VMware – BAFM

PowerCLI: Delete all snapshots by name

February 23, 2015February 23, 2015 Christian Leave a comment

I have the issue that we use a cloud automation software, which for whatever reason failed to delete the hypervisor snapshots.

Now I was looking into a quick way to delete all those 520 snapshots with PowerCLI, and I found something pretty quick.

Based on that, I came up with my own quick PowerCLI one-liner, that’ll list all VMs and their snapshots:

Get-VM | Get-Snapshot  | Where { $_.Name -like "201502*" } | Format-Table -Property VM, Name, Created, Description, SizeMB -AutoSize

1	Get-VM \| Get-Snapshot \| Where { $_.Name -like "201502*" } \| Format-Table -Property VM, Name, Created, Description, SizeMB -AutoSize

Now, I could use another one-liner to delete all snapshots, that’ll look like this:

Get-VM | Get-Snapshot  | Where {$_.Name -like "201502*"} | Remove-Snapshot -Confirm:$false -RunAsync

1	Get-VM \| Get-Snapshot \| Where {$_.Name -like "201502*"} \| Remove-Snapshot -Confirm:$false -RunAsync

However, this will either crash an ESXi host (because the amount of the snapshots is too much) or overwealm the storage. So in the end I used a script like this:

$maxtasks = 5
 
$snaps = Get-VM | Get-Snapshot | Where { $_.Name -like "201502*" }
 
$i = 0
while($i -lt $snaps.Count) {
	Remove-Snapshot -Snapshot $snaps[$i] -RunAsync -Confirm:$false
	$tasks = Get-Task -Status "Running" | where {$_.Name -eq "RemoveSnapshot_Task"}
	while($tasks.Count -gt ($maxtasks-1)) {
		sleep 30
		$tasks = Get-Task -Status "Running" | where {$_.Name -eq "RemoveSnapshot_Task"}
     }
     $i++
}

$maxtasks = 5

$snaps = Get-VM | Get-Snapshot | Where { $_.Name -like "201502*" }

$i = 0

while($i -lt $snaps.Count) {

Remove-Snapshot -Snapshot $snaps[$i] -RunAsync -Confirm:$false

$tasks = Get-Task -Status "Running" | where {$_.Name -eq "RemoveSnapshot_Task"}

while($tasks.Count -gt ($maxtasks-1)) {

sleep 30

$tasks = Get-Task -Status "Running" | where {$_.Name -eq "RemoveSnapshot_Task"}

}

$i++

}

This’ll limit the maximum amount of snapshots to delete at times to 5 (or 10 if you change the $maxtasks value).

Quick-Add a bunch of Virtual Machine Port-Groups from CSV

January 3, 2015January 3, 2015 Christian Leave a comment

Well, I’m currently migrating between different cluster layouts, and I had to create the new PortGroups on the old hosts, in order for me to switch between old and new hosts.

$vmhosts = Get-Cluster "UCSCL01-02" | Get-VMHost
foreach ($vmhost in $vmhosts) {
  import-csv -Delimiter ";" .\pg.csv | foreach {
    $vmhost | Get-VirtualSwitch -Name "vSwitch3" | New-VirtualPortGroup `
                                -Name $_.portgroup -VLanId $_.vlanid
  }
}

$vmhosts = Get-Cluster "UCSCL01-02" | Get-VMHost

foreach ($vmhost in $vmhosts) {

import-csv -Delimiter ";" .\pg.csv | foreach {

$vmhost | Get-VirtualSwitch -Name "vSwitch3" | New-VirtualPortGroup `

-Name $_.portgroup -VLanId $_.vlanid

}

And the corresponding CSV would look like this:

