Mike's Realm

So you changed the IP for your auto deploy server and re-registered it with vCenter but still having problems connecting with your vSphere Client?  You’ll see in the error message it has the old IP:

What you need to do is update the auto deploy config XML file, to find this file run the following command:

reg.exe QUERY “HKLM\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\VMware, Inc.\VMware vSphere Auto Deploy” /v DataPath

Then navigate to that path and find the vmconfig-autodeploy.xml file, pop it open in your favorite text editor and update the IP address in the <serviceAddress> declaration (highlighted below)

Save the file and restart the Auto Deploy service and you’ll be cooking once again!

Dell introduced this plugin awhile back, it’s actually a Virtual Appliance you import into vCenter.  The plugin inside vCenter is actually an Adobe Flex (Flash-based) app that gets embedded into your vSphere Client, so ensure you have Flash installed on the machine(s) you wish to use this plugin from.

Overview of Features

• Update BIOS/Firmware on Dell ESXi hosts from vCenter

• Checks for updates automatically and alerts you when there are updates available
• Can leverage an established Dell Repository to avoid data duplication–if you are a heavy Dell shop you should know what this is

• These Alarms can even trigger hosts to go into maintence mode to evacuate VMs from that particular host if the hardware event is critical (in a DRS enabled cluster of course)

• Works without (the God-awful) SilverStreak to automatically create support cases with Dell when issues arise

• Allows you to configure a proxy, if your environment requires one

• This leverages Dell Lifecycle Controllers and iDRACs to provision Dell servers somewhat auto-magically.
• First you create a Hardware Profile from a Reference Server–(configures boot order, BIOS settings, iDRAC settings, RAID config)
• Then you create a Hypervisor profile–You point at an ISO, and configure the vCenter, destination container (data center or cluster), and even a host profile for you enterprise plus users.
• Note you can “white-list” service tags so only those hosts you define can be used by the plugin to deploy against.

• So you can launch directly to your OSMA web console to connect to an OSMA agent on an ESXi host

• Does not require replacement by deploying a new OVF when a new version comes out

Read the rest of this entry »

I was setting up a new instance of Orchestrator inside my lab and came across this issue.  the Orchestrator Server service would not start, andi nside the vCenter Orchestrator Configuration webpage, we don’t have any output in the log–so we investigate the Windows logs…

In the system log all you see is Error: The VMware vCenter Orchestrator Server service terminated with service-specific error Incorrect function..

Poking around we come across a log file @ C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\Orchestrator\app-server\bin\wrapper.log which sheds some light on the problem:

Your first thought might be disk space, did a log run away? No that isn’t the case–Java Heap refers to memory, looking inside the wrapper.conf from the command above we find more information.

Java has to allocate 2Gb of RAM on startup. My VM only had 1.5Gb, that looks like the issue–this is what you get for ignoring the Minimum System Requirements (assuming your running Orchestrator on same server as your vCenter).  Increase the RAM on your VM and this error should be gone. vCenter Server should have a minimum of 3Gb of RAM.

My most favorite keyboard shortcut in the vSphere Client is Ctrl+Shift+F – It’s like Google for vCenter. It flips to the search box and allows you to find VMs, Templates, Datastores, Networks, Hosts, Clusters, Folders,etc.

vCenter Navigation Shortcuts

These shortcuts are for when you are in the a VM’s Console

VM Console Shortcuts

These shortcuts are for when you are in the a VM’s Console

New Item Shortcuts

Use these shortcuts to create new things in vCenter

VM Shortcuts

These shortcuts are for when you select a VM or are in the a VM’s Console

Prerequisites:

• Licensed vCenter Server – This can be an evaluation license
• Service Account to perform LDAP Lookups (vco-service is used below)
• Active Directory Security Group for vCenter Orchestrator Admins (vCOAdmins is used below)
• Microsoft SQL Database (vco is used below)
• Credentials for an account with access to above Microsoft SQL Database
• Service Account that is a member of the vCenter Orchestrator Admins Group (vCOAdmins group, vco-service is used below) – yes this can be the same account as your LDAP lookup account

