John Wray's Blog - ESX

VMware Change Power Policy to High Performance - powerCLI

john@johnwray.com — Fri, 10 Mar 2017 02:50:00 -0500

I wanted to change the power setting of all my hosts to high performance and not do it one at a time manually.

This is an easy to accomplish this with powerCLI.

====================================================================

Add-PSSnapin VMWare.VimAutomation.Core

connect-VIServer -server <vcenter.your.domain> -User <DOMAIN\User> -Password <password>

$vmHosts = Get-VMHost
foreach ($vmHost in $vmHosts)
{
$view = (Get-VMHost $vmHost | Get-View)
(Get-View $view.ConfigManager.PowerSystem).ConfigurePowerPolicy(1)
}

====================================================================

This sets the Power Policy to High Performance (1)

1=HighPerformance

2=Balanced

3=LowPower

ESXi 5.x patching from the command line

john@johnwray.com — Mon, 10 Nov 2014 20:36:00 -0500

Sometimes you don't have internet access or you want to fully patch a host before adding it into a cluster.

To patch an ESXi host from the command line:

Patches for VMware products can be obtained from the VMware Patch Portal. Select ESXi (Embedded and Installable) in the product drop-down and click Search.
Click the Download link below the patch Release Name to download the patch to your system.
Upload the patch to a datastore on your ESXi 5.0 host using the Datastore Browser from vCenter or a direct connection to the ESXi 5.0 host using the vSphere client.

Note: VMware recommends creating a new directory on the datastore and uploading the patch file to this directory.
Log into the local Tech Support Mode console of the ESXi 5.0 host. For more information, see Using Tech Support Mode in ESXi 4.1 and ESXi 5.x (1017910).
Migrate or power off the virtual machines running on the host and put the host into maintenance mode. The host can be put into maintenance mode from the command line with:

# vim-cmd hostsvc/maintenance_mode_enter
Navigate to the directory on the datastore where the patch file was uploaded to and verify that the file exists:

# cd /vmfs/volumes/Datastore/DirectoryName
# ls

Where Datastore is the datastore name where the patch file was uploaded to, and DirectoryName is the directory you created on the datastore.
Install or update a patch on the host using these esxcli commands:

Notes:

To install or update a .zip file, use the -d option. To install or update a .vib file use the -v option.
Using the update command is the recommended method for patch application. Using this command applies all of the newer contents in a patch, including all security fixes. Contents of the patch that are a lower revision than the existing packages on the system are not applied.
Using the install command overwrites the existing packages in the system with contents of the patch you are installing, including installing new packages and removing old packages. The install command may downgrade packages on the system and should be used with caution. If required, the install command can be used to downgrade a system (only for image profiles) when the --allow-downgrade flag is set.
The install method has the possibility of overwriting existing drivers. If you are using 3rd party ESXi images, VMware recommends using the update method to prevent an unbootable state.

To Install:

Using local setup:

# esxcli software vib install -d "/vmfs/volumes/Datastore/DirectoryName/PatchName.zip"

Where PatchName.zip is the name of the patch file you uploaded to the datastore.

For example:

# esxcli software vib install -d "/vmfs/volumes/datastore1/patch-directory/ESXi500-201111001.zip"
Using http setup:

# esxcli software vib install -v viburl

Where viburl is the URL to the http depot where VIB packages reside.

For example:

# esxcli software vib install -v https://hostupdate.vmware.com/software/VUM/PRODUCTION/main/esx/vmw/vib20/tools-light/VMware_locker_tools-light_5.0.0-0.7.515841.vib

To Update:

Using local setup:

# esxcli software vib update -d "/vmfs/volumes/Datastore/DirectoryName/PatchName.zip"

Where PatchName.zip is the name of the patch file you uploaded to the datastore.

For example:

# esxcli software vib update -d "/vmfs/volumes/datastore1/patch-directory/ESXi500-201111001.zip"
Using http setup:

# esxcli software vib update -v viburl

Where viburl is the URL to the http depot where VIB packages reside.

