Author: Davoud Teimouri

VI Keyboard Shortcuts – Cheat Sheet 0

VI Keyboard Shortcuts – Cheat Sheet

VI If you are familiar with Linux shell, I’m sure that you have used “vi” for editing your documents but the tool is very difficult, if you are beginner in Linux. I want to share some keyboard shortcuts that you can use for edit your files faster. Quitting : x Exit, saving changes :q Exit as long as there have been no changes ZZ Exit and save changes if any have been made :q! Exit and ignore any changes Inserting Text i Insert before cursor I Insert before line a Append after cursor A Append after line o Open a new line after current line O Open a new line before current line r Replace one character R Replace many characters

Eject CD-ROM on ESXi 1

Eject CD-ROM on ESXi

Many of my friends, asked me to advise them that who can they eject CD-ROM on ESXi. The below command may be useful for you as well: eject /dev/cdrom/mpx.* This is worked for me and hope works for you. Bu if you have access to server management web based portal, turning on UID LED is better way to identify your server physically.

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Give permission to file/sub-directory only – Linux

Sometimes, you have to change permissions on all files within a directory or change permissions on all sub-directories in a directory. You know, we use some commands to change permission such as “chmod” or “setfacl” or other commands. But in this scenario, we want to changes all files permission in a directory and its sub-directories or change permission for all sub-directories. There is a regular command: chmod -R 755 /DirectoryPath Read and execute permissions will be granted by this command to all your directories and files but this is not working for our scenario. You can run the below command for give proper permissions to directory or sub-directories: find /path/to/base/dir -type d -exec chmod 755 {} + Or chmod 755 $(find /path/to/base/dir -type d) Or find /path/to/base/dir -type d -print0 | xargs -0 chmod 755 Also you can run same commands for files: find /path/to/base/dir -type f -exec chmod 644 {} + Or chmod 644 $(find /path/to/base/dir -type f) Or find /path/to/base/dir -type f -print0 | xargs -0 chmod 644 I hope, this post will help you to address your some permission issues.

NMONVisualizer – Free ESXTOP Tool 0

NMONVisualizer – Free ESXTOP Tool

NMONVisualizer NMONVisualizer is a Java GUI tool for analyzing nmon system files from both AIX and Linux. It also parses IOStat files, IBM verbose GC logs, Windows Perfmon & ESXTop CSV data and JSON data. Download the latest version (2016-02-29).   Documentation Click here for an overview presentation.

Ballooning Problem 0

Memory Ballooning Problem – Windows Server 2008 R2

 it seems, there is incompatibility issue between Windows Server 2008 R2 and VMware Ballooning driver and it’s cause of stop error on Windows: Stop A: 0xA As Microsoft describe in its KB, the issue is happening when ballooning activated on virtual machines that use NUMA. So, we know that NUMA can improve our machines performance by grant local access to memory. You can read my post about NUMA for more information: NUMA and vNUMA: Back to the Basics for Better Performance Microsoft has released a hotfix for fixing this issue on Windows Server 2008 R2. It’s strongly recommended to download and install the hotfix on all your virtual machine that those have Windows Server 2008 R2 as guest OS. You can download the hotfx from the below link: Hotfx Download

vSphere 6.5 0

Supported Servers – vSphere 6.5

Which server brand do you use? HPE, Dell, Fujitsu or any other. It doesn’t matter, you should check your server compatibility with new vSphere version before planning for migration or upgrade. I don’t want to share server list because the list will be different during time and new servers will be added to the list. You can find supported servers in VMware Compatibility Guide and it’s best reference for servers compatibility. Also you can check it on OEM web sites: HPE: VMware Support Matrix Just you should choose your ESXi version on the web page and trust to the result! Dell: Virtualization Solutions Choose VMware ESXi version and then should click on “Manual” and download a PDF which contains list of compatible servers. Cisco:UCS Hardware and Software Interoperability Matrix Tool (New) just you should select some items to find proper result. Also you can use older tools: Hardware and Software Interoperability Matrix Utility Tool Fujitsu: I couldn’t find a tools on their web site and we have to download a PDF file and find our product. Sample link for FUJITSU Server PRIMERGY: x86 Servers released OS Lenovo (IBM): OS Interoperability Guide I know, there is more OEM vendor and may...

