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How To Backup & Restore Free ESXi Host Configuration

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ESXi host configurations can easily be backed up and restored using either the vCLI's vicfg-cfgbackup or PowerCLI's Get-VMHostFirmware cmdlet. These commands along with others that perform "write" operations are only supported when you have a (paid) licensed version of ESXi. If you are using free ESXi, the remote commands are only available for "read-only" operations. For more details, please refer to this article here.

Note: In my personal opinion, it is much quicker and more efficient to re-install ESXi and apply your configurations using either a scripted deployment such as kickstart or a combination along with post configuration scripts. Re-installs become extremely trivial when you centralize your ESXi host configurations, even for small setups.

Having said that, if you are running free ESXi in a small shop or in a home lab and wish to backup your ESXi host configurations, you can still do so by leveraging a neat little tool called vim-cmd found within the ESXi Shell. There is a section under hostsvc/firmware which manages the ESXi host configuration which also uses the same vSphere APIs that both vicfg-cfgbackup & Get-VMHostFirmeware command uses.

Under this section of vim-cmd, there are four commands:

  • backup_config   
  • reset_config    
  • restore_config  
  • sync_config

Prior to actually backing up your ESXi host configuration, run the following command which will flush the ESXi configuration changes:

vim-cmd hostsvc/firmware/sync_config

To backup the ESXi host configurations, run the following command which will generate a file that will be automatically stored in /scratch/downloads and can also be downloaded from a web browser using the URL shown from the output:

vim-cmd hostsvc/firmware/backup_config

Before restoring your ESXi host configurations, you will need to ensure the file is renamed to configBundle.tgz and stored under /tmp directory. You will also need to ensure the ESXi host is placed in maintenance mode by running the following command:

vim-cmd hostsvc/maintenance_mode_enter

To restore the ESXi host configurations, run the following command and specify the backup configuration file which should reside in /tmp/configBundle.tgz:

vim-cmd hostsvc/firmware/restore_config /tmp/configBundle.tgz

Note: Upon completing the restore, it will automatically reboot your ESXi host.

Here is a screenshot using the above commands to backup and then restore ESXi host:

Note: You can not restore an ESXi host using a configuration file backed up from a different host.

Enable Auto Startup After Power Failure For Apple Mac Mini

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I recently came across a very useful tidbit after receiving several inquires asking how to configure an Apple Mac Mini to automatically startup after a power failure. This is extremely useful for situations where power is eventually restored and you are not physically around to press the power button. Automatically starting up after a power failure is not a new feature of the Mac Mini and it actually exists on most modern day systems and can be configured using a variety of tools.

The challenge arises when you are running ESXi, how do you go about enabling this functionality in ESXi itself? Well the answer is actually quite simple, you can enable this outside of ESXi. Normally to enable this feature you can either run a setpci command on UNIX/Linux system or configure the energy saver settings in OS X. Several folks from the VMTN community such as zippytiff and twuhabro have already confirmed having success using the latter option when booting OS X off a USB or SD card to modify the energy saving settings.

I finally got a chance to look into this a bit more for myself and with a bit of research, I found several other methods which also works and may potentially be easier.

Note: I have heard that historically the auto startup flag has not persisted in older Apple hardware, but for the new Mac Mini 5,3 and 6,2, they seem to be persisting without any issue from my testing. YMMV depending on your hardware and/or firmware.

Method 1 (Configure in OS X)

If you already have OS X install on your Mac Mini, then you just need open up the System Preferences and enable auto startup under the Energy Saver section. Once that has been enabled, you can then perform your ESXi installation.

If you already have ESXi installed, then you can use either Method 2 or 3.

Method 2 (Configure using bootable Ubuntu on USB)

We can create a bootable Ubuntu image running off of a USB device (minimal footprint) and run the following setpci command to enable auto startup:

setpci -s 0:1f.0 0xa4.b=0

If you are interested in the gory details on the above command, please refer to this great article which breaks it all down for you. After you have created your Ubuntu image using the instructions in the above link, you can boot off of the USB device (Make sure to hold down ALT/OPT key so you can select to boot off of the USB device). Once Ubuntu has booted up, you will right click on the purple icon on the upper left hand corner and type in terminal.