Installation Guide:

1. Start Service
2. Navigate to IP:8282
3. Login with user vmware password vmware
4. Select Network on the left
1. Select IP address to bind to
2. Confirm rest of settings on page (adjust ports if any conflict with other software on the orchestrator host)
3. Click Apply changes at the bottom right
4. Network should now have a green bubble next to it, proceed
5. Select LDAP on the left
1. Select Active Directory from the dropdown if it’s not already selected
2. Enter your primary & secondary LDAP hosts (domain controllers) note: secondary is optional
3. Enter your LDAP root path, if your domain is requeny.lan enter: dc=requeny,dc=lan
4. For username enter user@domain ex: vco-service@requeny.lan
5. Password- this should be obvious
6. Enter your User lookup base path: (where all your users are located, ex: cn=Users,dc=requeny,dc=lan (this would point to the Users OU in active directory)
7. Enter your Group lookup base path: (where all your groups are located, ex: cn=Users,dc=requeny,dc=lan (this would point to the Users OU in active directory)
8. Enter the path to your vCO Admins Group, ex: cn=vCOAdmins,cn=Users,dc=requeny,dc=lan
9. Hit apply changes, if all your settings are correct LDAP should now have a green bubble next to it, but before continuing click the Test Login tab at the top and attempt to login with a user in the vCOAdmins group
10. If that test login worked, proceed on
6. Select Database on the left
1. Select SQLServer from the dropdown
2. Enter the username for SQL database (note, don’t prefix with domain, or use use@domain format here, just the username)
3. Password – this should be obvious
4. Database host IP address or DNS name – hostname of SQL server ex: sql01
5. Port: 1433 – MSSQL default, change it if your SQL server isn’t listening on the default port
6. Database name: this is the name of the database that has been created on your SQL server ex: vco
7. Instance name: whatever your instance name is, ex: sqlexpress
8. Domain: your AD domain here, use the NetBIOS name here, ex: requeny
9. Hit apply changes, if all your settings are correct you will get an error under Validation results that says: Database connection successful.  No schema found.  Please initialize database.  What this means is your connection worked, however there are no tables in the database.
10. At the top you should see a new link Install the database, click that (this should only take a couple of seconds)
11. You should now have a green bubble next to Database, proceed on
7. Select Server Certificate
1. If you don’t have a certificate CA, select Create certificate database and self-signed server certificate
1. Enter what your info in the next few boxes, examples below:
2. Common name: orchestrator
3. Organization: requeny
4. Organizational Unit: basement
5. Country: US
6. Click Create at the bottom right
7. Server Certificate on the left should now have a green bubble next to it, proceed onto step 8 below
2. If you do have a certificate CA, you can follow my other post on what to do if you use Microsoft Active Directory: Certificate Services
1. Once server certificate has a green bubble next to it, proceed onto step 8 below
8. Select Licenses
1. You can either enter a vCenter Server license manually, or Orchestrator can connect to your vCenter Server and read the license on it’s own.
2. To connect to a vCenter Server and read the license:
1. Check the use vCenter Server license radio button
2. Enter the hostname of your vCenter Server
3. Enter the port of your vCenter Server Web Services (443 by default)
4. Path: leave default
5. Enter username & password of an account that can read license data from vcenter
6. Click submit
7. If you receive an error about ‘SSL certificate is missing for this host read my other post on fixing this SSL error
8. Licenses should now have a green bubble next to it, proceed
3. To manually enter a vCenter Server license
1. Check the Add vCenter Server license manually radio button
2. Enter your vCenter Server serial number (remember you must enter a standard edition serial, foundation doesn’t include Orchestrator)
3. Enter the name of your License owner
4. Click apply changes on the bottom right
5. Licenses should now have a green bubble next to it, proceed
9. Select Plug-ins (yes we skip Startup Options for now)
1. Enter credentials for a user in the vCO Admin group
2. Username ex: vco-service
3. Password – this should be obvious
4. Click Apply changes at the bottom right
5. Plug-ins should have a green bubble next to it, as well as Startup Options at this point
6. Check the plugins you want to enable/install.  Leave the defaults and ensure vCO WebOperator & vCenter Server are checked, then hit apply changes again
7. You’ll notice the status next to many of the plugins is: Will perform installation at next server startup.
10. Select Startup Options
1. Click Install vCO server as service (This will install the Windows Service for vCenter Orchestrator)
2. Now click on Start Service to startup vCenter Orchestrator (vCenter Orchestrator typically takes upwards of 30 seconds to start, you can use the refresh link to check the status)
3. If you have any problems starting the service, click on Log on the left, and set the logging drop down to All then click Apply changes on the bottom right, go back and start the service again and then check the log for any errors
11. Open the vCenter Orchestrator Client from the Start-Menu and login!
1. Don’t forget to use your domain login DOMAIN\username
2. Don’t forget to be a member of the VCOAdmins group so you can login.
3. If you want to install the client elsewhere use the installer in the vCenter Server ISO @ vCenter-Server\vCO\vCenterOrchestrator.exe