vSphere 6.5 0

VMware Hardware Version 13

Each new version of vSphere includes some improvements and new features and many of them will be applied on virtual machines. The improvements and features will be add to “Hardware Version” and you be able to use those, if you use latest “Hardware Version”. It’s strongly recommended that don’t upgrade your hardware version to latest just when you need to use a specific feature or expand hardware resources that older hardware version doesn’t support that. Because “Hardware Version” doesn’t have any compatibility with older ESXi and if you have mixed cluster, you can’t use latest hardware version. Here is an example: You have a cluster and the cluster contains some ESXi 6.5, 6.0 and 5.5. If you upgrade hardware version to 11, your virtual machine will be hosted by ESXi 6.0, ESXi 6.5 and the machine will not be migrated on ESXi 5.5. So, keep your hardware version compatible with oldest ESXi in your environment. You can downgrade hardware version but it’s not recommended. For make sure about hardware version, you can change default version on your cluster anytime. Let’s review new hardware version, compare it with older versions and compatibility with ESXi: Feature ESXi 6.5 and later ESXi 6.0...

vSphere 6.5 0

Deprecated and unsupported – Qlogic and Emulex devices

VMware has published a list that includes unsupported and deprecated devices from two vendors: Emulex Qlogic Deprecated devices may still be worked and drivers will be installed but those devices are not supported on vSphere 6.5 officially. You need to upgrade your hardware before upgrading vSphere, but it’s your choice! Because your device may be worked without any issue. You can find the deprecated and unsupported devices in the below table: Partner Driver Name Device IDs Device Name Emulex lpfc 10DF:F0E5:0000:0000 Emulex LPe1105-M4 4 Dual-Channel 4Gb/s Fibre Channel HBA 10DF:F0E5:0000:0000 Emulex LPe1150 Single-Channel 4Gb/s Fibre Channel HBA 10DF:F0E5:0000:0000 Emulex LPe1150 4Gb/s Fibre Channel Adapter 10DF:F0E5:10DF:F0E5 Emulex LPe1150 Single-Channel 4Gb/s Fibre Channel HBA 10DF:F0E5:10DF:F0E5 LPe1150-E Emulex LPe1150 Single-Channel 4Gb/s Fibre Channel HBA for Dell and EMC 10DF:FE00:0000:0000 LPe11002 4Gb Fibre Channel Host Adapter 10DF:FE00:0000:0000 NE3008-102 10DF:FE00:0000:0000 NE2000-001 10DF:FE00:0000:0000 Emulex LPe11000 4Gb PCIe Fibre Channel Adapter 10DF:FE00:10DF:FE00 Emulex LPe11002 Dual-Channel 4Gb/s Fibre Channel HBA 10DF:FE00:10DF:FE00 N8403-018 10DF:FE00:10DF:FE00 EMC LPe11000-E 10DF:FE00:10DF:FE00 EMC LPe11002-E 10DF:FE00:10DF:FE00 Emulex LPe11000 Single-Channel 4Gb/s Fibre Channel HBA 10DF:FE00:10DF:FE22 Emulex L1105-M Emulex LPe1105-M4 Dual-Channel 4Gb/s Fibre Channel mezzanine card for Dell PowerEdge 10DF:FE00:103c:1708 403621-B21 Emulex LPe1105-HP Dual-Channel 4Gb/s Fibre Channel mezzanine card for HP BladeSystem c-Cl 10DF:FE00:10DF:FE00 A8002A – FC2142SR Emulex...

