System Swap / Scratch Configuration in vSphere 6

Manish Jha

When a host boots from Auto Deploy, it is very common to see following alarms triggered on Esxi host

These alarms are triggered because host booted in a diskless environment and there are no place where system can store logs etc. 

In this post we will focus on how to fix these issues. This article is majorly focused on configuring/changing Esxi host swap and scratch partition configuration. We will start with system swap.

About System Swap

System swap is a memory reclamation process that can take advantage of unused memory resources across an entire system. In case of memory contention situation, system swap allows Esxi to reclaim certain parts of memory that is not used for virtual machines. The reclaimed memory is written to a storage location.

When swap is enabled, you have a tradeoff between the impact of reclaiming the memory from another process and the ability to assign the memory to a virtual machine that can use it.… Read More

Troubleshooting You must be a member of SystemConfiguration.Administrators group issue

Manish Jha

Today while working in lab came a situation where I had to enable/start a service and when I logged into Web Client with a user that has Administrative privileges I was seeing the error

This error was not new as I have encountered this several times in lab I was skipping this by logging into Web Client via administrator@vsphere.local user. I never tried to know why I was getting this error when my other user was part of the administrator group.

But today I was frustrated because of this and decided to get rid of this error. A simple google search and I landed to this page which helped me in troubleshooting the issue.… Read More

Configure Core Dump Settings On vSphere 6 Hosts

Manish Jha

In this post we will look into how to configure Core Dump settings on Esxi hosts. But before doing that lets talk a bit about what is core dump.

What is Core Dump?

A core dump is the state of working memory of an Esxi host in the event of host failure like Purple Screen Of Death aka PSOD. In the event of PSOD the state of the VMkernel Memory is sent to the server where where dump collector service is running. This server is typically your vCenter server.

Core dumps information are very important when it comes to identifying and troubleshooting the issue which made the ESXi host to show a purple screen.

By default, a core dump is saved to the local disk. You can use ESXi Dump Collector to keep core dumps on a network server for use during debugging. The core Dump resides in a Diagnostic partition and in-order to create a partition we require atleast 100 MB of free space either locally or remotely available disks.… Read More

Configure Centralized Logging on ESXi 6 Hosts

Manish Jha

In this post we will learn how to configure Esxi-6 hosts to send the logs to a centralized syslog server.

Purpose of configuring syslog server?

As per VMware KB-2003322

ESXi 5.0 and higher hosts run a syslog service (vmsyslogd) that provides a standard mechanism for logging messages from the VMkernel and other system components. By default in ESXi, these logs are placed on a local scratch volume or a ramdisk.

To preserve the logs further, ESXi can be configured to place these logs to an alternate storage location on disk and to send the logs across the network to a syslog server.

Retention, rotation, and splitting of logs received and managed by a syslog server are fully controlled by that syslog server. ESXi cannot configure or control log management on a remote syslog server.

How to configure Esxi hosts for centralized logging?

There are various ways to configure syslog settings on Esxi hosts.… Read More

Using Host Profile With Auto Deploy

Manish Jha

Last week I wrote a post on Auto deploy configuration in vSphere 6 and deployed on Esxi host using Auto Deploy. In this post we will learn about using host profiles with Auto Deploy for customizing Esxi hosts that will be installed via Auto Deploy.

But before we begin with creating Host Profiles let’s have a brief introduction of what is Host Profile and what challenges we are solving by using it.

What is Host Profile and why to use it?

Host profile is nothing but a configuration templates designed to ensure that VMware hosts are configured in a consistent manner across your infrastructure. When an Esxi host is deployed in an infrastructure, there are dozens of configurations that an administrator has to configure. These configurations include (but not limited to):

1: Configuring host networking: This includes creating VMKernel/VM port groups, assigning IP’s to VMkernel portgroups, deciding which portgroup will have which kind of functionality etc.… Read More

Host Profile Issue – Cluster Non Compliant – FT logging is not enabled

Manish Jha

Recently while working with Host profiles in my lab, I faced too many issues and was getting frustrated and decided to pen down my frustration. Using Host profile was not new for me but I guess I have not used it in last 2 years and so forgot a bit about it.

