VMware

Updating vCenter Server certificates has always been a pain - it has only got worse with the sheer number of services that are running under vSphere 5.1 - each service requiring a unique certificate and to be installed in many complex steps. Fortunately , with the release of the SSL Certificate Automation Tool, VMware have gone some way to reducing the headache. Gather all the components you need OpenSSL installer: http://slproweb.

I’ve previously posted around this topic as part of another problem but having had to figure out the process again I think it’s worth re-posting a proper script for this. VMware KB 1016106 is snappily titled “ESXi/ESX hosts with visibility to RDM LUNs being used by MSCS nodes with RDMs may take a long time to boot or during LUN rescan” and describes the situation where booting ESXi (5.1 in my case) takes a huge amount of time to boot because it’s attempting to gain a SCSI reservation on an RDM disk used by MS Clustering Services.

This article originally started off life as a record of how I managed to get this working, as a lot of my posts do, but this time it appears I am foiled. Last week, I had 3 vCenter Servers that appeared to be happily talking to each other in Linked Mode sharing a singe Multi-site SSO domain without any real issues. I had a single-pane-of-glass view of all 3 and I could manage them all from the one client.

Today while creating new VMs from a template I got the error “the server fault invalidargument had no message” when editing the VM settings, the settings were modified successfully but the error was present whether a change had been made or not to the settings of the VM. A quick search of the web suggested removing said VM from the inventory and re-adding from the datastore, for many this fixed the issue but not for me.

Had a strange one after deploying an XP VM from a template today - the VM would not power on and threw the following error: An error was received from the ESX host while powering on VM [VM name]. cpuid.coresPerSocket must be a number between 1 and 8 Digging around on google the error seemed to be related to over-allocating vCPUs (e.g. assigning 8 vCPUs on a VM with 4 physical CPU cores).

So VMware’s Support Assistant is pretty awesome and it’s free! I thought I’d do a quick run through of the installation and set up for anyone who was interested, it’s fairly straightforward and if you raise a lot of calls or have multiple calls on the go it’s a time saver! VMware’s official page for the Support Assistant is here - https://www.vmware.com/products/datacenter-virtualization/vcenter-support-assistant/overview.html The OVF deploy is so simple I’ve just taken screenshots:

I’m very pleased to say that as of 21st December, I passed my VCP510 exam and am now VCP5 qualified! It’s something that I’ve wanted to do for a long time (since VCP3) but have never been able to get funding for the required course. My current employer sent me on the vSphere 5 Fast Track course earlier this year, so I was all set to take the exam. My exam experience was somewhat marred by a very poor first attempt which I narrowly failed.

This year for me personally has been extremely busy and eventful coupled with a great deal of learning. Without wishing to bore the pants off of any would be reader I shall summarize my ruminations as someone whom is still quite new to the VMware world. The first thing that comes to mind is a a couple of recent meetings I have had with VMware. Learning that they are now very keen to engage with ’the rest of us’ and by that I mean those of us working in SME’s as we represent well over 50% of their business revenue.

While adding an additional vCenter Server to our Multi-Site Single Sign On instance I encountered a problem as I entered the details of the existing SSO. The error thrown was: User credentials are incorrect or empty. Provide correct credentials. After a couple of hours online with VMware support I took a guess at the problem. On the existing Single Sign On Configuration I have added the Active Directory domain DefinIT and in order to enable integrated authentication from the vSphere Client I moved it to the top of the list - this meant that System-Domain is no longer the default authentication domain.

I’ve been learning my vSphere 5 config maximums before my upcoming VCP5 exam, so in a supreme effort of procrastination I thought I’d write a PowerShell quiz script: here it is! Save the QuizMe.ps1 file into a folder and then place one or more text file in the same folder containing a comma delimited set of questions and answers. Then run QuizMe.ps1! You can choose the quiz you take (which text file it will use).