Yellow Bricks

by Duncan Epping

esxi

Cool Tool Update: RVTools 2.7.3

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Rob de Veij has just updated RVTools to version 2.7.3. This excellent tool now includes the following additional features and fixes:

Version 2.7.3 (December 19, 2009)

  • Files in .snapshot directories are no longer reported as zombies.
  • CTK files are no longer reported as zombies.
  • The problems with VM files which are placed in the root directory are now solved.
  • Under some condition the filter screen terminated with an exception. This is fixed now.
  • New fields on vDisk tab: ThinProvisioned and split.
  • New field on vTools tab: Virtual machine hardware version.

Read the full releasenotes/documentation here. And make sure to get this new version, in my opinion this is one of the most valuable tools out there.

vscsiStats output in esxtop format?

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This week we(Frank Denneman and I) played around with vscsiStats, it’s a weird command and hard to get used to when you normally dive into esxtop when there are performance issues. While asking around for more info on the metrics and values someone emailed us nfstop. I assumed it was NDA or at least not suitable for publication yet  but William Lam pointed me to a topic on the VMTN Communities which contains this great script. Definitely worth checking out. This tool parses the vscsiStats output into an esxtop format. Below a screenshot of what that looks like:

ESXi – lessons learned part 2

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New week, new lessons learned… You can find part 1 here.

When Jumbo Frames were introduced in ESX 3.5 a lot of people were interested but it wasn’t supported for the VMkernel which is were most people want to use it as it reduces CPU cycles used due to iSCSI/NFS traffic. When vSphere was released it was one of the things I noticed first. Full support for Jumbo Frames… however:

  • Jumbo frames are not supported for VMkernel networking interfaces in ESXi. (page 54)

Although obvious in my opinion it wasn’t obvious for one of my customers:

  • VMware ESXi does not support web access at this time.

Although I personally usually disable web access as it a security risk this customer had specific operational procedures around vCenter failures which included web access. It’s not a huge problem as the vSphere/vCenter Client can directly connect to an ESXi host, but it is something you will need to keep in mind when implementing ESXi.

Another thing I discovered today is that scripted/unattended installations of ESXi are not currently supported which makes deploying difficult. (Not only unsupported but also not easily set up) I am currently investigating the option to at least install it with default settings and without manual intervention… If I am successful I will post it in the next “lessons learned”.

REVISED!

ESX 4.0 Update 1A

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ESX(i) 4 Update 1 has just been re-released:

We’ve released a new version of ESX 4.0 Update 1 that resolves the issue with the ESX 4.0 Update 1 install failing, timing out and resulting in the host entering an usable state.

The new version is called ESX 4.0 Update 1A.

You can find the new version on VMware Downloads.

For more details, see Due to a possible dead lock on rpmpd, upgrading ESX 4.0 to ESX 4.0 Update 1 can fail or time out and leave the host in an unusable state (1016070).

SPC-2 set or not?

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For those like me who see different types of Arrays daily it is hard to keep up with all the specific settings that need to be configured. Especially when we are talking about enterprise level storage there are several dependencies and requirements.

One of the settings that is often overlooked on EMC DMX storage is the SPC-2 bit. I already noticed a while back what kind of impact it can have on your environment and witness it again today.

During the creation of a VMFS volume we received an error which basically stated that it was impossible to create the volume. The error message was a bit misleading but I noticed in the detailed section that the LUN was identified as “sym.<identifier string>”. This normally should state “naa.<identifier string>” and that triggered me to check the documentation of the array.

When an additional front-end port is zoned to an ESX host, to provide further connectivity to devices, the SPC-2 bit must be set; otherwise, the Symmetrix devices will not be properly identified. Instead of identifying each device with their proper Network Authority Address (NAA), the devices will show up with a SYM identification number. Any device provisioned to the non-SPC-2 compliant port will be identified as a new device by the ESX host system.

Again, it is hard to keep up with every single vendor out there. Let alone all the different type of arrays and all the different settings. Luckily EMC acknowledged that and created the “EMC Storage Viewer for vSphere”. The EMC Storage Viewer actually shows you if the “SPC-2” (amongst other settings) is enabled or not… This will save you a lot of pain and discussion with the Storage Team when push comes to shove. Definitely one of the reasons I would recommend to use this plugin.

For those facing spc-2 bit issues make sure to read “H4116-enabling-spc2-compl-emc-symmetrix-dmx-vmware-envnmt-wp.pdf”. (Available via EMC’s powerlink.)