Tools for Virtual Engineers

Tools for Virtual Engineers

As an admin / consultant / tech support engineer you might need certain tools handy while you manage virtual infrastructure or troubleshoot any issues with vSphere environment

I had several situations where I have to spend at least 2 minutes in looking for download package on goolging , to avoid doing it below is just quick collection of links / tools.

Putty

Most of time you need it when you want to get command line session to Vmware hosts

When you call in Vmware support and they ask do you have putty enabled ?

Or atleast when support engineer or somebody tells hey restart management agents and see if that helps you and to do that you need putty.

PuTTY Download Page : http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html

Winscp :

You need it when you want to copy files from your local machines to any data stores. Copy across data stores

Winscp :  http://winscp.net/download/winscp439setup.exe

vSphere Client :

Need:

When you need to manage / connect single Vmware host directly

When support engineer says could you please get me direct session to host ?

You need to download from web, just launch browser and point to any Vmware host or vCenter server IP you should be able to download it from there.

vmSearch : http://vmsearch.blogspot.com/

I have also revamped my self a google APIs based custom serach engine where I made it just index  Chosen Vmware related stuff on Vmware and virtualization.

Please feel free check out use and share.

It may help  if you are :

• Beginner
• Tech Support Engineer
• VMware Admin
• Blogger
• Researcher etc.,

Features :

A google like search interface, for those who love google  search engine based interface

Sort search results based on just pages from

• Vmware communities

• Vmware KB

• Just blogs on Vmware
• Third party blogs on Vmware

• Release notes

• Search just documentation

• Search just PDF books

What is Vmware EVC and How do we use it ?

What is Vmware EVC and How do we use it ?

Quick and Rough Notes!

• It's feature implemented on  Cluster Level

• Clusters are vCenter server Objects and they to contain number of VMware Hosts you manage

• Vmotion is feature most widely used to migrate Vms across hosts as needed
• But you cannot migrate VMs across any hosts as you need.

• There are certain rules, you can only migrate Vms across hosts only if the x86 processors used by hosts are Vmotion compatible

• Two hosts / processors are termed to be vmotion compatible if you can successfully migrate Vms across them

How do I know if two processors are vmotion compatible  ?

Check out KB :  VMotion CPU compatibility requirements for Intel processors :  http://kb/kb/1991 

Ok, now I found my hosts are not vmotion compatible, what next ?

• This is where you go for Vmware EVC
• Which stands for Enhanced vmotion compatibility
•  There are different modes of EVC
• You need to choose the mode which suites your environment, CPU family on the hosts in cluster

How do I know which mode to go with ?

Check out KB Enhanced vMotion Compatibility (EVC) processor support : http://kb/kb/1003212

I have some doubts and few questions on EVC, is there any good Kb which discussed about it ?

Check out : EVC and CPU Compatibility FAQ : http://kb/kb/1005764

The information shared is keeping fresher or beginners in mind or to give an overview of EVC.

One most important thing which you should know when you say I know EVC is ?

You cannot enable EVC when VMs are on and running on hosts

Host CPU is incompatible with the virtual machine's requirements

I am sharing below an issue I came across with vmotion in a cluster of VMware hosts run on HP servers.

If vmotion is not working for you and  fails to work in a cluster, with below errors. 

Nx/XD ( Data execution protection ). If the virtual machine does not need this feature. Power off the virtual machine and remove the NX/XD requirement by editing the virtual machine settings ( Advanced options )

vmotion error

Resolution:

Its an issue with HP servers as discussed one of HP Support Docuemnts.

For resolution please check

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?objectID=c01479995&lang=en&cc=us&taskId=101&prodSeriesId=428936 

Key Words: 

Host CPU is incompatible with the virtual machine's requirements  | vmotion

VMware Virtual Machine Shutdown Script

VMware Virtual Machine Shutdown Script | Clean Shutdown 

Sharing a customized script for reference :

I had a situation as below :

A cluster of 3 ESX 4.1 in a data center and each data center has its own UPS

The requirement was to turn off HA first, smooth power down VMs and then power down host.

/etc/opt/init.d/vmware-aam  shutdown ; 
vmware-cmd -l | while read i ; 
do vmware-cmd $i stop trysoft  && /sbin/shutdown -hP now ; 
done

I run this and seen working well for me and on one of my customers machine.

Disclaimer : written as hobby neither VMware nor I are responsible for if any damages caused.

Hope it helps


Further Reading or References and other useful links :
http://communities.vmware.com/message/1004294#1004294

Clean Shutdown of Virtual Machines using PowerChute Network Shutdown in a HA Cluster Environment
http://nam-en.apc.com/ci/fattach/get/1063516//session/L2F2LzEvdGltZS8xMzQwMzgyMzk4L3NpZC9yYUFNdGpfaw==

About | http://v4virtual.blogspot.com/

http://v4virtual.blogspot.com/ 

My name is Vaseem Javed, I usually go online with alias 'Vee'.

I have been introduced to virtualization since the days of when we had Linux kernel loading ESX 2.x. I have also served GSS | VMware and helped thousands of customers in resolving their VMware related technical queries and issues, ranging from just How to, to setup, upgrade and best practice consultative queries and service.

Why Vee | V - 4 - Virtual ?

I like the concept of Virtualization its fun just being Virtual. It’s the username that had first stroke  my mind when I first time created my VMware communities profile. 

I am one among those who learnt virtualization with their first help request post on communities, 'I am new to Virtualization please help me! '.

Now, I would like to share my learning, expertise and journey began from being a 'beginner' to Virtualization Professional. 

Feel free to browse around.

Stay connect:

VMware Communities Profile: http://communities.vmware.com/people/v-4-virtual

Twitter Profile: https://twitter.com/virtualVaseem

Virtually,
Vee 

slp an overview

Notes on slp !

what is slp ?

• Service location protocol which discovers or advertises service on network.
• You can call it as service location protocol or service discovery protocol
• Can be used for anything from locating printers on the floor to discovering what LDAP directories are available in the organization.
• If this network application is installed on your devices, it runs as sldp daemon facilitated bt OpenSLP server with slpd package, it find different services running in your LAN.

slp is a packet oriented protocol mostly uses UDP, it can use TCP for longer packets too.

slp extensively uses multi-casting

all devices listen on port 427

SLP roles:

• User Agents (UA) are devices that search for services
• Service Agents (SA) are devices that announce one or more services
• Directory Agents (DA) are devices that cache services

Operation:

• the operations depends on whether the network has DA or not
• when a client first joins network it multi casts a query of DAs in the network   if gets no response it thinks there are no DAs on network
• you can add a DA later
• DA multicatsts a heart beat packet to all other devices on network
• when SA discovers a DA it is expected to register all the services to DA and unregister it when services stops

when you don not have a DA in network

• it is UA which first sends an multicast UDP query packet
• all SAs that have matches will send an UDP answer and if the answer is too long to fit in an UDP packet it is marked as "overflown"
• in the case as above UA is free to send a direct TCP packet to SA , which can transmit a packet of any size

This is not the same case when network has a DA,

UA will multicast a query packet using either UDP or TCP

Since every SA is expected to register itself details of services on DA, DA should be able to fulfill the request by UA 

Source: wikipedia