WilliamLam.com

Would you like MSSQL (Microsoft SQL Server) support for the VCSA (vCenter Server Appliance)?

by // 4 Comments

Many of you know that I am a huge fan of the VCSA (vCenter Server Appliance), especially when it comes to a new deployment and how easy it is compared to the Windows version. I especially like how upgrades work for the VCSA by deploying a new VCSA and then performing a migration based upgrade to the new appliance. This provides a nice roll-back mechanism in case something happens and all I need to do is just power on the original VCSA to get the original environment up and running again.

Having said all this, I know the VCSA is still currently lacking a few features which may prevent customers from fully adopting the solution for their production workload. However, if you take a look a how far the VCSA has come from its initial release in vSphere 5.0 release, it has greatly improved and we continue to enhance it with every release. With release of vSphere 5.5, we now support the following configurations maximums:

ESXi Hosts Virtual Machines
Embedded vPostgres DB 100 3,000
External Oracle DB 1000 10,000

Even before vSphere 5.5 release, VMware has internally pushed the boundaries of the VCSA (vSphere 5.1) and the embedded vPostgres database by running one of the most dynamic and demanding workload in a very short amount of time which is the VMworld's Hands On Lab. This really goes to show the type of scale and performance the VCSA and the embedded vPostgres database can support.

One of the most frequent piece of feedback that I have heard from customers regarding the VCSA is to provide support for Microsoft SQL Server database. This request is quite understandable, especially for a Windows shop where you may already have a team of Database Administrators who are quite familiar with the operational and management aspects of maintaining a MSSQL database.

VMware is actually not opposed to supporting MSSQL for the VCSA which runs on SuSE Linux but the challenge in the past was the lack of a Microsoft ODBC driver for SLES. Well it turns out last year Mircosoft released a Community Tech Preview Microsoft ODBC Driver for SQL Server on SLES, however the driver is currently only a Tech Preview and to do justice for VMware customers, we would want to use a GA (General Available) driver which means that there would be full support from Microsoft.

If you would like the VCSA to have MSSQL support, you can help by providing this feedback to your local Microsoft representative or filing a feature request. The more customer demand we have for this, the more likelihood MSSQL DB support can become a reality.

In addition to providing feedback to Microsoft, I think it would also be useful to let our PMs know how important MSSQL DB support & the VCSA is to you which will also help with the prioritization of features. If you can help fill out this quick survey below, that would also be great.

HTML5 VM Console does not work after rebooting the VCSA or Windows vCenter Server 5.5

by // 30 Comments

There was an issue that was identified by some folks internally as well as myself around the new HTML5 VM Console for the VCSA 5.5 (vCenter Server Appliance). The issue is that after a reboot of the VCSA, the new HTML5 VM Console no longer functions. When you launch the console from the vSphere Web Client, you will get the following error "could not connect to x.x.x.x:7331"

After troubleshooting the issue with some of the engineers, it turns out there is an environmental variable that is not being properly set. There is a simple workaround to restore HTML5 VM Console functionality, take a look at the steps below:

Step 1 - Open up /usr/lib/vmware-vsphere-client/server/wrapper/conf/wrapper.conf (for Windows it is under C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\vSphereWebClient\server\bin\service\conf\wrapper.conf) and add set.default.VMWARE_JAVA_HOME=/usr/java/jre-vmware under the environmental section and save the file.

Step 2 - Restart the vSphere Web Client by running the following command:

/etc/init.d/vsphere-client restart

Once the vSphere Web Client is available, you will now be able to access the HTML5 VM Console when launching from a Mac OS X system or an automatic generated URL. This issue has already been reported internally and we will also get a VMware KB article published with the workaround.

Here is the official VMware KB 2060604

How to recover VCSA 5.5 from an expired administrator account?

by // 9 Comments

Last week I wrote about a new security feature in the new VCSA 5.5 where the administrator account (root) password will now expire automatically after 90 days of powering on the VCSA if the password is not changed before then. This new enhancement is to ensures that administrative passwords are rotated routinely for good security practices. However, in the event that you forget to change the password before the expiration, you can still recover the VCSA and this article will walk you through that process.

As a lab exercise, I have configured my root password to expire in one day and purposely let it expire. If you try to login to the VAMI UI, you will get an "Unable to authenticate user" error and you will see something similar if you login to the SSH console. Ideally, this message should be a bit more descriptive to say something like the password has expired (which I have filed an internal bug for).

Requirements:

  • You will need console access to your VCSA
  • You will also need a Linux LiveCD, I personally like using KNOPPIX

Step 1 - Mount the Linux LiveCD to your VCSA and boot into the image. You will need to bring up a terminal shell. The version I am using has a menu and I just select the "shell" option.

Step 2 - Once you are in the terminal, you will need to switch to the root user by running the following command:

su -

Step 3 - Next, we need to mount the VCSA root partition which will be /dev/sda3 to /mnt directory by running the following command:

mount /dev/sda3 /mnt

Step 4 - We now need to edit /etc/shadow file on our VCSA which is located in /mnt/etc/shadow to disable the account lock. You will need to use an editor such as vi to open up the file.

You need to delete "x" in the 2nd field and the numeric value on the 5th field (if it exists, this should be the number of days for expiration, default is 90) for the root user account. The screenshot above shows what values needs to be deleted. Once you have made the changes, go ahead and save the file.

Step 5 - Reboot the VCSA and now you can login to both the VAMI UI interface as well as the SSH console.

Note: If you had the password expiration feature enabled, it has now been disabled for you to login. If you wish to re-enable it, you will need to configure it in the VAMI UI or through the CLI. Please refer to this article here for more details.