I had a very fun weekend. It started at 4am Saturday with a migration of ~125 virtual machines from an old AMD based environment to a new Intel Nehalem based environment. Who could’ve known that within a few hours all hell would’ve broken loose.

Enter in problem of network flooding from the NetXen based HP branded NC522SFP.  Because all of the 10GbE ports from the (9) new ESXi servers were creating thousands of pause frames on the Cisco Nexus 5020 switches, I thought originally that it was an issue on the switch.  Talks with Cisco revealed nothing.  We attempted to disconnect one of the connected ports (each ESXi host is dual connected into a pair of N5Ks using vPC) to remove a potential spanning tree loop….no dice.

A reboot of the host resolved the problem, things appeared to be running normally and we decided to let it be and wait until Monday.

10 hours goes by, it is now Sunday morning and the problem returns.  First host loses storage (we’re doing NFS over 10GbE here), then two more…until all 9 in this cluster are pretty much toast.  I decide to open a ticket with VMware.  Wouldn’t you know, there is a potential known bug and resolution.

Bug 496013

Description: Some NetXen based 10GbE cards using the unm_nic and nx_nic drivers sometime flood the network with pause frames causing the port to become disabled.

Resolution: NetXen believes upgrading the firmware to version 4.0.516 will resolve the problem.

I’ve gone ahead and patched 4 of the hosts with this new firmware, so far it has been stable (knock on wood).   I’ll let you know if something happens.

Checking which version of the firmware you’re running is simple. From a command-line (ESX or ESXi hidden CLI), type ethtool -i <vmnic#> (replace vmnic# with the alias to the vmnic you’d like to check).  You should see output similar to:

driver: nx_nic

version: 4.0.301

firmware-version: 4.0.406

bus-info: 0000:07:00.0

Update - Utility CD with firmware patch now included…

As you can see above, the firmware is out of date. To update the firmware you will need to boot from a Linux utility CD that has the appropriate driver, you then run a firmware update utility provided by HP.  To make this process easy I have created a bootable SLAX utility CD with the drivers pre-loaded. You can download the ISO from here (file temporarily removed). Once booted run the installer located in the root filesystem (ie: ./CP011471.scexe).

Let me know if you have any questions.

Posted under ESX 3.5 Tips, ESXi 3.5 Tips, Networking, Storage, vSphere

A new patch has been made available for ESX 4.0 Update 1, this is called Update 1A. It only affects ESX and not ESXi. Here is an except of the alert put out by VMware:

ESX 4.0, Update 1, Alert: Upgrading ESX 4.0 to 4.0 U1 can fail or time out and leave the host in an unusable state if using HP Systems Insight Management Agent. ESX 4.0 Update 1a (a re-release of ESX 4.0 Update1) that addresses this issue is available. Please read KB article (ID 1016070) before proceeding with the upgrade.

As I said above, this patch is listed as ESX 4.0 Update 1A and can be found on the VMware Downloads website, or from within VMware Update Manager.

Posted under vSphere

Last week I came across a problem that really stumped me, it even stumped the Tier-1 and Tier-2 support at VMware.  I’m posting the symptoms on here in a hope that someone else has experienced this issue and can share some light.

How about a little background on the environment, vCenter Server 4.0 U1 and multiple ESX(i) hosts (3.5, 4.0, 4.0 U1).   The vCenter Server as well as a number of ESXi 4.0 hosts were upgraded to U1 a couple days after it was released,  this problem however happened ~8 days after the upgrade.

Symptom 1: All ESX(i) hosts disconnect from vCenter Server, however, they are still online and no VMs went down.  Within 15 minutes all hosts appear to be reconnected.

Symptom 2: After the hosts reconnect, the ESX hosts appear to be functioning normally. However, the ESXi hosts display an error on the Overview tab as well as in the Events tab; “Unable to Synchronize with host that is unavailable.”

Symptom 3: Random VMotions start, for no apparent reason (DRS engaged, yet no constraints causing DRS to be invoked).  However, these VMotions fail at 10% due to the fact that the source and destination host is not available.

Symptom 4: /var/log/messages file displays errors with keywords: [VpxdVmomi] Error getting vpxa info: SSL Exception: Unexpected EOF From hosts, blacklisting showing up.   — I apologize for paraphrasing.

So, all this starts happening and I start investigating….pulling logs, restarting vCenter, and just sit there stumped.  I did notice that the rui.crt on the vCenter server expired, but back in 2008.  I went ahead and renewed the certificate and even restarted the entire vCenter server.  No luck.  I engaged VMware Support and their Tier-1 and Tier-2 support were stumped,  nothing even showed up in their internal database on this issue.

