In the past, I have written about various ways of "bootstrapping" vCenter Server (here and here) which can be useful for setting up greenfield vSphere deployments. This topic has always been of interest to me because it can be the most challenging to solve, especially when you only start out with a single ESXi host. Historically, these "bootstrapping" options have mostly been driven from a CLI standpoint which is not a bad thing when you think about it from an Automation standpoint and needing to replicate this a few dozen times. However, from a user experience point of view, it may not be as ideal, especially if this is an infrequent task. One of the other cool features of the ESXi Embedded Host Client (EHC) which recently had its v4 release is that it can be used to deploy Virtual Appliances stored in the OVF format.
Handy tidbits & workarounds for the VCS to VCSA Migration Fling
The VCS (Windows VC) to VCSA Migration Fling has been out for a little over 6 months and the response from customers thus far has simply been phenomenal. We have also received some great feedback (200+ comments) from customers who have tried out the Fling in either a Dev/Test environment and some even in their production environment for those that are a bit more on the adventurous side. I have also had the pleasure in talking to some of these customers who have been successful in migrating off of their Windows vCenter Server (both large and small) and onto the vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) and sharing additional feedback they may have about the Fling and how we can further improve.
Given the popularity of this topic, I thought it would be useful to aggregate some of the learning's, tidbits and workarounds that have been discovered in the past 6months to help any new or even existing users who might be interested in trying out the Fling. We really do appreciate all the feedback that everyone has given in the various forms and in fact, several of the workarounds were ones provided by our customers. As you know, the Fling today is not currently officially supported, however the feedback has really helped our PM/Engineering team. In fact, you can even get a sneak peak at an early Tech Preview we did at VMworld here to give you an idea on how some of your feedback has influenced a feature that may or may not be out in the near future 😉
| Tidbit 1 | Microsoft Windows 2012 is currently not supported. |
|---|---|
| Additional Info | There is a known winexe bug which is affects migrating from this specific OS platform. |
| Workaround | |
| Tidbit 2 | Use of non-default (custom) ports on Microsoft SQL Server Database is not supported |
|---|---|
| Additional Info | The Fling currently assumes the SQL Server Database is running on port 1433 |
| Workaround | Engineering has a fix for this and is currently in the process of testing the fix along with legal review. There is not an ETA due to the review but we hope to release an update to Fling that includes this fix very soon. Stay tuned! |
| Tidbit 3 | Use of an Embedded Microsoft SQL Server or Microsoft SQL Express Database on the vCenter Server is not supported |
|---|---|
| Additional Info | Since the source Windows vCenter Server must be powered off during the database migration; running the database on the same source vCenter Server is not possible. |
| Workaround | One option is to re-ip the source Windows vCenter Server and ensuring the vCenter Server service is completely disable which would allow the Migration Appliance to communicate with the database. This is not ideal as you are modifying the source Windows vCenter Server but has worked in our testing. Second option that several other customers have recommended instead is to export the vCenter Server Database to a single instance of a Microsoft SQL Server or Microsoft SQL Express and that has worked really well. |
| Tidbit 4 | Clustered database such as Microsoft Clustering Services (MSCS) is not supported |
|---|---|
| Additional Info | There have been issues from some customers when trying to connect to an instance of the vCenter Server Database behind an MSCS Cluster. |
| Workaround | Exporting the vCenter Server Database to a single instance of a Microsoft SQL Server or Microsoft SQL Express and then using the Fling has worked for several customers. |
| Tidbit 5 | Issues connecting to a non-default named instance (e.g. SERVERNAME\VCENTER) of the vCenter Server Database. |
|---|---|
| Additional Info | Some customers have had issues with the connection string to a non-default named instance of the vCenter Server Database during the database migration portion of the Fling. |
| Workaround | A solution that was identified by a customer used the following: http://stackoverflow.com/a/11921896/2668394 |
| Tidbit 6 | Upgrade to VCSA 6.0 after migrating from Windows vCenter Server 5.5 to VCSA 5.5 fails |
|---|---|
| Additional Info | You see the following error "Extra sequences: vpx_host_cnx_seq;" in /var/log/vmware/upgrade/vcdb_req.err during the upgrade to VCSA 6.0. These sequences are only found and valid in a Microsoft SQL Server Database and are not relevant in an vPostgres Database and just simply need to be dropped as they are not used at all. |
| Workaround | Login to the VCSA 6.0 appliance as root and run the following command: /opt/vmware/vpostgres/current/bin/psql -U postgres -d VCDB -c "drop sequence if exists vpx_host_cnx_seq cascade" |
If you are running into issues while through the the migration, one thing you can do is login to the Migration Appliance and go to another virtual console (ALT+F2) and view the Migration logs under /var/log/migrate.log SSH is currently not installed by default. If you wish to pull out the logs for additional support, you can install which will require internet access and you can do so by running the following commands:
sudo apt-get -y update
sudo apt-get -y install openssh-server
sudo /etc/init.d/ssh start
The credentials to the Migration Appliance is vmware/vmware
Lastly, if there are other tidbits or workarounds that you would like to share, feel free to leave a comment and I will get it added to the list.
VMware Tools for Nested ESXi updated to v1.2
I just wanted to give everyone a heads up that we have a minor update to the VMware Tools for Nested ESXi Fling (esx-tools-for-esxi-9.7.2-0.0.5911061.i386.vib) and you can find the list of changes below.
What's new in version 1.2:
- Larger resource pool for programs started using the VIX/Guest Operations API (resolves this issue)
- Now supports Guest Time Synchronization
- No longer require -f flag to install the VIB
If you have any feedback, feel free to leave a comment here or on the Flings page.
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