vCenter-Configure DRS

Tags

Configure DRS, DRS, DRS deep dive, DRS options, How to confiugre DRS, Vcenter 6 DRS, VMware DRS, Vspher DRS

DRS-Distributed Resource Scheduler is used to load balance our Vmware cluster/s.

To enable DRS, just go to the settings of the cluster and we can enable vSphere DRS.

There are three modes in DRS

vShere 6 lockdown mode

Tags

vSphere;lockdown mode

What is lockdown mode?

Normally we are using vcenter to manage multiple esx hosts. But if we required we can login to the esx host directly using vsphere client.Once we enabled lockdown mode, we cannot connect to the esx host using vsphere client.

When we trying to connect lockdown mode enabled esx, it will give below error message

In case of a vcenter unavailability, we can simply disable lockdown mode from the DCUI.

How to use vSphere cli

Tags

vSphere cli;putty;vmware-cmd; how to use vSphere cli

vSphere cli is a command line interface, where we can use to run commands on esx hosts.This is an alternative option for putty.We can install vSphere cli on any server/desktop in your network.

Below are the steps

1. Download vSphere cli from vmware.com

1. Once you installed vSphere cli, you can browse the below path and run the commands. Most of the commands are written in activepearl scripting language.

1. We can get help for all the commands using –help parameter.

esx iscsi error Call ïscsimanager.query candidatenics"

Tags

Call ïscsimanager.query candidatenics"

In my lab environment I used iscsi as my shared storage. Today I have removed network adapters from software iscsi adapter to do some other networking stuff. After a while when im trying to reconfigure iscsi im getting below error

Call ïscsimanager.query candidatenics”

To resolve this problem I had to reset iscsi from esx shell by following below steps

Logged to the esx host & find iscsi related config files

VMware-Migrate iscsi traffic from standard switch to distribute switch

Tags

dvs, iscsi traffic, migrate, standard switch to distribute switch, vmware

Option01

When we are having some extra network adapsters. We can follow below steps.

1. In thi slab environment, we have two nics for existing iscsi connection using Vmware standard swtich.
   1. Esx01.mobilab.local have one standard switch configured for iscsi traffic

1. Now we have configured vmware distributed switch and added vmnic4 & vmnic5 to this distributed switch & all the ip address configured.

ESX-Disable ssh access to root user

By default root user have ssh access to esx host with all the privilege

We can follow below steps to disable root ssh login.

Ssh to esx host using root account

Change directory to etc/ssh

Using vi editor open sshd_config fileChange “PermitRootLogin”parameter to no. Save & exit from text file

VMware Vsphere raw device mapping

Tags

esx raw device, mappings, raw device, rdm, vsphere

Raw Device Mappings

What is raw device mapping?

Raw device mapping is a feature where the virtual machine can directly access the storage devices such as SAN or DAS.

With a VMware we will use vmdk pointer to provide the proxy facility to raw device.

In a virtual environment some cases we may need to have a raw device mappings.

Why we need raw device mapping?

• To configure Microsoft failover cluster, we can configure raw device as shared storage.
• When we are configuring Microsoft failover cluster with one node is running on as a VM & other node/s running as a physical.
• To run some of the san management software(ex hitachi horcm)
• To run some backup software on virtual machine, and needs to get storage level backup

How to Configure?

1. Here I have one vm which is prepared to mount raw device



1. Using new datastore adding procedure, we can see new lun which is provided from our shared storage(in my case im using windows iscsi server)

Powercli how to download esx log files

Üsing this script we can download esx log files to local computer, which is running powercli.

save this script as ps1

 

#############################################################
# We can use this script to downlog log files from esx hosts#
# #
# #
# #
#############################################################
Write-Host “Please create a esxlogs folder in your C drive before you run this script. This will download vmkernel,hostd & vpxa log files to your computer”
Add-PSSnapin vmware.vimautomation.core
Add-PSSnapin vmware.deployautomation
$vcentername=Read-Host “Enter Vcenter Name”
$esxhostname=Read-Host “Enter ESX host Name”
Connect-viserver $vcentername
$esxvmkernel=(get-log -key vmkernel -vmhost $esxhostname).entries
$esxvmhostd=(get-log -key hostd -vmhost $esxhostname).entries
$esxvpxa=(get-log -key vpxa -vmhost $esxhostname).entries

Add-Content -path c:\esxlogs\$esxhostname””vmkernel.txt -value $esxvmkernel

Add-Content -path c:\esxlogs\$esxhostname””hostd.txt -value $esxvmhostd

Add-Content -path c:\esxlogs\$esxhostname””vpxa.txt -value $esxvpxa

70-410 Module 11 Implementing Group Policies

ESX 6.0 how to use pass phrase

In version 6.0 onwards we can use pass phrase instead of password for the esx hosts. In a default password policy its disabled, but we can enable it.

Steps.

1. Login to the vcenter using web client.
2. Select the host which we need to edit the password policy.
   1. Select manage
   2. Select Advanced System Settings
   3. Type “password” in search box and select “Security.passwordQualityControl”

1. Edit the policy
   1. According to this policy, we need to use 16 characters which includes 3 words for our passphrase password policy.

1. Now we can enter pass phrase as our password