portgroup;vlanid
1700_routers;1700
1701_routers;1701
1702_routers;1702
1703_routers;1703
1704_routers;1704
1705_routers;1705
1706_routers;1706
1707_routers;1707
1708_routers;1708
1709_routers;1709
1710_routers;1710
1711_routers;1711
1712_routers;1712
1713_routers;1713
1714_routers;1714
1715_routers;1715
1716_routers;1716
1717_routers;1717
1718_routers;1718
1719_routers;1719
2000_virtual-machines;2000
2001_virtual-machines;2001
2002_virtual-machines;2002
2003_virtual-machines;2003
2004_virtual-machines;2004
2005_virtual-machines;2005
2006_virtual-machines;2006
2007_virtual-machines;2007
2008_virtual-machines;2008
2009_virtual-machines;2009
2010_virtual-machines;2010
2011_virtual-machines;2011
2012_virtual-machines;2012
2013_virtual-machines;2013
2014_virtual-machines;2014
2015_virtual-machines;2015
2016_virtual-machines;2016
2017_virtual-machines;2017
2018_virtual-machines;2018
2019_virtual-machines;2019

portgroup;vlanid

1700_routers;1700

1701_routers;1701

1702_routers;1702

1703_routers;1703

1704_routers;1704

1705_routers;1705

1706_routers;1706

1707_routers;1707

1708_routers;1708

1709_routers;1709

1710_routers;1710

1711_routers;1711

1712_routers;1712

1713_routers;1713

1714_routers;1714

1715_routers;1715

1716_routers;1716

1717_routers;1717

1718_routers;1718

1719_routers;1719

2000_virtual-machines;2000

2001_virtual-machines;2001

2002_virtual-machines;2002

2003_virtual-machines;2003

2004_virtual-machines;2004

2005_virtual-machines;2005

2006_virtual-machines;2006

2007_virtual-machines;2007

2008_virtual-machines;2008

2009_virtual-machines;2009

2010_virtual-machines;2010

2011_virtual-machines;2011

2012_virtual-machines;2012

2013_virtual-machines;2013

2014_virtual-machines;2014

2015_virtual-machines;2015

2016_virtual-machines;2016

2017_virtual-machines;2017

2018_virtual-machines;2018

2019_virtual-machines;2019

VMware templates: post-processing for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and openSUSE

November 21, 2013November 21, 2013 Christian Leave a comment

Well, I’ve been fiddling around with SLES and openSUSE VMware templates. I know it’s a stupid idea when you have a PXE server from which you could install this in a matter of minutes (seriously the SLES PXE installation takes about 5 minutes).

However, when dealing with DMZ’s (yeah, they exist!) you usually don’t have any PXE servers there. So I decided to go with simple VMware templates (like we do with Windows already), but had to iron out a few kinks.

There’s no way to run a set of scripts after the deployment scripts from VMware have been run
The hostname isn’t changed everywhere (/etc/postfix/main.cf for example)

So of I went and wrote a short (70 line ..) init script, which will do exactly that.

#!/bin/sh
#
# /etc/init.d/template-deploy
#
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides:             template-deploy
# Required-Start:       $sshd
# Should-Start:
# Required-Stop:        $sshd
# Should-Stop:
# Default-Start:        2 3 5
# Default-Stop:
# Short-Description:    Makes the final adjustments when deployed a template
# Description:          VMware has a few kinks when deploying a linux template.
#                       This init script will handle those kinks and
#                       incorporate the necessary changes to the final system
#                       after the VMware customizations are done.
### END INIT INFO

# Source LSB init functions
. /etc/rc.status

rc_reset

LOGFILES="/var/log/messages* /var/log/mail* /var/log/zypper.log /var/log/localmessages /var/log/warn /var/log/NetworkManager /var/log/zypp/history /var/log/clamd.log /var/log/cksquid.log /var/log/ftp-proxy.log* /var/log/apache2/*_log /var/log/squid/*.log /var/log/pbl.log"

case "$1" in
	start)
		# Read /etc/HOSTNAME and check it against /etc/template
		if [ -f /etc/HOSTNAME -a -f /etc/template ] ; then
			SYS_HOSTNAME="`cat /etc/HOSTNAME`"
			TPL_HOSTNAME="`cat /etc/template`"

