Archive for February 2009

What to do when an ESX host shows not responding?

Steps in order to progress

1) Login in the affected ESX server using Putty

2) service mgmt-vmware restart

If this doesn’t work then the vmware-hostd daemon has to be killed.

3) ps -e | grep vmware-hostd
Look for the process_id associated with vmware-hostd

4) kill process_id
i.e. if 3) returned:
32470 ? 00:01:12 vmware-hostd
the command would be:
kill 32470

5) service mgmt-vmware status
if the service is started use
service mgmt-vmware restart
if it’s stopped use:
service mgmt-vmware start

Using ESX 3.5 vmware-vim-cmd instead of vimsh

vmware-vim-cmd

For those of you familiar with vimsh and used it to configure a scripted install of ESX 3.5, have you noticed that the following error would occur when launching commands using /usr/bin/vimsh ?

/usr/bin/vimsh -n -e “hostsvc/maintenance_mode_enter

Alternatively, by using the wrapper developed for ESX 3.5, vmware-vim-cmd, you would get the following:

/usr/bin/vmware-vim-cmd hostsvc/maintenance_mode_enter

The two commands are detailed in the Xtravirt whitepapers, vimsh and vimsh for ESX 3.5. I would recommend at least having a quick browse to see what can be achieved with these commands. Using vmware-vim-cmd in conjunction with esxcfg- can achieve some very interesting results, especially if you love to create the perfect KickStart build script.

If only it is possible to launch vmware-vim-cmd commands using the RCLI just as esxcfg- can be launched using vicfg-. Anyone have an idea?

A few more examples

Refreshing the network settings
/usr/bin/vmware-vim-cmd hostsvc/net/refresh

Refreshing the storage
/usr/bin/vmware-vim-cmd hostsvc/storage/refresh

The all important enabling VMotion
/usr/bin/vmware-vim-cmd hostsvc/vmotion/vnic_set vmk0

And how about setting vSwitch1 to use Route Based on IP Hash?
/usr/bin/vmware-vim-cmd hostsvc/net/vswitch_setpolicy –nicteaming-policy=loadbalance_ip vSwitch1

And setting vSwitch0 to use Route Based on the Originating Virtual PortID. (vSwitch0 has two portgroups using VLAN tagging, 1 for Service Console and 1 for VMotion, we wish to use active-passive nic teaming policy)

Set active vmnic0 and standby vmnic2 for Service Console
/usr/bin/vmware-vim-cmd hostsvc/net/portgroup_set –nicorderpolicy-active=vmnic0 vSwitch0 ‘Service Console’
/usr/bin/vmware-vim-cmd hostsvc/net/portgroup_set –nicorderpolicy-standby=vmnic2 vSwitch0 ‘Service Console’

Set active vmnic2 and standby vmnic0 for VMkernel network
/usr/bin/vmware-vim-cmd hostsvc/net/portgroup_set –nicorderpolicy-active=vmnic2 vSwitch0 VMkernel
/usr/bin/vmware-vim-cmd hostsvc/net/portgroup_set –nicorderpolicy-standby=vmnic0 vSwitch0 VMkernel

Set vSwitch overide load balancing policy
/usr/bin/vmware-vim-cmd hostsvc/net/portgroup_set –nicteaming-policy=loadbalance_srcid vSwitch0 ‘Service Console’
/usr/bin/vmware-vim-cmd hostsvc/net/portgroup_set –nicteaming-policy=loadbalance_srcid vSwitch0 VMkernel

Let’s not forget to refresh our network settings
/usr/bin/vmware-vim-cmd hostsvc/net/refresh
/usr/bin/vmware-vim-cmd internalsvc/refresh_network