The issue was I got 2 of my host deployed via Auto Deploy and customized via Host Profile and both hosts were showing compliant with the attached profile. Its the cluster which was unhappy and was complaining about “FT is not supported” and “FT logging not enabled”.

hp-11

I had no intentions of using FT in my lab and was looking for getting rid of this issue. A simple google search and I came across VMware KB-1017714 which explains how to get rid of this error.

We need to add a line “das.includeFTcomplianceChecks” to HA advance settings and set the value to false.… Read More

Auto Deploy Configuration in vSphere 6

Manish Jha

Auto deploy is used for PXE booting/installation of Esxi over the network. When a host is deployed using Auto Deploy the state information is loaded to memory upon boot, the state is not permanently stored on the physical host by default.

We can use Host Profiles with Auto Deploy to customize your ESXi host state. Also from Esxi host advanced configuration menu, we can configure host for stateless or stateful booting.

In this post we will learn how to configure auto deploy and use it to provision Esxi hosts. Configuring Auto Deploy is a 3 step process which includes:

1: Enabling Auto Deploy in vCenter/vCSA.

2: Configuring DHCP and TFTP

3: Creating Auto Deploy rules using PowerCLI

Lets walk through each section one by one.

Enabling Auto Deploy in vCenter/vCSA

In my lab I am using windows based vCenter installation. Steps for enabling auto deploy are pretty much same for vCSA deployments as well.… Read More

Automating Esxi Deployment Using PXE Boot and Kickstart

Manish Jha

I have read long back about numerous posts on unattended Esxi installation but never tried it in my lab. Recently I started preparing for VCAP exam and there again mention of scripted install was there and it motivated me to finally try this in lab.

My first interaction with kickstart was 3 years back where in my previous organization our kickstart server died (running on really old hardware), but fortunately we had backup of the server and my boss handed over a task to me to build the server from scratch.

That was the time when I was so amazed by this wonderful piece of software and once I got the server up and running back in production, I setup an identical instance on my local system to play around options and enhance the pre/post installations script.

Like any other OS, ESXi can also be automatically deployed via PXE. PXE is a way to boot an operating system over the network using Ethernet card (PXE must be supported by the NIC card present in server and by the BIOS).… Read More

vRealize Network Insight-Part-4: Monitoring Infrastructure

Manish Jha

In last post of this series we had a look on how to add data sources and successfully added vCenter server and NSX manager so that vRNI can fetch and provide us necessary information. In this post we will see how we can monitor our infrastructure and how we can improve it based on recommendations generated by vRNI. Let’s get started.

If you have missed earlier posts of this series, you can read them from below links:

1: Introduction to vRealize Network Insight

2: Deploying vRNI Appliance

3: Configuring vRNI

We will start with checking Esxi host statistics. 

From the left pane select Path and Topology and select Host.

From the drop down menu select the host for which you want to retrieve the stats.

You will be presented with host stats for last 24 hours. This time range can be modified by clicking on down arrow button as shown in screenshot.… Read More

vRealize Network Insight-Part-3: Configuring vRNI

Manish Jha

In last post of this series we had a look on deployments steps of the Platform and Proxy VM. In this post we will configure the vRNI deployments and will see what kind of data the dashboard presents to user.

If you have missed earlier posts of this series, you can read them from below links:

1: Introduction to vRealize Network Insight

2: Deploying vRNI Appliance

Lets begin with configuring the appliance.

Login to vRNI appliance by typing https://<IP or FQDN of the platform appliance> in your browser.

First we have to add a data source. To do so click the settings button on the top right corner as shown below.

Click on Add new source button

From the drop down menu select vCenter server as source type.

Fill in the vCenter details and click on validate. 

As a best practice, I like to use service accounts for components communication. I have added an account and configured the role in vCenter.… Read More