Here is a link to a great PDF diagram outlining all of the network port requirements for your virtual environment. Great resource to have, and your firewall admin will love you! vSphere Network Ports
Like most others out there, I have recently started hearing the ESX/VMware vs Hyper-V/Microsoft questions popping up throughout my day. Check here to get my thoughts!
This is an old one, but worthy of documentation… By default root login over SSH is disabled in ESX 3.X and vSphere 4.X. While it is best practice for security to leave this disabled, from time to time a situation [...]
VMware has provided a utility called VMware Site Survey that will run a compatability check against your environment and produce a report that will let you know what, if any, issues you need to fix before turning on Fault Tolerance for VMs.
For a detailed list of what is required to run VMware FT, please see: VMware Fault Tolerance KB Article
If you’ve ever tried running Windows update and received the message:
The website has encountered a problem and cannot display the page you are trying to view. Take the following steps to try solving the problem: Refresh the page. In Internet Explorer, delete your Temporary Internet Files by going to the Tools menu and clicking Internet Options. Close and then re-open Internet Explorer
Error
There is a working solution to fix this – Delete the Windows Update data store.
Windows Update should now work!
As ESX has matured, extending the size of .vmdk disks has become easier and easier. In ESX 3.5, using the VI client, you can simply edit your VM settings and increase the size of the disk. (or you can use the vmkfstools -X command from your hosts service console, if you prefer command line).
Once you’ve extended the disk, you’ll then want to extend the volumes within the Windows OS. This is easy using the diskpart tool that Microsoft has provided in Windows Server 2003 (the same version also works in Windows 2000, but is not included. Simply copy diskpart.exe from any other Windows Server 2003 machine). The problem here, is that diskpart can only be used to extend volumes that are not boot partitions (OS) and those that do not contain page files. Fear not, there is a solution for extending OS/Boot volumes!
C:\dell\ExtPart>extpart /?
ExtPart – Utility to extend basic disks (Build 1.0.4)
(c) Dell Computer Corporation 2003Usage: extpart [volume size]
volume – volume to expand. eg. f:, g: etc. (only basic volumes)
size – size in megabytes to expand the volumeReturn codes for script mode
(If parameters are not specified extpart will run in interactive mode)
0 – Success
1 – Parameter error. size parameter is invalid
2 – Invalid volume or failed to connect to volume
3 – Invalid volume type or failed to get volume properties
4 – Requested size is invalid or volume expansion operation failed
5 – Unable to retrieve volume properties after expansion completed
6 – Invalid size requested for expansion (minimum value is 8 MB)
Using extpart, as long as there is available disk space directly at the end of your disk (which there should be assuming your OS C: volume lives on it’s own .vmdk, and you’ve extended that .vmdk via the VC console), you can use this tool to quickly and easily extend the volume! Below is an example where I extended an 8GB disk to 10GB.
C:\dell\ExtPart>extpart.exe C: 2048
ExtPart – Utility to extend basic disks (Build 1.0.4)
(c) Dell Computer Corporation 2003Current volume size : 8181 MB (8578934272 bytes)
Current partition size : 8181 MB (8578934784 bytes)New volume size : 10228 MB (10725732352 bytes)
That’s all there is to it!
Note 1: Windows Server 2008 allows you to extend OS and Data volume live via the Server Administrator console. (Go to Administrative Tools > Disk Management, Right click the disk you want to extend and then click “Extend Volume”)
Note 2: It is not as easy to shrink a .vmdk disk as it is to enlarge one. The only way I know of doing this today would be to use VMware Converter (or an equivalent tool) to clone your VM and re-size the disks as part of that process.
There are several advantages to enabling hardware virtualization technology in the BIOS of your servers when using vSphere or ESX. These include the ability to use EVC (Enhanced vMotion Compatibility) on your DRS clusters, the use of 64bit OS guests, and using VMware FT (Fault Tolerance).
Turning Intel VT or AMD-V on must be done on the BIOS of your ESX host. In order to tell if it is enabled on your host currently (or if your host supports turning it on) you can run the following command in the service console of the host.
#esxcfg-info|grep HV
The command will return a code:
0 – VT/AMD-V indicates that support is not available in this hardware.
1 – VT/AMD-V indicates that VT and AMD-V might be available but they are not supported in this hardware.
2 – VT/AMD-V indicates that VT and AMD-V are available but are currently not enabled.
3 – VT/AMD-V indicates that VT and AMD-V are enabled in the BIOS and can be used.
As with any good system, patching is extremely important to keeping your system in safe, running condition. The same holds true for ESX. I’d recommend that anyone who administers an ESX environment sign up to receive critical security bulletins from VMware’s Security Center.
http://www.vmware.com/security/advisories/
In addition, check their site for available patches monthly…
http://support.vmware.com/selfsupport/allpatches.html
Those of you using VMware Update Manager to patch your ESX host environment, you can configure Update Manager to notify you via email when it downloads new patches.