#customize esxXX by IR Date YYYYMMDD
# ESX host configuration script for company.com
# configure as needed for esxXX by changing IP addresses below…
# configure 4 nics for nfs storage
# nic 1 and 3 – cos1, vms, vmotion
# nic 2 and 4 – vmkernel for nfs storage
#
#configure SYSLOG
echo “*.* @syslog.site.company.com” >> /etc/syslog.conf
service syslog restart
# List current config
/usr/sbin/esxcfg-nics -l
/usr/sbin/esxcfg-vswitch -l
I just wanted to share with you all. We are using a small NetApp with NFS for hosting ESX 3.5 Update 4 and ESX 4 RC Virtual Machines.
MODEL: FAS2020-R5
SW VERSION: 7.2.4L1
We have about 9 Windows VMs each one using about 20 GB disk space. There are Active Directory Domain Controllers, Exchange 2003 and 2007 servers, Windows Administration and Application servers and workstations and even Solaris 10 and Windows 2008 64 bit machines.
# du -h vmnfs/
21G vmnfs/vhq/dc1
21G vmnfs/vhq/dc2
21G vmnfs/vhq/vc
21G vmnfs/vhq/wadmin
8.6G vmnfs/vhq/w2008
91G vmnfs/vhq
31G vmnfs/eng/solaris10
31G vmnfs/eng
21G vmnfs/W2K3template
21G vmnfs/SW-Node01
21G vmnfs/SW-Node02
If we include the snapshots there is 1.6TB of data available and being served up with only 21GB of disk space being used!
> df -h /vol/vmnfs
Filesystem total used avail capacity Mounted on
/vol/vmnfs/ 400GB 21GB 378GB 5% /vol/vmnfs/
> man nfs
The disk space savings generated by the shared space is
shown in the saved column. The space used plus the space
saved would be the total disk space usage, if no space was
shared. The %saved is calculated as [saved / (used + saved)].
Below is a list of the maximum volume size for each storage system:
Storage system (with nearstor_option enabled)
Max. A-SIS deduplication volume size
FAS6070, FAS6080, N7800
16TB
FAS6030, FAS6040, N7600
10TB
FAS3070, N5600
6TB
NearStore R200
4TB
FAS3040, N5300
3TB
FAS3050, N5500
2TB
FAS3020, N5200
1TB
FAS2050
1TB
FAS2020
0.5TB
You can use MRTG to graph the disk space saved by A-SIS deduplication by volume name.
1. Select a static MAC. NOTE: Static MAC addresses must be in the range of 00:50:56:00:00:00-00:50:56:3F:FF:FF to work with this procedure.
2. Remember to record the Static MAC addresses registered for future reference.
3. Unregister vm:
4. Note the datastore, vm inventory folder, and name for the vm in the summary tab
5. Power down the virtual machine
6. Right click the vm and select remove from inventory
7. Edit vmx:
8. Ssh to the esx host system (use putty)
9. cd /vmfs/volumes/
10. cd to the system’s folder
11. cp .vmx to .vmx.bak
12. vi .vmx
13. find the ethernet0 section
14. make the following changes:
15. change ethernet0.addressType = “vpx” to ethernet0.addressType = “static”
16. ethernet0.generatedAddress = “00:50:56:01.01.00″ to ethernet0.address = “00:50:56:01.01.00″
17. rearrange so the following items are in this order and grouped together: ethernet0.address, ethernet0.addresstype, uuid.location, uuid.bios
18. Write the changes to the disk and exit
19. Reregister the vm:
20. In virtual center, browse to the host datastore (configuration, storage, double click on the vm’s datastore)
21. Browse to the edited .vmx file
22. Right click the .vmx file and select Add to Inventory
23. Enter the system name
24. Select the host
25. Select the resource pool
26. Click Finish
27. Power on the vm and verify the mac address
28. Windows: ipconfig /all find “Physical Address”
29. Linux: ifconfig /a grep Hwaddr
Systems Management
Feature Description: Inventory
Processor Information including brand, processor version, current speed, core count, model, stepping information, 64-bit support, HyperThreading (HT), Virtualization Technology (VT), Demand Based Switching (DBS), and Execute Disable (XD).
