The ramdisk ‘var’ is full on ESXi host and fix (without maintenance mode or reboot)

I recently encountered an issue where vMotions on a host would fail, the host would disconnect from vCenter, and some other strange errors.

This was an HP host installed with the HP ISO image, but not sure if that is the cause of this issue.

When investigating the logs on the host I noticed that /var on the ramdisk was full

When issuing vdf -h available space for /var on the ramdisk was  0%

Looking in /var/log i noticed all logfiles where symlinks to /scratch except for the EMU directory, where some Emulex process seemed to fill up a log file …..

When removing the logfile /var/log/EMU/mili/mili2d.log and after restarting hostd, space was freed up on /var in the ramdisk, but the logfile /var/log/EMU/mili/mili2d.log returned and started filling up again.

Googeling I found a suggestion to remove the Emulex vibs when not using an Emulex HBA, but these hosts did have Emulex HBA’s

After some more research I found a fix that did not need a reboot or maintenance mode (which is great since vMotion stoped working on these hosts):

Continue reading

Fixing problems with in-context log viewing from vROps to Log Insight

Had an issue at a customer where I was not able to use the in-context log viewing in vROps to view the logs for the ESXi servers in Log Insight. Using crops 6.6.1 and Log Insight 4.5.1

First part of the solution was to uses FQDN on the ESXi hosts. Only short hostnames where configured on ESXi hosts, which probably caused Log Insight not being able to match the logs it received from the ESXi hosts to the registered hosts it learned from vCenter. Because of this all hosts where missing the vmw_vr_ops_id metadata and this metadata is used by vROps to pass to Log Insight to find the logs for the correct host.

After fixing this, one host still had no vmw_vr_ops_id metadata.

Seems like for whatever reason, matching of the ESXi hostname to the name used to register the host in vCenter is case sensitive. After changing case for th hostname on the ESXi server, the match was made, the metadata was added, and the in-context log search worked … Probably a bug ….

VMworld 2016 Second Keynote

The second keynote is usually a more tech savvy, and packed with demos (which used to be live but are replaced by recorded demos nowadays).

Keynote starts with Sanjay Poonen,General Manager of End-User Computing.

Sanjay starts talking about the transformation of education, healthcare, and low tech branches like tea estates, digitally transforming the end user. Continue reading

VMworld 2016 Opening Keynote

I was fortunate enough to attend VMworld again this year. This is my take on the Monday morning Keynote.

Pat Gelsinger, VMware’s CEO kicks of limping a little due to a broken foot.

21 Alumni Elite present, whom have attended all VMworlds (all US VMworlds to be more specific) They will all get lifetime access to VMworld for themselves and their spouses.

Let’s see if VMworld Europe Alumni Elite will get the same privileges … Continue reading

Add RecoverPoint 4.1 with SRM RecoverPoint SRA 2.2 fails with error “SRA command ‘discoverArrays’ failed” UPDATED

During an installation and configuration of an SRM solution for a customer based on EMC RecoverPoint 4.1 I ran in to an interesting issue.

When I tried to add the RecoverPoint Clusters on both sites using the RecoverPoint SRA 2.2 I received the following error message:

Error

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Batch file to start VSAN Observer on Windows vCenter Server

After reading the blog article by Erik Bussink on how to use the VSAN Observer software on a Windows vCenter Server, I quickly got annoyed by manually having to start the Ruby rvc script and the VSAN Observer every time

I created a little batch file that can be put on your desktop to launch the VSAN Observer

Just enter your credentials, vCenter server Name, Datacenter Name and Cluster Name and make sure the path to the rvc directory is correct, and of you go

After you started VSAN Observer, just connect to it via port 8010 on your vCenter Server, or add an exception for port 8010 in your Windows firewall to access VSAN Observer remotely, like described in Eriks’ blog

Enjoy

VSAN.Observer.bat

vCenter Operations and the Quest for the Missing Metrics in Barcelona

The VMWorld schedule builder for Barcelona is live, please attend our session at:

Wednesday, Oct 16, 3:30 PM – 4:30 PM

VCM5008 – vCenter Operations and the Quest for the Missing Metrics

This session will teach you how to customize vCenter Operations to provide you the information you really need for your business. We do this by giving you some real life examples from the field where we use Custom Dashboards, Super Metrics, Adapters and Alerts in order to give you the best possible view into the well-being of your environment. You’ll also see a live demo of third party integration and you’ll learn how to monitor the performance of your enterprise to diagnose and prevent problems.

Eric Sloof – VCI, NTPRO.NL
Duco Jaspars – Consultant, vConsult

VMWorld session VCM5008 vCenter Operations and the Quest for the Missing Metrics will be repeated

Since the original session by Eric Sloof and myself filled up pretty quickly, there will be a repeat session on Tuesday August 27th at 2 pm in Salon 6 at the Marriott hotel.

This extra session is now available in the Schedule Builder at VMWorld.com

This session will teach you how to customize vCenter Operations to provide you the information you really need for your business. We do this by giving you some real life examples from the field where we use Custom Dashboards, Super Metrics, Adapters and Alerts in order to give you the best possible view into the well-being of your environment. You’ll also see a live demo of third party integration and you’ll learn how to monitor the performance of your enterprise to diagnose and prevent problems.

 

NL VMUG 2.0

nlvmuglogo2

As you all might have noticed on twitter or other social media, there are some changes happening at the NL VMUG.

You ll might know the NL VMUG from the yearly VMUG event and the different smaller workshops they organize trough out the year.

The VMUG in the Netherlands was founded in 2004 by Bouke Groenescheij, and parented  by Viktor van den Berg, the XTG staff and volunteers from the community till 2011, the year the VMUG Customer Council was formed.

One of the roles of the VMUG Customer Council was to support XTG  on organising the the yearly VMUG event.

Over time, the ideas on what the event should look like grew appart. Last week the VMUG Customer Council realised these differences where not likely to be bridged in the near future, and decided something had to change. Continue reading

Tech Preview of Horizon View Desktops Plugin for the vSphere Web Client

During the Horizon View 5.2 Beta I noticed the View Desktops Tech Preview. Since the Beta was covered by an NDA I was not allowed to publish this, but since the product is GA for a while now here’s the story.

The plugin will let you search for usernames in the vSphere Web Client search field and shows you the desktop(s) for this user. Continue reading