No Space Left on Device – ESXi Patching

Posted on by mdicecca112

Encountered a new error that I have not seen before working with ESXi 6.5.  I was upgrading from the base VMUG ESXi 6.5 image to the latest patched and received the following error

[InstallationError]
[Errno 28] No space left on device
vibs = VMware_locker_tools-light_6.5.0-1.33.7273056
Please refer to the log file for more details.

The datastore had plenty of space left, over fifty gigabytes.  The fix is rather simple, but intuitive, enable Swap on a Datastore.  Simply set the Datastore attribute to one of your datastores and try the upgrade again.

Update Result
Message: The update completed successfully, but the system needs to be reboot ed for the changes to be effective.
Reboot Required: true

Hopefully this saves some people some time and aggravation searching around for answers.

Cheap 10gbe Network Adapter for Synology DS3018xs

Posted on by mdicecca112

In preparation for working with Boot from SAN and other high network requirement work with my Synology, I looked into getting a 10gbe adapter.  Unfortunately, the Synology Branded 10gbe Adapters are extremely expensive.

I was lucky enough to have a Mellanox ConnectX-2 Card kicking around.   These single port 10gbe cards can be found on eBay for less than 20$.

After 3D printing a low profile bracket for the card found on ThingiVerse, I was able to power up the Synology with card and connect over 10gbe without issue.

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Although I have yet to test the adapter for a normal workload, Synology supports other Mellanox Cards on its other Devices.  We can also see by SSHing into the Synology, that the device correctly loaded the mlx4_en drivers.

[Mon Feb 26 11:22:58 2018] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth4: link is not ready
[Mon Feb 26 11:22:58 2018] mlx4_en: eth4: Link Up
[Mon Feb 26 11:22:58 2018] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): eth4: link becomes ready

In the coming weeks I hope to have a series of posts detailing Boot from SAN configurations for ESXi as well as new posts and benchmarks working with Intel’s Xeon Bronze Series of chips.

 

Windows 2016 Storage Spaces Testing

Posted on by mdicecca112

Setup is rather simple for Storage Spaces on 2016, with clicking on File and Storage Services and then Storage Pools

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From there you will see that Primordial Pool and on the bottom right the Physical Disks available for use.

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From there click Tasks and New Storage Pool

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Name your Pool

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Select the drives you wish to use.  For us, we chose 4 disk to create a mirrored pool.  Selecting five drives or including the NVMe drive cause a failure to create a Virtual Disk.

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Click Create

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Go Virtual Disk, Tasks and New Virtual Disk

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Name the Virtual Disk and Select “Create storage tiers on this virtual disk” if you have a SSD on the machine.  For us we have M.2 Samsung SSD in the system.

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This is not an enclosure, we do not select Enclosure Awareness.

We make a decision between storage and speed and redundancy.  For us we want the redundancy but can’t because we need a even number of same sized disks.  If we were to chose only 4 disks, we would be able to use Mirror, but for just testing a

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Since we chose Tiered Storage, we cannot choose thin provisioning.

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Once the creation is complete, go and format the disk.

Now we benchmark, where it becomes immediately apparent that Spaces fails terrible on 4K Writes and does really well on Sequential.  I would expect better 4K writes from a Single 7200 RPM drive.

 

 

How to Add Local Storage to a XenServer

Posted on by mdicecca112

Log into XenServer via XenCenter

Click on your Server and Select Storage

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Select New SR…

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For me I have a 12G RAID Controller backing my storage, so I select Hardware HBA

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Name Storage

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XenServer will probe for Storage

 

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XenServer found both my Storage Arrays, and I chose the Array(s) I wish to use.

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We format the Storage Repository.

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Then we will see the new drive show up.

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How to Install XenServer 7.0

Posted on by mdicecca112

Download Xen Server 7.2

Write the ISO to a USB Drive or Install with a DVD Drive.  I chose to use Rufus

Boot the ISO

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Select a Keymap

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Accept the warning about your drive being overwritten.

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Accept the EULA

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Choose a drive to write the OS onto.

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Choose a drive for VM Storage.  I chose to do this in the Windows Client, and deselect all choices.

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Select where your installation source is.  For us, it is a local drive.

Capture.PNGChoose whether to verify the installation media.  I choose to skip it.

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Enter a password for the XenServer Host

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Select an ethernet adapter that you will use for Management of the Server.

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Select and enter the appropriate network information

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Name your host and enter an appropriate DNS Server

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Select the appropriate geographically area

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Select the appropriate time zone

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Select the appropriate NTP Settings

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Set the appropriate NTP Servers

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Install Xen-Server

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Choose whether to install an Supplemental Packs.  I have none, so I chose No

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The installation will finish up

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Reboot the server

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Upon first boot I received this bug.  The host ultimately boots after a minute or two.

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Once the host boots navigate to its Management IP Address and Download the Windows Client.

