Tag: vSphere

VMware PowerCLI on Powershell Core

I recently installed Powershell Core om Ubuntu 18.04, and after installing the PowerCLI module. I ran into an error.

The error is not an uncommon one, but on Windows the error message makes a lot more sense, so I just wanted to let you know what this error actually means.

The error you might get when you try to connect to your vCenter server using the connect-viserver is the following:

Connect-VIServer : 9/27/18 10:41:37 AM	Connect-VIServer		The SSL connection could not be established, see inner exception.	
At line:1 char:1
+ Connect-VIServer <servername>
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo          : NotSpecified: (:) [Connect-VIServer], ViError
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : Client20_ConnectivityServiceImpl_Reconnect_SoapException,VMware.VimAutomation.ViCore.Cmdlets.Commands.ConnectVIServer

The only hint here is “The SSL connection could not be established…”

This actually means that you do not have a valid certificate. And if you want to connect to vCenter without a valid certificate, you have to allow this.

You can either change you vCenter certificate to a trusted one, which is the correct solutions or you can ignore invalid certificates, which circumvents all security, but makes it work right now.

Set-PowerCLIConfiguration -InvalidCertificateAction:ignore

Please comment if this was helpful.

 

10fb does not support flow control autoneg

Issue with nic driver on HPE servers after updating HPE drivers on ESXi 6.5 and 6.7

What happened

I ran into an issue the other day with a vCenter Server Appliance filling up one of its partitions. The partition that was filling up was the /storage/seat partition. This partition holds the postgres SQL database, so the vCenter server was in trouble.

After some digging around I realized that the root cause was a new event error from all ESXi hosts, that was coming at a rapid pace. The errors had started during the last driver and base updates, and only the HPE servers was affected. Continue reading 10fb does not support flow control autoneg

Host xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is not compatible with the VDS version

Just had an odd issue today.

A customer had created a Virtual Distributed Switch, but was unable to add his ESXi hosts to the vDS. It said that: “Host is not compatible with the VDS version.”

He was only able to join his version 6.5 ESXi host to a 5.5 vDS. If it was upgraded to version 6.0 or 6.5 it did not work.

There are multiple reports of this online related to upgraded hosts and vCenters. I suspect that it is an issue that you only run into if you do major upgrades without reinstalling ESXi, and since I never do that I have not had that problem before.

The quick solution to this problem is: Continue reading Host xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is not compatible with the VDS version

Unable to VMotion to new Lenovo SR650 Host

Hi,

I have had an annoying issues at two customer sites now, and I want to share the solution with you.

The problem is that you cannot VMotion VMs to a newly installed ESXi 6.5 hosts running on Lenovo SR650 hardware. The CPU used in the new host is Intel Xeon Gold 6154 Processor, and the old hosts are using Intel Xeon Processor E7-4880 v2. I do not think that the source CPU model is relevant to the issue it could be any supported Intel CPU in the same cpu family.

When trying to VMotion the following error is displayed:

The virtual machine requires hardware features that are unsupported or disabled on the target host:
"""""""""""""* General incompatibilities
"
If possible, use a cluster with Enhanced vMotion Compatibility (EVC) enabled; see KB article 1003212.

CPUID details: incompatibility at level 0x1 register 'ecx'.
Host bits: 0110:0010:1101:1000:0011:0010:0000:0011
Required: x1xx:xx1x:10x1:1xx0:xx1x:xx1x:xxxx:xx11

If you then try to enable EVC in the cluster it complains that the new hosts has an issue, and returns this error:

The host's CPU hardware should support the cluster's current Enhanced vMotion Compatibility mode, but some of the necessary CPU features are missing from the host. Check the host's BIOS configuration to ensure that no necessary features are disabled (such as XD, VT, AES, or PCLMULQDQ for Intel, or NX for AMD). For more information, see KB article 1003212.