			# Only if the hostname isn't like the template name
			# the script will actually run.
			if [ "$SYS_HOSTNAME" != "$TPL_HOSTNAME" ] ; then
				sed -i "s/$TPL_HOSTNAME/$SYS_HOSTNAME/g" \
					/etc/postfix/main.cf /etc/hosts \
					/etc/HOSTNAME

					bash /var/adm/autoinstall/scripts/configure_users.sh

					# Stop services for logfile deletion.
					systemctl stop postfix
					systemctl stop syslog

					# Remove log files
					for file in $LOGFILES; do
						rm -f $file
					done

					rm -f /var/log/YaST2/*
					rm -rf /var/log/vmware-imc

					# Remove the init script
					chkconfig -d template-deploy
					rm -f /etc/template
					rm -f /etc/init.d/template-deploy
				fi
			fi
			rc_status -v
			;;
        *)
			;;
esac
rc_exit

#!/bin/sh

# /etc/init.d/template-deploy

### BEGIN INIT INFO

# Provides: template-deploy

# Required-Start: $sshd

# Should-Start:

# Required-Stop: $sshd

# Should-Stop:

# Default-Start: 2 3 5

# Default-Stop:

# Short-Description: Makes the final adjustments when deployed a template

# Description: VMware has a few kinks when deploying a linux template.

# This init script will handle those kinks and

# incorporate the necessary changes to the final system

# after the VMware customizations are done.

### END INIT INFO

# Source LSB init functions

. /etc/rc.status

rc_reset

LOGFILES="/var/log/messages* /var/log/mail* /var/log/zypper.log /var/log/localmessages /var/log/warn /var/log/NetworkManager /var/log/zypp/history /var/log/clamd.log /var/log/cksquid.log /var/log/ftp-proxy.log* /var/log/apache2/*_log /var/log/squid/*.log /var/log/pbl.log"

case "$1" in

start)

# Read /etc/HOSTNAME and check it against /etc/template

if [ -f /etc/HOSTNAME -a -f /etc/template ] ; then

SYS_HOSTNAME="`cat /etc/HOSTNAME`"

TPL_HOSTNAME="`cat /etc/template`"

# Only if the hostname isn't like the template name

# the script will actually run.

if [ "$SYS_HOSTNAME" != "$TPL_HOSTNAME" ] ; then

sed -i "s/$TPL_HOSTNAME/$SYS_HOSTNAME/g" \

/etc/postfix/main.cf /etc/hosts \

/etc/HOSTNAME

bash /var/adm/autoinstall/scripts/configure_users.sh

# Stop services for logfile deletion.

systemctl stop postfix

systemctl stop syslog

# Remove log files

for file in $LOGFILES; do

rm -f $file

done

rm -f /var/log/YaST2/*

rm -rf /var/log/vmware-imc

# Remove the init script

chkconfig -d template-deploy

rm -f /etc/template

rm -f /etc/init.d/template-deploy

rc_status -v

;;

esac

rc_exit

You’ll also need to create a file (/etc/template), which’ll hold the template’s hostname and will be used for the comparison if VMware’s post-processing is already finished.

vmware-config-tools.pl finished with “Could not find Parent Node”

September 9, 2013September 9, 2013 Christian Leave a comment

Well, today I encountered a old problem (or so I thought). Basically a specific udevadm version causes the vmware-config-tools.pl script to error out like this:

The vmblock enables dragging or copying files between host and guest in a
Fusion or Workstation virtual environment.  Do you wish to enable this feature?
[no]

!!! [EXPERIMENTAL] !!!
VMware automatic kernel modules enables automatic building and installation of
VMware kernel modules at boot that are not already present.  By selecting yes,
you will be enabling this experimental feature.  You can always disable this
feature by re-running vmware-config-tools.pl.

Would you like to enable VMware automatic kernel modules?
[no]

No X install found.

Could not find Parent Node...

The vmblock enables dragging or copying files between host and guest in a

Fusion or Workstation virtual environment. Do you wish to enable this feature?

[no]

!!! [EXPERIMENTAL] !!!

VMware automatic kernel modules enables automatic building and installation of

VMware kernel modules at boot that are not already present. By selecting yes,

you will be enabling this experimental feature. You can always disable this

feature by re-running vmware-config-tools.pl.

Would you like to enable VMware automatic kernel modules?

[no]

No X install found.

Could not find Parent Node...

