WJPatton.com » ESX3.5

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.

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 KB1009607 – Pegasus CIMSERVER Memory Leak

wjpatton — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:56:26 +0000

VMware has acknowledged an issue that we have been battling for some time with a Pegasus CIMSERVER memory leak. It has been fixed under ESX 4, as it does not use Pegasus, otherwise setup a CRON job for restart Pegasus periodically.

This issue has been extremely frustrating in our environment for a very long time, and initially we suspected that HP SIM may be to blame, turns out we may have gotten that wrong.

We have worked with VMware Support many times, and this is the first time they have acknowledged this leak and that HP SIM is not the culprit.

Read the KB here.

VMware KB1003490 – Restarting ESX Management Agents

wjpatton — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 17:53:17 +0000

You will find these instructions in other How To posts and links here, but I thought I would post a simple KB from VMware for quick reference. service mgmt-vmware restart, will NOT cause a Guest to reboot or go down.

Click here for the article.

8 ESX 3.5 Patches (4 Critical) – 8/31/09

wjpatton — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 21:05:08 +0000

8 new patches have been released for ESX 3.5 only. These do not apply to ESX/i 4 or older versions of ESX/i 3.x.

ESX350-200908401-BG – General

ESX350-200908402-BG – Critical

ESX350-200908403-BG – General

ESX350-200908404-BG – General

ESX350-200908405-BG – Critical

ESX350-200908406-BG – Critical

ESX350-200908407-BG – General

ESX350-200908408-BG – Critical

VMware KB1010213 – Basic SCSI Storage Troubleshooting

wjpatton — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 19:25:36 +0000

VMware has posted a new KB with some useful quick troubleshooting for slow storage issues. I personally use DAVG/cmd frequently with our Fiber DMX infrastructure.

Check out here.

VMware ESX 3.5 7-30-09 – KB1012543

wjpatton — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 17:04:52 +0000

VMware has released ESX 3.5 patches. 6 Patches, 4 are Critical. KB1012543 is most interesting overall. Hit the jump for links and more information.

Click Here to View the VMware KB

Interesting bits from this KB:

The maximum username length of UserAccount in the VMware VI Toolkit is increased from 16 to 32 characters.

Fixes an hostd memory leak issue with HTTP connection recycling when communicating with UI, SDK etc.

I find the second point most important, as we provide “iLO-like” access to our users using the WebService via VirtualCenter. VMware has stated in the past we should turn this off to prevent memory leak issues, however it was not an option. This is certainly a welcome fix!

Disconnected Hosts – Hostd

wjpatton — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 15:33:45 +0000

Good article about troubleshooting Hostd (mgmt-vmware) issues.

http://blog.colovirt.com/2008/10/27/reconnecting-disconnected-vmware-esx-server-to-virtual-infrastructure/

Query Orphan/Old/Off/Snapshot VMDKs

wjpatton — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 18:59:44 +0000

find -iname "*-flat.vmdk" -mtime +7 -ls

you could identify vmdk files older then 7 days that have not been modified and are either off or orphaned.

find -iname "*-delta.vmdk" -mtime +7 -ls

to find old snapshots

VPXA Re-install

wjpatton — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 15:59:14 +0000

Double check the version of the VirtualCenter Agent:

# rpm -qa grep vpxa

(For Example) VMware-vpxa-2.0.1-32042

To stop mgmt-vmware:

# service mgmt-vmware stop

Stopping VMware ESX Server Management services:

VMware ESX Server Host Agent Services [ OK ]

VMware ESX Server Host Agent Watchdog [ OK ]

VMware ESX Server Host Agent [ OK ]

To stop vpxa:

# /etc/init.d/vmware-vpxa stop

Stopping vmware-vpxa: [ OK ]

Uninstall vpxa:

# rpm -e VMware-vpxa-2.0.1-32042

Stopping vmware-vpxa: [ OK ]

warning: /etc/vmware/vpxa.cfg saved as /etc/vmware/vpxa.cfg.rpmsave

To make sure vpxa is no longer there:

# rpm -qa grep vpxa

# rpm -qa grep vpx

Restart up mgmt-vmware service:

# service mgmt-vmware start

Starting VMware ESX Server Management services:

VMware ESX Server Host Agent (background) [ OK ]

Availability report startup (background) [ OK ]

After reconnecting to the VI3 host from VirtualCenter, double check to make sure the version of the VirtualCenter Agent is right:

# rpm -qa grep vpxa

VMware-vpxa-2.0.1-33643

This example uses 2.0.1, but instructions are still valid for all 2.x versions of VirtualCenter and ESX 3.x