WJPatton.com » esx

VMware KB1007566 – Monitor Snapshot Deletion

wjpatton — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 19:03:11 +0000

VMware updated a KB today on how to monitor snapshot deletion. This is especially useful for large snapshots that “time out” for vCenter because they take more than 5-10 minutes to complete. I have been using this exact procedure for years and never thought to blog it…for some insane reason.

Read the KB here.

Basically, use the watch command on the *.vmdk files in the VM datastore. You can use -n to set a refresh interval and -d to show the change in size between refreshes. However, the most important information is what base .vmdk file is being written to and when. This touch timestamp will give you more information on which disk is in progress, which has not yet started, and what is already done.

Interpreting ESXTOP files with ESXPlot

wjpatton — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 04:14:32 +0000

Scott Drummonds of vPivot.com posted on ESXPlot, a great tool that is far more efficient and less aggravating than Perfmon for working with ESXTOP output files.

Geoff White has created a badly needed tool here, Perfmon worked but was very time consuming. Especially with those days or weeks of ESXTOP statistic files.

Extract and use the README. For Windows, extract all files, navigate to the esxplot.exe in the Bin directory and you are off and running!

Geoff White now has a full project site with all information and releases. Click here

Labs.vmware.com has now gone live and hosting ESXPlot as well. Click here

VMware KB1011170 – Checking Zero vs EagerZero Disk Status

wjpatton — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 18:43:59 +0000

VMware has released a KB with a handy vmfstools command to check your VM’s disk status. If the VMFS output shows a “Z” it is Zerothick with blocks that have not been written to yet.

Read the article here.

This allows you to check the disk status for options such as Fault Tolerance or Microsoft Cluster Services. The disks must be in an Eagerzerothick format for these options to work.

VMware KB 1008886 – Unable to read partition from Add Storage Wizard

wjpatton — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:46:23 +0000

These are great instructions if you have received errors when trying to add a LUN to an ESX Host, and suspect that the LUN may not be READY, or write enabled these instructions can help you troubleshoot and/or fix the LUN.

Read the KB here.

If you are unable to re-write the LUN label, the disk is not READY or not write enabled. Otherwise, if the label is something other than msdos, it should now be able to be added after following these instructions.

*Warning* Using Parted incorrectly could destroy data on LUNs in use, if not used properly!

VMware KB1005184 – Decoding ESX Purple Screen Error

wjpatton — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 23:38:23 +0000

VMware doesn’t use the “Purple Screen of Death” or “ESX PSOD” terminology in their documents so if you Google it, you won’t get directed to VMware.com and this document for this information. I know in the past I have spent far too much time searching for PSOD information, so keep this link handy. This document applies to all versions of ESX, from 1.x to 4.x.

Thank you to Rick Blythe of VMware for the link from the VMTN Community site.

Document located here.