I’ve had encountered this before in the past, and before there was some explanation on the VMware forums, which I couldn’t locate. Lucky me, the VMware Tools updater keeps modified versions of vmware-tools-config.pl around. So I ended up creating this short diff, so that I may find it in the future – if I still need it:

--- /usr/bin/vmware-config-tools.pl     2013-09-09 09:43:13.000000000 +0200
+++ vmware-config-tools.pl      2013-09-09 09:43:04.000000000 +0200
@@ -6880,7 +6880,7 @@
       my $txt = $1;
       if ($txt =~ m/{vendor}=="VMware/is) {
          # Get the udev device path from this node
-         if ($txt =~ m/'(.*?)':/s) {
+         if ($txt =~ m/^'(.*?)':/s) {
             unshift(@scsiNodes, $1);
             unshift(@nodeText, $txt);
          } else {

--- /usr/bin/vmware-config-tools.pl 2013-09-09 09:43:13.000000000 +0200

+++ vmware-config-tools.pl 2013-09-09 09:43:04.000000000 +0200

@@ -6880,7 +6880,7 @@

my $txt = $1;

if ($txt =~ m/{vendor}=="VMware/is) {

# Get the udev device path from this node

- if ($txt =~ m/'(.*?)':/s) {

+ if ($txt =~ m/^'(.*?)':/s) {

unshift(@scsiNodes, $1);

unshift(@nodeText, $txt);

} else {

VMware ESXi – Free memory limits corrected

April 28, 2013April 28, 2013 Christian Leave a comment

Well, a coworker of mine asked me about this. Since I didn’t know (yeah, I don’t know everything) I went to my trusted friend – Google – and searched for it. There seems to be a lot of confusion about this, so I thought I’d clarify this.

I ended up putting a license to one of my hosts in vCenter.

Yeah well, the host has a bit more memory than the allowed 32GB vRAM per Socket (the host has two sockets) – thus you’re allowed to have 64GB RAM if your host has two sockets.

Installserver: Publish a VMware ESX ISO – register-vmware

July 24, 2012August 8, 2014 Christian Leave a comment

Here’s an old script, that also uses the magic provided by pxe-menu-generation (the script I posted before), but for VMware ESX/ESXi.

; html-script: false  ]#!/bin/bash

TFTP_DIR=/srv/tftp
INSTSRC_DIR=/srv/instsrc

if [ -z $@ ] ; then
  echo "Usage: register-vmware <path to iso-file> labelname"
  exit 1
fi

#set -x

ISO_FILE=$1
mkdir /mnt/loop
mount -o loop $ISO_FILE /mnt/loop

if [ -f /mnt/loop/packages.xml ] ; then
  # Determine ISO information
  OS_LABEL="$( grep "<name>" /mnt/loop/packages.xml | sed -e "s,<name>,," -e "s,</name>,," )"
  OS_NAME="$( grep "<ProductLineId>" /mnt/loop/packages.xml | sed -e "s,<ProductLineId>,," -e "s,</ProductLineId>,," )"
  OS_RELEASE="$( grep "<version>" /mnt/loop/packages.xml | sed -e "s,<version>,," -e "s,</version>,," )"
  OS_BUILD="$( grep "<release>" /mnt/loop/packages.xml | sed -e "s,<release>,," -e "s,</release>,," )"

  shopt -s extglob
  OS_LABEL=${OS_LABEL##*( )}
  OS_NAME=${OS_NAME##*( )}
  OS_RELEASE=${OS_RELEASE##*( )}
  OS_BUILD=${OS_BUILD##*( )}
elif [ -f /mnt/loop/README.txt ] ; then
  OS_LABEL=""
  OS_NAME=""
  OS_RELEASE=""
  OS_BUILD=""
fi

# Create directories
mkdir -p $TFTP_DIR/boot/$OS_NAME/$OS_RELEASE-$OS_BUILD
mkdir -p $TFTP_DIR/pxelinux.cfg/$OS_NAME
mkdir -p $INSTSRC_DIR/$OS_NAME/$OS_RELEASE-$OS_BUILD

