I had this question last week around vSAN 2-node direct connect and whether using a crossover cable is still required to be used or if a regular CAT6 cable (CAT 5E works as well) can be used. I knew the answer and figured this would be documented somewhere, but it doesn’t appear to be. To be honest, many websites when talking about the need for crossover cables are blatantly wrong. And yes, I also spotted some incorrect recommendations in VMware’s own documentation, so I requested those entries to be updated. Just to be clear, with vSAN 2-Node Direct Connect, or vMotion, or any other service for that matter, you can use a regular CAT6 cable. I can’t recall having seen a NIC in the past 10 years that does not have Auto MDI/MDI-X implemented, even though it was an optional feature in the 1000Base-T standard. In other words, there’s no need to buy a crossover cable, or make one, just use a regular cable.
Server
Can’t have more than 255 characters in VM notes using the vSphere (h5) Client?
I had a question about a limit a customer was hitting with the VM notes using the vSphere (H5) Client. They noticed that whenever they got around ~260 or so characters, they could not add any characters beyond that unless they deleted some. After talking to an engineer within VMware I found out that this is indeed the limit for the vSphere Client today. Through the API, and of course also PowerCLI, you can go beyond the 255 if needed. Also with the Web Client you could do this. If you are hitting this issue, please be aware that it is a known issue and VMware is looking to resolve it hopefully soon.
Logitech Brio Webcam issues with autofocus and not retaining settings on Mac OSX
I have been using a Logitech Brio Webcam for the past year or so. It is a 4k Webcam which is very useful for webinars and meetings, especially as I run my Macbook with an external monitor and it is closed. Over the past 9 months or so I had a bunch of trouble with the Logitech Brio Webcam. This week I received a new Macbook and I had to reinstall all components, and immediately after I installed the Logitech software, all issues started popping up again. Auto Focus was just not working as expected, wide/standard view settings were not properly retained, and neither was the angle/width. I made sure I had the latest version of the software, the latest version of the firmware, but that didn’t solve any of the problems. Actually, it made things worse as now I had the camera randomly stopping as well, even had my Mac log me off randomly when using the camera. I solved all these issues by uninstalling ALL Logitech software. Yes, you read that correctly, I uninstalled all Logitech software and the Brio was usable again.
Unfortunately, this means that you can’t configure the Brio as you would wish, and it runs with the optimal/default settings, but at least it works. I was told that the Logitech G Hub software could potentially be a nice alternative. But after reading this thread on Reddit I decided I am going to skip that as well, as I don’t get a real comfortable feeling when reading all the comments. Unfortunately, I don’t have a way to configure the webcam right now, if I find a solution to this problem I will make sure to update this post. You may ask, what would you need to configure? Well in my case I would like to configure the Webcam to use PAL instead of NTSC for the refresh rate, which removes some of the flickering I would be able to spot other wise. Unfortunately, not possible just yet without the software to my knowledge, or maybe one of you knows the answer to this problem? To conclude, I think it is fair to say that the Logitech hardware is great, but unfortunately, the software is not.
Sharing my vSAN 7.0 U1 webinar, watch it now!
I recorded a webinar a while back. It was streamed last week, and I figured that as I have the recording here, I may as well share it with you. In this webinar I discuss many of the new features which were introduced as part of vSAN 7.0 U1, features like HCI Mesh, IO Insight, enhanced File Service capabilities, and much more. The session is about 40 minutes long, but of course, the great thing about youtube is that you can play it at a different speed. Hope you will enjoy it! Click on the video below, or simply follow this link to youtube. Make sure to like the video, and subscribe to my channel as well!
How to login to the vCLS VMs!?
I was asked this question this week, how you can login to the vCLS VMs. Now before I share the video, I want to mention that I do not encourage people doing this, but as it is documented and supported I do want to provide a simple “how to” for how this works. If you want to login to the vCLS VM, maybe for troubleshooting if needed or for auditing, you can do so by SSH’ing first into your vCenter Server. When logged in to the vCenter Server you run the following command, which then returns the password, this will then allow you to login to the console of the vCLS VM. Again, I do not want to encourage you to do this. Either way, below you find the command for retrieving the password, and a short demo of me retrieving the password and logging in.
/usr/lib/vmware-wcp/decrypt_clustervm_pw.py