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Archive for the ‘ESXi6.5’ Category

VMware ESXi 6.5.0 Patch History

Posted by jpluimers on 2019/03/21

Interesting way to keep your ESXi rug up to date:

[WayBack] Keep track of VMware ESXi patches, subscribe by RSS, Twitter and E-Mail! – Brought to you by @VFrontDe: VMware ESXi 6.5.0 Patch History.

There is an RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/Esxi650PatchTracker and in depth information at [WayBack] VMware ESXi Patch Tracker – Help.

Clicking on the link next to Imageprofile will popup a screen with instructions how to upgrade your ESXi box to that level, for instance:

# Cut and paste these commands into an ESXi shell to update your host with this Imageprofile # See the Help page for more instructions # esxcli network firewall ruleset set -e true -r httpClient esxcli software profile update -p ESXi-6.5.0-20170702001-standard \ -d https://hostupdate.vmware.com/software/VUM/PRODUCTION/main/vmw-depot-index.xml esxcli network firewall ruleset set -e false -r httpClient # # Reboot to complete the upgrade

I wish there was a similar thing for [WayBack] ESXi Embedded Host Client as I could not find any of the esxui VIB files mentioned there at esxui site:https://esxi-patches.v-front.de.

By the time you read this I really hope these two esxui things have been fixed:

[Archive.is] #88 Error while editing a VM more than once (which oddly has link index 194)
[Archive.is] #145 Unable to change settings while powered on (indexed at 318)

–jeroen

Posted in ESXi6.5, Power User, Virtualization, VMware, VMware ESXi | Leave a Comment »

ESXi 6.5: change the automatic startup/shutdown of guest VMs

Posted by jpluimers on 2019/03/14

One more article about differences between the old C# Windows vSphere Client and “new” vSphere HTML5 Web Client in ESXi 6.5 and up.

This time about changing the startup/shutdown sequence.

In the old C# Windows vSphere Client, this was at the host level in the configuration tab under Virtual Machine Startup/Shutdown. There you click on Properties, then adjust the order by moving them up and down (screenshots and more detailed instructions are at ESX(i) AutoStart virtual machines: how to change the VM startup/shutdown settings (via: VMware Communities)).

In the vSphere HTML5 Web Client, there are two bits for this:

On the server you need to enable AutoStart:

From: to:

For each VM you have to enable AutoStart, then determine the order

In the left, select the VM
In the right, choose Actions, then Autostart, then Enable:
Enable the columns in the VM overview:
Order 1 means highest; adjust accordingly for each VM:

If after boot you get a ““, then your machine still is in maintenance mode.

–jeroen

Posted in ESXi6.5, Power User, Virtualization, VMware, VMware ESXi | Leave a Comment »

Using the partedUtil command line utility on ESXi and ESX (1036609) | VMware KB

Posted by jpluimers on 2019/03/13

Reminder to self when checking “new” disks to see what partitions they contain before formatting them as VMFS.

There is a truckload information at [WayBack] Using the partedUtil command line utility on ESXi and ESX (1036609) | VMware KB.

A few tips; example output is further below:

Disks are listed under /vmfs/devices/disks/ where there are two entries per device: a path leading to the device, and a link to that path which starts with vml. which I filter out with grep.
If a disk under under /vmfs/devices/disks/ ends with :# where # is a number, then it is a partition
Just skip partedUtil get as partedUtil getptblwill give you exactly the same information,
- plus an extra initial line indicating what kind of partition table it is. KB 1036609 has a longer list, but these are the ones you usually see:
  - unknown: the disk has no partition table yet (usually), or the type of partition table cannot be determined (hardly)
  - gpt: there is a GUID Partition Table
  - msdos: there is a Master Boot Record partition table
- on ESXi 6.x two extra columns listing the partition GUID and partition type description
The output of partedUtil is unformatted, which means it is easy to parse, but hard to read for humans. You can pipe through sed 's/ /\t/g' (as there is no tr on the ESXi busybox)

Some more background reading

On scripting:

The shell is sh (always been there)
There is Python (ESXi 5.1 has Python 2.7.8; ESXi 6.5 has Python 3.5.3; it has likely been available in earlier versions too).

