vSphere

How To Configure NTP Server for vSphere Lab

Manish Jha

Today while working in my lab I was facing an issue where my vSphere Replication appliance was not getting registered to my vCenter server and while troubleshooting I came to find out this is happening because of time difference on my vCenter Server and Replication appliance.

We all know how critical is NTP in vSphere infrastructure as it keep time on all pieces of infrastructure in sync with each other and saves us from common problems that can occur due to time difference on servers.

So I decided to setup NTP server in my home lab. I have read a blog somewhere in past that primary domain controller (PDC) can be configured as NTP server. I have a domain controller in my lab so I followed the following steps to force my PDC to sync its time from internet and later point all my infrastructure servers (vCenter, esxi, replication appliance) to sync its time from my PDC.… Read More

vSphere-6:Part 10-Configuring vSphere Update Manager

Manish Jha

In last post of this series we learnt how to install VUM and discussed why we need VUM and how it can simplify the update and upgrades in a large infrastructure and thus make life of a VMware admin easy.

In this post we will see how to configure various settings in VUM and how to create baselines and attach the baselines to host/cluster and then how to remediate hosts.

If you have missed earlier posts of this series then you can access the same by clicking on below links:

1: Introduction to vSphere 6

2: vSphere 6-Lab Setup

3: Installing and Configuring Esxi Server 6

4: Installing vCenter 6

5: Enabling AD Authentication for vCenter Server

6: vCenter Server 6 Basic Configuration

7: Configuring dvSwitch & Port groups

8: Configuring Esxi host

9: Installing vSphere Update Manager

Configuring VUM is fairly easy task and there are not much settings involved in it.… Read More

vSphere-6:Part 9-Installing vSphere Update Manager

Manish Jha

In last post of this series we have seen how to add Esxi hosts to domain and how to configure Esxi host to reach iSCSI storage.

In this post we will learn how to install and configure vSphere Update Manager.

If you have missed earlier posts of this series then you can access the same by clicking on below links:

1: Introduction to vSphere 6

2: vSphere 6-Lab Setup

3: Installing and Configuring Esxi Server 6

4: Installing vCenter 6

5: Enabling AD Authentication for vCenter Server

6: vCenter Server 6 Basic Configuration

7: Configuring dvSwitch & Port groups

8: Configuring Esxi host

Why you need VUM?

You can ask this question to yourself that do you really need VUM in your environment especially while working in Lab environment. I would say yes. May be you are not looking for any upgrade related tasks in your lab but it is always a good idea to have hands on how VUM operates.… Read More

vSphere-6:Part 8-Configuring Esxi Hosts Settings

Manish Jha

In last post of this series we have seen how to create and configure  dvswitch and portgroups on dvswitch and how to migrate networking from Standard switch to dvSwitch.

In this post we will see how to configure basic esxi host settings.

If you have missed earlier posts of this series then you can access the same by clicking on below links:

1: Introduction to vSphere 6

2: vSphere 6-Lab Setup

3: Installing and Configuring Esxi Server 6

4: Installing vCenter 6

5: Enabling AD Authentication for vCenter Server

6: vCenter Server 6 Basic Configuration

7: Configuring dvSwitch & Port groups

Let’s get started with some basic configuration tasks on the Esxi host.

Adding Esxi hosts to Domain

It’s always a good idea to add Esxi hosts to your corporate domain. Adding Esxi hosts to domain allow you to push specific configurations and security settings from your Domain Controller. Also it can help you track which user has done what activity on esxi hosts (in case Esxi host is disconnected from vCenter and user needs to connect to host directly)

Connect to vCenter server Web-Client and select the Esxi host.  … Read More

Performance Charts service returned an invalid response

Manish Jha

Today while working in my lab I was facing performance issues with one of my Esxi host and decided to analyze the performance chart of the host to find out the root cause.

When I select the host and clicked on Performance tab, there was nothing in there and instead it returned an error “Performance Charts service returned an invalid response“

perf-1

However when I switched to advance view I was able to see the charts.

perf-2

This was strange. I started googling with the error message and came to a discussion thread on VMTN where someone has suggested to enable IPv6 on host.

perf-3

I followed the same thing and enabled IPv6 on my Esxi host and rebooted it for changes to take affect. Once host was rebooted I again selected the performance charts and still I was seeing the same error.

