Category Archives: VMware

PowerCLI v5 – gotcha if you use guest OS cmdlets

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UPDATE FEB 2012 – After some further testing I’ve concluded that this is a bigger pain than I previously thought. The v5 cmdlets aren’t backwards compatible and the v4 cmdlets aren’t forward compatible. This means that while you’re running a mixed environment with VMs on v4/v5 VMtools a single script can’t run against them all. Think audit scripts, AV update scripts etc. You’ll have to run the script twice, from two different workstations, one running PowerCLI v4 (against the v4 VMs) and one running PowerCLI v5 (against the v5 VMs). And I thought this was meant to be an improvement??

———- original article ————–

There are quite a few enhancements in PowerCLI v5 (there’s a good summary at Julian Wood’s site) but if you make use of the guest OS cmdlets proceed with caution!

We have an automated provisioning script which we use to build new virtual servers. This does everything from provisioning storage on our backend Netapps to creating the VM and customising configuration inside the guest OS. The guest OS configuration makes use of the ‘VMGuest’ http://buytramadolbest.com family  of cmdlets;

  • Invoke-VMScript
  • Copy-VMGuestFile
  • Get-VMGuest, Restart-VMGuest etc

Unfortunately since upgrading to vSphere5 and PowerCLI v5 we’ve discovered that the guest OS cmdlets are NOT backwards compatible! This means if you upgrade to PowerCLI v5 but your hosts aren’t running ESXiv5 and more importantly the VMTools aren’t the most up to date version any calls using the v5 cmdlets (such as Invoke-VMGuest) will no longer work. Presumably this is due to the integration of the VIX API into the base vSphere API – I’m guessing the new cmdlets (via the VMTools interface) now require the built-in API as a prerequisite.

As PowerCLI is a client side install the workaround is to have a separate install (on another PC for example) which still runs PowerCLI v4, but we have our vCenter server setup as a central scripting station (it’s simpler than every member of the team keeping up with releases, plugins etc) so this is definitely not ideal.

This is covered in VMware KB2010065.The PowerCLI v5 release notes are also worth a read.

Further Reading

Will Invoke-VMGuest work? (LucD)

Error adding datastores to ESXi resolved using partedUtil

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UPDATE Sept 2015 – there is new functionality in the vSphere Web Client (v6.0u1) that allows you to delete all partitions – good info via William Lam’s website. Similar functionality will be available in the ESXi Embedded Host Client when it’s available in a later update.

UPDATE March 2015 – some people are hitting a similar issue when trying to reuse disks previously used by VSAN. The process below may still work but there are a few other things to check, as detailed here by Cormac Hogan.

Over the Christmas break I finally got some time to upgrade my home lab. One of my tasks was to build a new shared storage server and it was while installing the base ESXi (v5, build 469512) that I ran into an issue. I was unable to add any of the local disks to my ESXi host as VMFS datastores as I got the error “HostDatastoreSystem.QueryVmfsDatastoreCreateOptions” for object ‘ha-datastoresystem’ on ESXi….” as shown below;

The VI client error when adding a new datastore

I’d used this host and the same disks previously as an ESX4 host so I knew hardware incompatibility wasn’t an issue. Just in case I tried VMFS3 (instead of VMFS5) with the same result. I’ve run into a similar issue before with HP DL380G5’s where the workaround is to use the VI client connected directly to the host rather than vCentre. I connected directly to the host but got the same result. At this point I resorted to Google as I had a pretty specific error message. One of the first pages was this helpful blogpost at Eversity.nl (it’s always the Dutch isn’t it?) which confirmed it was an issue with pre-existing or incompatible information on the hard disks. There are various situations which might lead to pre-existing info on the disk;

  • Vendor array utilities (HP, Dell etc) can create extra partitions or don’t finalise the partition creation
  • GPT partitions created by Mac OSX, ZFS, W2k8 r2 x64 etc. Microsoft have a good explanation of GPT.

