VMware

Changing ESXi Passwords via Host Profiles

I recently had an issue where I couldnt get into one of my ESXi Servers as I did not know the Password. I could get into vCenter and so forced a reset of all root user password via Host Profiles.

In vCenter, select Home > Host Profiles

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VIRTUAL LAB – PART 7 – Adding Shared Storage

Now we have the Networking in place, we need some Shared Storage.  Im going to refer to a few older posts of mine to set this up with FreeNAS which works really well.  I may look at other solutions at some point but for now this does exactly what I need.

Installing FreeNAS into VMware Workstation Pt1
Installing FreeNAS into VMware Workstation Pt2
Installing FreeNAS into VMware Workstation Pt3 (iSCSI)

This should be enough to get going (May add some NFS Later)

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VIRTUAL LAB – PART 6 – ESXi and vCenter Networking

This post will cover the setup of the Hosts networking.  I plan to simulate (as much as possible) a real world deployment, so separating all traffic over different networks.  This will mean adding a few additional Interfaces to each Host and deploying a few Virtual Switches to them also.

The first thing I need to do is add a few Network Interfaces to each of my Hosts, Im going to add 3 Interfaces; 1 for Shared Storage, 1 for FT and 1 for vMotion.

Open up Virtual Machine Settings and select Add…

Screen Shot 2017-03-22 at 11.12.03.png

Select Yes if the User Account Control appears (more…)

VIRTUAL LAB – PART 5 – vCenter Setup

So my VCSA is now up and running, I just need to go into vCenter and do some config

  • Licenses
  • Create Datacenter, add Hosts etc..

First thing to do is log in using URL structure: https:////vsphere-client

NOTE: If you just go to the IP of your vCenter it will give you options to use either HTML5 or Flash

Screen Shot 2017-03-21 at 10.45.53.png

I selected the Flash client which uses the URL above

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VCSA (vCenter) Log Locations

Here are a few log files I found useful when deploying the VCSA (vCenter Appliance)

  • /var/log/firstboot
    • rpmInstall.json – A JSON formatted file containing status messages.  Contains progress information, and error messages.
    • cloudvm.log – Log messages created throughout the vCenter Server Appliance installation process.
    • firstbootStatus.json –  A JSON file containing the current status of the installation process. 

VIRTUAL LAB – PART 3 – ESXi Deployment

I have pulled down the latest ISO for ESXi 6.5 – I want to have 2 x ESXi Servers, so I will document the process once and then repeat.

Select File, New Virtual Machine and select Custom

Screen Shot 2017-03-13 at 14.25.22

Hit Next and then Next again at the Choose the Virtual Machine Hardware Compatibility screen

Browse to your VMvisor ISO and select Next

Screen Shot 2017-03-13 at 14.26.15

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VIRTUAL LAB – PART 1 – Planning

Im now in the process of building up my Virtual Lab (I’m pretty excited about this as I have been out of the Virtualisation arena for a few years, so this will be an opportunity to learn whats new in 6.5 and also have a good play with Hyper-V) – My Home Lab Hardware is now in place and I have upgraded my VMWare Workstation to 12.5 (Current latest version)

The overall plan for my Lab is to run a small vSphere 6.5 and Hyper-V Environment for various reasons (mainly my new role – which i will post about soon) all contained within VMware Workstation.

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Installing Nested ESXi VM Tools

Ensure SSH / Port 22 is open and the Services are started as per previous post Enabling SSH

Download the relevant VIB File from the Flings Website here:

https://labs.vmware.com/flings/vmware-tools-for-nested-esxi

Open up your SFTP / FTP Application; In my lab I am using WinSCP

Copy the VIB to a Datastore on the ESXi Server

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PuTTy onto the host and run:

esxcli software vib install -v /vmfs/volumes/[DATASTORE]/esx-tools-for-esxi-9.7.1-0.0.00000.i386.vib -f

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After a short while you should receive the following Successful message:

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Summary – From the Official FLINGs Website: https://labs.vmware.com/flings

Note:  See Instructions tab for downloads.

This VIB package provides a VMware Tools service (vmtoolsd) for running inside a nested ESXi virtual machine. The following capabilities are exposed through VMware Tools:

    • Provides guest OS information of the nested ESXi Hypervisor (eg. IP address, configured hostname, etc.).
    • Allows the nested ESXi VM to be cleanly shut down or restarted when performing power operations with the vSphere Web/C# Client or vSphere APIs.
    • Executes scripts that help automate ESXi guest OS operations when the guest’s power state changes.
    • Supports the Guest Operations API (formally known as the VIX API).

VCSA – Failed to execute, during Setup Wizard

When running through the Setup Wizard in the vCenter Server Appliance  version 5.5

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you receive:

Failed to execute ‘/usr/sbin/vpxd_servicecfg ‘db’ write’…..

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This occurs for SSO and the Database Setup

Connect to the VCSA via Console and Stop the vmware.vpxd service

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Once this is down – go back to the GUI and re-run the Setup Wizard