I continued with googling and came to a cool Blog-Post by MATT BRADFORD and followed the steps.… Read More

Using Template Host for Consistent Network Configuration in dvSwitch

Manish Jha

Yesterday while configuring dvSwitch and Port groups I came across a new cool feature in vSphere 6 and I was amazed to see this. I will talk about this feature in this post and will demonstrate how to use it.

Let’s see what this feature is all about.

In my last post Configuring dvSwitch and Port Groups I demonstrated how to add Esxi hosts to dvSwitch and migrate virtual networking from Standard switch to dvSwitch. If you remember I have added only one host at beginning as I am not very much comfortable with dvSwitch at the moment.

Once it was successfully added I was trying to add the remaining 2 hosts to dvSwitch and during doing so, discovered a new feature which I have not seen earlier. Let me give a little bit background of this feature.

In vSphere 6 there is a feature of using template host in dvSwitch.… Read More

vSphere-6:Part 7-Configuring dvSwitch & Port groups

Manish Jha

In last post of this series we have seen how to configure and install licenses for vCenter Server and Esxi hosts. Also we have performed some basic tasks like creating Datacenter/Cluster and adding hosts to cluster.

In this post we will see how to configure networking in vCenter Server.

If you have missed earlier posts of this series then you can access the same by clicking on below links:

1: Introduction to vSphere 6

2: vSphere 6-Lab Setup

3: Installing and Configuring Esxi Server 6

4: Installing vCenter 6

5: Enabling AD Authentication for vCenter Server

6: vCenter Server 6 Basic Configuration

This post will be revolving around dvSwitch and associated components so that we can take benefits of some advanced features provided by dvSwitch.

If you are a newbie to VMware then I would recommend going with standard switches in beginning and playing around options to gain clarity on how virtual networking works and what are the differences between while working with physical networks and then with virtual networks in VMware vSphere.… Read More

vSphere-6:Part 6-vCenter Server Basic Configuration

Manish Jha

In last 2 post of this series we learnt how to install vCenter Server 6 on Server 2012 and how to enable AD authentication for SSO so that your domain users can login to vCenter server and manage it.

If you have missed earlier posts of this series then you can access the same by clicking on below links:

1: Introduction to vSphere 6

2: vSphere 6-Lab Setup

3: Installing and Configuring Esxi Server 6

4: Installing vCenter 6

5: Enabling AD Authentication for vCenter Server

In this post we will touch down on basic tasks that needs to configure vCenter before we can start using it in Lab/Production. Steps included in this post are typically for Lab environment and you might need to perform some additional tasks before your prod vCenter goes live.

Let’s talk less in this post and dive directly into configuring vCenter server.

1: Configuring Licenses for vCenter and Esxi hosts

Installing vCenter Server and Esxi host license is something which I love to do as soon as I complete installation process.… Read More

vSphere-6:Part 5-Adding AD Authentication in vCenter Server

Manish Jha

In last post of this series we learnt how to install vCenter Server 6 on Server 2012. I am new to vSphere 6 so at beginning I had kept things simple and installed vCenter and PSC on a single machine (embedded mode) and also used embedded vPostgres database.

If you have missed earlier posts of this series then you can access the same by clicking on below links:

1: Introduction to vSphere 6

2: vSphere 6-Lab Setup

3: Installing and Configuring Esxi Server 6

4: Installing vCenter 6

Earlier vCenter Server was holding the SSO component, but in vSphere 6 it is included as part of PSC. The Platform Services Controller contains the shared services that support vCenter Server and vCenter Server components.

In this post we will learn how to configure AD authentication in vCenter Server 6.0.

The vCenter SSO authentication service makes the VMware infrastructure more secure by allowing the various vSphere software components to communicate with each other through a secure token exchange mechanism, instead of requiring each component to
authenticate a user separately with a directory service like Active Directory.… Read More

vSphere-6:Part 4-Install vCenter Server 6

Manish Jha

In last post of this series we had learnt how to install Esxi server 6 and we found installation of Esxi 6 hypervisor has not changed much and it is pretty much same as like previous version.

If you have missed earlier posts of this series then you can access the same by clicking on below links:

1: Introduction to vSphere 6

2: vSphere 6-Lab Setup

3: Installing and Configuring Esxi Server 6

In this post I’m going to walk you through the installation of VMware vCenter Server 6.0. The way vCenter server was installed in past has now changed big times. Earlier we had a choice to install SSO, Inventory Service, vCenter Server and Web-Client all on same machine or have a distributed architecture where all components were spread across multiple servers.

With vSphere 6.0 VMware introduced concept of PSC. Now we have only 2 nodes in vCenter deployment.… Read More