WilliamLam.com

ESXi Advanced & Kernel Settings Reference

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Every time I need to recall or reference a specific ESXi Advanced or Kernel Setting for a customer or field inquiry, I typically need to look at a live ESXi host to see whether a given setting is defined for that version of ESXi and also how to access and/or update the settings. Depending on the interface (vSphere API, vSphere UI, ESXCLI, etc.) that you are using, you may only be able to see a subset of these properties.

For example, some ESXi Advanced Settings are only available using the vSphere API/UI while others are available in both the vSphere API/UI and ESXCLI, with the latter being a common utility for customers to view or update these settings. Similarly, for ESXi Kernel Settings, not only are there new options that are introduced with each ESXi release, but being able to easily check the default values and minimums and maximums can also be useful. I should also mention using the vSphere API/UI, you can also accessed the ESXi Kernel Settings which are prefixed with VMkernel.

As a huge VMware Automation person, I was surprised that I had not thought about creating a reference for the ESXi Advanced and Kernel Settings for recent ESXi releases? I figure this would benefit more than just myself and I have put together the following Github repo: https://github.com/lamw/esxi-advanced-and-kernel-settings where you can see all the default ESXi Advanced and Kernel Settings for ESXi releases across 6.0, 6.5, 7.0 and 8.0.


For those interested, this was generated using some PowerCLI automation and below are the two snippets for pulling the ESXi Advanced Settings (supported and runtime values) using the vSphere API and the ESXi Kernel Settings, which I used the ESXCLI interface that is exposed through the PowerCLI Get-EsxCli cmdlet.

UPDATE (08/13/24) - vCenter Server Advanced Settings Reference is now available.

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Quick Tip - Encoding special characters for OVFTool on the command-line

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If you use strong and complex passwords that contain special characters (which you should), it can some times be challenging from an automation perspective on how to properly escape these characters, which can also depend on the scripting or programming language that you are using.

Today I learned about a nice little enhancement in OVFTool 4.4 or later, which makes it easy to handle complex passwords containing special characters by supporting URL encoding for these characters. This is also great for those writing automation scripts and not having to input the password interactively but can now be added to OVFTool command-line string.

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PowerCLI 13.0 on Photon OS

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I received a question from Andrea Peetz, asking whether the new Image Builder cmdlets, which is part of the new PowerCLI 13.0 release would work with Photon OS 3.0 (PH3)? After speaking with the PowerCLI team, it looks like Photon OS 3.0 is not compatible with the new cmdlets. If you attempt to use one of the Image Builder cmdlets like Get-EsxSoftwareDepot, you will get the following error:

Unable to cast object of type 'System.IO.FileStream' to type 'System.IO.Pipes.PipeStream'.


With that said, if you do not require the Image Builder cmdlets, then the rest of the PowerCLI cmdlets should work just fine.

While I have not used PH3 for quite some time now, I do use Photon OS 4.0 (PH4) on a regular basis. I was curious if I would have better luck with the new Image Builder cmdlets. Unlike PH3 which ships with Python 3.7, which is the required version for the Image Builder cmdlets, PH4 ships with a newer version of Python which is 3.10 and will not work with PowerCLI. We can still meet this requirement, but we will need to install Python via pyenv.

After a quick test, I was able to get the basic Image Builder cmdlets working and while going through a complete end-to-end workflow to make sure everything was working, I ran into a slightly different issue. When using the Export-EsxImageProfile cmdlet to export an ESXi Image Profile to an ISO file, I got the following error:

Can not instantiate 'certified' policy: VibSign module missing.

Quickly debugging the issue with the PowerCLI team, it looks like the VibSign module that has been compiled has a dependency on OpenSSL 1.1 and PH4 ships with OpenSSL 3.0 by default. Luckily, I was able to find a workaround by building the required file from the latest stable OpenSSL 1.1 release. Once the dependency was fulfilled, I was able successfully complete the Image Builder workflow!


Similiar to PH3, if you do not require the use of the Image Builder cmdlets, PowerCLI 13.0 can be installed on PH4 using the instructions below. If you do need to use the Image Builder cmdlets on PH4, you will need to run Step 2 below as that is a required step. I have also reported both of these issues with the PowerCLI team.

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