Then it all disappeared.  Roughly 90 minutes after it started, the problem just went away and everything was good.

Have you seen this issue?  What were your troubleshooting steps?  Did you resolve it or figure out the resolution?

Posted under vSphere

VMware vSphere 4 Administration Instant Reference, written by Scott Lowe, Jase McCarty and Matthew Johnson is now available for pre-order on Amazon.com. I was fortunate enough to work on this book as a technical editor, and must say that it is the perfect vSphere quick reference book for both the beginner vSphere admin as well as the seasoned veteran. Be one of the first to get your own copy, and order it now for under $20, it makes the perfect holiday gift!

Posted under Good Reading, Training, vSphere

Sometime yesterday ESX(i) Update 5 finally hit VMware Update Manager, about 2 days after the official announcement and release on the VMware website. This announcement includes updates for ESX, ESXi and vCenter Server. In addition to Update 5 being released there were about 20 additional updates made available for ESX(i), including 16 which were marked as critical.

The following information provides highlights of some of the enhancements available in this release of VMware ESX Server, this information can be found in the VMware ESX(i) 3.5 U5 Release Notes:

Enablement of Intel Xeon Processor 3400 Series– Support for the Intel Xeon processor 3400 series has been added. Support includes Enhanced VMotion capabilities. For additional information on previous processor families supported by Enhanced VMotion, see Enhanced VMotion Compatibility (EVC) processor support (KB 1003212).

Driver Update for Broadcom bnx2 Network Controller– The driver for bnx2 controllers has been upgraded to version 1.6.9. This driver supports bootcode upgrade on bnx2 chipsets and requires bmapilnx and lnxfwnx2tools upgrade from Broadcom. This driver also adds support for Network Controller - Sideband Interface (NC-SI) for SOL (serial over LAN) applicable to Broadcom NetXtreme 5709 and 5716 chipsets.

Driver Update for LSI SCSI and SAS Controllers – The driver for LSI SCSI and SAS controllers is updated to version 2.06.74. This version of the driver is required to provide a better support for shared SAS environments.

Newly Supported Guest Operating Systems – Support for the following guest operating systems has been added specifically for this release:

For more complete information about supported guests included in this release, see the VMware Compatibility Guide: http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php?deviceCategory=software.

• Windows 7 Enterprise (32-bit and 64-bit)
• Windows 7 Ultimate (32-bit and 64-bit)
• Windows 7 Professional (32-bit and 64-bit)
• Windows 7 Home Premium (32-bit and 64-bit)
• Windows 2008 R2 Standard Edition (64-bit)
• Windows 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition (64-bit)
• Windows 2008 R2 Datacenter Edition (64-bit)
• Windows 2008 R2 Web Server (64-bit)
• Ubuntu Desktop 9.04 (32-bit and 64-bit)
• Ubuntu Server 9.04 (32-bit and 64-bit)

Newly Supported Management Agents – See VMware ESX Server Supported Hardware Lifecycle Management Agents for current information on supported management agents.

Newly Supported Network Cards –This release of ESX Server supports HP NC375T (NetXen) PCI Express Quad Port Gigabit Server Adapter.

Newly Supported SATA Controllers – This release of ESX Server supports the Intel Ibex Peak SATA AHCI controller.

In addition to the enhancements found in ESX(i) 3.5 U5, there is also one lonely enhancement made to vCenter Server 2.5 U5:

Support for High Consolidation in VMware HA Clusters- VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 5 includes significant performance and scalability improvements to VMware HA. Use VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 5 for environments with more than 35 virtual machines per host in an HA cluster.
For information on the ESX Server host settings required for this scalability improvement, see ESX Server host settings required for environments with up to 80 virtual machines per host in an HA Cluster (KB 1012002).

Updating your ESX servers can and should be done with VMware Update Manager. To upgrade your vCenter Server installation you’ll need to download the installation ISO or ZIP from the VMware website and perform an in-place upgrade. Be sure to create a backup of your vCenter Server database then follow the steps in the Installation Guide.

Posted under ESX 3.5 Tips, ESXi 3.5 Tips, vCenter

For my last post before leaving for the holiday I’d like to announce that VMware View 4 is available for download.

One prerequisite is that you’re running on VMware vSphere 4.0 Update 1 or at least Update 3 of the VI 3.5 Suite.

The most anticipated feature (IMO) with View 4 is full PCoIP support, which brings a full rich desktop experience regardless of the connection type (LAN or WAN). This truly means that virtualized desktops are a viable option for almost any environment now.  Another amazing feature of PCoIP is the ability to support up to four monitors so now even my desktop could be a virtual one.