vSphere 6.5 0

Supported Update Sequence – vSphere 6.5

You can find VMware products which are compatible with vSphere 6.5 on the below post: Compatible VMware Products – vSphere 6.5 If you need to update the mentioned products, you should upgrade the products according to the below sequence table. Please consider that: You should start with lowest sequence number. If you need to update products with same sequence number, order doesn’t matter. Before you update vCenter Server, disable vCenter Server from vCloud Director. Also ensure that you stop or disable other VMware services so that they do not communicate with vCenter Server during the update process. PSC / SSO External  vRA VCM vRB vCD NSX Manager NSX Controllers View Composer View Connection Server VDP vCenterServer vRO VR VUM vROPs VIN vCC vRLI BDE SRM ESXi VSAN VMware Tools NSX Edge NSX LFw NSX Guest IDS View Agent / Client Seq. 1 2 2 2 3 4 5 5 6 7 8 9 9 9 9 9 10 10 10 10 11 12 12 12 13 13 13   Sample VMware product upgrade scenarios 1st Scenario: VMware Horizon View If applicable, upgrade the External vCenter Single Sign-On / Platform Services Controller instance (sequence step 1) Upgrade View Composer (sequence step 5)...

vSphere 6.5 1

Compatible VMware Products – vSphere 6.5

vSphere 6.5 has been released and many of users are planning to upgrade their environments to new version. But we should check vSphere 6.5 compatibility with VMware products and even third-party products. We can check compatibility matrix on the below link: VMware Product Interoperability Matrixes But also you can find the products that those are compatible with vSphere 6.5:   Product Latest Available Version Recommended Action Important Links Platform Services Controller (PSC) Note: External Deployment Only 6.0 Update 2 Upgrade to 6.5 Release Notes Update Procedure vRealize Automation 7.0.1 No supported version available N/A vRealize Business for Cloud 7.0.1 7.2 Release Notes Update Procedure vRealize Configuration Manager (VCM) 5.8.5 No supported version available N/A vCloud Director for Service Providers (VCD) 8.0.1 No supported version available N/A VMware NSX for vSphere 6.2.4 No supported version available N/A Horizon View (View) 7.0.1 7.0.2 Release Notes Update Procedure vCenter Server / vCenter Server Appliance 6.0 Update 2 Upgrade to 6.5 Release Notes Update Procedure vRealize Orchestrator (vRO) 7.0.1 No supported version available N/A vSphere Replication (VR) vCenter Site Recovery Manager (SRM) VR Version – 6.1.1 SRM Version – 6.1.1 Upgrade to 6.5 VR Release Notes SRM Release Notes Upgrading VR Upgrading SRM vRealize Operations...

vSphere 6.5 Maximums 1

vSphere 6.5 Configuration Maximums – Compare to Earlier Versions- Part 2

We’ve reviewed some of vSphere 6.5 configuration maximums in the previous post: http://www.teimouri.net/vsphere-6-5-configuration-maximums/ And we’ll review and compare the rest of configuration maximums in this post. Networking Maximums Item vSphere 5.5 vSphere 6.0 vSphere 6.5 vSphere Standard and Distributed Switch Total virtual network switch ports per host (VDS and VSS ports) 4096 4096 4096 Maximum active ports per host (VDS and VSS) 1016 1016 1016 Virtual network switch creation ports per standard switch 4088 4088 4088 Port groups per standard switch 512 512 512 Static/Dynamic port groups per distributed switch 6500 10000 10000 Ephemeral port groups per distributed switch 1016 1016 1016 Ports per distributed switch 60000 60000 60000 Distributed switches per vCenter 128 128 128 Distributed switches per host 16 16 16 Hosts per distributed switch 1000 1000 2000 Cluster and Resource Pool Maximums Item vSphere 5.5 vSphere 6.0 vSphere 6.5 Cluster (all clusters including HA and DRS) Hosts per cluster 32 64 64 Virtual Machines per cluster 4000 8000 8000 Virtual machines per host 512 1024 1024 Powered-on virtual machine 2048 2048 2048 FT virtual machines per cluster 98 128 FT virtual machines vCPU per Cluster 256 256 Resource pools per host 1600 1600 1600 Children per resource...