#set +x

# Copy CD/DVD content
rsync -av /mnt/loop/* $INSTSRC_DIR/$OS_NAME/$OS_RELEASE-$OS_BUILD

# Copy the PXE boot file (initrd/kernel)
cp $INSTSRC_DIR/$OS_NAME/$OS_RELEASE-$OS_BUILD/isolinux/initrd.img 
  $TFTP_DIR/boot/$OS_NAME/$OS_RELEASE-$OS_BUILD/initrd.img

cp $INSTSRC_DIR/$OS_NAME/$OS_RELEASE-$OS_BUILD/isolinux/vmlinuz 
  $TFTP_DIR/boot/$OS_NAME/$OS_RELEASE-$OS_BUILD/vmlinuz

# Create the PXE boot menu
cat > $TFTP_DIR/pxelinux.cfg/$OS_NAME/$OS_NAME-$OS_RELEASE-$OS_BUILD.menu << EOF
#LABEL $OS_LABEL $OS_RELEASE - build $OS_BUILD
#OSNAME $OS_NAME
#OSARCH x86_64

MENU TITLE VMware Installservice
MENU BACKGROUND addons/background-vmware.png

MENU COLOR screen       37;40  #80ffffff #00000000
MENU COLOR border           0  #ffffffff #ee000000 std
MENU COLOR title            0  #ffffffff #ee000000 std
MENU COLOR unsel            0  #ffffffff #ee000000 std
MENU COLOR sel              0  #ffffffff #85000000 std
MENU COLOR scrollbar    30;44  #40000000 #00000000
MENU COLOR tabmsg           0  #ee000000 #ffffffff std
MENU COLOR cmdmark          0  #ff00ff00 #00000000 std
MENU COLOR cmdline          0  #ee000000 #ffffffff std
MENU COLOR timeout_msg      0  #ee000000 #ffffffff std
MENU COLOR timeout          0  #ee000000 #ffffffff std
MENU COLOR disabled         0  #ffffffff #ee000000 std
MENU COLOR pwdheader        0  #ff000000 #99ffffff rev
MENU COLOR pwdborder        0  #ff000000 #99ffffff rev
MENU COLOR pwdentry         0  #ff000000 #99ffffff rev
MENU COLOR hotkey           0  #ff00ff00 #ee000000 std
MENU COLOR hotsel           0  #ffffffff #85000000 std

LABEL DESC
MENU LABEL $OS_LABEL $OS_RELEASE
MENU DISABLE

MENU SEPARATOR

LABEL kickstart
MENU LABEL ^Kickstart Installation
KERNEL boot/$OS_NAME/$OS_RELEASE-$OS_BUILD/vmlinuz
APPEND initrd=boot/$OS_NAME/$OS_RELEASE-$OS_BUILD/initrd.img vmkopts=debugLogToSerial:1 mem=512M ks=http://install.home.barfoo.org/kickstart/$OS_NAME-$OS_RELEASE-$OS_BUILD.cfg HOSTNAME=
IAPPEND 1

TEXT HELP
Es ist zu beachten, das mit TAB der Hostname angepasst werden muss!
ENDTEXT

LABEL netinst
MENU LABEL ^Netzwerkbasierte Installation
KERNEL boot/$OS_NAME/$OS_RELEASE-$OS_BUILD/vmlinuz
APPEND initrd=boot/$OS_NAME/$OS_RELEASE-$OS_BUILD/initrd.img vmkopts=debugLogToSerial:1 mem=512M url=http://install.home.barfoo.org/instsrc/$OS_NAME/$OS_RELEASE-$OS_BUILD
IAPPEND 1

MENU SEPARATOR

LABEL back
MENU LABEL <-- ^Vorherige Ansicht
KERNEL addons/vesamenu.c32
APPEND pxelinux.cfg/$OS_NAME.menu
EOF

umount /mnt/loop
rmdir /mnt/loop

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; html-script: false ]#!/bin/bash

TFTP_DIR=/srv/tftp

INSTSRC_DIR=/srv/instsrc

if [ -z $@ ] ; then

echo "Usage: register-vmware <path to iso-file> labelname"

exit 1

#set -x

ISO_FILE=$1

mkdir /mnt/loop

mount -o loop $ISO_FILE /mnt/loop

if [ -f /mnt/loop/packages.xml ] ; then

# Determine ISO information

OS_LABEL="$( grep "<name>" /mnt/loop/packages.xml | sed -e "s,<name>,," -e "s,</name>,," )"

