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Quick Tip - Easily identify source DHCP server using ESXi DCUI

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While installing the ESXi 7.0 Update 1 on one of my physical system, I happened to be in the "Configure Management Network" section of the ESXi Direct Console UI (DCUI) and noticed something I had never seen before. As shown in the screenshot, it now shows the IP Address of the DHCP server in which ESXi received the DHCP lease.


I had not noticed this before and after asking on Twitter, it looks like this is definitely a new enhancement that was added fairly recently. I did not see this in one of my ESXi 6.7 Update 3 deployments, but it may have came in a later patch but definitely new in ESXi 7.0 or greater. Not only is this a quick and easy way to identify the DHCP server being used but in case you need to track down an unexpected rogue DHCP server running, this will certainly come in handy as pointed out by John.

Why am I seeing HTTP communication status 404 error when configuring vSphere with Tanzu & how to fix?

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One thing I love about the VMware Community is the constant sharing of knowledge and information on a regular basis. I always enjoy discovering new tricks and tidbits from the community, especially as it helps me refine my own knowledge and understanding of a given technology or solution.

My good buddy Ariel Sanchez cc'ed me on Twitter yesterday referencing a blog post by Paul Wilk about an issue he was observing in his Nested ESXi environment when configuring vSphere with Tanzu.

This was in regards to the dreaded 404 message displayed in the vSphere UI:

HTTP communication could not be completed with status 404


which is actually not unique to a Nested environment. In fact, this cryptic error message was observed even in the first release of vSphere with Tanzu which used to be called vSphere with Kubernetes with the release of vSphere 7.0 release.

Although Paul's conclusion on why his fixed work was not exactly correct, it was the fix itself that I was actually most interested in. Even with the initial vSphere 7.0 release, I had assumed this was just a cosmetic vCenter Server error message. It was not ideal, but like many other customers, I just ignored it as the enablement of Workload Management was still successful.

What helped me connect the dots was the fact that Paul solved the problem by disabling the ESXi firewall, which meant this was actually an ESXi issue. Given this was related to the OVF deployment, I immediately knew what this was actually referring to and is related to an earlier blog post I had shared about a new feature that would allow ESXi to "pull" remote OVF/OVA files from a HTTP(s) endpoint. In this case, it was not OVFTool driving the deployment but rather vCenter Server and the Content Library service, which is also responsible for OVF/OVA deployments.

It turns out that as part of deploying the Supervisor VMs, instead of using the typical "push" method for uploading an OVA, vCenter is instructing the ESXi host to "pull" the OVA files remotely which are actually hosted on the vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) itself. What ends up happening is that because ESXi does not have the correct port in which the OVA is hosted on the VCSA, the "pull" method fails and it automatically falls back to the old "push" method. This is why you see the error message and then progress is immediately progressing.

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How to build a customizable Raspberry Pi OS Virtual Appliance (OVA)?

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After posting the instructions on how to install Raspberry Pi (rPI) OS into a Virtual Machine running on ESXi-Arm, I was already thinking about an easier consumption method that not only benefited VMware customers interested in running rPI OS as a VM but also the larger rPI OS development community. Just imagine, you can now easily deploy, build and test multiple rPI OS/application on a single physical rPI and get all the benefits of vSphere that many customers have enjoyed for the past two decades. 

My goal was to build an rPI OS OVA that would enable some basic guest customization such as networking and configuring the password for the default pi user. As you can see from the screenshot below, I was able to accomplish this with minimal trial/error and works fantastic!


I was initially planning to release the rPI OS OVA as a VMware Fling which can then be made available to the community. However, due challenges in the way rPI OS is distributed today via an image file and the inclusion of packages that makes it difficult for redistribution, I decided to forgo the VMware Fling route and simply publish the instructions with some supplemental scripts that can be used to produce the same rPI OS OVA that I have built for my own personal use.

It would have been great if this could be made available and if anyone from Raspberry Pi organization is reading this and is interested in hosting the download, I would be more than welcome to provide you with OVA file.

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