On device names:

On errors:

Module 'Disk' power on failed.(in the vmware.log file for the VM) and LookupAndOpen[file] failed Click here for more details. (in the Web UI): my impression this is usually has to do with either a mismatch of the text vmdk and the binary backing, or the chain of snapshots. The odd thing is that vmkfstool doesn’t always catch this and just returns Disk is error free.
Interesting related posts:
- [WayBack] “The parent virtual disk has been modified since the child was created” error (1007969) | VMware KB
- [Archive.is] How to fix CID mismatch error. Editing virtual disk snapshot chain
- [WayBack] ESXi 6.5 Host Crash then Guest Fails to Power On | JC-LAN.tk (you can always try to use vmkfstools -x check /path/to/vmname.vmdk followed by vmkfstools -x repair/path/to/vmname.vmdk
“Failed to create VMFS datastore … Cannot change the host configuration“:
and“WriteNewPtable: Unable to commit to disk” can happen for a disk that is listed as unknown, but for which VMware doesn’t know what to do with it. Basically three things to try:
1. Hook it up to a Linux VM or Live CD, then use respectively gparted to edit the partition table.
2. Hook it up to a Windows VM or live PC, then use diskpartor diskmgmt.msc to edit the partition table.
3. If you are sure it is empty, overwrite the partition table with an empty msdos one:

1. ~ # find /vmfs/devices/disks/ | grep T1500LM0032D9YH148 /vmfs/devices/disks/t10.ATA_____ST1500LM0032D9YH148__________________________________Z110C4Q0a ~ # partedUtil getptbl /vmfs/devices/disks/t10.ATA_____ST1500LM0032D9YH148__________________________________Z110C4Q0 unknown 182401 255 63 2930277168 ~ #

[WayBack] “Cannot change the host configuration” error message when adding disk storage to a VMware vSphere ESXi Host

I know of three VMFS types:

VMFS-3: Supported in ESXi 3.X, 4.X, 5.x & 6.x; deprecated as of 6.0 (cannot be created as of 6.0), has quite some limitations.
VMFS-4: got never released.
VMFS-5: Can be converted from VMFS-3
VMFS-6: Cannot be converted from other VMFS types

Some interesting links about the various VMFS types:

Busybox has been updated over time:

[WayBack] How to compile Busybox for ESXi … kind of Part 1 | virtuallyGhetto
- [WayBack] How to compile Busybox for ESXi … kind of Part 2 | virtuallyGhetto
- [WayBack] How to Persist Configuration Changes in ESXi 4.x/5.x Part 1 | virtuallyGhetto
  - [WayBack] How to Persist Configuration Changes in ESXi 4.x/5.x Part 2 | virtuallyGhetto
- [WayBack] Increase Syslog count in ESXi using Busybox | virtuallyGhetto
- As there is a built-in traceroute now, this is not needed any more: [WayBack] Poor man’s traceroute for ESXi | virtuallyGhetto (https://github.com/leonidg/Poor-Man-s-traceroute/blob/master/traceroute.py needs to be updated to be compatible with Python 3 anyway).

Examples and output

Example outputs on one of my systems, of which I stripped most of the disks as they’re not really relevant here.