For example:

# esxcli software vib update -v https://hostupdate.vmware.com/software/VUM/PRODUCTION/main/esx/vmw/vib20/tools-light/VMware_locker_tools-light_5.0.0-0.7.515841.vib

Verify that the VIBs are installed on your ESXi host:

# esxcli software vib list

For example:

# esxcli software vib list

Name              Version                     Vendor Acceptance Level Install Date
----------------- --------------------------- ------ ---------------- ------------
ata-pata-amd      0.3.10-3vmw.500.0.0.469512 VMware VMwareCertified 2012-05-04
ata-pata-atiixp   0.4.6-3vmw.500.0.0.469512   VMware VMwareCertified 2012-05-04
ata-pata-cmd64x   0.2.5-3vmw.500.0.0.469512   VMware VMwareCertified 2012-05-04
ata-pata-hpt3x2n 0.3.4-3vmw.500.0.0.469512   VMware VMwareCertified 2012-05-04
After the patch has been installed, reboot the ESX host:

# reboot

After the host has finished booting, exit maintenance mode and power on the virtual machines:

# vim-cmd hostsvc/maintenance_mode_exit

ESXi diskless host or iSCSI boot

john@johnwray.com — Fri, 17 Oct 2014 02:47:00 -0500

I had a customer with six blades booting from iSCSI.

ESXi sees this as a software iSCSI initiator and will not let you put a diag partition on the storage.

You will see an error message like this in the host summary. No vmcore disk partition is available and no network coredump server has been configured. Host core dumps cannot be saved.

So to fix the above error you need to install the Dump Collector on the vCenter. It isn’t what you think, there are no toilets involved.

Next you need to enable ssh on each host and enter these commands

esxcli system coredump network set -v vmk0 -i 192.168.100.209 -o 6500

esxcli system coredump network set --enable true

esxcli system coredump network get

In my case 192.168.100.209 was the vCenter server running on port 6500. The last command just verifies those were set.

I am also assuming that vmk0 is your management nic. You can verify that by the ol’ esxcfg-vmknic –l command

Once you run those commands you should get an output like this:

Exit out, turn off SSH and your errors will be gone, no reboots needed.

VAAI Manual Install

john@johnwray.com — Fri, 19 Sep 2014 06:53:00 -0500

If you check the storage you will see that Hardware Acceleration is not supported. This doc assumes you have uploaded the NetAppNasPlugin.zip file to a mounted datastore. I usually use the nonreplicated datastore and create a Patches folder. The zip can be downloaded directly from NetApp. Turn on SSH and login to your host. cd to the patches directory. cd /vmfs/volumes/nonreplicated/Patches

do an ls –l and you should see the zip file you uploaded.

Enter the below command, changing the path after the –d to your path. Each server will be different.

esxcli software vib install -n NetAppNasPlugin -d /vmfs/volumes/e8638f00-81facdd9/Patches/NetAppNasPlugin.v20.zip

Once the command finishes you should see the message below telling you the update completed successfully. Put the server into maintenance mode and reboot.

When the server comes back up you should see that Hardware Acceleration is now supported.

Install ESXi 5 from a USB Flash Drive.

john@johnwray.com — Fri, 19 Sep 2014 06:52:00 -0500

Install ESXi 5.x from a USB Flash Drive.

1. Download an older version of SYSLINUX because the newer version won’t work in this case. (http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/boot/syslinux/3.xx/syslinux-3.75.zip)

2. Extract the zip somewhere on your computer.

3. Download the current iso for ESXi 5.x install.

4. Extract the ESXi 5 installable ISO to a folder.

5. Format your flash drive with FAT32.

6. Open a command prompt (Open as admin if you are a ‘tard and haven’t shut off UAC)

7. Navigate to where you extracted the SYSLINUX zip file from step one.

8. Navigate to the win32 subfolder (Syslinux\syslinux-3.75\win32)

9. Execute this command syslinux –mfa F: (F: is the drive letter assigned to your flash drive, could be anything.)

10. Copy the contents of the folder for the ESXi 5 install you expanded from the iso.

11. Rename two files:

a. ISOLINUX.CFG gets renamed to SYSLINUX.CFG

b. ISOLINUX.BIN gets renamed to SYSLINUX.BIN

12. Boot from USB and install ESXi 5 much quicker. J