OS_NAME="$( grep "<ProductLineId>" /mnt/loop/packages.xml | sed -e "s,<ProductLineId>,," -e "s,</ProductLineId>,," )"

OS_RELEASE="$( grep "<version>" /mnt/loop/packages.xml | sed -e "s,<version>,," -e "s,</version>,," )"

OS_BUILD="$( grep "<release>" /mnt/loop/packages.xml | sed -e "s,<release>,," -e "s,</release>,," )"

shopt -s extglob

OS_LABEL=${OS_LABEL##*( )}

OS_NAME=${OS_NAME##*( )}

OS_RELEASE=${OS_RELEASE##*( )}

OS_BUILD=${OS_BUILD##*( )}

elif [ -f /mnt/loop/README.txt ] ; then

OS_LABEL=""

OS_NAME=""

OS_RELEASE=""

OS_BUILD=""

# Create directories

mkdir -p $TFTP_DIR/boot/$OS_NAME/$OS_RELEASE-$OS_BUILD

mkdir -p $TFTP_DIR/pxelinux.cfg/$OS_NAME

mkdir -p $INSTSRC_DIR/$OS_NAME/$OS_RELEASE-$OS_BUILD

#set +x

# Copy CD/DVD content

rsync -av /mnt/loop/* $INSTSRC_DIR/$OS_NAME/$OS_RELEASE-$OS_BUILD

# Copy the PXE boot file (initrd/kernel)

cp $INSTSRC_DIR/$OS_NAME/$OS_RELEASE-$OS_BUILD/isolinux/initrd.img

$TFTP_DIR/boot/$OS_NAME/$OS_RELEASE-$OS_BUILD/initrd.img

cp $INSTSRC_DIR/$OS_NAME/$OS_RELEASE-$OS_BUILD/isolinux/vmlinuz

$TFTP_DIR/boot/$OS_NAME/$OS_RELEASE-$OS_BUILD/vmlinuz

# Create the PXE boot menu

cat > $TFTP_DIR/pxelinux.cfg/$OS_NAME/$OS_NAME-$OS_RELEASE-$OS_BUILD.menu << EOF

#LABEL $OS_LABEL $OS_RELEASE - build $OS_BUILD

#OSNAME $OS_NAME

#OSARCH x86_64

MENU TITLE VMware Installservice

MENU BACKGROUND addons/background-vmware.png

MENU COLOR screen 37;40 #80ffffff #00000000

MENU COLOR border 0 #ffffffff #ee000000 std

MENU COLOR title 0 #ffffffff #ee000000 std

MENU COLOR unsel 0 #ffffffff #ee000000 std

MENU COLOR sel 0 #ffffffff #85000000 std

MENU COLOR scrollbar 30;44 #40000000 #00000000

MENU COLOR tabmsg 0 #ee000000 #ffffffff std

MENU COLOR cmdmark 0 #ff00ff00 #00000000 std

MENU COLOR cmdline 0 #ee000000 #ffffffff std

MENU COLOR timeout_msg 0 #ee000000 #ffffffff std

MENU COLOR timeout 0 #ee000000 #ffffffff std

MENU COLOR disabled 0 #ffffffff #ee000000 std

MENU COLOR pwdheader 0 #ff000000 #99ffffff rev

MENU COLOR pwdborder 0 #ff000000 #99ffffff rev

MENU COLOR pwdentry 0 #ff000000 #99ffffff rev

MENU COLOR hotkey 0 #ff00ff00 #ee000000 std

MENU COLOR hotsel 0 #ffffffff #85000000 std

LABEL DESC

MENU LABEL $OS_LABEL $OS_RELEASE

MENU DISABLE

MENU SEPARATOR

LABEL kickstart

MENU LABEL ^Kickstart Installation

KERNEL boot/$OS_NAME/$OS_RELEASE-$OS_BUILD/vmlinuz

APPEND initrd=boot/$OS_NAME/$OS_RELEASE-$OS_BUILD/initrd.img vmkopts=debugLogToSerial:1 mem=512M ks=http://install.home.barfoo.org/kickstart/$OS_NAME-$OS_RELEASE-$OS_BUILD.cfg HOSTNAME=

IAPPEND 1

TEXT HELP

Es ist zu beachten, das mit TAB der Hostname angepasst werden muss!