Cache information including status, level, max size, installed size, type, location, write policy, set associativity, and error correction.
ESX Classic
All of the above Inventory information is available through OpenManage Server Administrator.
Processor brand, processor version, current speed, core count, model, and stepping information is also available in IT Assistant
ESXi
Only Processor brand, processor version, current speed, core count, and model available using the VI Client.
I ran some numbers for a customer recently and discovered the single processor high-RAM hardware configurations can be more cost effective for most corporate windows applications hosted on VMware ESX. Keep in mind that the number of processors a server has doesn’t always need to equal the number of sockets.
This includes the cost of hardware, ESX Enterprise, and Microsoft Windows Data Center Edition.
How to configure DataDomain as NFS DataStore for ESX
Purpose:
Follow these steps to allow a datadomain storage appliance to be used as a high capacity datastore by ESX and ESXi hosts using NFS so Virtual Machines can be moved from Production ESX cluster to test/dev ESXi hosts.
Basic steps:
1 – configure datadomain appliance nfs export
2 – add NFS datastore on ESX hosts
3 – copy VMs from Primary Storage to DDA (DataDomain Archiver).
Setup:
Data Domain OS 4.5.3.0-82657
Model 565
Active Directory Domain Admin user-id “itadmin”
DD IP Address: 10.10.10.99
Source ESX hosts’ VMkernel portgroups on 10.10.11.0/24 network
Destination ESXi host on 10.10.10.7 (VMkernel and Management are on shared Port Group)
itadmin@datadomain-lan# nfs show clients
path client options
—————- —————— —————————————-
itadmin@datadomain-lan# nfs add
nfs add [ ( ) ]
Add NFS clients to an export
itadmin@datadomain-lan# nfs add /share/vmtest 10.10.11.0/24
NFS export for “/share/vmtest” added.
dirodriguez@datadomain01-source# nfs add /share/vmtest 10.10.10.7
NFS export for “/share/vmtest” added.
Copy VMs from Source ESX SAN datastores to new shared datastore.
Copy VMs from shared datastore to local ESXi datastore and reconfigure.
Check Deduplication Compression.
You can see amount of deduplication provided by multiple VM images by running this command:
itadmin@datadomain-lan# file show compression /share/vmtest
Total files: 15; bytes/storage_used: 18.3
Original Bytes: 15,462,695,250
Globally Compressed: 2,191,220,844
Locally Compressed: 840,288,247
Meta-data: 6,953,000
In this example we are getting only 18x compression. With additional Virtual Machines the compression will increase allowing many VMs to be stored and archived.
Follow these steps if you need to reset the root password on an ESX classic.
Note: Ignore the “quote marks” in the instructions below.
1 – turn on system (if it’s on then reboot it with Ctrl-Alt-Del from console)
2 – when grub appears press the “tab” key
3 – highlight VMware ESX line using the “arrow” keys
4 – press the “e” key
5 – scroll to kernel line using the “arrow” keys
6 – press the “e” key (again, I know!)
7 – press the “end” key to move cursor to end of the kernel line
8 – type the word “single” (using the keys)
9 – press the “b” key to boot the ESX host into single user mode
10 – eventually a “sh-3.2#” root prompt will appear
11 – use the command “passwd” to reset the password
12 – use the command “reboot” to reboot the ESX machine
13 – login to the console or the vic using the new password!
That’s it! I hope this procedure works for you. Your feedback is appreciated.
Morale of this story is:
1 – always protect the physical environment where you ESX host is located.
2 – always secure the Lights Out/Remote Access/IP-KVM/console access to your host.
3 – consider using a GRUB password on your ESX host so as to prevent password resets.