Practical VMware vSphere guides for ESXi, vCenter, PowerCLI, networking, storage, lifecycle management, automation, and production troubleshooting.
I know this one should be real basic but sometimes we forget the basics. Have you ever stood up a new environment, installed PowerShell, PowerCLI, imported your favorite scripts and when to execute and got a permission error. Were you rusty on how to change permissions to give yourself the capability to run scripts? Here … Explore: How to fix PowerCLI and/or PowerShell running scripts…
In the last couple of weeks due to a bug that was fixed, I had split brain on a host. Every time, I would place a particular host into maintenance mode it would begin to move VMs to other hosts in the cluster. However, I would get a couple VMs that would flp between hosts … Explore: How to Kill a 6.7 U3 VM &/or…
While i was standing up a new engineering box I needed to install PowerCLI. I figured since I am writing a lot more these days I would show real quick how to install PowerCLI from Powershell. Site for documentation:https://code.vmware.com/web/tool/11.5.0/vmware-powercli Command:Install-Module VMware.PowerCLI -Scope CurrentUser If PowerCLI is already installed and you want to update add the … Explore: How to install PowerCLI 11.5 in PowerShell and…
Have you ever gotten an alarm on your VxRail Manager with some strange code like VXR124003 and wonder what does this mean? I thought I would take a moment and post the VxRail event codes below as well as publish the link to the DellEMC support site. DellEMC Support site URL:https://support.emc.com/docu91469_VxRail-Appliance-4.5.x-and-4.7.x-Event-Code-Reference.pdf?request=akamai Summary: As always I hope … Explore: VMWare 6.7 U3 vCenter, DellEMC VxRail iDRAC, DellEMC…
Recently, I was asked if there was a way to extend the boot time to give an end user time to access the BIOs because they needed to make changes to the config. It has been a minute since I have had to do this so I thought I would write a refresher blog with … Explore: How to edit VMWare 6.7 U3 VM boot…
I was recently asked for a quick way to edit all and individual objects in vSAN 6.7 U3. I thought I would put together a quick how to for quick storage policy changes. **Remember, certain changes in storage policies will trigger a resync on the backend, IE changing RAID types. Step by Step: Right click … Explore: How to change VxRail w/ vSAN 6.7 U3…
Have you ever had someone do a restore of a backup to your vSAN cluster? Ever find it annoying that it does a non-vSAN policy and spits health errors in your vSAN Health check? Ever find it annoying when this new VM is Thick provisioned and 99% of the time it can be thin provisioned? … Explore: How to fix Thick non-vSAN provisioned policies on…
Recently, I was approached by someone who wasn’t fully familiar with VMWare. They quick ask was how do I get email alerts when our ESXi hosts go offline. It took a few minutes to confirm they had an email server setup and then to walk them through how to edit alarms to send emails when … Explore: Setup email alert for alarms in vCenter 6.7…
Sometimes you will find yourself in a situation where a vSAN object Storage Policy Compliance status will become Out of Date. To resolve this you must go to the VM object and Reapply VM Storage Policy. Why you may get this error:The compliance status for a virtual machine is Out of Date. The status indicates … Explore: How to fix Out of Date VxRail vSAN…
Sometimes you will need to confirm that a VM is in compliance with it’s Storage Policy. Please find below that three ways to confirm if your VM is in compliance with the mandated VM Storage Policies. First way – bottom of the VM summary page To update the check just click check compliance Second way … Explore: How to check VxRail & vSAN 6.7 U3…
When you stand up a new cluster you may have storage requirements besides just the default vSAN storage policy. Since the screens have change slightly 🙂 between 6.5 and 6.7 update 3 I thought I would take a moment for a high level walk through of creating a new storage policy. Go to Menu > … Explore: How to create new VxRail vSAN storage policy…
Recently, I was attempting to place a ESXi host into maintenance mode via the GUI in vCenter. However, it kept failing even after i restarted services and rebooted the vCenter. This forced me to break out some old commands to perform this task via CLI on the ESXi host itself. Confirm the host is not … Explore: How to place VMWare vSphere ESXi Host into…
I must admit I have not added a new non-internal management pack to vROPs since 6.x. I thought I would take a moment to write a refresher article and maybe help those who are attempting to do it for the first time. I hope y’all find this article useful. Step 1. Get to add mgmt … Explore: How to upload external management pack (solution) for…
vmkping tests network connectivity from an ESXi VMkernel interface rather than from a guest operating system. Use it to verify management, vMotion, vSAN, NFS, iSCSI, replication, and other VMkernel paths; force the correct source interface or TCP/IP stack; and prove whether an end-to-end path carries the configured MTU. The most useful pattern is: For IPv4, … Explore: ESXi vmkping Commands: Test VMkernel Connectivity, MTU, and…
Quick answer: Shut down the guest before forcing power off This is an ESXi-host CLI reference, originally written for a vSphere 6.7-era incident. These actions can interrupt service. Identify the correct VM first, then choose either shutdown or reboot; a hard power-off is a last resort. Jump to identify the VM, check power state, shutdown … Explore: How to Power off or reboot VMWare VM…
This year I have been fortunate enough to be made a vExpert for my second straight year. I was asked what does it mean to me to be a vExpert, so I thought I would take a moment to write a blog article on what it means to me to be a vExpert. The Beginning:To … Explore: VMWare vExpert 2020
Have you ever been upgrading VxRail and the composite bundle upload stalls at 66% during the unpacking composite bundle bootstrap? It happened to me recently. Here is a quick fix that has worked for me in the past I wanted to share. However; I cannot stress enough that if you are not experienced enough or … Explore: VxRail upgrade stuck at 66% & won’t fail…
Quick answer: An expired password was the cause in this case Check whether your full precheck message identifies an expired vCenter login. Only then follow the supported credential-repair workflow for your VxRail version and vCenter configuration. A generic bundle-upload failure or KB number is not enough. Jump to the original 4.7.410 error, version-aware repair guidance, … Explore: VxRail Failed to upload composite bundle KB488889
In my last article I showed how to upgrade from 4.5 to 4.7. In this article I thought I would make a quick guide from upgrading from 4.7.x to 4.7.x since DellEMC’s documentation is a little off. Now with the VxRail Manager plug-in capability in vCenter it does finally feel a like a single pane … Explore: Upgrade from DellEMC VxRail 4.7.300 to 4.7.410
Recently I was speaking with a close friend who was surprised to hear with all the technical reading I do that I also make time for leisure reading. Now I must admit that my leisure reading still aligns with IT but he was surprised at the types of technology books that make my reading list. … Explore: My 2020 Reading List
Find an architecture guide, platform, or operational problem.
Suggested searches