WilliamLam.com

Quick Tip - Correctly naming TKR's in Local Content Library for vSphere with Tanzu in vSphere 8

by // 2 Comments

Customers can create a Tanzu Kubernetes Releases (TKR) content library by either subscribing to VMware's online repository or by creating a local content library and manually importing the images, which can be useful for air-gapped or non-internet accessible environments.

If you automatically subscribe to VMware's online repository, the TKR images (OVF) will automatically be downloaded and will be stored with a default item name that looks like the following:


However, when creating a local content library, customers must manually import the OVF images after downloading them from VMware's online repository (https://wp-content.vmware.com/v2/latest/). During the OVF import wizard, you will notice that each TKR has the same default name called "photon-ova" and you will most likely rename it to something more useful.


Prior to vSphere 8, you could use any name and vSphere with Tanzu would not care as there is metadata associated within each TKR image that provides version that is needed when creating a Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Cluster (TKC).

I was attempting to deploy a TKC using a new TKR version, which I needed to download and import into my vSphere 8 environment and that is where I ran into a strange error:

[Read more...]

Quick Tip - Downloading ESXi Image (ISO or ZIP) from vSphere Lifecycle Manager (vLCM)

by // 4 Comments

Prior to vSphere Lifecycle Manager (vLCM), the creation of an ESXi Image Profile was done separately using the vSphere Image Builder service. If you needed to download a specific ESXi Image Profile (ISO or ZIP) for importing into another environment or to simply create a bootable installer, it was intuitive to download the image within the vSphere UI.

With vLCM, both the ESXi Image and Configuration has been combined and it is now managed at the vSphere Cluster level. A couple of weeks ago, I needed to download a specific ESXi ISO from vLCM and it actually took me a bit of time to figure out where to perform this operation.

I recently came across a VMTN post where the user had the same challenge and realized I was not the only one who could not find the functionality in the vSphere UI.

[Read more...]

Power off VM from Guest OS Reboot capability in vSphere 8

by // 3 Comments

In 2019, a new VM advanced setting called vmx.reboot.PowerCycle was introduced and greatly simplified the remediation of CPU vulnerabilities for our customers. The operational challenge that came with applying CPU microcode updates was that all running VMs on an ESXi host would need to go through a complete power cycle (power off and power back on) before the guest operating system(s) would be fully protected.

The new VM setting would notify ESXi to convert a guest operating system reboot into a VM power cycle operation, which aligns nicely when an organization applies a guest OS update or patch and the guest OS is then rebooted afterwards. The benefit to our customers is that the remediation of CPU vulnerabilities can co-exists with an organizations existing maintenance window and the OS is remediated through a regular guest OS reboot. From the guest OS point of view, nothing has changed, it still sees a reboot but from the VM virtual hardware point of view, a complete power cycle has occurred. A very cool and innovative solution if you ask me!?

The reason for this background, there is another use case that has also been operationally challenging which is upgrading the VM Compatibility, also known as VM Virtual Hardware. A VM must be powered off before you can change the VM Compatibility and a simliar challenge arises with coordinating the downtime of a VM with application owners/teams. What if we had a simliar capability like the guest OS reboot triggering a power cycle, but instead of power cycling the VM, it would simply power it off?

[Read more...]