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.
host client
Where to find the Host Client vSAN section?
I had a couple of people asking already, so I figured I would do a short post on where to find the ESXi Host Client vSAN section. It is fairly straight forward, if you know where to click. Open the Host Client by going to https://<ip address of your host>/ui. Next do the following:
- Click on “Storage”
- In the right pane, click on “vSAN Datastore”
- In the left pane, click on “Monitor”
You should now see the following:
I drew a red rectangle around the vSAN specific menu options. Just click through them. Just for demonstration purposes I disabled the VMkernel interface for vSAN on this host. As you can see in the “Hosts” section below this particular host has no “IP” address indicating you should check the network… Very useful for sure when troubleshooting.
Of, of course the Health Check and the new Config Assist option vCenter also calls this out! With a link to the object even to fix the issue. If you would click the blue link you would go to the VMkernel config section in the UI… I love it how easy it becomes to fix and detect issues. Great work vSAN team!
Getting a 404 error with the Host Client
Just a short post. I was getting a 404 error with the Host Client when hitting https://<ip of esxi host>/ui. No clue what it was caused by. I re-installed the latest version of the host client but that didn’t solve it. Then I noticed that my endpoints.conf had “/ local” missing. You can check that as follows when logged in through SSH:
cat /etc/vmware/rhttpproxy/endpoints.conf
I did the following (edit + restarted the HTTP reverse proxy) to get it working again:
Edit the config file:
vi /etc/vmware/rhttpproxy/endpoints.conf
add the following:
/ local 8309 redirect allow
Restart the service:
/etc/init.d/rhttpproxy restart
C# Client is officially dead…
Many of you have seen the news by now, yesterday VMware announced that the Windows vSphere Client, usually referred to as the C# Client, is dead. Yes indeed, it has been declared dead and going forward will no longer be made available for future release of vSphere. Now this means that it is still available for all releases out there today (up to 6.0) and it will of course stick to the standard support period.
I have always loved the C# Client, but I don’t have mixed feelings on this one… It needs to go, it has been dead for a long time but it was still walking, it is time for a change and time we put it to rest once and for all. Yes it will be painful for some, but I believe this is the only way to move forward.
That also means for you, the admin / consultant, that there needs to be an alternative. Well one has been in the making for a while and that is the HTML-5 based “Host Client”. The Host Client started out as a fling, but as of vSphere 6.0 U2 is part of the default install of ESXi. Personally I really like the client and I can’t wait for it to be feature complete. What I probably like most, besides the slick interface and the speed, is the fact that you can access it from anywhere and that the developers are out there waiting for feedback and ready to engage and improve on what they released. It gets updated very frequently, just visit the Fling’s page (version 8.1 is up there right now) and if you have feedback engage with the engineers through the fling page, or simply drop a note on twitter to Etienne.
But that’s not it, VMware has also shown that it has the intention to get rid of Flash from the Web Client… Again released as a fling and you can download it and try it out as well, next to the regular Web Client. It was recently updated to version 1.6 and believe me when I say that these developers and the PM are also constantly looking for feedback and ways to improve the experience. The message was loud and clear over the past couple of years and they are doing everything they can to improve the Web Client experience, which includes performance and just generic usability aspects.
I would like to ask everyone to try out both the Host Client and the HTML-5 Web Client and leave feedback on those fling pages. What’s working, what is not, what about performance, different devices etc. And if you have strong feelings about the announcement, always feel free to leave a comment here, or on the announcement blog, as PM and Dev will be reading and commenting there where and when needed.
Awesome fling: ESXi Embedded Host Client
A long long time ago I stumbled across a project within VMware which allowed you to manage ESXi through a client which was running on ESXi itself. Basically it presented an html interface for ESXi not unlike the MUI we had in the old days. It was one of those pet-projects being done in spare time by a couple of engineers which for various reasons at the time was never completed. The concept/idea however did not die fortunately. Some very clever engineers felt it was time to have that “embedded host client” for ESXi and started developing something in their spare time and this is the result.
I am not going to describe it in detail as William Lam has an excellent post on this great fling already. The installation is fairly straight forward, basically a vib you need to install. No rocket science. When installed you can manage various aspects of your hosts and VMs including:
- VM operations (Power on, off, reset, suspend, etc).
- Creating a new VM, from scratch or from OVF/OVA (limited OVA support)
- Configuring NTP on a host
- Displaying summaries, events, tasks and notifications/alerts
- Providing a console to VMs
- Configuring host networking
- Configuring host advanced settings
- Configuring host services
Is that cool or what? Head over to the Fling website and test it. Make sure to provide feedback when you have it as the engineers are very receptive and always looking to improve their fling. Personally I hope that this fling will graduate and will be added to ESXi by default, or at a minimum be fully supported! Excellent work Etienne Le Sueur and George Estebe!