Here you are trying to setup vCenter Orchestrator and you get this error: SSL exception, ‘SSL certificate is missing for this host’

What vCenter Orchestrator is saying is that it doesn’t have the certificate installed for that host, unlike other apps/programs, Orchestrator doesn’t offer an option automatically install these certificates upon inital connection.  You have to first add the certs then connect to the host, to do this: (refer the screenshot at the bottom if your stuck)

1. Login to your vCenter Orchestrator Configuration Webpage: (http://vCenter-Orchestrator-Hostname:8282) – default user/pass is vmware/vmware
2. Select Network from the left column
3. At the top you’ll see a tab for SSL Certificate, click that
4. You can either import the SSL certificate from a file, or from a URL–URL is the easiest as you just enter the hostname and Orchestrator installs the certificate
5. In the URL box, just enter your vCenter hostname, then click Import to the right of that text box
6. You’ll see the certificate details displayed if everything looks alright click Import at the bottom
7. Repeat this process for each vCenter you plan to use Orchestrator with
8. Go back to whatever step you were trying to do when you got the error: SSL exception, ‘SSL certificate is missing for this host’ and try it again, this time it should work successfully

Having problems?  You should check the logs for anything obvious–

vCenter Server:

• Windows Server 2003 and earlier - %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Application Data\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\Logs\
• Windows 2008 and later - %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\Logs\
• Linux vCenter Server 5.0 Virtual Appliance  – /var/log/vmware/vpx

ESXi Hosts (v3.5 – v5.x):

• /var/log/messages – VMkernel – Devices, drivers, VM stuff, as well as hostd and vpx logs
• /var/log/vmware/hostd.log – Host service stuff – Host & VMs Tasks & Events, vSphere Client stuff, vCenter Agent (vpxa) and SDK stuff
• /var/log/boot-logs/sysboot.log – More VMkernel startup including modules and other boot bits
• /var/log/vmware/vpx/vpxa.log – vCenter (vpxa) agent logs & hostd logs
• /var/log/vmware/fdm/* – HA Logs – vCenter 5.0 and later
• /var/log/vmware/aam/* – HA Logs – vCenter 4.1 and older

ESX Hosts: (v3.x and v4.x):

• /var/log/messages – Service Console Kernel – Services stuff will be here
• /var/log/vmkernel – VMkernel – Devices, drivers, VM stuff
• /var/log/vmkwarning – VMkernel Warning messages — these should also be in the vmkernel log file
• /var/log/vmksummary – Host startup/shutdown stuff, hourly log output showing uptime, # of VMs running, service console resource usage
• /var/log/vmware/hostd.log – Host service stuff – Host & VMs Tasks & Events, vSphere Client stuff, vCenter Agent (vpxa) and SDK stuff
• /var/log/boot-logs/sysboot.log – More VMkernel startup including modules and other boot bits
• /var/log/vmkiscsid.log – Logs for the Software iSCSI Client
• /var/log/vmware/vpx/vpxa.log – vCenter (vpxa) agent logs & hostd logs
• /var/log/vmware/fdm/* – HA Logs – vCenter 5.0 and later
• /var/log/vmware/aam/* – HA Logs – vCenter 4.1 and older

