Kris Nijs @ Business IT Solutions

After installing Exchange 2010 virtual in a vSphere Vm, and rebooting the Exchange server for maintenance, I got the error that the Exchange System Attendent service and Information Store couldn’t start anymore because of time issues…

I saw this error in Windows event viewer:

Unable to initialize the Information Store service because  the clocks on the client and server are skewed. This may be caused by a time change either in the client or the server, and may require a reboot of that computer. Verify that your domain is properly configured and  is currently online.

I checked time sync for my domain controllers and Exchange server, but everything seemed to be in place on that level…

After research, I saw that my Exchange server and domain controller (NTP) were on 2 different ESX hosts which had time differences.
Even when time synchronizing in Vmware Tools was disabled for all my VMs, and time was synchronized at domain-level, Exchange has some difficulties when ESX hosts are not in sync.

I put the same NTP-server on all my ESX-hosts, synced them all, and Exchange System Attendent service/Information Store started again…

Problem solved!

Kris Nijs Vmware ESX, exchange 2010, Vmware, vsphere

I would like to do some finetuning in the Vmware Datarecovery appliance at one of my customers. Vmware made it possible to bring a datarecovery.ini file into the appliance:

1. Log in to the datarecovery appliance with the credentials:
   Default Username: root
   Default Password: vmw@re
   
   
2. Stop datarecovery with the command: service datarecovery stop
   
   
3. Create the file /var/vmware/datarecovery/datarecovery.ini and populate it with the appropriate options . For more information, see the File Options section.Here is an example of a datarecovery.ini file: 

   [Options]
   SetVCBLogging=7
   DisableHotaddCopy=1

                  !! Note: Any option that is not listed in the file uses the default value.

    4. Start datarecovery with the command: service datarecovery start

Here you can find the datarecovery.ini options:

Kris Nijs Vmware vmware datarecovery

vLogView is a free windows application from XtraVirt to easily read, search and bundle your vmware ESX log files. 

You can download it for free at http://xtravirt.com/user?destination=/xd10132

Check it out!!

Kris Nijs Vmware esx log, log, Vmware

When upgrading from VI3.5 to vSphere, the last step to do is upgrading the virtual hardware from 4 to 7 of the existing VM’s. This is the most important step to get benefit from p.ex. VMXNET3 and paravirtual SCSI. This can be done by richt-clicking the VMs when they’re powered off, and choose “Upgrade Virtual Hardware”.

After this step, you can delete the old network adapter and add a new one from type VMXNET3.

To add a Paravirtual SCSI disk, you have to take some additional steps:

1. Ensure a guest operating system that supports PVSCSI is installed on the virtual machine. Currently:
Windows Server 2008
Windows Server 2003
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5

Note: Booting from a disk attached to a PVSCSI adapter is not supported. The system software must be installed on a disk attached to an adapter that does support bootable disk.

2. In the vSphere Client, right-click on the virtual machine and click Edit Settings.
3. Click the Hardware tab.
4. Click Add.
5. Select Hard Disk.
6. Click Next.
7. Choose any one of the available options.
8. Click Next.
9. Specify the options your require. Options vary depending on which type of disk you chose.
10. Choose a Virtual Device Node between SCSI (1:0) to SCSI (3:15) and specify whether you want to use Independent mode.
11. Click Next.
12. Click Finish to finish the process and exit the Add Hardware wizard. A new disk and controller are created.
13. Select the newly created controller and click Change Type.
14. Click VMware Paravirtual and click OK.
15. Click OK to exit the Virtual Machine Properties dialog.
16. Power on the virtual machine.
17. Install VMware Tools. VMware Tools includes the PVSCSI driver.
18. Scan and format the hard disk.

Kris Nijs Geen categorie vsphere

When making Windows clones in ESX/vSphere, the customization option based on sysprep, doesn’t change the WSUS client ID. This means that the new virtual machine will have the same WSUS ID as the original one, and only one, the one that connects as last, will appear in the WSUS management console.

