A. Mikkelsen

Passed VCP410

Yesterday I passed the VCP401 exam with 375 points.

I feel that the exam was harder than the old exam (VCP310).
Think VMware has realized this and dropped the target for VCI from 400 to 350 points.

Black screen in a Windows VM or an a physical server

Over the past few months we have seen a few Windows servers with a black screen.
Meaning

• You can’t see the logon promt
• You get a black screen when you connect with RDP

We found that the problem was caused by a change in the Windows color scheme.

The solution is to copy the color scheme from a simular Windows servers registry and add it the VM/server that has the problem using registry to connect to a remote server.

1. On a simular windows server locate “[HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Colors]” and export it to a file.
2. Using the same Registry Editor connect to the remote server.
3. Import the registry file just created or change the color scheme manually.
4. Reboote the affected server to change the color scheme.

Default color scheme for a Windows 2003 server.
Default color scheme for a Windows XP.
Default color scheme for a Windows 2000 server.
Default color scheme for a Windows 2008 server.

List of free VMware tools

TeckHead.com has released a list of free tools and scriptrs for your VMware enviroment.

The list will be updated with new tools and scripts when ever new are found …

Read the list here.

The Original ESX HealthCheck script - Updated 0.30

After almost 2 years of silence a new version of the ESXHealthScript has surfaced.

Version 0.30 is released.

PowerCLI To WMI via PowerWF

In this demo Ben (@xcud) takes a PowerCLI script that’s been transcribed into workflow activities and drop a ‘ToWMI’ activity at the end which causes the workflow to push the data retrieved from PowerCLI into WMI when the workflow is run. The workflow is set to run automatically every 5 seconds by being deployed as a Task in the Agent. The data is shown both on the PowerShell commandline and in a PowerGadget digital readout. Download the beta now: http://powerwf.com/

(Text copied from NTPRO.NL)

Offline upgrade from ESX 3.x to vSphere (ESX 4.x)

If you want to perform an offline upgrade of an ESX 3.x host to the new vSphere  host there are a few ways.

Using a DVD:

/root/esxupgrade.sh storage1

Using the DVD ISO:

esxupgrade.sh -i /vmfs/volumes/storage1/esx4.iso /vmfs/volumes/storage1

storage1 - should be a VMDK local datastore attached to the host.
storage1 - should be at least 8.4GB in size.

Read the full guide here.

ESX as a VM - Nothing new……

But ESX as a VM with running VM’s is new.

It’s now possible to run ESX as a VM on an ESX server or in a Workstation.

See howto
http://www.vcritical.com/2009/05/vmware-esx-4-can-even-virtualize-itself/

Upgrading to vSphere

Read this post before upgrading.

Top 10 of new VMware products in 2009

Techtarget.com has released their Top 10 pick from VMware to tryout in 2009.
Read it.

• Fault Tolerance (FT)
• VMsafe
• vNetvork Distributed Switch and Cisco Nexus 1000v virtual switch
• vCenter CapacityIQ
• vCenter Data Revovery
• vCenter ConfigControl
• vCenter Orchestrator
• vCenter Chargeback
• vCenter AppSpeed
• vShield Zones

VMKUSAGE is back… Can you belive it…..

VMware have included the old and trustworthy performance monitor VMKUSAGE in VC 2.5 U4.
This time the monotor has been added to VC as a plugin.

To get access to the new plugin you have to follow this knowledge base article.

If you like me upgraded your VC without stopping the Webaccess service first you have to follow this KB article before the plugin will work.

See more screenshots at www.run-virtual.com.

Powershell : List VMs with CD-ROM, Floppy, Seriel Ports and Parallel Ports

Today I had to create a script that creates lists of VMs, for each of the below statements:

• CD-ROM is ‘Connected’
• CD-ROM set to ‘Connect at power on’
• CD-ROM device type set to ‘Client Device’
• CD-ROM device type set to ‘Datastore ISO file’
• Floppy is ‘Connected’
• Floppy set to ‘Connect at power on’
• Floppy device type set to ‘Client Device’
• Floppy device type set to ‘Use excisting floppy image in datastore’
• Serial Ports attached
• Parallel Ports attached

Get it here

Microsoft is giving SharePoint Designer 2007 away for free

Finally Microsoft is giving away it’s software for free.
They are starting with SharePoint Designer 2007 (formally Frontpage).
It’s a start and I’m hoping they will keep up the “good work”

Get it from Microsoft
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=baa3ad86-bfc1-4bd4-9812-d9e710d44f42

Error encountered trying to restore cpu state from file……

Today a one of my customers encountered an error when trying to revert to an snapshot.
They recived the following error:
“error encountered trying to restore cpu state from file /vmfs/volumes/…./xxxxx.vmsn”

After a bit of googleing if came up with the problem.
The error occures when a VM with snapshots (taken when VM is PoweredOn) is migrated or moved to a host with another CPU stepping - and the VM is reverted to ine of theise snapshots.

