WilliamLam.com

  • About
    • About
    • Privacy
  • VMware Cloud
  • Tanzu
    • Application Modernization
    • Tanzu services
    • Tanzu Community Edition
    • Tanzu Kubernetes Grid
    • vSphere with Tanzu
  • Home Lab
  • Nested Virtualization
  • Apple

Automating Virtual Machine screenshots in vSphere

01.18.2023 by William Lam // 3 Comments

I was recently reminded of an old article that I wrote back in 2013 demonstrating how to capture Virtual Machine screenshots using a couple of options that are available within vSphere. While the blog post is more than 10 years old, the guidance and options are still applicable for all recent vSphere releases.

I highly recommend folks give the original article a read, especially for the full background but I did want to provide some updated information for those interested in automating the capture of VM screenshots using both the vSphere API as well as the HTTP Handler methods.

[Read more...]

Categories // Automation, vSphere 7.0, vSphere 8.0 Tags // screenshot, vSphere

Video of ESXi install workaround for Fatal CPU mismatch on feature for Intel 12th Gen CPUs and newer

01.09.2023 by William Lam // 10 Comments

I have been noticing more and more users that have acquired hardware that includes the latest Intel 12th Generation CPU (Alder Lake) and even the newest Intel 13th Generation CPU (Raptor Lake) for use with ESXi. Starting with the Intel 12th Generation CPU, Intel has introduced a new hybrid "big.LITTLE" CPU architecture that integrates two types of CPU cores: Performance-cores (P-cores) and Efficiency-cores (E-cores) into the same physical CPU die.

ESXi is currently not aware of this new consumer architecture and it currently expects all cores within a CPU package to have uniform characteristics. If you boot the ESXi installer, it will PSOD (Purple Screen of Death) by default and you will see a message about "Fatal CPU mismatch on feature" which is due to the different CPU properties across both the P-Cores and E-Cores. However, there is a way to workaround the issue by disabling the CPU uniformity check that ESXi performs as part of its boot up.

I initially wrote about the solution back in Feb of 2022 where this new CPU was first introduced in the Intel NUC line with the Intel NUC 12 Extreme (Dragon Canyon) and subsequently, I had also wrote about the solution reviewing both the Intel NUC 12 Pro (Wall Street Canyon) and the Intel NUC 12 Enthusiast (Serpent Canyon).

While the majority of folks have not had any issues applying the workaround, I have started seeing some folks running into challenges, perhaps its familiarity with ESXi or applying kernel options. In any case, I figured it might help to record a video demonstrating the workaround for those that rather visualize the solution along with the written instructions (included below).

[Read more...]

Categories // ESXi, vSphere 7.0, vSphere 8.0 Tags // ESXi 7.0, ESXi 8.0

How to replace some of ESXi Kickstart automation with new configstorecli commands?

01.06.2023 by William Lam // 1 Comment

I had received a question a couple of weeks back from a customer who was already automating their ESXi installation using ESXi Kickstart, also known as ESXi Scripted Installation but they had ran into an issue when migrating the exact same automation to the latest ESXi 7.0 releases.

The method the customer was using to manage their ESXi password policies, which was by updating the /etc/pam.d/passwd file, no longer function as expected and this was a result of the introduction of the ESXi ConfigStore, which I have written about here.

As mentioned in the article, the goal of the ESXi ConfigStore is the following:

The goal of the ConfigStore, initially introduced in ESXi 7.0 Update 1, is to centrally manage all configurations for an ESXi host instead of relying on different methods including a variety of configuration files.

[Read more...]

Categories // Automation, ESXi, vSphere 7.0, vSphere 8.0 Tags // configstorecli, ESXi 7.0, ESXi 8.0, kickstart

  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • …
  • 33
  • Next Page »

Search

Author

William Lam is a Senior Staff Solution Architect working in the VMware Cloud team within the Cloud Infrastructure Business Group (CIBG) at VMware. He focuses on Cloud Native technologies, Automation, Integration and Operation for the VMware Cloud based Software Defined Datacenters (SDDC)

Connect

  • Email
  • GitHub
  • LinkedIn
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • Vimeo

Recent

  • Automated ESXi Installation with a USB Network Adapter using Kickstart 02/01/2023
  • How to bootstrap ESXi compute only node and connect to vSAN HCI Mesh? 01/31/2023
  • Quick Tip - Easily move or copy VMs between two Free ESXi hosts? 01/30/2023
  • vSphere with Tanzu using Intel Arc GPU 01/26/2023
  • Quick Tip - Automating allowed and not allowed Datastores for use with vSphere Cluster Services (vCLS) 01/25/2023

Advertisment

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy

Copyright WilliamLam.com © 2023