This is my first post after the migration of the VMwareArena into wordpress platform. Today, when i was deploying the vCenter Operations manager appliance on my vCenter server, I was shocked by the error “Cannot initialize property ‘vami.netmask0.VM_1′. Network ‘VM Network’ has no associated network protocol profile”. I tried to troubleshoot the issue by re-configuring the Virtual Machine network port group settings but no luck. Came across a VMware KB2007012 article about this issue.

This issue can occur if you don’t have a predefined set of IP address ranges for the Operations Manager appliance virtual machine. It needs to be configured under IP pools. IP pools provide a network identity to vApps. An IP pool is a network configuration that is assigned to an network used by a vApp. The vApp can then leverage vCenter Server to automatically provide an IP configuration to its virtual machines. You can set up an IP address range by specifying a host address range within a network.

Below are the procedure to add the IP Pool range in vCenter server to use by vApp.

1. Login to your vCenter Server using vSphere Client.

2. Click on the datacenter that contains your vApp and click on IP Pool tab. Click on Add to add the IP Pools.

3. Enter the Name for your IP Pool. I have named it as “Virtual Data network”. In the Properties dialog, Click on the IPv4 or IPv6 tab depending on the IP protocol used on your environment. Enter the IP subnet and gateway details.

4.  Select the check box “Enable IP Pool”. Enable this setting to specify an IP address range. Enter a comma-separated list of address ranges in the Ranges field. A range is specified as an IP address along with a pound sign (#) and a number indicating the length of the range. For example, 192.168.216.175#25 indicates the IPv4 range address can range from 192.168.216.175 to 192.168.216.200.

5. Click on Associations tab, select the networks that should use this configured IP Pool. Click on OK to complete the creation of the IP pool.

6. Now, you have configured the IP pool ” Virtual Data Network” under IP Pools tab.

After the IP pool has been created. I have powered on the vCenter Operations Manager vApp Successfully.  I hope this is informative for you. Thanks for Reading!!!

This is one of my long awaiting voting pool to get recognized by my blog readers and Virtualization community users.  Nothing but  2014 TOP VMware & Virtualization blogs contents. This is the first year i got nominated for this voting category and i am expecting a great recoginzation from my website readers. It’s the time for everyone to show your support for VMware Arena  and get it  listed in  the top VMware & Virtualization blogs list.

There will be lucky draw for some great prize giveaways that include Nexus tablets, iWatches, headphones and more. Anyone that votes for the top blogs is eligible to win one of the prizes. In addition any blogger that makes the top 50 blog list is eligible to win prizes. Winners will be determined by a random drawing and announced on a special live results podcast after the voting ends.

VMware Arena is nominated under below 2 categories

1. Top Favorite Blog

2. Favorite Independent Blogger

To Vote for VMwareArena as your Favorite blog and Myself as  favorite Independent Blogger, Click on the below Image

Click on the Above Voting link and Click on Next to initiate the voting Process

1. Select Any 10 blogs which you feel that it’s your favorite blogs. VMware Arena is listed in the Name “VMware Arena (Mohammed Raffic) “. You can press CTRL+F and type your favorite bog name and search for it and choose.

2. Second step is to rank the 10 blogs that you picked in the previous question with #1 being your most favorite blog. Votes are weighted so a #1 vote counts as 10 points, #2 vote counts as 9 points etc down to 1 point for a #10 vote. The total points for each blog will be added up and will determine the top 50 order. Drag and Drop the blogs listed in the left side to right side in the order which you want to rank from 1 to 10.

3. Third step is to vote in the special categories to help distinguish certain types of blog These categories are independent of the general voting and will have their own winners. Choose your favorite blog in each of the following categories.

a. Favorite Storage blog
b. Favorite Scripting blog
c. Favourite Podcast
d. Favourite New Blogger
e. Favourite Independent Blogger (VMware Arena is also nominated under this category)

4. Fourth step will be provide your name & email address and click on submit. That’s it You are done.

There will be lucky draw for some great prize giveaways that include Nexus tablets, iWatches, headphones and more. Anyone that votes for the top blogs is eligible to win one of the prizes. In addition any blogger that makes the top 50 blog list is eligible to win prizes. Winners will be determined by a random drawing and announced on a special live results podcast after the voting ends.