Here are a few of the other new features found in the VMware View 4 Release Notes:

VMware View 4  Release Notes
What’s New

Enhanced single sign-on – The Log in as current user feature is integrated with Active Directory and smart cards to help simplify the process of logging in to a VMware View desktop.

Restricted entitlements – Administrators can control user access to virtual desktops based on the View Connection Server being used for authentication.

Smart card policies – Administrators can set group policies to force desktop disconnection and require reconnection when users remove smart cards.

Domain filtering – You can use vdmadmin.exe to control the accessibility of domains and traverse trust relationships more quickly.

You can cleanly delete View desktops using scripts.

You can log in to View desktops using user principal names (UPN).

You can explicitly configure IP addresses to override those supplied by the View Agent when accessing a desktop.

Mixed Active Directory and Kerberos authentication is supported.

From viewing the VMware HCL it appears that there are a number of Thin Clients that already have full support for PCoIP and View 4.

Another topic of discussion on Twitter was the Guest O/S support matrix, there were concerns that Windows 7 wouldn’t be supported as a Guest.  From what I’ve read in KB 1015591 it appears that there is full support for Windows 95/98, Windows 2000 Professional, Windows XP Professional, Windows Vista Ultimate, Business or Enterprise, and Windows 7.

So, go download your trial today and experience a true rich experience that PCoIP can provide.

Posted under View

This is a couple days past due, but VMware has released Update 1 of their flagship vSphere product line.

One of the key drivers of this update is to provide support for VMware View 4 which was just released for download as well.

It also provides support for Windows 2008 R2 and Windows 7, for both as a Guest Operating System and base O/S for the vSphere Client.  This resolves the freeze issue in both of those O/S as discussed in my previous article.

Another hot update is the full support to utilize the pvSCSI adapter for your boot disk on Windows 2003 and Windows 2008.

Here are a few of the other items from the What’s New section of the Release Notes:

VMware vSphere 4.0 Update 1 ESX Release Notes
What’s New

Enhanced Clustering Support for Microsoft Windows – Microsoft Cluster Server (MSCS) for Windows 2000 and 2003 and Windows Server 2008 Failover Clustering is now supported on an VMware High Availability (HA) and Dynamic Resource Scheduler (DRS) cluster in a limited configuration. HA and DRS functionality can be effectively disabled for individual MSCS virtual machines as opposed to disabling HA and DRS on the entire ESX/ESXi host. Refer to the Setup for Failover Clustering and Microsoft Cluster Service guide for additional configuration guidelines.

Improved vNetwork Distributed Switch Performance – Several performance and usability issues have been resolved resulting in the following:

• Improved performance when making configuration changes to a vNetwork Distributed Switch (vDS) instance when the ESX/ESXi host is under a heavy load
• Improved performance when adding or removing an ESX/ESXi host to or from a vDS instance

Increase in vCPU per Core Limit – The limit on vCPUs per core has been increased from 20 to 25. This change raises the supported limit only. It does not include any additional performance optimizations. Raising the limit allows users more flexibility to configure systems based on specific workloads and to get the most advantage from increasingly faster processors. The achievable number of vCPUs per core depends on the workload and specifics of the hardware. For more information see the Performance Best Practices for VMware vSphere 4.0 guide.

Enablement of Intel Xeon Processor 3400 Series – Support for the Xeon processor 3400 series has been added. For a complete list of supported third party hardware and devices, see the VMware Compatibility Guide.

Resolved Issues – In addition, this release delivers a number of bug fixes that have been documented in the Resolved Issues section.

Updating your environment to U1 isn’t that difficult, for vCenter Server simply download the installation files from VMware and install like any previous version.  Ensure that you choose the option to maintain your existing database, or else you’ll lose all of your data.

For updating your ESX hosts, simply use Update Manager or the Host Update Utility to perform these upgrades.

More information on Update 1 can be found here.

Posted under vSphere

Although this issue has been resolved with vSphere 4 U1, for those of you that haven’t upgraded please be aware of a known issue with Windows 2008 R2 and Windows 7 where the guest operating system can freeze for a long period of time.  The issue is noted in VMware KB 1011709.

The resolution is to either upgrade to U1 or to use the standard SVGA driver and not the one provided in the VMware Tools package.

VMware KB 1011709 Excerpt…

To deselect the SVGA drivers installed with VMware Tools:

When you install VMware Tools, select VMware Tools Custom Install and deselect the SVGA driver.

Alternatively, remove the SVGA driver from the Device Manager after installing VMware Tools.

Posted under vSphere

Being on the west coast of the US typically means I’m a little late on getting to the newest announcements, especially since this one came around 5am PST while I was still dreaming of VMotion, DRS and HA. But here it is, the long awaited VMware View 4 is official, complete with it’s PCoIP goodness.

