WilliamLam.com

vSphere Tips and Tricks Part 1

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Disclaimer: Ensure these changes have been thoroughly tested and confirmed with VMware support prior to rolling out into production. Most of these changes and tips may be undocumented by VMware, test at your own risk!

Map Service Console/COS VMDK to specific ESX host (useful if you boot from SAN):

grep -i "hostname" /vmfs/volumes/[datastore]/[esxconsole-datastore-uuid]/logs/sysboot-vmkernel-late.log
[[email protected] ~]# grep -i "hostname" /vmfs/volumes/everest-local-storage/esxconsole-49a095a4-204d-c7ba-9bb8-001f29c7b048/logs/sysboot-vmkernel-late.log
0:00:00:06.289 cpu1:4105)Config: 363: "HostName" = "everest.primp-industries.com", Old value: "localhost" (Status: 0x0)

Retrieve VmId from vmware-cmd similiar to that in vimsh/vmware-vim-cmd (only available on classic ESX, not sure why it's not in vCLI):

vmware-cmd /vmfs/volumes/[datastore]/[path_to_vm]/vm.vmx getid
[[email protected] ~]# vmware-cmd /vmfs/volumes/d32c5a97-e039bdbf/vCenter-ESX4.02172009/vCenter-ESX4.02172009.vmx getid
getid() = 32

VMware FT statistics and debugging utility
Available after some patch set, generally 4.0u1+

[[email protected] ~]# ft-stats
Usage: ft-stats [-hvf] [-c ] [-l] [-n ] [-d ] [-s ] [-w ]
-h, --help Show this message
-v, --verbose verbose output
-f, --force Continue even if version check fails
-c, --cache Use VSI cache file
-l, --list list FT VMs
-n, --iterations Print stats for n iterations
-d, --delay Print stats every n secs (default:5)
-s, --snapshot Collect stats for n secs
-w, --world Print stats for worldID

Note: This tool is intended to assist in troubleshooting and should only be used
with direction by VMware support. All other use of this tool is unsupported.

esxupdate - Query for installed/retired packages with undocumented "--vib-view" option

esxupdate --vib-view query
[[email protected] ~]# esxupdate --vib-view query
--------------------------------------VIB ID------------------------------------- Package State -----------Timestamp------------
rpm_[email protected]x86_64 installed 2010-01-06T12:24:38.100201-05:00
[email protected]_64 installed 2010-04-02T17:09:44.566014+00:00
[email protected]_64 installed 2010-04-02T17:09:44.171847+00:00
[email protected]_64 installed 2010-04-02T17:09:41.148547+00:00
[email protected]_64 installed 2010-04-02T17:09:36.911452+00:00

Change default COW (copy on write) disk growth value
Query (Default is 16MB):

[[email protected] ~]# esxcfg-advcfg -g /COW/COWDiskSizeIncrement
Value of COWDiskSizeIncrement is 32768

Set (e.g. 256MB):

[[email protected] ~]# esxcfg-advcfg -s 524288 /COW/COWDiskSizeIncrement
Value of COWDiskSizeIncrement is 524288

The input value for changing COWDiskSizeIncrement is in sectors

UNIT SECTORS COW GROWTH SIZE
32768 16MB
65536 32MB
131072 64MB
262144 128MB
524288 256MB
2097152 1024MB
.... ....

Easy formula is (SIZE_IN_MB)*(1024)*(2) = SECTOR VALUE

Getting started with vMA

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Documentation

What is vMA?

  • Here is a video explaining vMA on VMware KBTV

Visit the vMA Home Page:

vMA Forum:

You will find latest Downloads, Reference Documentation and Community Discussions and links to resources.

Downloads

Tutorials

    Setting up vMA video by David Davis

    Setting up vMA to be a syslog server by Simon Long

    vi-fastpass

    Upgrade vMA:

    How to clone vMA:

    Backup & Restore vMA + vi-fastpass DB:

    Scripts and Tools

    vGhetto Script Repository:

    New tools and scripts to add/manage ESX(i) and vCenter targets on vMA 4.x:

    vMA Compatible Agent/Scripts(Third Party) Community List:

    Health check reports on your VMware environment:

    Taking screenshots of your VM using vMA 4.x:

    Host and VM shutdown with UPS integration using vMA:

    Backup VMs using vMA:

    Utilize vi-fastpass On vMA to run Perl script without clear text password:

    Tweaks

    Hot add memory to vMA or other supported Linux guestOSes using vSphere ESX(i) 4.x:

    How to increase/resize vMA Disks:

    Offline patching of vMA 4.x:

    How to install VMware VDDK on vMA:

    Reconfigure networking on vMA:

    vMA & Active Directory:

    Removing stale targets from vMA:

    Enable root account:

    Edit /etc/passwd using vi

    sudo vi /etc/passwd

    Change

    root:x:0:0:root:/root:/sbin/nologin

    to


    root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash

    Getting started with the vSphere SDK for Perl

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    Step 1. Visit the vSphere SDK for Perl Home Page

    You will find latest Downloads, Reference Documentation and Community Discussions and links to resources.

    Step 2. Become familiar with vSphere SDK for Perl Resources:

    Step 3. Explore new ways of managing your vSphere Platform using the remote CLI

    • Try some of the esxcfg-* commands bundled with the vCLI/RCLI

    Additional utilities bundled with vCLI/RCLI installation

    Step 4. Develop and create your own scripts and utlities using the vSphere SDK for Perl
    Become familiar vSphere 4.0 API Reference documentation

    Step 5. Learn how to get started with writing your own Perl script using vSphere SDK for Perl

    • This VMware document is a little out dated but it still all applies to writing your own Perl scripts using the vSphere SDK for Perl

    Step 6. For more scripts developed against the vSphere SDK for Perl, check out the vGhetto Script Repository for more examples!
    I think the easiest way to learn this is to start playing with some of the canned scripts and to make it even easier to have an environment that's all setup for you with both the vCLI and vSphere SDK for Perl, you can download VMware vMA.