Vcenter on Matt Allford

VMware VM Clone via HTML5 Client Results in Incorrectly Configured VMDK

Fri, 27 Dec 2019 08:24:38 +0000

This one is just a quick post regarding an issue I came up against just before Christmas.

To get straight to the point, I found an issue where in multiple separate environments, when cloning a virtual machine via the VMware vCenter HTML5 Web client interface, if you select the tick box to “customize this virtual machine’s hardware” and change any of the settings of the VM, the cloned virtual machine’s VMDK file(s) will be pointed to the VMDK file(s) of the source machine you used for the clone.

vCenter Server 6.7U1 Converge Tool

Wed, 14 Nov 2018 12:03:20 +0000

Overview

A few weeks ago VMware released vSphere 6.7U1, and in that release comes a tool that has been desired by many customers and partners, which is the vCenter Converge Tool, or in other words, a tool to convert an external vCenter and PSC architecture in to an embedded deployment.

In the last few releases of vCenter Server, VMware have supported replication of the PSC functionality between embedded deployment models, including Enhanced Linked Mode (named Embedded Linked Mode for an embedded deployment). It has been clear that the embedded model should now be the default model and it is the recommended model from VMware, in fact last week VMware announced their plans to deprecate the external PSC, but until today we did not have a way to automatically converge an external model in to an embedded model.

vCenter 6.7 Update 1 - Converge to embedded failed!

Thu, 18 Oct 2018 12:48:54 +0000

Update 27th October 2018: I was meant to provide this update last weekend, but it has been a hectic week. Within a few hours of posting this issue, a few people at VMware reached out to me to understand more about my configuration, asked me to upload the logs and a few of the smart guys and gals at VMware had been able to reproduce the issue. As it turns out, the key in the APPLMGMT_PASSWORD vecs store is used when a file based backup of the VCSA is scheduled. I believe a KB is on the way, but the workaround is to delete the VCSA backup schedule, perform the converge and you can then re-enable the schedule after the converge is complete.

vCenter Server 6.7 Appliance Backup Scheduler

Tue, 17 Apr 2018 14:32:34 +0000

This one will be a quick post, but I wanted to alert people to a new minor but useful feature that’s included in the vCenter 6.7 appliance, which is the ability to schedule backups natively within the appliance management interface.

If you wanted to schedule an appliance based backup in 6.5, you would have to schedule a task to do so. Thankfully this was made easier by Brian Graf’s script, but now we have a way to build this in to the appliance configuration with no reliance on an external script.

vCenter 6.7 Embedded Linked Mode

Tue, 17 Apr 2018 14:17:07 +0000

[toc]

Introduction

Starting from VMworld US 2017, VMware announced their plans to support PSC replication and Enhanced Linked Mode with the vCenter Embedded deployment model, simplifying overall deployment and management requirements for a multi-vCenter environment.

This feature is now included in the release of vSphere 6.7. In this post, I go over a little history for common deployment models, as well as what the new “vCenter Embedded Linked Mode” brings to the table. I also compare a couple of topologies between vSphere 6.0/6.5 and vSphere 6.7 to show the savings in the amount of nodes and in some cases, the complexity, that can be saved by using this new deployment topology.

vCenter 6.7 Cross SSO Domain Repointing

Tue, 17 Apr 2018 14:10:18 +0000

It’s back, finally! A new feature with vCenter 6.7 is the ability to repoint a vCenter Server to another Platform Services Controller node, that resides in an entirely different vSphere SSO domain. This functionality is huge for domain consolidation, and also domain splitting (which admittedly is a less required use case from what I’ve seen, but something that still can be a useful use case).

Edit: As per a comment from Rupak, I believe this feature is only available on the vCenter Server Appliance and is not available for the Windows deployment of vCenter 6.7. With that said, hopefully if you are running vCenter 6.7 you are now running the appliance, as you have likely had several chances to migrate to the VCSA either using the migration tool, or manually (albeit with plenty of scripts to assist with the move of config and workloads).

VCSA CLI Deployment: Format Requires a Mapping

Tue, 05 Dec 2017 11:25:24 +0000

I’ve recently been doing a lot of work in my home lab, which has involved me moving from a flat /24 network (yeah, I know) to a somewhat more realistic lab environment with a Cisco SG300 switch and Ubiquiti EdgeRouterx. Due to these networking changes, as I build out the environment I’ve been creating a lot of VLANs and subnets between my physical ESXi host, the Cisco switch and the ERx.

vSphere 6.5 – CLI VCSA Embedded Deployment Walkthrough

Thu, 12 Jan 2017 11:47:00 +0000

The post below will walk through the deployment of an embedded vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) 6.5 node to a target ESXi server using the command line interface (CLI) deployment method.

If you are interested in also seeing the GUI deployment or other GUI/CLI deployments, please see my post here which has links off to other individual articles for different deployment methods.

For each of the deployment methods I am providing a video as well. Please find the video for the VCSA Embedded CLI deployment below. This has been recorded in FullHD, so best to watch it in Full Screen!

vSphere 6.5 - VCSA Deployment Walkthroughs

Thu, 12 Jan 2017 11:41:25 +0000

[toc]

Introduction

So I’ve finally had some spare time to download and have a look at some of the vSphere 6.5 components and I’ll be planning to do a few blog posts in early 2017 on some of the cool new features that have been added in this release.

