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New VOBs for creating vCenter Server alarms in vSphere 6.0

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Here are some new VOBs in vSphere 6.0 that I recently came across which can be useful on getting notified on specific events such failed login attempts in ESXi or detecting a device has gone offline in VSAN as some examples. These VOBs can be used to create vCenter Server alarms to take various actions such as a simple UI notification in the vSphere Web/C# Client to sending an email or SNMP trap regarding the event. For more information on how create vCenter Server alarms using VOBs, please take a look at these two articles here and here which also includes a comprehensive list of past vSphere VOBs in vSphere 5.5 which are still applicable in vSphere 6.0.

General vSphere 6.0 VOBs

VOB ID VOB Description
esx.audit.account.locked Remote access for an ESXi local user account has been locked temporarilly due to multiple failed login attempts.
esx.audit.account.loginfailures Multiple remote login failures detected for an ESXi local user account.
esx.audit.esxcli.host.restart Rebooting host through esxcli
esx.audit.lockdownmode.exceptions.changed List of lockdown exception users has been changed.
esx.problem.coredump.copyspace The free space available in default coredump copy location is insufficient to copy new coredumps.
esx.problem.coredump.extraction.failed.nospace The given partition has insufficient amount of free space to extract the coredump.
esx.problem.dhclient.lease.offered.error No expiry time on offered DHCP lease.
esx.problem.pageretire.selectedbutnotretired.high Number of host physical memory pages that have been selected for retirement but could not yet be retired is high.
esx.problem.swap.systemSwap.isPDL.cannot.remove System swap at path {1} was affected by the PDL of its datastore and was removed. System swap has been reconfigured.
esx.problem.swap.systemSwap.isPDL.removed.reconfig.failure System swap at path {1} was affected by the PDL of its datastore. It was removed but the subsequent reconfiguration failed.
esx.problem.vmfs.ats.incompatibility.detected Multi-extent ATS-only VMFS Volume unable to use ATS
esx.problem.vmfs.lockmode.inconsistency.detected Inconsistent VMFS lockmode detected.
esx.problem.vmfs.spanned.lockmode.inconsistency.detected Inconsistent VMFS lockmode detected on spanned volume.
esx.problem.vmfs.spanstate.incompatibility.detected Incompatible VMFS span state detected.
esx.vFlash.VFlashResourceCapacityExtendedEvent vFlash resource capacity is extended
vprob.vmfs.heartbeat.corruptondisk VMFS Heartbeat Corruption Detected

VSAN 6.0 VOBs

VOB ID VOB Description
esx.audit.vsan.net.vnic.added Virtual SAN virtual NIC has been added.
esx.audit.vsan.net.vnic.deleted Virtual SAN network configuration has been removed.
esx.problem.vob.vsan.dom.lsefixed Virtual SAN detected and fixed a medium error on disk.
esx.problem.vob.vsan.dom.nospaceduringresync Resync encountered no space error
esx.problem.vob.vsan.lsom.disklimit2 Failed to add disk to disk group.
esx.problem.vsan.dom.init.failed.status Virtual SAN Distributed Object Manager failed to initialize
vprob.vob.vsan.pdl.offline Virtual SAN device has gone offline.

Easily manage ESXi & VCSA SSH login banner & MOTD in vSphere 6.0

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For customers who have a requirement to configure an SSH login banner and/or message of the day (MOTD) for ESXi or vCenter Server, this usually meant manually editing the /etc/issues (login banner) and /etc/motd (MOTD) configuration files. In vSphere 6.0, this has now been simplified by providing vSphere APIs to allow administrators to easily view and configure SSH login banner and MOTD for both ESXi and VCSA (this does not apply to vCenter Server for Windows).

For ESXi, there are two new ESXi Advanced properties called Config.Etc.issue and Config.Etc.motd and this can also be viewed and edited using the vSphere Web/C# Client as seen in the screenshot below:

esxi-issues-motd
For vCenter Server, there are also two new Advanced Options called etc.issue and etc.motd which can also be viewed and edited using the vSphere Web/C# Client as seen in the screenshot below:

vcsa-motd-issues

What's Displayed

The /etc/issues displays a banner during an SSH login session, this means that you will see the message during the login as highlighted in the screenshot below:

esxi-issues
The /etc/motd displays a banner after a successful SSH login as highlighted in the screenshot below:

esxi-motd

How to Automate

You can use both the vSphere API/CLI to modify the issues and motd configurations. In the examples below, I will be using PowerCLI to demonstrate retrieving and setting the two properties.

Retrieve /etc/issues for VCSA

Get-AdvancedSetting -Entity $vc -Name "etc.issue" | Format-List

Set /etc/issues for VCSA

$msg = "
beware
you
are
entering
the
house
of
Cormac
the
grey
"
Get-AdvancedSetting -Entity $vc -Name "etc.issue" | Set-AdvancedSetting -Value $msg

Retrieve /etc/motd for VCSA

Get-AdvancedSetting -Entity $vc -Name "etc.motd" | Format-List

Set /etc/motd for VCSA

Get-AdvancedSetting -Entity $vc -Name "etc.motd" | Set-AdvancedSetting -Value $msg

Retrieve /etc/issues for ESXi

Get-VmHostAdvancedConfiguration -Name "Config.Etc.issue"

Set /etc/issues for ESXi

$msg = "
beware
you
are
entering
the
house
of
Cormac
the
grey
"
Set-VMHostAdvancedConfiguration -Name "Config.Etc.issue" -Value $msg

Retrieve /etc/motd for ESXi

Get-VmHostAdvancedConfiguration -Name "Config.Etc.issue"

Set /etc/motd for ESXi

Set-VMHostAdvancedConfiguration -Name "Config.Etc.motd" -Value $msg

VMware Tools is now pre-installed with Nested ESXi 6.0

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I just came across this super awesome little tidbit from Core Nested ESXi Engineer Jim Mattson, that ESXi 6.0 now comes per-installed with VMware Tools when running Nested ESXi. This means you no longer have to manually install the VMware Tools for Nested ESXi but ESXi will be able to automatically detect that it is running inside of a VM and automatically startup the vmtoolsd process.

Disclaimer: Nested ESXi is not officially supported by VMware, please use at your own risk.

Screen Shot 2015-02-26 at 9.25.12 AM
This new feature of Nested ESXi is agnostic to the underlying physical ESXi version as well as the virtual hardware version. The only requirement is that the Nested ESXi is running ESXi 6.0. Talk about ease of use, this just made Nested ESXi that much cooler as if it was not already! 🙂

If you need to directly call into the vmtoolsd process for extracting OVF properties/etc. make sure you have correct library paths setup before running the vmtoolsd command, else you will get an error. To do so, run the following two commands:

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/vmware/vmtools/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
export PATH=/usr/lib/vmware/vmtools/bin:$PATH