ESX

Unable to create VMFS partition

On my home lab I tried to create a new VMFS volume on a RAID-0 disk set that was coming from another host. When creating the new VMFS volume from the vSphere client, the following  error appeared:

Call “HostDatastoreSystem.QueryVmfsDatastoreCreateOptions” for object “datastoresystem-9” on vCenter Server “VC01″ failed.

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On the VMware ESXi 5 server I enabled “Local Tech Support Mode” (more information can be found here), so I was able to logging in directly on the console and used the fdisk-l command to see the partition information on the disk. I notice that the disk contains four old partitions from another system.

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I deleted the four partitions by using the following commands (displayed in bold):

– fdisk /dev/disk/mpx.vmhba3:C0:T1:LO (see the above picture)

– p (for printing the partition information and verify that you choose the right disk)

– d and enter the partition numbers (1, 2, 3, and 4) for deleting the partition

– p to verify that all the partitions are deleted

– w to write the modifications to disk

 

After the deletion of the old partitions I was able to create the VMFS volume on the RAID-0 disk set.

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Migrate to VMware ESXi? Use the “ESX System Analyzer” tool

VMware Flings did it again. They released another cool tool called “ESX System Analyzer”. This tool helps when you want to migrate from VMware ESX to VMware ESXi. It scans the VMware environment and collects the following information:

– Hardware compatibility with ESXi. It checks if the hardware is compatible with ESXi 4 and ESXi 5.

– VMs registered on the ESX host, as well as VMs located on the host’s local disk

– Modifications to the Service Console
        – RPMs which have been added or removed
        – Files which have been added
        – Users and cronjobs which have been added

This tool also provides summary information for the whole existing environment

– Version of VMware Tools and Virtual Hardware for all VMs

– Version of Filesystem for all datastores

By having this information, administrators can determine what tasks need to be done prior to the migration. Examples include:

– Relocate VMs from local datastores to shared datastores

– Make note of what agent software has been added to the host and obtain the equivalent agentless version

– Replace cronjobs with equivalent remote scripts written with PowerCLI or vCLI

The installation and configuration of the “ESX System Analyzer” appliance is very easy. Here are some screenshots of the appliance:

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Screenshots of the Output in XLS (Excel):

Overview output:

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ESX server output:

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This is a very handy tool when you want to migrate from VMware ESX to ESXi. More information can be found on the VMware Flings website found here.

New VMware ESX whitebox

A couple of weeks ago my desktop PC died, so my girlfriend could not read there e-mail. I decide to turn my OLD VMware ESX test server into a Microsoft Vista workstation and buy a new whitebox. After searching the internet and comparing components, I found the following configuration:

  • – CoolerMaster Centurion 590 mini tower
  • – CoolerMaster Real Power 520W modular Power supply
  • – Asus P5BP-E/4L (with 4 onboard NICS)
  • – Intel Core 2 Quad 6600 Processor Boxed
  • – Kingston 8GB 800MHz DDR2 memory
  • – Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB

I had already a LSI Megaraid SATA-4 RAID controller. The whitebox is very quiet. It’s installed with VMware ESX 3i. It performs very good with a couple of VMs.  I will benchmark it soon.