Yellow Bricks

by Duncan Epping

tool

Cool tool update: RVTools 3.8

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It has been a year since version 3.7, but finally here it is… RVTools 3.8. Rob de Vey has been developing this tool since early 2008 and over half a million copies have been downloaded so far. I understand why, as it is a very easy to use tool that produces a lot of great information. On top of everything it was already providing, Rob introduced the following in version 3.8:

  • VI SDK reference changed from 5.5 to 6.0
  • on vInfo tab page new field: ChangeVersion unique identifier for a given version of the configuration
  • on vInfo tab page new field: HA VM Monitoring status
  • on vInfo tab page new fields: Number of supported monitors and Video RAM in KB
  • on vInfo tab page new field: Config status. Config issues are visible on the vHealth tab page
  • on vInfo tab page new field: OS according to the VMware Tools
  • on vTools tab page new fields: App state, App heartbeat status and Kernel crash state
  • on vTools tab page new fields: Operations availability, State change support and Interactive Guest Operations availability
  • on vHost tab page new field: NTPD running state.
  • NTP issues are visible on the vHealth tab page
  • on vHost tab page new field: Config status. Config issues are visible on the vHealth tab page
  • on vCluster tab page new field: Config status. Config issues are visible on the vHealth tab page
  • on vDatastore tab page new field: Config status. Config issues are visible on the vHealth tab page
  • on vSC+VMK tab page new fields: IP 6 Address and IP 6 Gateway
  • all VM related tab pages now have a VM Object ID and VM UUID columns
  • all VM related tab pages now have powerstate and template columns
  • all tab pages. Now have a vCenter UUID column (= unique identifier for a vCenter Server)
  • all VM related tab pages. The Custom Attributes columns are now ordered alphabetically
  • all tab pages. A select is now a full row select so it is easier to follow the information across many columns
  • bug fix: Refresh data issue on vRP and vCluster tab pages solved
  • bug fix: Filter issue on vCluster tab page solved
  • bug fix: On vInfo tab page the HA information was not filled with cluster default values
  • bug fix: Content Libraries vmdk files are no longer reported as possible zombie files
  • bug fix: msi installer sometimes installs RVTools in root of c:\ drive. This is solved now.

Cool tool update: RVTools 3.3 released!

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Rob de Veij just published RVTools 3.3. I know many of you are using it and I definitely suggest downloading the latest version! RVTools has been downloaded more than 100.000, so definitely worth checking out if you had not so far! Here are the changes in this release:

Version 3.3 (April, 2012)

  • GetWebResponse timeout value changed from 5 minutes to 10 minutes (for very big environments)
  • New tabpage with HBA information
  • On vDatastore tab the definition of the Provisioned MB and In Use MB columns was confusing! This is changed now.
  • RVToolsSendMail accepts now multiple recipients (semicolon is used as separator)
  • Folder information of VMs and Templates are now visible on vInfo tabpage
  • Bugfix: data in comboboxes on filter form are now sorted
  • Bugfix: Problem with api version 2.5.0 solved
  • Bugfix: Improved exception handling on vCPU tab.
  • Bugfix: Improved exception handling on vDatastore tab.

Fling: vBenchmark 1.0.1 just released

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An update to the recently released fling vBenchmark was just posted. This update includes some fixes and a feature request which was heard often… Here is what’s new/fixed with 1.0.1:

  • Added a checkbox to include or exclude vCenter license keys when submitting the data to the community repository
  • The application now listens on port 443 (https), requests to port 80 will be automatically redirected to 443
  • The appliance will now prompt you to change the root password at first logon
  • Fixed bugs that prevented some customers from proceeding to the dashboard when they have ESX 3.x hosts in their cluster or are using vCenter credentials that did not have access to the full inventory
  • vBenchmark application log is now written to the VM serial port. If you are using the VMX package, the serial port output will be redirected to a file named vBenchmark.log in the virtual machine folder. If you are importing an OVA or OVF, you need to manually add a serial port device and specify a filename.

Make sure to download the latest version of vBenchmark and try it out! If you don’t have a clue what it does, check out my introduction post here…

Cool tool: RVTools 3.2 released

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Today Rob de Veij released an update of his excellent tool called RVTools. We are up to version 3.2 already. You can find the update on the RVTools website. RVTools is an essential tool for every vSphere Admin. It allows you to report on the most important aspects of your virtual infrastructure, but probably the most important ones are limits / reservations / VMware tools. Seriously give it a try and you will be surprised with what you might find. I have used it in many environments and always managed to discover inconsistencies… Thanks again for the great work Rob!

These are the changes in version 3.2:

  • New tabpage with distributed switch information
  • New tabpage with distributed port information
  • It’s now possible to export a single tabpage to an excel file from the command line
  • It’s now possible to save the filter. The next time RVtools is started it will use the filter automatically.
  • Bugfix: On vSnapshot tab the displayed filename and filesize are not always correct
  • Bugfix: Improved exception handling on vPort tab

New version of RVTools!

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Rob just released a brand new version of RVTools. So what’s new?

Version 3.1 (April, 2011)

  • Logon form tab order rearranged
  • Logon form will remember your last selected host / vCenter server
  • On vInfo new fields Provisioned, Used and shared storage
  • On vInfo new fields install Boot Required, number of Virtual Disks
  • On vInfo new fields Fault Tolerance State,  FT Latency Status, FT Band width and FT Secondary Latency
  • On vInfo new field 128-bit SMBIOS UUID of the virtual machine.
  • On vDatastore new fields Total provisioned, Used and shared storage
  • On vDatastore new fields SIOC enabled flag and congested threshold value
  • On vDisk new field disk persistence mode.
  • On vNetwork all IP addresses of adapter are now visible
  • On vMemory new field distributed Memory Entitlement
  • On vCPU new fields static Cpu Entitlement and field distributed Cpu Entitlement
  • On vHost new fields Current EVC mode and Max EVC mode
  • New batch command line parameters -u user and -p password
  • Bugfix: custom fields not always visible on vSnapshot tab.
  • Bugfix: Export to Excel, some numeric columns are saved as text instead of numbers
  • RVToolsBatch.cmd with send by email example deployed in RVTools program file directory