For the most part you should all understand the concept of VMware View and virtualized desktops.  Virtualized Desktops are simply Virtual Machines with a desktop operating system installed (Windows 7, etc.) running on the VMware vSphere platform.  They are delivered and managed through the VMware View Manager, this utility allows the creation and assignment of these desktop virtual machines.

So, what is new in VMware View 4?

• PCoIP – A display protocol specifically developed for virtual desktop delivery. PCoIP is able to dynamically detect and adapt to the end users network connection providing each user with the best desktop experience regardless of location or task. VMware View with PCoIP is delivered with support for software end points, which include the View Client and a VMware View virtual desktop. In addition to software support, the VMware View solution also supports PCoIP enabled end points to address the requirements of even the highest end users.

• vSphere Support – Provides the foundation for VMware View and helps to extend the power of the datacenter to the desktop environment by delivering powerful business continuity and disaster recovery features such as VMotion, High Availability, Dynamic Resource Scheduler (DRS) and Consolidated Back Up. Optimized specifically for VMware View desktop workloads, VMware vSphere is able to scale to support 1000s of desktops to meet the requirements of even the largest organizations. In addition vCenter helps organizations to manage more than 1,000 hosts and up to 10,000 Virtual Machines from a single console providing a common platform to manage both servers and desktops from the datacenter to the cloud with unparalleled levels of scale, control and automation.

• Simplified Sign On – Addresses the need for a seamless end user experience when logging into a VMware View virtual desktop from a physical thin client or workstation. With Simplified Sign On user credentials entered into the local client can be reused to authenticate the user as they log into their virtual desktop. This makes the login process simple and efficient.

• Restricted Entitlements – Enables to ability to restrict user access to desktop pools based on the connection server being used for access. With connection servers being deployed across different networks, IT organizations can enforce access based on the user’s location. Depending on how the connection server is configured a group of users can be either permitted or denied access to their virtual desktop according to the connection server being used for access.

In addition to PCoIP VMware View 4 supports ALP, RDP and RGS protocols.  Sadly Offline Desktop is still an experimental feature as well as Windows 7 host and guest support.

For additional details and features available in VMware View 4 please see the release notes: http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/view_pubs.html

Update: VMware View 4 is still not available for download as of the writing of this post, I really expect to see this within the next week or two.  To be notified when the download is available you can sign up for the evaluation at https://www.vmware.com/tryvmware/?p=default

On a side note, for those of you that haven’t noticed, when you visit the VMware website you’ll now be greeted with the new VMware branding as well as a new color scheme….which I’m not sure if I like.

Posted under View

I’m proud to say that HP has full support for ESXi 4 installed on SD or USB Flash memory.  They even offer the installable ISO pre-built with their CIM providers, available here. There is a catch though, they only support their approved SD or USB Flash memory….sorry, but you cannot BYOF (Bring Your Own Flash).  This is reflected on their download page:

HP VMware ESXi 4.0 solution requires the following:

VMware ESXi 4.0 free downloadable product. To upgrade your license to Enterprise Plus, purchase HP VMware ESXi 4 product 571979-B21.

HP ESXi 4 CIM Providers.

Registration on VMware ESXi hypervisor web page to obtain permanent license serial number.

Acquire your choice of HP supported and qualified media - any HP supported hard drive, USB or SD Flash devices listed below.

Please note that all devices will need to be imaged for ESXi 4.0.

Information about HP supported SD card and USB Flash drive:

• Supported SD card**:
  HP 4GB SD Flash Media
  HP Part Number 580387-B21
  [spare kit part number 583306-001]
• Supported USB Flash Drive**:
  HP 4GB USB Flash Media Drive Key
  HP Part Number 580385-B21
  [Spare kit part number 583307-001]

*Must be purchased separately.
**HP VMware ESXi 4.0 does not support any other USB or SD flash devices

Seems simple, doesn’t it?   Actually it works great and I have put a few dozen servers into production with this method, the best part is no more local HDD which saves even more power!

One question I often get is,  why do you need a 4GB drive, I though ESXi was only 32MB?  Well, even though it is true that ESXi is only 32MB you still need adequate space for the VI Client, VMware Tools (all Operating systems) and upgrade space (for future ESXi patches and releases).  Using a 4GB drive ensures that you’ll have enough space for everything.

There is one problem currently that I am facing, HP has both the SD Card and USB Flash Drive on back-order and there is no expected ETA for either of them!  This has delayed a major project I’m working on and I’ve had to resort to using temporary “junk” USB drives to get the customer by in the mean time.

If someone from HP is reading this, PLEASE get your OEM to produce some new ones ASAP!

Posted under Storage, vSphere