I’ve decided to start with a few posts on the deployment of the vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) using both the new GUI installer and the CLI option as well. I’ve put the links immediately below, but I’ve also written a little about the VCSA below in this article which you may like to read as well. I’ll walk through the deployment of an embedded VCSA as well as an external deployment with 1 PSC and 1VC node. The individual posts below include both a video and text with screenshots.

vCenter 6.5 PSC Repoint Limitations

Mon, 21 Nov 2016 12:18:52 +0000

Hi all,

This is just a quick note to let you all know of a limitation with vSphere 6.5. Repointing of a vCenter Server to a Platform Services Controller (PSC) in another vSphere SSO domain SITE is not supported. Please see the caution at the top of this VMware KB article.

Note: As of 21/11/2016, the KB article for repointing a VC to a PSC WITHIN the same SSO domain site (see here) also has a caution to say it is not supported with 6.5. I believe this is a mistake in the KB article, as the 6.5 documentation has steps on how to repoint within the same SSO site, and I’ve reached out to the product manager Adam Eckerle who also believes this is an error and is investigating.

VMware Update Manager vCenter Privileges

Tue, 20 Sep 2016 23:39:39 +0000

I’ve always tried to use and recommend using the ’least privileges’ model when designing and implementing systems. But we’ve all been there, when the same service account is being used to connect everything to vCenter, and said account has been assigned the full administrator role and propagated within vCenter.

I’m getting my lab set up again and I needed to install VMware Update Manager (VUM). I realised that in the lab previously I have just done as I mentioned before and used a high privilege service account thinking “it’s just a lab”. I thought this would be a good chance to check what privileges are actually required to install and register VUM with vCenter Server. I’ve quickly documented the steps below including the only privilege that is required.

VMware VCSA Migration Tool Now GA

Thu, 15 Sep 2016 23:15:09 +0000

A long last, VMware have made a tool available and supported to migrate from a Windows installation of vSphere 5.5 across to the vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) 6.0U2. VMware gave us a teaser with a fling in 2015, but this was taken down and there have been hints dropped via Social Media and most recently some good sessions for the migration tool at VMworld 2016.

Prior to this tool, migrating from a Windows install to the VCSA was not a trivial task. I undertook this at my previous employer, where we had 2 vCenter Servers, around 10 clusters and approx 70 hosts. While a lot of it was scripted, it was still a very involved process, as we had distributed switches, a number of cluster, host and VC advanced settings etc. Along with that, the historical data was not transferred across so we had to be OK with not migrating that data.

Repoint vCenter Server to PSC

Mon, 12 Sep 2016 22:07:08 +0000

Introduction

This article will walk through the steps required to repoint a vCenter Server 6U1 or later node to a different Platform Services Controller (PSC) node. Scenario one will walk through the steps if the destination PSC is located within the same vSphere SSO site, where as scenario two will walk through the steps if the destination PSC is located in a different vSphere SSO site. This is almost the same process, but repointing a VC to a PSC in a different SSO Site than the original PSC requires an additional step.

Reconfiguring and Repointing vCenter Server to PSC

Mon, 12 Sep 2016 22:05:48 +0000

Introduction

Starting with vSphere 6, there are two main roles to a core vCenter infrastructure. The vCenter Server (VC) and the Platform Services Controller (PSC). During deployment, administrators are presented with two deployment options:

Embedded. With an embedded deployment, the VC and PSC roles are installed on the same node
External. With an external deployment, the PSC and VC roles are installed onto separate nodes. External deployment also enables the enhanced linked mode feature for vCenter Server

Prior to 6.0U1, you had the ability to repoint a VC node to another PSC within the same vSphere SSO site using vmafd-cli. See VMware KB 2113917 for the steps. You could not repoint the VC node to a PSC in a different SSO site, even if it was in the same SSO domain.

Reminder - vSphere 5.0 and 5.1 End of General Support

Sun, 21 Aug 2016 12:23:00 +0000

In the busy world we live in, a lot can be said for the “time flies when you’re having fun” saying. And with so much happening in the world of the SDDC, it’s easy to forget about some of the core components that, for the most part, sit there reasonably quietly just ‘doing their thing’.

This is just a quick reminder post for those still running vSphere 5.0 or 5.1, that end of general support ends for those products this week, on the 24th of August to be exact.

vSphere New PSC Deployment - Could Not Parse SAML Token For Authentication

Mon, 28 Mar 2016 11:56:37 +0000

In my lab, I deployed vCenter using the appliance as an embedded node using vCenter 6.0.0b. I purposely deployed this build, as an embedded deployment for two reasons:

I haven’t used the appliance before, and I wanted the lab to be simple, but I also wanted to see the upgrade process in action on the appliance
I wanted to deploy an external PSC and follow the process to re point the original VC server to the new external PSC, as outlined here: http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-60/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.vmware.vsphere.upgrade.doc%2FGUID-E7DFB362-1875-4BCF-AB84-4F21408F87A6.html

My lab is deployed in a nested environment sitting on top of VMWare Workstation. So I deployed a new node to the environment which was an external PSC, joined to the original SSO domain and site.