When casting your votes please keep the following in mind about the blogs.

Longevity – Anyone can start a blog but it requires dedication, time & effort to keep it going. Some bloggers start a blog only to have it fall to the wayside several months later. Things always come up in life but the good bloggers keep going regardless of what is happening in their life.
Length – It’s easy to make a quick blog post without much content, nothing wrong with this as long as you have good content in the post that people will enjoy. But some bloggers post pretty long detailed posts which takes a lot of time and effort to produce. The tip of the hat goes to these guys that burn the midnight oil trying to get you some great detailed information.
Frequency – Some bloggers post several times a week which provides readers with lots of content. This requires a lot of effort as bloggers have to come up with more content ideas to write about. Frequency ties into length, some do high frequency/low length, some do low frequency/high length, some do both. They’re all good and require a lot of time and effort on the bloggers part.
Quality – It all comes down to whats in the blog post regardless of how often or how long the blog posts are. After reading a blog post if you come away with learning something that you did not previously know and it benefits you in some way then you know you are reading a quality post. Good quality is usually the result of original content, its easy to re-hash something previously published elsewhere, the good bloggers come up with unique content or put their own unique spin on popular topics.

Click on the below Image to cast your Vote your favorite virtualization blogs

I believe everyone will vote for VMware Arena to list under the  TOP 5  favourite VMWare/Virtulization blogs. Thanks for reading !!!!

RVTools,a great windows .NET 2.0 application which uses the VI SDK to display information about your virtual machines and ESX hosts. New version of RVTools has been released which is RVTools 3.6. It is one of the tool that every vMware admin should have in their machine. RVTools doesn’t simply display the information about your Virtual infrastructure but also perform some administrative actions like VMware tools upgrade and disconnect cd-ROM and Floppy drive.

RVTools can interact with almost all versions of vCenter and ESX/ESXi host including VirtualCenter 2.5, ESX Server 3.5, ESX Server 3i, VirtualCenter 4.x, ESX Server 4.x, VirtualCenter 5.0, VirtualCenter Appliance, ESX Server 5.0, VirtualCenter 5.1, ESX Server 5.1, VirtualCenter 5.5, ESX Server 5.5.

Using RVTools, you can connect to vCenter server or ESXi host to collect the information.

New features available as part of RVTools 3.6:

vCluster Tab – New tab with cluster information

vMultipath Tab – New tab with multipath information

vInfo Tab displays the below new fields in the RVTools 3.6

a. HA Isolation response and HA restart priority information
b. Cluster Affinity Rule information
c. Connection State and suspend time
d. Connection state and suspend time
e. vSphere HA protection state for a virtual machine (DAS protection)
f. Quest state

vCPU Tab – Displays new fields Hot Add and Hot remove information and also displays with CPU/Sockets/Cores information

vHost tab – Displays new fields vMotion support and Storage vMotion support
vMemory tab – Displays a new field called Hot Add
vNetwork Tab – Displays a new field called VM folder
VSC_VMK Tab – Displays new field called MTU

Bugs fixed in this release:

1.Datastore bug for ESX version 3.5
2.VMFolder bug when started form the command line
3.Improved documentation for command line options

You can  download RVTools and enjoy collection the useful information about your virtual infrastructure. I hope this post will be informative to you. Thanks for reading. Be Social and share it in social media, if you feel worth sharing it.

VMware vCenter Log Insight is a Virtual appliance from VMware that allows administrators to view, analyze and manage the syslog data. It allows the administrators to consolidate, monitor and analyze the logs to troubleshoot the vSphere efficiently and also it helps to perform security auditing and compliance management. vCenter Log Insight appliance is multipurpose appliance that includes syslog server, log consolidation and log analysis. vCenter Log Insight delivers automated log management through aggregation, analyze and search, providing operational intelligence and enterprise-wide visibility in dynamic hybrid cloud environments. It reads ,collects and analyze all types of machine generated log data such as application logs, configuration files, performance data and messages. You can connect almost operating systems, storage,firewalls, networks devices such as routers and switches to vCenter Log Insight.