Solution:

Delete this registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\SusClientId

and reboot the new machine.

A new WSUS client ID will be created during the next reboot… 

After that run the command wuauclt /resetauthorization /detectnow
After this, both machines, the original one and the clone, will appear in WSUS management console.

Kris Nijs Vmware WSUS

I had a problem with our Labmanager host.  In Labmanager I got the error that the labmanager agent wasn’t responding anymore…
I restarted the Labmanager service with command “service vsla-agent restart ” but no solution…

A reinstall of the agent resolved this issue for me:

* Go to Service Console and run uninstall-labmanager
* Copy agent-install.bin from c:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Lab Manager\Agent of the Labmanager Server to the ESX host (tmp directory)
* In Secrvice Console: Go to the tmp-directory and run chmod 755 agent-install.bin to set the rights
* Reinstall Labmanager agent by this command:  ./agent-install.bin

Ready!

Kris Nijs Labmanager, Vmware Labmanager

I recreated a Pool in Vmware View with the same desktop names given to the Virtual Desktops as an older “deleted” Desktop Pool.

During provisioning, I got this error:
Desktop composer fault: virtual machine with input specifications already exists

I went into SQL Management Studio, and deleted the rows with the VMname from the next tables:

SVI_VM_COMPUTER_NAME
SVI_SIM_CLONE
SVI_VM_NAME

Seemed that those rows weren’t deleted automatically during deletion of the Desktop Pool.

Kris Nijs View vmware view

VMware Data Recovery is a Linux appliance from Vmware which is imported into your vSphere cluster. VDR has a GUI interface which will integrate into the vSphere client. VDR backup works by creating restore points for each of your VM virtual disks you wish to backup. A Restore point is a kind of full copy of your virtual machine state at that current point in time when backup was created. VDR utilizes de-duplication on backup storage and it is very efficient to save backup storage space. VDR can use CIFS shares or virtual disks as backup medium, that makes restoring data very quick. There is no support for tape backups (at the moment).

The File Level Restore client works by mounting a restore point into a Windows VM as read only disk, and from that disk you can restore invidual files or whole directories by copying them with Windows explorer.

You first have to download and copy vdrFileRestore.exe into your Windows VM, place it into some directory and make sure it is in the PATH environment.

Make sure you have some restore points available for you VM and execute vdrFileRestore.exe -a “IP-address” (DNS doesn’t work!) on Windows command line. The FLR client uses unique BIOS id to identify which restore points it should make available for mounting for each VM.

The FLR client will query which restore point in time you wish to mount

After you selected a restore point, the FLR client will show the backup-Windows drives in your Windows Explorer, and the client will tell you which drive backup is available at which drive letter.

After you copied files you need, type “unmount” and press enter. This will close restore point mounts and FLR client will exit.

Nice feature, isn’t it??!!

Kris Nijs Vmware Vmware

I had an issue with the time configured in the Vmware Datarecovery Appliance.
Backups started in the morning at 9, while I set in vCenter that backup window is in the night between 23h and 4h…

So, the clock of the appliance itself must be the problem!
In the webinterface, there’s no option to set the time, so you need the commandline.

As a non-Linux expert, I solved it with the command hwclock:

hwclock –show to get date/time

hwclock –set –date “15 Sep 2009 10:15:00 AM” to sync it to the vCenter time

Everything works fine now!

Ohh…after this, I saw the option Set timezone in the virtual appliance itself. I put the right timezone there too…

Kris Nijs Vmware Vmware

In Vmware Datarecovery I got the next error during the night:

Failed to create snapshot for VMxxx, error -3902 ( file access error)

I saw that the CIFS share for the backup jobs was not mounted anymore. This can be done by the vSphere client, or simply rebooting the virtual appliance…

Kris Nijs Vmware datarecovery, vsphere