WilliamLam.com

Quick Tip - How to actually disable host encryption mode on ESXi?

by // 9 Comments

This recent quote from my buddy Timo Sugliani (definitely worth a follow on Twitter), perfectly captures the essence of an issue that I had ran into and I am sure many of you can also relate! 😀

Trying to do ONE thing and deviating to X, Y and Z. The common IT Journey

I was trying to generate an ESXi support bundle to share with Engineering and when ran the "vm-support" command, I was surprised that it failed with the following message:

Command cannot succeed because this host is in crypto safe mode and the vm-support incident key is missing.


I had never seen this message before and I had assumed it was probably due to my recent use of adding vTPM to VM that caused the host encryption mode to get enabled on this particular ESXi host. Although there were commands that I could run follow, I actually just wanted to disable it and get the support bundle over to Engineering. I figure I should be able to easily disable it, right?

[Read more...]

Exploring the Cloud-init Datasource for VMware GuestInfo using vSphere

by // 3 Comments

While exploring some upcoming capabilities and providing early feedback to Engineering, I came to learn about a new Cloud-init datasource called VMware GuestInfo that was recently merged into the project last August. The Cloud-init Datasource for VMware GuestInfo started out as an OSS project created by Andrew Kutz of VMware and it provides an easy way for a vSphere-based VM to leverage the popular Cloud-init tool for OS initialization and configuration. 

Unlike the recent vSphere Guest OS Customization with Cloud-init feature in vSphere 7.0 Update 3, the Cloud-init Datasource for VMware GuestInfo works by configuring specific guestinfo variables on a VM which are then transported into the guest operating system (GOS) using VMware Tools and is then processed by the cloud-init service that is running inside of the GOS. The nice thing about using this new Cloud-init datasource is that it is not tied to a specific release of vSphere and for those with Cloud-init experience, this is an easy way to incorporate your existing workflows. While I was somewhat familiar with Cloud-init and Linux GOS, I did not know that support for Microsoft Windows was also possible through the use of another project similiar to Cloud-Init called Cloudbase-Init.

It took me some time to figure out how to setup Cloudbase-init with Windows and I have to give a huge shoutout to Jay Vyas for pointing me over to one of his pet projects SIG Windows Development Environment that provided a clue to what the configuration file should look like. While learning about both Cloud-init Datasource for VMware GuestInfo and Cloudbase-init, I found that it was not trivial to get started and I wanted to document some concrete examples that can easily illustrate the power of this capability but also help anyone that might be interested in using this feature and how to quickly get started.

[Read more...]

Quick Tip - ESXi 7.0 Update 3f now includes all Intel I219 devices from Community Networking Driver Fling

by // Leave a Comment

Thanks to Reuben F who left a comment on the Community Networking Driver for ESXi Fling asking about something interesting he saw in the latest ESXi 7.0 Update 3f release notes regarding Intel ne1000 driver.

ESXi 7.0 Update 3f upgrades the Intel-ne1000 driver to support Intel I219-LM devices that are required for newer server models, such as the Intel Rocket Lake-S platform. The TCP segmentation offload for the I219 devices is deactivated because of known issues in the hardware DMA.

He asked whether the Community Networking Driver for ESXi Fling was still needed to support the various Intel I219 devices on the Fling requirements page?

First off, thank you Reuben for making me aware of this, which I totally missed while reading the release notes. Secondly, I reached out to Songtao, one of the Engineers on Fling and he was also surprised by the news. He checked the source and then confirmed that all listed Intel I219 devices in the Fling has actually been incorporated into the latest ESXi 7.0 Update 3f release and the Fling would no longer be required for these specific devices and we have Shu, another Engineer on the Fling to thank for this awesome update! Thank you Shu!

Songtao, Shu and myself had released the Community Networking Driver for ESXi Fling back in early 2021 to help support some of the networking devices that we had observed in the community and there have been a number of releases that has added additional devices. It is always a great feeling to see your work not only being well adopted but also now productized. This is one of the many benefits of the VMware Fling's program and being able to share a solution that solves an immediate problem and iterating on feedback from our users, we have the opportunity to enhance and improve our products/services. Thank you to all the VMware customers who have and continue to support us! 🙏

Who knows ... maybe the network devices under the igc-community module in the Fling will be productized next? 😀