESX , thread.

ESXi is functionally equivalent to ESX but lacks the ESX Console. URL : VMware ESX and ESXi 4.0 Comparison; VMware ESX and ESXi Comparison.

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• /var/log/vmkernel.log - all log entries are generated by the VMkernel.
• /var/log/vmkwarning.log - a subset of the VMkernel logs that include only warnings and sysalerts events.
• /var/log/hostd.log - host management service (hostd = host daemon) log.
• /var/log/sysboot.log - system boot log.
• /var/log/fdm.log - VMware HA log file.

ESXi 5.x:

1. Get a list of running virtual machines, identified by World ID, UUID, Display Name, and path to the .vmx configuration file, using this command:
   esxcli vm process list
2. Power off one of the virtual machines from the list using this command:
   esxcli vm process kill --type=[soft,hard,force] --world-id=WorldNumber

   Notes: Three power-off methods are available. Soft is the most graceful, hard performs an immediate shutdown, and force should be used as a last resort.
   Alternate power off command syntax is:

   esxcli vm process kill -t [soft,hard,force] -w WorldNumber

ESXi 4.1:

1. Get a list of running virtual machines, identified by World ID, UUID, Display Name, and path to the .vmx configuration file, using this command:
   esxcli vms vm list
2. Power off one of the virtual machines from the list using this command:
   esxcli vms vm kill --type=[soft,hard,force] --world-id=WorldNumber

Using VIM-CMD:

1. Get a list of all registered virtual machines, identified by their VMID, Display Name, and path to the .vmx configuration file, using this command:
   vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms
2. To get the current state of a virtual machine:
   vim-cmd vmsvc/power.getstate VMID
3. Shutdown the virtual machine using the VMID found in Step 2 and run:
   vim-cmd vmsvc/power.shutdown VMID
4. If the virtual machine fails to shut down, use this command:
   vim-cmd vmsvc/power.off VMID

Using ESXTOP:

1. run esxtop command
2. Press c to switch to the CPU resource utilization screen.
3. Press Shift+v to limit the view to virtual machines. This may make it easier to find the Leader World ID in step 7.
4. Press f to display the list of fields.
5. Press c to add the column for the Leader World ID.
6. Identify the target virtual machine by its Name and Leader World ID (LWID).
7. Press k.
8. At the World to kill prompt, type in the Leader World ID from step 6 and press Enter.
9. Wait 30 seconds and validate that the process is not longer listed.

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Totes les comandes disponibles :

Una sub-branca :

• ESXi 5.0 operations guide
• nice 5.1 poster

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Being able to run VMware ESX 4.0 under VMware Workstation as a VM gives users and professionals in the IT community great flexibility when it comes to learning, experimenting or even demonstrating the product. Needless to say, this is not an officially supported deployment.

pdf. doc.

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BIOS emulator

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1. in the guest VM, open VMware Tools
2. select the "options" tab
3. uncheck "Time synchronization"
4. click "Apply"

While this will prevent the ongoing, periodic guest-to-host time synchronization. Be aware that, by default, it will still occur once during each of the following each Virtual Machine operations:

• Resume from suspend
• Migrate with VMotion to another host
• Take or revert to a snapshot
• Shrink the virtual disk
• Restart the VMware Tools service
• Power on

To also disable time synchronization for the above operations, shut down the Virtual Machine, edit its configuration file (.vmx) and specify the following options:

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NTP servers : see ntp pool homepage; (0..3).europe.pool.ntp.org, time.nist.gov, time.windows.com,

Configure ESX:

Create a /etc/ntp.conf file:

Restart service:

Set the hardware clock with the system clock, as on reboot machine sets its system clock from hardware clock:

How to display hardware clock?

Clocks in a Linux System
There are two main clocks in a Linux system:
The Hardware Clock: This is a clock that runs independently of any control program running in the CPU and even when the machine is powered off. (???)

url, use vSphere Client,

• ESX : /var/log/messages
• ESXi : /var/log/syslog.log
• successfull: ntpd[263140]: synchronized to <ntp.server.ip.address>, stratum <X>

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Pot ser aixo ?

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RH v 6.1 :

En VMWare 9, las VMWare Tools no tienen interfaz grfico. Cmo hacer un Shrink? Pues por consola.
Por ejemplo: c:\program files\vmware\vmware tools\vmwaretoolboxcmd.exe disk shrink c:\

Message on VM-n: The Microsoft Windows XP product activation feature creates a key based on the virtual hardware in the virtual machine where it is installed. Changes in the virtual machine configuration may require you to reactivate the guest operating system. To minimize those changes, be sure to set the final memory size for the virtual machine and install VMware Tools before you activate Windows XP. For more information about Windows XP product activation and virtual machines see our Web site at "http://www.vmware.com/info?id=2".

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Symptom: message "File <unspecified filename> was not found" when starting the VM for the first time

Solution : remove from VMX file the line

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Com conectar un device USB a una VM sota ESX v4 ?
Solució:

1. in a terminal window, run "tail -f /var/log/messages
2. plug in the USB flash drive
3. the terminal window will display several messages identifying the USB flash drive, as:
   Oct 25 13:25:23 ubuntu kernel [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk
4. run /sbin/fdisk /dev/sdb, and type "p" to display the partition table. Use "q" to quit.

What is vmkfstool.

Hypervisor només és a ESXi ?

Què és ?

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VMware offers supported, powerful system administration tools. Please see http://www.vmware.com/go/sysadmintools for details.

Admin Guide 4.1, Web Access + u1, VMware vSphere ESXi and vCenter Server 5.1 Documentation Center, VMware vSphere 5.1 documentation [*****], vSphere 4

How to (web) access VM console without vi client

List of esxcfg- commands. Search for "esxcfg-vswitch".

ESXi 3.5, ESX 3.0.

ESX 3i Remote Command Line Interface

VMware Infrastructure 3 Documentation (VMware ESX 3.5 Update 2 and later)

What's New in VMware vSphere 4.0

VMware vSphere 4.0 U1 documentation {***}

Drivers,

Backup : Backup solutions for VMware ESXi, Free alternative for backing up VM's for ESX(i) 3.5 and 4.0+

Setting the MAC address for a VM.
The VMware OUI for automatically generated MAC addresses is 00:0C:29. VMware uses a different OUI for manually generated addresses: 00:50:56.

Pubs : vSphere (ESXi v4 and ESX v4), ESX (ESX server v 1.5, v 2, v 2.1, v 2.5).

ESX Configuration Guide, ESX 4.0 Update 1, vCenter Server 4.

Network configuration : see "Network" section of ESX Configuration Guide.

Good page : Petri & KB.

ESX guide (VMVision GmbH).

API : How to browse the internal vSphere APIs

ESX v4 forum.

Search the VMware Compatibility Guide (for Ubuntu 64-bit)

vCli homepage

Si l'instalació de XP no troba drivers SATA ... els posem al floppy : url -

Un administrador ... en rus.

SolarWinds ESX Monitor. Veeam ESX Monitor.

ESX + Perl.

EC2 ...

Brocade 815 as ESX. HBA install guide - win also : get ISO Admin guide {usr/pwd}

Storage Manager, assign a LUN.

Storage Manager for SANs Step-by-Step Guide {see "using Storage manager" + "Requirements"}

• the server must be running Windows Server 2008 with the Storage Manager for SANs feature installed. To add the feature, in Server Manager click the Features node, and then click Add Features to launch the Add Features Wizard.
• the VDS hardware provider for each storage subsystem must be installed on the server.

Installing IBM System Storage Support for uSoft VDS, Virtual Disk Service. IBM VDS providers