ENDTEXT

LABEL netinst

MENU LABEL ^Netzwerkbasierte Installation

KERNEL boot/$OS_NAME/$OS_RELEASE-$OS_BUILD/vmlinuz

APPEND initrd=boot/$OS_NAME/$OS_RELEASE-$OS_BUILD/initrd.img vmkopts=debugLogToSerial:1 mem=512M url=http://install.home.barfoo.org/instsrc/$OS_NAME/$OS_RELEASE-$OS_BUILD

IAPPEND 1

MENU SEPARATOR

LABEL back

MENU LABEL <-- ^Vorherige Ansicht

KERNEL addons/vesamenu.c32

APPEND pxelinux.cfg/$OS_NAME.menu

EOF

umount /mnt/loop

rmdir /mnt/loop

VMware Auto Deploy already registered / RuleEngine

February 4, 2012June 21, 2013 Christian 2 Comments

I had this weird plugin error the other day which bothered me on Friday. I decided to go fixing it. So after poking around in the vCenter installed software list. I couldn’t find the Auto Deploy in the list, so I figured due to my recent vCenter reinstallation while keeping the database, I forgot to reinstall Auto Deploy.

I went ahead and started the Auto Deploy setup from the DVD again, until I received this weird looking error. Apparently the setup thought (and decided correctly) that Auto Deploy was already installed in my vCenter.

So after a bit of googling, I found this nice explanation on how to manually deregister Auto Deploy from my vCenter. So here are steps retyped:

Run the setup an hold at the window where you’re informed that Auto Deploy is already installed. Copy the MSI package from %TEMP%{RANDOM-GUID} to C:TEMP
Unpack the setup files from the msi
Manually deregister Auto Deploy using autodeploy-register
Run the Auto Deploy setup again

2. Unpack the setup files:

Open a command prompt and extract the msi using msiexec

msiexec /a&nbsp;C:TEMPautodeploy.msi /qb TARGETDIR=C:TEMPautodeploy

1	msiexec /a C:TEMPautodeploy.msi /qb TARGETDIR=C:TEMPautodeploy

3. Switch to C:TEMPautodeployProgram FilesVMwareVMware vSphere Auto Deploy and run autodeploy-register.exe against your vCenter installation

cd "TEMPautodeployProgram FilesVMwareVMware vSphere Auto Deploy"
autodeploy-register.exe -U -a vcenter.home.barfoo.org -u adminaccount -w passwithoutspaceandspecialchars -p 80

1 2	cd "TEMPautodeployProgram FilesVMwareVMware vSphere Auto Deploy" autodeploy-register.exe -U -a vcenter.home.barfoo.org -u adminaccount -w passwithoutspaceandspecialchars -p 80

4. After that command completes, you simply can run the setup from the DVD again. Afterwards the RuleEngine errors were gone (simply because Auto Deploy is installed again) and Auto Deploy is working again.

Reoccurring memory limits in vCenter

January 13, 2012June 21, 2013 Christian Leave a comment

We recently had, after we migrated from vSphere 4 to vSphere 5, a memory limit in size of the configured memory on each and every VM. Since memory limits on VM level pretty much destroy performance, I went ahead an wrote this simple script to remove all memory limits on all VMs that don’t have “Unlimited” configured:

; html-script: false ]param( [string] $vCenter )

# Add the VI-Snapin if it isn&#039;t loaded already
if ( (Get-PSSnapin -Name &quot;VMware.VimAutomation.Core&quot; -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue) -eq $null )
{
	Add-PSSnapin -Name &quot;VMware.VimAutomation.Core&quot;
}

If ( !($vCenter) )
{
	Write-Host
	Write-Host &quot;cluster-remove-mem-limits: &lt;vcenter-server&gt;&quot;
	Write-Host
	Write-Host &quot;   &lt;vcenter-server&gt;  - DNS name of your vCenter server.&quot;
	Write-Host
	exit 1
}