[root@ESXi-X10SRH-CF:~] ls -1 /vmfs/devices/disks/ | grep -v '^vml\.'
naa.5000c50087762d1b
...
naa.600605b00aa054a0ff000021022683ae
naa.600605b00aa054a0ff000021022683ae:1
...
t10.ATA_____ST1500LM0032D9YH148__________________________________Z110C4Q0
t10.ATA_____Samsung_SSD_850_PRO_2TB_________________S2KMNCAGB04321L_____
t10.ATA_____Samsung_SSD_850_PRO_2TB_________________S2KMNCAGB04321L_____:1
...
t10.SanDisk00Ultra_Fit000000000000004C530001240406103372
t10.SanDisk00Ultra_Fit000000000000004C530001240406103372:1
t10.SanDisk00Ultra_Fit000000000000004C530001240406103372:5
t10.SanDisk00Ultra_Fit000000000000004C530001240406103372:6
t10.SanDisk00Ultra_Fit000000000000004C530001240406103372:7
t10.SanDisk00Ultra_Fit000000000000004C530001240406103372:8
t10.SanDisk00Ultra_Fit000000000000004C530001240406103372:9
[root@ESXi-X10SRH-CF:~] partedUtil getptbl /vmfs/devices/disks/t10.ATA_____ST1500LM0032D9YH148__________________________________Z110C4Q0 
unknown
182401 255 63 2930277168
[root@ESXi-X10SRH-CF:~] partedUtil get /vmfs/devices/disks/t10.ATA_____ST1500LM0032D9YH148__________________________________Z110C4Q0 
182401 255 63 2930277168
[root@ESXi-X10SRH-CF:~] partedUtil get /vmfs/devices/disks/t10.ATA_____SAMSUNG_MZHPV512HDGL2D00000______________S1X1NYAGB09589______
62260 255 63 1000215216
1 2048 1000214527 0 0
[root@ESXi-X10SRH-CF:~] partedUtil getptbl /vmfs/devices/disks/t10.ATA_____SAMSUNG_MZHPV512HDGL2D00000______________S1X1NYAGB09589______
gpt
62260 255 63 1000215216
1 2048 1000214527 AA31E02A400F11DB9590000C2911D1B8 vmfs 0
[root@ESXi-X10SRH-CF:~] partedUtil getptbl /vmfs/devices/disks/t10.SanDisk00Ultra_Fit000000000000004C530001240406103372
gpt
3738 255 63 60062500
1 64 8191 C12A7328F81F11D2BA4B00A0C93EC93B systemPartition 128
5 8224 520191 EBD0A0A2B9E5443387C068B6B72699C7 linuxNative 0
6 520224 1032191 EBD0A0A2B9E5443387C068B6B72699C7 linuxNative 0
7 1032224 1257471 9D27538040AD11DBBF97000C2911D1B8 vmkDiagnostic 0
8 1257504 1843199 EBD0A0A2B9E5443387C068B6B72699C7 linuxNative 0
9 1843200 7086079 9D27538040AD11DBBF97000C2911D1B8 vmkDiagnostic 0
[root@ESXi-X10SRH-CF:~] partedUtil get /vmfs/devices/disks/t10.SanDisk00Ultra_Fit000000000000004C530001240406103372
3738 255 63 60062500
1 64 8191 0 128
5 8224 520191 0 0
6 520224 1032191 0 0
7 1032224 1257471 0 0
8 1257504 1843199 0 0
9 1843200 7086079 0 0
[root@ESXi-X10SRH-CF:~] partedUtil getptbl /vmfs/devices/disks/t10.SanDisk00Ultra_Fit000000000000004C530001240406103372 | sed 's/ /\t/g'
gpt
3738    255 63  60062500
1   64  8191    C12A7328F81F11D2BA4B00A0C93EC93B    systemPartition 128
5   8224    520191  EBD0A0A2B9E5443387C068B6B72699C7    linuxNative 0
6   520224  1032191 EBD0A0A2B9E5443387C068B6B72699C7    linuxNative 0
7   1032224 1257471 9D27538040AD11DBBF97000C2911D1B8    vmkDiagnostic   0
8   1257504 1843199 EBD0A0A2B9E5443387C068B6B72699C7    linuxNative 0
9   1843200 7086079 9D27538040AD11DBBF97000C2911D1B8    vmkDiagnostic   0
[root@ESXi-X10SRH-CF:~] partedUtil get /vmfs/devices/disks/t10.SanDisk00Ultra_Fit000000000000004C530001240406103372 | sed 's/ /\t/g'
3738    255 63  60062500
1   64  8191    0   128
5   8224    520191  0   0
6   520224  1032191 0   0
7   1032224 1257471 0   0
8   1257504 1843199 0   0
9   1843200 7086079 0   0
[root@ESXi-X10SRH-CF:~] partedUtil --help
Usage: 
 Get Partitions : get  
 Set Partitions : set  ["partNum startSector endSector type attr"]* 
 Delete Partition : delete  
 Resize Partition : resize    
 Get Partitions : getptbl  
 Set Partitions : setptbl   ["partNum startSector endSector type/guid attr"]* 
 Fix Partition Table : fix  
 Create New Label (all existing data will be lost): mklabel   
 Show commonly used partition type guids : showGuids 
 Get usable first and last sectors : getUsableSectors  
 Fix GPT Table interactively : fixGpt  