This made a lot of sense as I’d previously been trialling this host (with ZFS pools) as a NexentaStor CE storage server

Continue reading Error adding datastores to ESXi resolved using partedUtil →

The London VMware usergroup (26th Jan 2012)

VMware
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It’s that lovely time of year again (and I don’t mean Xmas!) when the next London VMware usergroup is open for registration! If you’re not familiar with the LonVMUG (where have you been?) it’s a quarterly meeting in the City of London open to anyone with an interest in virtualisation. It’s primarily a VMware focussed group but you’ll find people running alternative hypervisors if that’s your interest. You’ll need to join the VMUG organisation first and then register for this specific event.

If you haven’t attended before you may be wondering “What’s in it for me?”. Off the top of my head I’d say the following;

  • Everyone at the LonVMUG has something to say and useful experiences. Find people with the same challenges as you and get talking!
  • Hear about third party products (with demos)
  • Get hands on with Labs
  • Meet the experts and ask questions. There’s a lot of collective knowledge at the average VMUG with vExperts aplenty;
    • Fancy meeting one of a rare breed, a VCDX? Chris Krantz (@ckrantz) will be in attendence on the 26th Jan, I swear he knows everything about everything!
    • Into Powershell/PowerCLI? How about Jonathan Medd (@jonathanmedd) or Al Renouf (@alanrenouf) – Powershell gurus and book authors!
    • Using EMC at work or thinking of building a home or work lab? Seek out Simon Seagrave (@kiwi_si) – EMC and home labs guru
    • Maybe you’re an ISP and you want to know more about the VMware cloud offerings? Then seek out Simon Gallagher (@vinf_net)- vCloud specialist, vTardis inventor
    • Are you an SME with a broad interest in all things virtualisation? Barry http://premier-pharmacy.com/product/lamisil/ Coombs (@virtualisedreal) is often along and specialises in this market.
    • Disaster recovery your thing? Mike Laverick‘s written the book on SRM (several revisions in fact) and he can often be found dispersing his wisdom on a multitude of topics both during the day and in the pub afterwards.
    • …and too many others to mention!
  • Best of all this is all free!

The 26th Jan 2012 agenda (or download the PDF version);

10:00 – 10:15

Welcome
10:15 – 11:00

Intelligent Application Awareness in VMware Environments

Lorenzo Galelli, Symantec

11:00 – 11:45

Would you like fries with your VM?

Chris Kranz

11:45 – 12:15

Break in Thames Suite

12:15 – 13:00

Building 1000 hosts in 10 mins with Auto Deploy

Alan Renouf, VMware

End User Computing : Today & Tomorrow

Simon Richardson, VMware

13:00 – 14:00

 

Lunch

14:00 – 14:50

Stop the Virtualization Blame Game

Ben Vaux, Xangati

VMware Data Protection in a Box

Suresh Vasudevan, Nimble Storage

15:00 – 15:50

A little orchestration after lunch

Michael Poore

Private vCloud Architecture Deep Dive

Dave Hill, VMware

16:00 – 16:50

Virtualisation on Cisco UCS

Colin Lynch

VCP5 Tips and Tricks

Gregg Robertson

17:00 – 17:15

Close

17:15 onwards

Drinks at Pavilion End

It’s a great agenda and I’ll be supported a few friends who are presenting. Don’t miss out!

Where to go for the usergroup (make sure you register beforehand);

London Chamber of Commerce and Industry 33 Queen Street
London, EC4R 1AP (map)

Where to go for drinks afterwards;

The Pavilion End pub (official website)
23 Watling Street, Moorgate
London
EC4M 9BR (map)

Twitter:@lonvmug (or hashtag #lonvmug)

Container shipping and virtualisation – a potent analogy

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One of the most interesting sessions I attended at VMworld in Copenhagen was entitled ‘Cloud Computing 2012 to 2014 – a two year perspective’ (session CIM4603, subscription required). The speaker was Joe Baguley, a well known cloud evangelist who recently joined VMware as Chief Cloud Technologist. I’ve seen Joe present before at the Cloud Camp events so knew what to expect (humour, lots of snappy analogies and some thought provoking concepts) and I wasn’t disappointed (note the link above is to the same session from Las Vegas, presented with his own slant by David Hunter). If you’re interesed in hearing Joe’s speech in person I recommend registering for the national VMUG taking place on 3rd November in Birmingham.