Continue reading Unable to VMotion to new Lenovo SR650 Host

Fujitsu Primergy ESXi Install Server Notes – BIOS Settings

So I was installing some Fujitsu Primergy RX2530 M4 servers today, and since I mostly work with HPE and Lenovo servers I had lookup the optimal BIOS settings to run ESXi 6.5.

This is what I came up with. From the default settings I only changed a couple of things that I found important. Continue reading Fujitsu Primergy ESXi Install Server Notes – BIOS Settings

Things to know about upgrading vCSA 6.0 to vCSA 6.5

Here is a list of things that you might want to do before you upgrade your vCenter from vCSA 6.0 to vCSA 6.5.

Postgres table owner

First check you postgres database. For some reason the table owner is often wrong. Thanks to black88mx6 There is a way to check this, and also to fix it. Remember that anything you see here is executed at your own risk. An important step to perform before upgrading is taking a backup/snapshot of your vCenter VM, and any related components, so that you will be able to recover from a failed upgrade. Continue reading Things to know about upgrading vCSA 6.0 to vCSA 6.5

Award – VMware Technical Ambassador of the year 2017

I was very surprised to receive the Technical Ambassador 2017 award from VMware at the Nordic Partner Briefing on Sunday evening.

For those who don’t know my history, I have been implementing and promoting VMware and virtualization since 2002, and it is not often that you receive awards in this industry unless you are working with sales, so i really appreciate this.

I owe a big thank you to Michael Eskildsen from VMware for nominating me, to Atea and my team leader Flemming Westervang for giving me the opportunity to work with the biggest customers and most interesting cases in the Nordic, and of course to VMware for constantly raising the bar.

vCenter Recent Tasks Descriptions and Names are broken after VCSA Upgrade

After upgrading VCSA from version 6.5 to 6.5 Update 1 you might experience a problem with Task Names and object Descriptions. Names are not “resolved” to its human understandable name, but instead they are written as a API object name.

For instance a host profile compliance check would normally be “Compliance check” but is instead written as “profile.ComplianceManager.check.label” or a VMotion is written as “Drm.ExecuteVMotionLRO.label”

Continue reading vCenter Recent Tasks Descriptions and Names are broken after VCSA Upgrade

ESXi 6.5 Update 1 PSOD on HPE 460c Gen9 after Ixgben driver update

Today I upgraded a customer to ESXi 6.5 Update 1, but unfortunately some of them ended up purple screening at reboot after they were updated.

Affected Servers so far

  • HPE BL460c Gen9
  • HPE DL360p Gen8 (Reported by anonymous user)
  • HPE DL380 Gen9 (Reported by Bernhard)
  • HPE DL380 Gen8 (Reported by Ralf)
  • HPE DL380p Gen9 (Reported by Victor)

PSOD Error

PSOD: #PF Exception 14 in world 68297:sfcb-intelcim IP 0x41801b704d8f addr 0x443919649c000

Continue reading ESXi 6.5 Update 1 PSOD on HPE 460c Gen9 after Ixgben driver update

Deep Dive into VMware vSAN Performance Benchmarks

VMworld 2017 Breakout Session Proposal Accepted!

I am VERY happy to announce that my application for a VMworld session at VMworld in Barcelona 2017 has been accepted. I will be sharing this session with my excellent coworker Karsten Drejer.

I can’t wait to tell you all about our finding and the awesome performance that we are seeing on VMware vSAN. I will be comparing these benchmark numbers to traditional storage types from known vendors.

Please support me by attending my session at VMworld 2017 in Barcelona. My session ID is #STO1117BE. You can find it here: https://my.vmworld.com/scripts/catalog/eucatalog.jsp?search=STO1117

WARNING: My session is very technical, so please be ware. I will however also have some graphs with pretty colors, so if you are not completely down with IOPS, Read Write latency, bits and bytes, come anyway. I will try hard explain my findings. Also Karsten will give some general knowledge about vSAN in the first part of the session.

VMworld 2017 in Barcelona is running from the 11-14th of September.

Update: Our sessions is scheduled at the 13th of September in Hall 8, Room 17.