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How to add a Content Library to vSphere

Posted on by mdicecca112

Log into your vSphere Web Client and click Menu – Content Library.

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Click the plus sign to add a new Content Library

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Add a Name and Location

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Select a Local Content Library if you wish to upload ISOs, OVAs, and other templates.

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Select your storage location, I use my local Freenas NFS Store.

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Click Finish and your new Library will appear.  Capture.PNG

To add items, click on the Name of the Content Library, then select Actions and Import Item.

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Select the item and click OK.

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vSphere will then proceed to upload the item.

Once uploaded items like ISOs can be selected on the create VM Screens.

 

How to Install vRealize Operations

Posted on by mdicecca112

First step is to obtain the vRealize Operations Manager Appliance and install it via your VMware server.  Once the Appliance is uploaded and the installation is complete you will see the below screen on your VM.

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Once you go to the URL you will find the Initial Setup screen.

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I chose new Installation and started by setting the Administrator’s Password.

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I then accepted the default certificate.

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I named my Cluster Node.  We can add additional nodes later.

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I then completed the install by clicking Finish.6.PNG

Now we wait, the Appliance will configure itself.

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Then we need to start vRealize Operations Manager

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Eventually the Node will show a State of Running and Online.

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Once the node is up and running you will have to login

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Note that the login username is admin and not root.

Now we have to do more configuration.

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Accept the EULA, enter our Product Key, and opt in or out of CEIP.15.PNG

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Finally we configure the installation.

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First in order to gather information of our VMs and ESXI servers we need to configure the vSphere Adapter.

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Once the adapter is configured you should see Collecting.

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For a time you will see your items in a grey color while the information is aggregated.

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After a while you see the aggregation working and less and less grey.

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How to Apply Updates to VCenter 6.0

Posted on by mdicecca112

Starting after Update 1 for VCenter 6.0 you are able to update your Vcenter from the Web Interface.  Unfortunately for me, I have pre-version one installed so I need to update via SSH.

First step is login via SSH to your VCenter as the Root User using your SSO Administrator User and password

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Next you download the Update for your VCenter from here.

Once the update is downloaded, you will need to mount the ISO to your VCenter VM.

Then we execute

software-packages install –iso –acceptEulas

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The update will inform you when completed and instruct you to reboot

How to Install VSphere Appliance 6.0

Posted on by mdicecca112

There is only so many installations of a Windows or Linux box you can do before you ask yourself if there is any easier way to do this.  In order to use templates and automate your VM building tasks, one of the choices is to use Vsphere with a variety of tools that plug in like Vagrant, Chef, or Puppet.

First we must acquire the VCSA 6.0 ISO and have a VM or other Windows Host on which to run the VSphere installer from.  For me this is just my Windows 10 Laptop.

First we browse the ISO to /vcsa/VMWare-ClientIntegrationPlugin-6.0.0.exe and install the Plugin.  This is needed to run the installer which is Web Browser Based.

Once installed Capture.PNGwe open vcsa-setup.html

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On Internet Explorer, you will be prompted twice to accept the Client Integration Plugin Access to your system.   Accept the access and you will see the Install Window for vCenter Server Appliance 6.0

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First we click Install and Accept the License AgreementCapture.PNG

Then we enter the IP, User, and Password for our ESXi Host

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You will be prompted to trust your SSL Certificate, and since its the default install certificate it will be for localhost.localdomain.  If you have changed your hostname it won’t match and won’t be trusted.  You can click Yes to accept and continue.

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The installer will Validate your setup and if any connection issues are found, it will let you know.  Then it asks you to set the appliance name, and OS Password.  Set these as appropriate.  When setting the OS Password be sure to have an uppercase, lowercase, and special character as it is required by the installer.

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For our installation, since it is such a small VCenter Install, we are going to go with the Embedded Platform Service Controller.

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Next we create our SSO or Single Sign On Domain.  If you plan to have Active Directory Integration, you need to be sure that your Domain Name and Site Name are different than your Active Directory Forest Name.

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Next you pick your Appliance Size.  The Tiny Size fits our installation well, but just incase we decided to bigger, I have decided to go to the Small Size.

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Next Select your Datastore.  Be sure there is enough space to fit your VMs.  The Installer states 150GB is needed, so I have chose a Datastore that has at least that.  I have also enabled Thin Disk Mode as it only allocates storage as needed.

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We chose the embedded database.

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We chose the appropriate Network Settings.  Since my entire homelab is 10Gbe, I want to be sure that I am using a 10gbe Virtual Switch/Network.

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The installer will warn you not to use DHCP, but if you do reservations of DHCP address you will be fine.  Finally accept the Customer Improvement Settings and Finish the installer so that it can build your VMs.  If you want to see how the installer is doing, hop over to your Web Page for your ESXi host.

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Once the VM is built you can also watch it do the installation.

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Once it’s finished, verify you can login and off you go!

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