Disclaimer: Ensure these changes have been thoroughly tested and confirmed with VMware support prior to rolling out into production. Most of these changes and tips may be undocumented by VMware, test at your own risk!
Map Service Console/COS VMDK to specific ESX host (useful if you boot from SAN):
grep -i "hostname" /vmfs/volumes/[datastore]/[esxconsole-datastore-uuid]/logs/sysboot-vmkernel-late.log
[root@everest ~]# grep -i "hostname" /vmfs/volumes/everest-local-storage/esxconsole-49a095a4-204d-c7ba-9bb8-001f29c7b048/logs/sysboot-vmkernel-late.log
0:00:00:06.289 cpu1:4105)Config: 363: "HostName" = "everest.primp-industries.com", Old value: "localhost" (Status: 0x0)
Retrieve VmId from vmware-cmd similiar to that in vimsh/vmware-vim-cmd (only available on classic ESX, not sure why it's not in vCLI):
vmware-cmd /vmfs/volumes/[datastore]/[path_to_vm]/vm.vmx getid
[root@everest ~]# vmware-cmd /vmfs/volumes/d32c5a97-e039bdbf/vCenter-ESX4.02172009/vCenter-ESX4.02172009.vmx getid
getid() = 32
VMware FT statistics and debugging utility
Available after some patch set, generally 4.0u1+
[root@esx-5 ~]# ft-stats
Usage: ft-stats [-hvf] [-c ] [-l] [-n ] [-d ] [-s ] [-w ]
-h, --help Show this message
-v, --verbose verbose output
-f, --force Continue even if version check fails
-c, --cache Use VSI cache file
-l, --list list FT VMs
-n, --iterations Print stats for n iterations
-d, --delay Print stats every n secs (default:5)
-s, --snapshot Collect stats for n secs
-w, --world Print stats for worldID
Note: This tool is intended to assist in troubleshooting and should only be used
with direction by VMware support. All other use of this tool is unsupported.
esxupdate - Query for installed/retired packages with undocumented "--vib-view" option
esxupdate --vib-view query
[root@himalaya ~]# esxupdate --vib-view query
--------------------------------------VIB ID------------------------------------- Package State -----------Timestamp------------
rpm_vmware-esx-drivers-scsi-fnic_400.1.1.0.109.2vmw-2vmw.1.9.208167@x86_64 installed 2010-01-06T12:24:38.100201-05:00
rpm_acpid_1.0.4-9.el5_4.2@x86_64 installed 2010-04-02T17:09:44.566014+00:00
rpm_samba-client_3.0.33-3.15.el5_4.1@x86_64 installed 2010-04-02T17:09:44.171847+00:00
rpm_nss_3.12.3.99.3-1.2157.vmw@x86_64 installed 2010-04-02T17:09:41.148547+00:00
rpm_initscripts_8.45.19.EL-1.2442.vmw@x86_64 installed 2010-04-02T17:09:36.911452+00:00
Change default COW (copy on write) disk growth value
Query (Default is 16MB):
[root@himalaya ~]# esxcfg-advcfg -g /COW/COWDiskSizeIncrement
Value of COWDiskSizeIncrement is 32768
Set (e.g. 256MB):
[root@himalaya ~]# esxcfg-advcfg -s 524288 /COW/COWDiskSizeIncrement
Value of COWDiskSizeIncrement is 524288
The input value for changing COWDiskSizeIncrement is in sectors
UNIT SECTORS | COW GROWTH SIZE |
---|---|
32768 | 16MB |
65536 | 32MB |
131072 | 64MB |
262144 | 128MB |
524288 | 256MB |
2097152 | 1024MB |
.... | .... |
Easy formula is (SIZE_IN_MB)*(1024)*(2) = SECTOR VALUE
NiTRo says
William, is the COW value only stand for snapshot ?
William says
@NiTRO,
This applies to snapshots and thinly provisioned disks, basically any "sparse" disks will be using the default COW value of 16MB as I understand it.
Here are more details regarding COW disks - http://kb.vmware.com/Platform/Publishing/attachments/1001175_fLinked%20Clone%20Managment.htm
Anonymous says
How to use ft-stats ?
Log = Stats not available, FT probably not active
GL