To correct the problem you have to complete the following steps:

• Revert to the snapshot you want to use.
• Make sure the VM is powered off.
• Edit the VM’s .vmx file and remove the line “checkpoint.vmstate”
• Power on the VM
• Delete the snapshot

If you still want a snapshot of the VM in it’s current state

• Shutdown the VM
• When its powered off create a new snapshot
• Power on the VM again to start work with it

This solution has to be applied to all VM’s with snapshots taken while the VM was powered on.

Smart and simple VCB backup script for ESX & ESXi

A fellow member in the Danish Usergroup has created a very simple backup script for ESX and ESXi using PowerShell and VCB.

http://www.virtualize.dk

I like that it’s small and simple.
Keep up the good work….

Problems uninstalling VMware Tools

To night I had problems with uninstalling VMware Tools in a VM after updating to the latest ESX release.

The uninstaller kept asking me to insert the “VMWare Tools” disk and click OK”.
In the popup window there is pull-down field labeled “Use Source” and in this field is the number one (”1″).

If I tried to browse to the the “VMware Tools.msi” it returns an error: “The file ‘X:\VMware Tools.msi’ is not a valid installation package for the product VMware Tools…”

The solution I used to get around this problem was simply:

1. Open the registry
2. Locate “[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Installer\Products\8E24D35BB278E034284D0860A513CF1E” and delete it.
   (If you don’t want to delete it, just rename it or make a backup first)
3. Run the VMware Tools installation again.

And wola it nor works

Sudden error - kernel Panic…..

Right after lunch today I had a host (3.5 U3) crach with a kernel panic.

It shouldn’t be a problem for clusters running HA, but on this cluster I had disabled HA bacause of an error and hadn’t had the time to depug :-(.
So my VM’s couldn’t be started on a new host and I’m not going to manually register 116 VM’s on another host - so I was forced to find a soultion.

I did a bit of googleing and found VMware KB10196.
I followed the steps and everything is now working - AND HA IS ENABLED

This is the steps i followed:

1. Reboot the host into “VMware ESX servere (Debug mode)”
   
2. Log in with a user with root permissions and run the following commands.
   esxcfg-boot -p (reloads the PCI data)
   esxcfg-boot -b (sets up boot information)
   esxcfg-boot -r (refreshes initrd)
3. Now just reboot the host.

After the reboot the host should work as normal. From the VC Client you can verify that the host is connected to VC.

Need to see how secure your “babies” is ??

Have you ever needed to verify the security or hardened state of you ESX hosts?

If yes, then these tools from ConfigureSoft.com or TripWire.com will help you make the process easier.
If no, take a look at the tools anyway - it’s always nice to know if your “babies” are safe ;-).

http://www.configuresoft.com/compliance-checker.aspx
Compliance Checker for VMware ESX, checks the compliance of VMware ESX hosts against VMware hardening guidelines and Center for Internet Security (CIS) benchmarks.

Compliance Checker for PCI DSS, checks the compliance of servers and desktops against PCI DSS v1.2 requirements as specified by PCI Security Standards Council.

TripWire ConfigCheck

http://tripwire.com/configcheck/download.cfm
Read a great how to.
http://searchvmware.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid179_gci1344980,00.html

Broken links to the files for ESX_History

Yesterday i was informed that the links to the files for ESX_History was broken.
The links are now corrected and working.
Sorry for the mistake.

Windows Server 2008 and SYSPREP in a VMware enviroment

After we have allowed Windows 2008 Servers in our VMware VI enviroment, we been having problems sysprepping Windows 2008 Server.
So here is a quick guide to sysprep a Windows 2008 server in a VMware VI enviroment.
(Use this workaround until VMware VI allows you run sysprep against a WIN2008 Server)

1. Change the source or templates Guest Operating Systemsetting to “Vista (32 bit)” or “Vista (64 bit)” depending on the installation of the Windows 2008 server installation.
2. Clone the VM or template and you are now able to customize your Win2008 server with sysprep.
3. After the cloning is done Power On the new VM and let the customization complete.
4. Shutdown the VM and change the Guest Operating Systemsetting back to “Windows Server 2008 (32/64 bit)”

The reason the above workaround works is that Vista and Server 2008 has sysprep build into the OS and the sysprep in both OS’s and are based on the same technology.

Read more here

http://www.vmwareinfo.com/2008/05/sysprep-windows-2008-in-vmware.html

http://communities.vmware.com/message/934733#934733

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc766514.aspx

Graph history on your ESX enviroments development

2 years ago a VMUG user in Denmark created a Ubuntu VM that could graficily could show the develeoment of the amount of VM’s in a Cluster.

Unfurtionally someone stole my labtop and the VM :-).

So I had to create a new. And of cause it’s based on PowerShell ;-).

The webpages shows the following information

• Amount of VM’s in each Cluster
• Amount of Hosts in each Cluster
• The size of each Datastore and the amount of free disk space

Get the source code in the Download section under Vi Toolkit for Windows