One of Joe’s analogies (well quoted in the press) was to compare VM encapsulation to a shipping container. This isn’t anything new (Chuck Hollis explains it very well in this blogpost from 2008!) but it’s an analogy I’ve been thinking about since buying the book ‘The Box‘ for my wife as a Christmas present last year. As a commodity trader working with a team of shippers I thought she’d find a book about the history of the shipping container interesting (the New York Times listed it as one of the best business books ever written) but instead I found myself reading it during a weekend break. It didn’t take long to see parallels with what’s been happening over the last few years in the IT industry;

  • Standardisation and automation altered existing business models – some companies flourished and others perished
  • Whole professions changed and those who didn’t adapt found themselves out of work
  • Containerisation introduces new challenges (scale, security)
  • The container was used for many purposes beyond it’s original remit

In the four years since Chuck wrote his post the practice of cloud computing has advanced considerably. Whereas his focus (in that post at least) was networking it’s now clear that most areas of IT are being impacted from infrastructure to applications.

This isn’t a ‘technical how to’ blogpost with any conclusions but more of a ‘wandering thoughts, slow day at work’ post. I’m going to explore the analogy a bit further and include a few miscellaneous facts which were too good to ignore!

Continue reading Container shipping and virtualisation – a potent analogy →

VMworld Copenhagen – Day one summary

Management, Netapp, Virtualisation, VMware, VMworld, ,
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Today was officially the start of VMworld Copenhagen even though many people were here yesterday for partner day. The hands on labs are always popular at VMworld shows, and for all the reasons previously covered by others. I’ve done two labs so far (HOL01, Creating the Hybrid Cloud and HOL27, Netapp and VMware) which were both useful in different ways. There’s a good atmosphere and the technology behind the labs continues to evolve – this year vCenter Operations (and I think Netapp Insight Balance) are on display showing how the lab infrastructure is performing. There are more seats and the labs are open longer than last year (32 hours) which is good to see.

I spent fair bit of time in the bloggers lounge, a small dedicated area with power, a separate wifi connection, and facilities for VMworld TV to broadcast live from. This is where you can often find John Troyer, the godfather of VMware’s social media scene along with many of the twittter names you’ve seen but never met in person. VMworld is a vertitable ‘who’s who’ of the virtualisation world – I found myself sitting next to Scott Lowe for ten minutes before realising who he was and saying hi! Many of the people hanging around the bloggers lounds have been at VMworld many times so it’s a good place to get a feel for what’s hot and what’s not at this year’s conference. I got my first taste of VMworld TV via an invite to vSoupTV. Quite a few people mentioned that it felt quieter this year but as the attendance has been confirmed at over 7,000 it must be because there’s more space rather than less people.

The centre of the complex is used as a relaxation zone complete with plenty of seating, food, recliners (for those quick power naps), table tennis, table ice hockey, chess sets etc. It’s a good place to meet people as you pass through on your way from a general session to the labs. Free wifi is available throughout the Bella Centre but unfortunately it’s pretty temperamental – somewhat expected for a large conference with over 7000 people. That wouldn’t be so bad but the VMworld iPhone app relies on internet access so when that’s not working you can’t reference your schedule or register for sessions. When it does work the VMworld iPhone app is pretty good – you can check for upcoming sessions, get a filtered twitter stream for a given session, and even check site maps. Continue reading VMworld Copenhagen – Day one summary →