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Quick Tip - "poor mans" history command in ESXi

02.19.2015 by William Lam // 1 Comment

When I am logged into the ESXi Shell, I often forget that history command is not implemented in ESXi which can be helpful when recalling the list of operations that had been executed in the past. I especially rely on the history command when I am tinkering around with things and once I am successful with the end result, I can easily go back and see the exact steps I took. Recently, I tried running history command only to be let down again as I forgot it was not implemented 🙁

I was thinking there had to be a way on ESXi and then it hit me! Starting with ESXi 5.1, all operations executed in ESXi Shell and Console were automatically logged to /var/log/shell.log. The information I was looking was there but instead of having to manually view the contents of the log, I could simply create an "alias" to  a history command which could display the last N-number of entries using the tail command.

Here is an example alias to "history" command to view the last 50 lines in /var/log/shell.log:

alias history="tail -50 /var/log/shell.log"

To make the alias permanent and persist across reboots, we just need to add the entry to /etc/profile.local

Now, I can run the history command on ESXi and get exactly what I want.

Screen Shot 2015-02-18 at 9.29.41 PM
Note: Entries in /var/log/shell.log contain more operations executed by all users. You can further refine the aliased command to search only for the current user, such as the root account.

Categories // ESXi Tags // alias, cli, ESXi, history, shell

My top 5 favorite enhancements to the new vSphere Web Client 5.5

09.11.2013 by William Lam // 10 Comments

I have been using the vSphere Web Client more and more lately and though transitioning away from the familiar legacy vSphere C# Client is not the easiest thing to do or always possible for every single operation, there are definitely some nice benefits when using the vSphere Web Client. With the upcoming vSphere 5.5 release, there is even more cool new features in the vSphere Web Client!

Here are my top 5 favorite enhancements in the new vSphere Web Client 5.5 in no particular order. For a complete list of new features in the vSphere Web Client, I recommend you take a look at the What's New in vSphere 5.5 whitepaper.

Mac OS X Support for vSphere Web Client

Being a web application, the vSphere Web Client has always worked on a Mac OS X system, however you may have noticed a couple of things did not work such as OVA/OVF upload, remote device management such as mounting an ISO/Floppy and the biggest one of all is virtual machine console access! This has been one of the most requested feature that I can think of and I am personally excited to see this finally come to fruition. In addition to to the native VM console support (HTML5/WebSockets), there is also now a vSphere Client Integration package for Mac OS X that provides both OVA/OVF upload and remote device management support. This alone is enough for me to upgrade my vCenter Server to 5.5 to get these new feature!

Recently Visited & Created Objects

The recently visited objects is a pretty handy feature that came in vSphere 5.1 which allows you to see what objects you have been recently working with. However, this feature may not have been very well known due to its tiny icon. I am glad to see this feature get its own icon and is now located at the top of the vSphere Inventory Navigator between the navigator and pin icon. In addition to this change, it also now includes a list of the recently created vSphere objects which can come in handy when you are doing something new for the first time and would like a quick way to view the sequence of objects created.

vSphere Inventory Navigator History + Back/Forward Navigation

I am pretty sure our vSphere UE engineers have a more elegant name for this awesome feature, but  you can now view the history as you traverse through the vSphere Inventory Navigator and navigate both backwards as well as forward (which is new in vSphere 5.5). To view your current history, you simply just right click on the navigator bar at the top and you will get a drop down list of your history. You can go move forwards or backwards through your history which is a great if you are still getting familiar with the vSphere Web Client and forgot how you got to a particular object.

Deploy vCenter Operations from vSphere Web Client

I thought this was a pretty cool enhancement by allowing you to deploy vCenter Operations Management from within the vSphere Web Client. You will notice a new vC Ops icon on the main dashboard and on the Getting Started page, there is a link at the bottom that will allow you to deploy the vC Ops appliance by first logging into your MyVMware account. I wonder if we will are going to start doing this for other VMware solutions and just making it easier to deploy the latest version without having to first download it onto your local system.

Configure Auto-Refresh & Disable Inventory Navigator Animation

A common piece of feedback that I have heard regarding the vSphere Web Client experience is that it does not automatically refresh the screen. This is a change from the vSphere C# Client where it will automatically refresh the inventory, but of course there is some overhead associated with this refresh as it needs to pull the latest data from the vCenter Server. However, with the latest vSphere Web Client 5.5, you can now enable auto-refresh using an advanced configuration (by default it is disabled). Before you enable this, do note that this can alter the performance of your environment and be aware this will prevent the session from automatically logging out if you have configured an idle session timeout.

UPDATE: (03/11/16) - In vSphere 6.0, the path to webclient.properties has changed to /etc/vmware/vsphere-client/webclient.properties

To enable auto-refresh, you will need to locate the following configuration file /var/lib/vmware/vsphere-client/webclient.properties on the VCSA (there should also be an equivalent on Windows version of vSphere Web Client Server)

By default the auto-refresh is disabled, to enable it, you will need to un-comment the following configuration parameter and set the number of seconds to auto-refresh:

refresh.rate = # of seconds

Another feature that I found interesting that can also be controlled in this configuration file is the sliding animation shown when clicking on the vSphere Inventory Navigator. This I assume is to reduce the amount of resources loading the animation, unless the animation was bothering some folks?

By default this is now disabled in vSphere 5.5 and if you wish to see that animation (default in vSphere 5.1), you can re-enable by un-commenting the following configuration parameter:

navigator.disableAnimation = true or false

There are few other settings that you can control in the webclient.properties, you can take a look at the file for more details.

There are definitely a few more new features in the vSphere Web Client 5.5 that I have not mention, but these were my my top five favorite enhancements. One more thing I would like to also mention is that vSphere Web Client in vSphere 5.5 release definitely feels much snappier than previous releases and this has made for a much better user experience in my opinion. When you get your hands on the new vSphere Web Client, what will be your favorite new feature?

Categories // vSphere 5.5, vSphere 6.0, vSphere Web Client Tags // breadcrumbs, history, HTML5, refresh, vSphere 5.5, vsphere web client

Quick Tip - vSphere Web Client Recent History Feature

07.25.2013 by William Lam // 5 Comments

A customer who was also a former colleague of mines reached out to me a few days ago asking about a feature request that he would like to see in the new vSphere Web Client, which is the ability to view the recent history of inventory objects that he had navigated through. He explained that using the Inventory Navigator on the left pane of the vSphere Web Client, you can only go back to the previous inventory object.

The feature he was looking for is similar to the history feature of a web browser where you can view your recently visited websites. I know for new users of the vSphere Web Client, this is a must have feature as you are getting familiar with the new Web Client and the Inventory Navigator. This feature was actually something I and others within VMware pushed hard for while vSphere 5.1 was still in development and I knew that this feature (also known as breadcrumb) was available.

However, it might not have been obvious on where to access the recent history feature. At the very top of the Inventory Navigator, there is a tiny drop down arrow next to the selected inventory object. If you click on that, you will get a list of your recently visited inventory objects.

Once I provided the screenshot, it was exactly what he was looking for. This really comes in handy when you are jumping around and with a single click, you can easily navigate back to a previous object.

Categories // vSphere Web Client Tags // breadcrumbs, history, vsphere web client

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William is Distinguished Platform Engineering Architect in the VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) Division at Broadcom. His primary focus is helping customers and partners build, run and operate a modern Private Cloud using the VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) platform.

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