You will then launch the terminal application and type the following to change over to root user.

sudo su -

Finally, you will enter the above setpci command which will enable the auto startup. At this point, you can type reboot and remove the USB device.

Method 3 (Configure using bootable OS X on USB)

Another method is to create a bootable OS X image running off of a USB device and change the power management settings by using the pmset utility. To enable auto startup, run the following command in the terminal:

pmset autorestart 1

You will need the original OS X installer and if you are using either Lion or Mountain Lion, you can use Lion DiskMaker to help you create the bootable USB image (Make sure to hold down ALT/OPT key so you can select to boot off of the USB device). Once the OS X installer boots up, at the top select Utilities and click on the Terminal application.

Go ahead and run the above command to enable auto start and then type reboot and remove the USB device.

The last thing to do of course is to actually test this out on your Mac Mini. Go ahead and let the system boot up and then yank the power cord and then give it a few seconds before plugging it back in. You should see the Mac Mini automatically power back on after you plug the power back in.

References:

 

How to Access vSphere Remote Console Using vSphere & VMRC API

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Similar to my vCloud Director article, you can also provide access to the remote console of a virtual machine in a vSphere environment to your end users. This can be accomplished by leveraging both the vSphere and VMRC (Virtual Machine Remote Console) APIs and can be useful if you are building a custom portal for users to access their virtual machines. To use the VMRC API, you can download the latest VMRC 5.1 SDK which provides the following:

The VMRC SDK allows you to use a Web-based application to connect to a vCenter- or vCloud Director-managed virtual machine and access that virtual machine’s console in a browser window. You can interact with the virtual machine console input and screen. You can also use the VMRC SDK to manage virtual and physical device connections on a vCenter-managed virtual machine. 

The VMRC SDK includes documentation to the API as well as a sample webpage implementing some basic functionality of the VMRC API. I recently received a question on how to get started with the sample as it was not completely intuitive and thought I take you through the required steps to get the sample working.

Step 1 - Download the VMRC 5.1 SDK and extract the contents to your local desktop.

Step 2 - Open the vmrc-embed-example.html using a web browser located in the docs folder.

Note: In my example, I uploaded both the javascript and html file to a web server and accessed the sample by connecting to the server instead of running it locally on my desktop. This was to show how users could access the custom portal using the VMRC SDK.

Step 3 - At the top of the page where it says "VMRC Modes", make "MKS" is selected in the drop down box and click on the "+" icon to add. Then go ahead and click on the "Start" button to start a VMRC instance and ensure you see a success message on the right hand side of the console box.

Step 4 - To authenticate to VMRC, you will need a session ticket which will be obtained through the use of the vSphere API using the acquireCloneTicket() method provided by the SessionManager managed object. In this example, we will be using the vSphere MOB to quickly retrieve our session ticket, but in a real implementation, you would programamtically retrieve the session ticket along with few othe pieces of information to connect to the VMRC. Open up a new tab in your web browser and connect to the following URL:

https://reflex.primp-industries.com/mob/?moid=SessionManager&method=acquireCloneTicket

Note: Make sure you substitute in your vCenter Server IP Address/Hostname

Once you have authenticated, go ahead and click on the "Invoke Method" which should generate a session ticket:

Step 5 - Copy the session ticket string and go back to our VMRC sample page. We will now need to fill out the following sections before we can access the remote console of a virtual machine:

  • Hostname (IP Address/Hostname of your vCenter Server)
  • Allow SSL Validation Errors (Check this if you are using self signed SSL certificates)
  • Ticket (Paste the session ticket from the previous step here)
  • VM ID (This is the MoRef ID of the VM you wish to connect to the remote console)

Once you have filled out the minimum required fields, go ahead and click on the "Connect" button and if everything was successful, you should now see the remote console of the virtual machine you selected.