vSphere 6.5 Maximums 1

vSphere 6.5 Configuration Maximums – Compare to Earlier Versions- Part 1

Each version of vSphere has some improvements and one of important improvements are configuration maximums that allows administrators to have much bigger virtual machines, hosting more virtual machines, use faster network and storage connections. This is very important that you should aware about your current configuration maximums because you can prepare your forecast plans for increasing virtual machine or ESXi host resources or even changes on network or SAN environments based on these configuration maximums. Lets review latest vSphere configuration maximums and compare them with earlier versions. Virtual Machine Item vSphere 5.5 vSphere 6.0 vSphere 6.5 vCPU 64 128 128 Memory 1TB 4TB 6128GB Swap File 1TB 4TB 6128GB Virtual SCSI adapters per virtual machine 4 4 4 Virtual SCSI targets per virtual SCSI adapter 15 15 15 Virtual SCSI targets per virtual machine 60 60 60 Virtual disk size 62TB 62TB 62TB IDE controllers per virtual machine 1 1 1 IDE devices per virtual machine 4 4 4 Floppy controllers per virtual machine 1 1 1 Floppy devices per virtual machine 2 2 2 Virtual SATA adapters per virtual machine 4 4 4 Virtual SATA devices per virtual SATA adapter 30 30 30 Virtual NICs per virtual machine 10...

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Oracle Linux Yum Server

Yum Server Sometimes, you need to update single package on your Linux (Oracle – RedHat) and you have to search and find RPM file on this regard or compile the package from its source code. But we are talking enterprise Linux servers that you can’t accept any risk of installing miscellaneous or unreliable package on your server. So you need to have safe and secure source for installation or upgrade. Maybe, you are thinking about YUM! Yes, you can update your application by run Yum but if your server has no connection to internet! There is many solution for updating Linux packages but we are talking about a single application and some special conditions. Hopefully, Oracle has a service that called “Yum Server” and the service is free for use by anyone. Oracle Yum Server offers you a free and convenient way to install the latest Oracle Linux packages as well as packages from the Oracle VM installation media via a yum client. Please consider that this service deliver no support to you and just you can download updated packages from that.

Ksplice 0

KSPLICE: Zero Downtime Updates For Oracle Linux

Introduction Ksplice is a part of Oracle Linux, updates the Linux operating system (OS) kernel, while it is running, without a reboot or any interruption. Only Oracle Linux offers this unique capability, making it possible for you to keep up with important Linux updates without burdening your team with the operational cost and disruption of rebooting for every update to Linux. Benefits Key benefits of using Ksplice are as follows: Lower your operational costs by reducing the amount of supervision time required for reboots. Improve application availability and uptime. Realize greater security with the ability to promptly install OS upgrades. Experience true enterprise support for Linux. Key Features Rollback capability. Any update that can be applied using Ksplice can also be reversed without rebooting. No performance impact. Ksplice does not negatively affect performance. No virtualization, daemon, or system agent is required. Web interface and API. View and manage the status of Ksplice on all your systems, from one place – either via a Web interface, or programmatically via a REST API. Virtualization-ready. Ksplice works perfectly well in virtualized environments. You can visit official web site for more information.

Storage Queue 0

VMware ESXi Queue Depth – Overview, Configuration And Calculation

Queues Queues are often misrepresented as the very “bane of our existence” and yet queues restore some order of semblance to our chaotic life. Queue depth is the number of I/O requests (SCSI commands) that can be queued at one time on a storage controller. Each I/O request from the host’s initiator HBA to the storage controller’s target adapter consumes a queue entry. Typically, a higher queue depth equates to better performance. Overview Of Queues There is three layer or queue stacks: Virtualization Stack At the Virtual Machine level, there are 2 queues PVSCSI Adapter queue Per VMDK queue You can find more information on this KB: 2053145 Server Stack At a physical Server level there are 2 queues  A HBA (Host Bus Adapter) queue per physical HBA A Device/LUN queue (a queue per LUN). Please consider that if you have some servers in a cluster, using same HBA on all servers is recommended. Also if you have different HBA adapters in hosts, you can change HBA queue depth. Read this KB: 1267 Read this KB: 2044993, if you have problem with your HBA driver on ESXi 5.5 and above. About any other storage adapter, you should read its vendor...