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

vRealize Network Insight-Part-2: Installation

Manish Jha

In last post of this series we discussed briefly about what is vRNI and why you should have it your environment. In this post we will look into the deployments steps.

The current version of vRealize Network Insight is 3.4. I am going to deploy the same in my lab. 

The installation process for VMware vRNI is a two-step process that includes:

  • Deploying VMware vRNI platform appliance.
  • Deploying VMware vRNI proxy appliance.

Following are the resource requirements for deploying the Platform and Proxy OVA.

vRealize Network Insight Platform OVA

  • 8 cores – Reservation 4096 Mhz
  • 32 GB RAM – Reservation – 16GB
  • 750 GB – HDD, Thin provisioned

vRealize Network Insight Proxy OVA

  • 4 cores – Reservation 2048 Mhz
  • 10 GB RAM – Reservation – 5GB
  • 150 GB – HDD, Thick provisioned

Lets jump into lab and start the deployment process. To keep the length of the post to a reasonable length, I have omitted the deployment steps of the ova file except the final network information input screens where you have to define IP/Netmask/GW/DNS/NTP etc.… Read More

vRealize Network Insight-Part-1: Introduction

Manish Jha

Recently I was having a discussion with one of my friend on NSX related topic and then I came to know about a new must have tool for your NSX based lab. Title of this post itself explains which tool I am talking about here.

What is vRealize Network Insight (vRNI) and where it came from?

vRealize Network Insight is a product for delivering intelligent operations for your SDN environment (specially based on NSX). vRealize Network Insight, allows a single pane of glass view of the VMware NSX environment. vRNI integrates with NSX to deliver intelligent operations for software defined networking.

In June,2016 VMware acquired a company called Arkin Net and named the product vRealize Network Insight. I read few blog where people used to refer this tool by nickname “vernie” and it sounds just exactly right. Cool name isn’t it?

What advantage vRNI offers?

With the help of vRNI you can optimize network performance and availability with visibility and analytics across virtual and physical networks.… Read More

Failed to deploy edge appliance vse-XXXX-0. The name ‘vse-XXXX-0’ already exists”

Manish Jha

This post is very similar to issue described in my last post. The only difference in last issue and this was I was not able to redeploy edge gateway to get rid of stubborn Org Networks whereas in previous case Edge redeploy fixed the issue quite comfortably.

Let me start with a little bit background of how was this issue discovered and what challenges I faced.  I was working investigating a failed deprovision issue when this issue was discovered. Deprovision tasks in our environment are fully automated and we have some portal where these tasks arrives and there is a Resume button which when clicked, kicks the deprovision process.

When the Resume button is clicked that portal initiates API calls to vCD and start deleting stuffs. It starts with deleting vApps, vApp Templates and then proceed to Org Network deletion and then the edge gateway and at last deletes the Org vDC and Org.… Read More

VIX_E_PROGRAM_NOT_STARTED was returned by VIX API

Manish Jha

Today while working on one production issue, I came across one incident where I was unable to delete one of the Org Network in vCloud Director.

I observed following errors in vCD UI for the Org network deletion failure:

On checking vcloud-container.debug.log I observed similar log entries as seen in vCD UI

This was entirely new error for me so I started googling this around and unfortunately did not found helpful article. 

So I started my troubleshooting from edge level. I Found that the edge gateway in vCloud Director was complaining about edge backing VM’s was not reachable.  

At vCenter level I found both the edge backing VM’s were intact and was running. I tried performing a force sync on edge gateway from vCenter Web-Client but the operation failed.

At this point I could have sneaked into vsm.log (or show manager log follow) on NSX manager to see what went wrong, but I decided not to waste time into reading logs and went ahead for Edge Gateway redeploy.… Read More

PyNSXv-Powerful tool for NSX Automation

Manish Jha

Like last post of NSX series, this post is also focused on exploring a new tool which helps automatic NSX stuffs in your infrastructure. I first came across this tool when I was watching a VMworld 2016 Session titled NET7514 – PowerNSX and PyNSXv, but never got chance to play around this tool.

Now since I am exploring NSX automation these days, I decided to deploy the tool, in lab and use it. 

This post will be focused on just installation/configuration part and some examples on how to use this tool.

So what is PyNSXv?

PyNSXv is a high python based library that exposes ready to use work-flows and a CLI tool that can be used to control and automate NSXv in your infrastructure. 

It an opensource tool and is not supported by VMware and before using this in production, it is recommended to test it thoroughly in lab deployments. … Read More

Exploring PowerNSX in Lab

Manish Jha

These days I am busy exploring NSX Rest API in my lab and during the process I came to know about a cool tool named PowerNSX and decided to dedicate a blog on this to give respect to creator of this tool.

What is PowerNSX

PowerNSX is a PowerShell module that abstracts the NSX API to a set of easily used PowerShell functions. PowerNSX enables NSX administrators to drive their infrastructure programmatically.

PowerNSX add additional functionality to extend the capabilities of NSX along with exposing the existing Update, Remove and Get operations for all key NSX functions beyond the native UI or API.

PowerNSX have been developed by Nick Bradford. PowerNSX is available for download on GitHub and can be downloaded as the branch or zipfile.

Note: VMware does not support this module, and PowerNSX comes with no warranties express or implied. It is advisable to test this in Lab before using in a production environment.… Read More

Retrieving NSX Manager System Info Using Rest API

Manish Jha

In this post we will explore how NSX manager system info can be retrieved via Rest API. NSX manager appliance home page is itself very descriptive and provides all system info. 

In this post we will learn how the same system info can be explored via API calls. Let’s get started.

Query NSX Manager Information

Below API query will provide you info like what is the major and minor version of NSX appliance you are running along with patch number and build number

Example: curl -k -u “vcadmin@corp.local” -X GET https://nsxmgr-01a.corp.local/api/1.0/appliance-management/global/info | tidy -xml -indent -quiet

… Read More