[root@ESXi-X10SRH-CF:~] partedUtil showGuids
 Partition Type       GUID
 vmfs                 AA31E02A400F11DB9590000C2911D1B8
 vmkDiagnostic        9D27538040AD11DBBF97000C2911D1B8
 vsan                 381CFCCC728811E092EE000C2911D0B2
 virsto               77719A0CA4A011E3A47E000C29745A24
 VMware Reserved      9198EFFC31C011DB8F78000C2911D1B8
 Basic Data           EBD0A0A2B9E5443387C068B6B72699C7
 Linux Swap           0657FD6DA4AB43C484E50933C84B4F4F
 Linux Lvm            E6D6D379F50744C2A23C238F2A3DF928
 Linux Raid           A19D880F05FC4D3BA006743F0F84911E
 Efi System           C12A7328F81F11D2BA4B00A0C93EC93B
 Microsoft Reserved   E3C9E3160B5C4DB8817DF92DF00215AE
 Unused Entry         00000000000000000000000000000000
[root@ESXi-X10SRH-CF:~] cat /local/bin/what-is-my-shell.sh 
if test -n "$ZSH_VERSION"; then
  PROFILE_SHELL=zsh
elif test -n "$BASH_VERSION"; then
  PROFILE_SHELL=bash
elif test -n "$KSH_VERSION"; then
  PROFILE_SHELL=ksh
elif test -n "$FCEDIT"; then
  PROFILE_SHELL=ksh
elif test -n "$PS3"; then
  PROFILE_SHELL=unknown
else
  PROFILE_SHELL=sh
fi
echo $PROFILE_SHELL
echo $SHELL
[root@ESXi-X10SRH-CF:~] /local/bin/what-is-my-shell.sh 
sh
/bin/sh
[root@ESXi-X10SRH-CF:~] python --version
Python 3.5.3
[root@ESXi-X10SRH-CF:~]

–jeroen

Posted in Development, ESXi4, ESXi5, ESXi5.1, ESXi5.5, ESXi6, ESXi6.5, Power User, Software Development, Virtualization, VMware, VMware ESXi | Leave a Comment »

7zip on ESXi through p7zip – redux

Posted by jpluimers on 2019/03/12

Steps to get it working on ESXi 6.x with p7zip 16.02:

Copy the output of https://sourceforge.net/projects/p7zip/files/p7zip/16.02/p7zip_16.02_x86_linux_bin.tar.bz2/download to a place where you can reach it through http (as wget on ESXi does not understand https)
Follow the script below

mkdir -p /local/bin cd /local bin wget http://192.168.71.62/esxi/netcologne.dl.sourceforge.net/project/p7zip/p7zip/16.02/p7zip_16.02_x86_linux_bin.tar.bz2 bzip2 -d p7zip_16.02_x86_linux_bin.tar.bz2 mv p7zip_16.02/bin/7z* . chmod 755 7z 7za 7zra

Based on much longer steps involving Windows and an older version of p7zip: 7zip on ESXi through p7zip.

–jeroen

Posted in 7zip, Compression, ESXi4, ESXi6, ESXi6.5, Power User, Virtualization, VMware, VMware ESXi | Leave a Comment »

ESXi 6.5: change the host name in the “new” vSphere HTML5 Web Client, or using DHCP option 12

Posted by jpluimers on 2019/03/06

With the removal of the C# based Windows vSphere Client in ESXi 6.5, the vSphere HTML5 Web Client is the way to go.

It doesn’t cover all functionality yet, and some functionality is in different places in the UI, so below the steps to change the hostname.

Since I prefer a central location of name and address management, I’ve also documented on how to do this with DHCP option 12.

Oh: I’m not alone in finding the changed place

Esxi 6.5 hostname change from vmware

Before I begin, some background reading on DHCP Options as I plan to do more with that in the future:

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Development, ESXi6.5, Power User, RouterOS, Scripting, Software Development, Virtualization, VMware, VMware ESXi | Leave a Comment »

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The Wiert Corner – irregular stream of stuff

Jeroen W. Pluimers on .NET, C#, Delphi, databases, and personal interests

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Archive for the ‘ESXi6.5’ Category

VMware ESXi 6.5.0 Patch History

ESXi 6.5: change the automatic startup/shutdown of guest VMs

Using the partedUtil command line utility on ESXi and ESX (1036609) | VMware KB

Some more background reading

Examples and output

7zip on ESXi through p7zip – redux

ESXi 6.5: change the host name in the “new” vSphere HTML5 Web Client, or using DHCP option 12

The Wiert Corner – irregular stream of stuff

Jeroen W. Pluimers on .NET, C#, Delphi, databases, and personal interests

Subscribe

Archives

Recent Comments

Recent Posts

Blog Stats

Meta title

Tag Cloud Title

Top Clicks

Top Posts

My badges

Twitter Updates

My Flickr Stream

Pages

All categories

Email Subscription

Archive for the ‘ESXi6.5’ Category

VMware ESXi 6.5.0 Patch History

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ESXi 6.5: change the automatic startup/shutdown of guest VMs

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Using the partedUtil command line utility on ESXi and ESX (1036609) | VMware KB

Some more background reading

Examples and output

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7zip on ESXi through p7zip – redux

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ESXi 6.5: change the host name in the “new” vSphere HTML5 Web Client, or using DHCP option 12

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