A couple of days ago I wrote about the problems with VST and the Intel Quad-port nics. I tested the work around, using “access ports” on the physical switch(EST, external switch tagging) and it seems that the problem is “solved”. A couple of hours ago VMware posted a knowledge base article about this problem, so if you are experiencing these problems keep track of this KB article!
Bugs
Intel quad-port nic and VST
This week I implemented a couple of Dell 2950 Servers which contained an Intel quad-port nic. The physical switch ports were setup as a trunk so I used VST(Virtual Switch Tagging). I combined the onboard Broadcom ports with the Intel quad-port nics to have the most redundant setup. When I started testing the HA and DRS functionality I noticed that not everything worked like expected. After some basic troubleshooting it seemed that about half of the packets going via the Intel quad-port nics got dropped. [Read more…] about Intel quad-port nic and VST
Clone and roll out template fail with “failed to connect to host”
Recently I implemented ESX 3.5 with VirtualCenter 2.5. After I installed the ESX Hosts and the VirtualCenter server the customer told me that I had to change the ip-addresses of the service console. I removed the ESX hosts from the VirtualCenter server, removed the vswif of both hosts with “esxcfg-vswif -d” and created it again with the correct ip-address and subnet. I added both hosts to the cluster again and every thing seemed to work again… until I decided to rollout a template. It took over 10 minutes before the error “failed to connect to host” appeared. [Read more…] about Clone and roll out template fail with “failed to connect to host”
FastSCP not working with ESX 3.5
Default FastSCP isn’t working with ESX 3.5. I just noticed this download: http://www.veeam.com/download/fastscp/FastSCP.xml
It’s indeed a firewall related problem, copy this file into /etc/vmware/firewall.
Run the following command “service mgmt-vmware restart” and open up the Portrange with VirtualCenter. Opening it up can also be done from the commandline with “esxcfg-firewall -e FastSCP”. Veeam still has to fix the “edit function” which doesn’t work with 3.5 anymore, expect a new release in Januari / Februari 2008.
Where’s my lockdown mode in ESX 3.5?
I’ve been looking for the lockdown option in ESX 3.5 for a few of hours these last couple of days and can’t seem to find it. In ESX 3i you can easily put it in lockdown mode when you add the host to the Cluster or afterwards here in the configuration/security section:
After a search on the internet is seemed I wasn’t the only that could not find the lockdown mode for 3.5. Viktor van den Berg opened a topic about it on the Dutch VMUG forum and decided to phone VMware about it… There answer was short, it’s not in 3.5 and it should have been. I guess it got lost in cyberspace.
For those who never heard of the lockdown mode:
VirtualCenter 2.5 provides administrators with the option to disable direct remote access to ESX Server 3 hosts as a root user after VirtualCenter 2.5 has taken control of a given host. This is called “lockdown mode.” Enabling this mode ensures that the host is managed only through VirtualCenter 2.5. Certain limited management tasks can still be performed while in lockdown mode by logging in to the local console on the host as a non-root user.
I guess we just have to wait for the upcoming patches.