So you decided to take the plunge and buy the Dell Management Center vCenter Plugin but it’s not registering with your vCenter?  In my case, the virtual appliance spit out all kinds of errors–SSL errors, unknown errors, timeouts…
Well, the fix for me was simple–apparently Dell doesn’t make the latest version avaliable online, you may have downloaded an older version from Dell’s site and Dell expects you to simply update the appliance online after you deploy it.
To do this:

1. Login to the appliance admin portal with your previously set admin password (https://[ApplianceIP]/DellAdminPortal/index.html)
2. Now navigate to Appliance Management on the left column
3. On this page you’ll see 2 lines near the top: Current Virtual Appliance Version and Available Virtual Appliance Version, if the Available version is higher then the current, click Update Virtual Appliance to install the update

   

4. It takes about 5-10min to complete, the virtual appliance will reboot at some point, once you get a login screen at the console it should be ready to proceed
5. Go back to the appliance URL in your web browser and login (https://[ApplianceIP]/DellAdminPortal/index.html)
6. From here you’ll see a link to register with vCenter near the top–click that
1. Enter the IP or Hostname for your vCenter server
2. Provide User Credentials with admin access in vCenter & hit register
7. Once registration is complete you will get a message to relaunch a vSphere Client and connect  to the vCenter to access the plugin, so do that and go about configuring the rest of the plugin.

If your not using guest customization specifications, get going now!  Some people ask why do this in a VMware Template when you can do it via Active Directory using Group Policy.  We use our templates a lot for test machines which may or may not end up joined to a domain.  This ensures that no unwanted updates get applied  to these test machines. Works great across Windows XP, Server 2003, Vista, Server 2008 and Windows 7 (might also work on Windows 2000 but I didn’t check).  If you don’t know what guest customization specifications are checkout my other posting explaining all about them and howto create one.

To disable Automatic Windows Updates, all you need to do is add this entry to the RUNONCE area of your customization specification:

It’s that simple!

Most folks with well established vSphere environments don’t have many physical machines left kicking around–but incase you do Converter Standalone 5.0 was released a couple of days ago with some awesome new features:

Preserving the LVM configuration on the source machine during Linux conversions.

Only LVM2 is supported
You have to manually do this during the P2V–Under data to copy, hit the dropdown at the top and select volumes to copy.  Then click the Advanced button and select the destination layout tab.  Pick a disk and click To LVG (Logical-Volume Group)

Enhanced synchronization including options for scheduling synchronization tasks and performing multiple synchronization tasks in a conversion job.

You can schedule the synchronization for a date/time you specify now instead of only being able to synchronize immediately after cloning.

You set these options under the Options page–click the Advanced options button.

Optimized disk and partition alignment and cluster size change.

When you are doing a P2V check the box shown below to enable the new alignment feature.  If you are tweak happy you can hit the Advanced button, then select the destination layout tab. You will notice you can change the NTFS cluster size as well.

Conversion data is encrypted between the source and the server.

This should make the security folk happy.

Restoring VCB images.

Take note when using this feature the MAC address will be regenerated, important to note if the machine the VCB image is from was running a licensing server.  Some vendors generate license files based on MAC address, since the MAC address will have changed the license server won’t distribute licenses to clients anymore.  (Products leveraging FlexLM/FlexNet Publisher)  Specific Products that come to mind are: AutoCAD & Rosetta Stone.

Read the full release notes here:  http://www.vmware.com/support/converter/doc/conv_sa_50_rel_notes.html#whatsnew