You are logged onto a Windows server and want to know the backup server to where the server is being backed up to due to having multiple backup servers on your network. You can check this through the remote agent. Instructions below.

If you are using Symantec Backup Exec, you should have a Symantec backup exec remote agent running on the server. Check services or Start > Programs.

To locate your backup server:

1) Click Start
2) Programs
3) Symantec Backup Exec for Windows Server
4) Click the ‘publishing tab’
5) Backup server should listed

1) Access your Citrix Management Console
2) Expand the farm so you can see all servers
3) Right click on one of the servers and click information
4) Version of Citrix will appear on the right hand pane

When trying to power on a VM within Vpshere client, you receive an error ‘Failed to initialize swap file busy’

This is caused by locked files.

To resolve:

1) Locate which ESXi server and Datstore the .vmx is stored
2) Login to your ESXi server using SSH/Putty  (If you need to enable remote access via SSH see http://www.online-it-support.co.uk/?p=1531 )
3) Type cd (location of .vmx file) and press enter (For example) cd /vmfs/volumes/EVA_EXAMPLE_R1/Servername
4) Type ls -la and press enter (This lists all files within the selected folder)
5) Look for any files end with .lck (if they exist this is what may be causing issues when attempting to power on your VM)
6) Ensure there are no other files with extensions starting with letter the letter l otherwise you will end up deleting these. To delete the .lck files type rm .l* and press enter
7) Power your machine on
8.) If you receive the following error when powering on VM ‘Cannot open the disk or one of the snapshot disks it depends on’ go to step 9
9) Migrate the machine to a different esxi host and try again

1) Locate where the machine is on your data store
2) Access the virtual machine folder
3) Locate the .vmx file
4) Right click and click add to inventory

I have setup a test vmware 4 environment at home, using esxi4. The setup consists of a few virtual machines, two esxi servers and a storage box.

Today, i found that a couple of machines were not booting correctly due to the datastore they lived on running out of free space. I created a few snapshots a while ago but did not remove them so had built up over time. Do not try the same on a live environment. Mine was just a test environment.

Anyway, the error which appeared is shown below

I had the option of extending the datastore which would have resolved the issue, but decided to resolve the difficult way. 

I tried removing all snapshots but received error below: Click to enlarge

‘The operation cannot be allowed at the current time because the virtual machine has a question pending: There is no more space for virtual disk. You might be able to continue this session by freeing disk space on the relevant volume and clicking retry.’

I tried migrating but obviously couldn’t due to a snapshot being attached.

I tried powering down the machines so i could attempt to remove the snapshots, but machine would not  power down.

Finally, i decided to kill the machine so enabled SSH on the esxi host the machines were sitting on. Instruction on how to enable SSH can be found at http://www.online-it-support.co.uk/?p=1531

1) Logged onto the esxi 4 host using putty. The below also works with esxi5
2) I typed ps | grep vmx  
The command  above listed the vmx’s on the host. See screen shot below. Your output should be similar.

3) The first column lists the PID and the second contains the parent PID. Make a note of the Parent PID in the second column for the VM you are experiencing issues with.

Please take a note of the correct parent PID as you could shutdown the wrong VM.

4) I typed kill ‘Parent PID’ – replace parent pid with the id you noted in step 3. Press enter

5) Wait for a few seconds and carry out step 2 again, to check whether the machine has disappeared.

6) My results showed that i had successfully killed the VM parent PID. If you find that the parent pid still exists, give it a minute. If the issue still exists, try   kill – 9 ‘Parent PID’   replace parent pid with the id you noted in step 3. Press enter

7) After carrying out the above steps, i was able to remove the snapshots succcessfully and migrate the machine to a larger data store.

There are two ways to enable SSH to allow you to putty onto a host.

1) Enable physically by visiting the esx/esxi host.
2) I am going to explain how to enable via the vsphere client incase you can’t get to host due to it being at a remote site, and you don’t have ilo access.

1) Firstly, access vsphere
2) Click your esx/esxi host
3) Click the configuration tab
4) Click Security Profile, located under the software box
5) Click properties located towards the right
6) Locate Remote Tech Support (SSH) and click. Status should be stopped by default. See screen shot below.

7) Click the options button
.8) Select your choice. I’m going for Start automatically
9) Click the Start button
10) Click OK and OK again

If you have used Vsphere 4, you will know that when configuring HA and ‘percentage of cluster resources reserved as failover spare capacity ‘ under Admission Control Policy, the percentage set is for both memory and CPU. You don’t get the option to set seperate percentages for memory and CPU. See screen shot to the left. (Click on image to enlarge)

 



With Vsphere 5, vmware have split this so you can now set seperate percentages for CPU and memory. See screen shot below: (Click on image to enlarge)

A new vsphere 5 feature which is going to make life a little easier when carrying out data store related work is ‘SDRS maintenance mode’, which allows you to place a data store within a datastore cluster into maintenance mode. Similar to placing an ESX or ESXi host into maintenance mode.

Create a new data store cluster, follow the instructions and select the stores you would like to be part of the data store cluster. In a production environment, it’s recommended that you group datastores with similar storage capabilities.

Once the data store cluster has been created, you can right click a datastore within your cluster and select to ‘Enter SDRS Maintenance Mode’. After work has been completed, exit SDRS Maintenance mode.

After attending the five day VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage [V4.1] course which i found very interesting, i decided to go for my VCP4 exam and passed.

For those thinking about going for the exam, do lots of revision. It’s not an easy exam.

Apart from the revision, I also support multiple VM environments at my place of work. I have also setup my own test vmware environment at home consisting of two ESXi 4 servers running on HP microservers. With it being a test environment. for my storage device i use another HP microserver which comes with a 250GB SATA hard drive. I removed the hard drives from the other two servers and placed into my storage box which allowed me 750GB of storage. Not a lot, but it’s only a test environment. I installed ESXi 4 onto a USB stick which i plugged into the internal USB slot on the motherboard. Works great.

 
Just attended the Vspehere 5 what’s new course so will be preparing for the VCP5 exam. Also looking at upgrading my home environment to VSpehere 5 which i am looking forward to. May need to purchase some additional kit.

If you’re planning of going for the exam, good luck. Hope you pass.

Previous to version 5, you could type the esx url into your browser and download the vsphere client.

With version 5, this option is no longer available, as it’s now part of an installer.