Yellow Bricks

by Duncan Epping

VMReference Card 1.1!

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Forbes just uploaded a brand new version of the VMReference Card. Download it, print it and keep it close!

Source: http://vmreference.com/

Here is version 1.1 in all its shining glory.

I’ve made several corrections (thanks everyone), added a few extra snippets and dusted it with a sprinkling of handy tips and tricks.

The biggest change is a small 3i section. I have been wanting to do this for a while, but I haven’t had a chance to play with it since its beta. There is quite lot of information around about 3i now, but I just wanted to add the sort of stuff people would actual use.

New patches for 3.0.x

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There are a bunch of new patches released for 3.0.x:

New patches are available for ESX Server 3.0.1 and ESX Server 3.0.2. Please follow the instructions on the appropriate patch download page.

VMware ESX Server 3.0.1 Patch Download Page
[http://www.vmware.com/download/vi/vi3_patches_301.html]

ESX-1003504 (General): Fix for mptscsi_2xx Driver
ESX-1003505 (General): Fixes Network Connectivity Issues with Intel e1000 Driver
ESX-1003506 (General): Virtual Machines Boot Failure Through Network for PXE Clients
ESX-1003507 (Critical): Fixes Packet Latency and tg3 Driver Issues
ESX-1003355 (General): I/O Transactions on SUN X4200 Servers Cause SCSI Timeouts
ESX-1003508 (General): Fixes for VirtualCenter Server Agent Crash, Hot Addition and Deletion of LUNs Failure, Deletion of Virtual Machine Level Permissions; Support for VirtualCenter 2.0.x to Read Virtual Infrastructure 3.5 License Files
ESX-1003509 (General): Fixes for RARP Broadcast With NICs Failover and Hot Addition / Deletion of LUNs Failure

VMware ESX Server 3.0.2 Patch Download Page
[http://www.vmware.com/download/vi/vi3_patches_302.html]

ESX-1003513 (General): Fixes for Vmotion and Clone Operations Failure, VirtualCenter Server Agent Crash, Hot Addition and Deletion of LUNs Failure, Virtual Machine Level Permissions; VirtualCenter 2.0.x Failure to Read VI 3.5 License Files
ESX-1003177 (General): I/O Transactions on SUN X4200 Servers Cause SCSI Timeouts
ESX-1003514 (Critical): Fixes Packet Latency and tg3 Driver Issues
ESX-1003515 (Critical): Support for VMotion Incompatibility, Network Connectivity Issues; Fixes for Hot Addition and Deletion of LUNs Failure, Virtual Machines Boot Failure Through Network for PXE Clients, RARP Broadcast With NICs Failover

We expect the next patch release in late March 2008. If you have any questions, please contact support at 877-4-VMWARE.

Tools Tools Tools

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For anyone using the good old Winscp client, it was just updated to 4.0.7. Same goes for mRemote, it has just been updated to version 1.35. Pick it up, and while your at it visit VM4All. Eric keeps track of all VMware related tools!

Fiber channel round-robin load balancing

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There’s a nice article about “round-robin” load balancing on SystemsArchitech which got me a bit dazzled about this new functionality:

esxcfg-mpath – lun <*.lun> —policy custom –H minq –T any –C 0 –B 2048
The policy states that the LUN should utilize a custom policy that determines which (of two) HBA to utilize based on the minimum queue length. This HBA selection is triggered every 2048 blocks transmitted to a given LUN over the same target. The policy will use any targets available to either of the two HBAs. In using storage that manages host port load-balancing, LUNs will only have two paths (one per fabric) and the storage array will perform storage array host port balancing from within its own management. With other storage arrays it is typical to perform this host port balancing from the hosts accessing the given storage array.

With 10 ESX hosts set with this policy wouldn’t it probably cause path thrashing on an active/active SAN? You never know which controller will access a specific LUN and if your unlucky it will be switching from controller A to controller B every millisecond. Anyone else any thoughts on this new feature and the possible danger?