Connect-VIServer -Server $vCenter

Get-VM | Get-VMResourceConfiguration | Where-Object { $_.memlimitmb -ne &#039;-1&#039; } |`
	Set-VMResourceConfiguration -memlimitmb $null

Disconnect-VIServer -server $vCenter -Confirm:$false

; html-script: false ]param( [string] $vCenter )

# Add the VI-Snapin if it isn't loaded already

if ( (Get-PSSnapin -Name "VMware.VimAutomation.Core" -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue) -eq $null )

{

Add-PSSnapin -Name "VMware.VimAutomation.Core"

}

If ( !($vCenter) )

{

Write-Host

Write-Host "cluster-remove-mem-limits: <vcenter-server>"

Write-Host

Write-Host " <vcenter-server> - DNS name of your vCenter server."

Write-Host

exit 1

}

Connect-VIServer -Server $vCenter

Get-VM | Get-VMResourceConfiguration | Where-Object { $_.memlimitmb -ne '-1' } |`

Set-VMResourceConfiguration -memlimitmb $null

Disconnect-VIServer -server $vCenter -Confirm:$false

This script is basically what the guy over at get-admin.com did, just only for memory limits.

PowerCLI & Windows jump list for recent items set to zero

July 5, 2011June 21, 2013 Christian Leave a comment

Today I had to install PowerCLI on my workstation. When I tried launching it for the first time, it simply opened and closed again instantly. After browsing the VMware community for this error and not finding a useful solution, I ended up googling the error. As it turns out, this only happens when you did set the “Number of recent items to display in jump lists” to something less than 4.

After changing the limit to something greater than 4, it just works. This appears to be a Powershell bug.

VMware Consolidated Backup and TRANSPORT_MODE=”hotadd”

March 18, 2010June 21, 2013 Christian Leave a comment

As the title says, I’ve been playing with vCB (inside a VM) and the TSM integration with newer (>6.0) clients for work. Result of all this work should be a feasibility study. We’re currently thinking about replacing our VMware server(s) with ESXi. But as most of you know, if you install ESXi, you simply can’t install anything (well, you can .. on ~100KB of disk space, which is compared to a TSM client weighing roughly 120MB nothing!). As we would like the possibility to backup VMs on image-level, I went looking at solutions.

VMware Data Recovery
VMware Consolidated Backup
vRanger, ……

As I was looking for something that wouldn’t cost us any money (thus excluding the third), I took a look at vDR and vCB. One point I do have to give to vDR is, that it’s damn fast. Only bad thing about vDR is that it doesn’t integrate at all with TSM, and it ain’t supported to install a TSM client inside the vDR VM. So vDR was also done for.

Only remaining thing was vCB. I remember way back when TSM didn’t support vCB directly, at which time it was *quite* the hassle to configure. But with newer TSM clients (as in the newer 6.x ones), IBM decided to integrate support for it. Which makes setting things up quite easy. You may think at least.

Since I wanted to use “hotadd” as transport mode for the vmdk’s (which is basically creating a snapshot of the vmdk and assigning that snapshot to the vCB VM), I did have to tinker around with some JavaScript files in %ProgramFiles%VMwareVMware Consolidated Backup. Sure, it isn’t supported by VMware (which is a bit lame since they announced the EOL for vCB with the upcoming vSphere version), but I didn’t want to open a support request. I’m lazy, yep:

Change DEFAULT_TRANSPORT_MODE in utils.js from “san” to “hotadd“. But apparently this only solved the backup method for vmdk-level, but not for file-level backups. The file-level is still gonna use nbd (network block device), which kinda sucks since the backup is going out via network.

After doing that, the hotadd mode is still gonna fail, since apparently the denoted “VMware Consolidated Backup User” (vcb-user in my case) also needs permissions onto the datastore. The permissions the handbook sets for the user are okay, you just need to apply that role to your datastore(s) containing the VMs you want to backup too! Otherwise vcbMounter is gonna fail with a rather cryptic error telling you that it doesn’t have sufficient rights to create a linked clone.