Deployment procedure of vCenter log Insight will be same as the other VM deployment using OVA or OVF into vSphere. I am not going to spend time to explain you the import OVF steps. This post covers the initial configuration of vCenter Log Insight and integration with VCenter Operations Manager.

Once the deployment of the vCenter Log insight is completed. Go to the web browser and type the IP address or host name of the vCeter Log Insignht server in the below format.

https:// log_insight-host/

At first time, initial configuration wizard will open, click on Next

Update the email address and password for the admin account and click on Save and Continue

Enter the license key for your vCenter Log Insight and click on Set Key and click on Continue

In General Configuration page, enter the email address in which you want to receive the system notifications from vCenter Log Insight. Select the check box “Send weekly Trace data to VMware as part of the customer Experience improvement program” , if you want to participate in the customer experience improvement program. Click on Save and continue

You can either configure the time synchronization of vCenter Log Insight with NTP server or ESX/ESXi host.Configure the settings as per your environment .click on Save and Continue

 Specify the SMTP server settings which are used to enable outgoing email for alerts and system notifications from vCenter Log Insight. Optionally to test the configured setting, you can enter email address and test the email flow using Send Test mail option. Once settings are updated, click on Save and continue

The integration between vCenter Log insight and vCenter operations manager can be established to enable sending Log Insight alerts to vCenter Operations Manager. Enter the details about your vCenter Operations manager. This is an optional setting.Specify the credentials and hostname of vCenter Operations Manager UI VM.

Select the check box “Enable Alerts Integration” to allow vCenter Log Insight to send alert notifications triggered by Log Insight alarms.

Select the check box ” Enable Launch in Context”. Which requires vCenter Operations Manager v5.7.1 or later. When you enable the Launch in context, a Log Insight resource is created under the HTTP post adapter in vCenter Operations Manager.The resource identifier contains the IP address of the Log Insight instance, and is used by vCenter Operations Manager to open Log Insight.
Click on Test connection if you want to test the connectivity.

Select Enable Data Archiving if you want to achieve log data to an NFS location and enter the path to the storage location. Click on Test to test the connectivity between vCenter Log Insight and Storage location. Click on Save and Continue.

Click on Restart. restart is required to complete the setup process.

Once Restart is complete, Access the vCenter Log Insight using the below URL on your web browser.

I believe this is informative for you. In the Next post, we will how to Integrate vCenter Server Log Insight with your vSphere environment  to collect the logs. Thanks for Read.  If you like this site and content, Please spend 2 mins to vote for “VMware Arena” to get #1 in TOP vBLOG Competition.

We have gone through the detailed step by step procedure for the initial configuration of  vCenter Log Insight server in your previous post “Initial Configuration”. vCenter Log Insight appliance is multipurpose appliance that includes syslog server, log consolidation and log analysis. vCenter Log Insight delivers automated log management through aggregation, analyze and search, providing operational intelligence and enterprise-wide visibility in dynamic hybrid cloud environments. It reads ,collects and analyze all types of machine generated log data such as application logs, configuration files, performance data and messages. You can connect almost operating systems, storage,firewalls, networks devices such as routers and switches to vCenter Log Insight.

Greatest feature of the vCenter Log Insight is its integration with lot of VMware products such as ESX/ESXi host , vCenter Server, vCenter Operations managers,etc. It is so easy to perform the log management and troubleshoot analysis of the log files of your vSphere environment easily by integrating with your vSphere environment. This post is going to explain the detailed procedure for the integration of your vSphere environment with vCenter Log Insight.

Access your vCenter Log Insight Server using the below URL and login with the admin credentials.

https:// log_insight-host/

If you didn’t integrated your vSphere environment with Log Insight, It will display the  below option for the integration. Click on vSphere Integration Page for the setup.

You can integrate the vCenter Log Insight with your vCenter server or directly to the ESXi host. Below 2 operations can be achieved from the Log Insight with the vSphere integration.

1. You can collect vCenter Server events, tasks and alarms

2. Configure ESXi hosts to send logs to Log Insight

Enter your vCenter Server hostname and IP address. Provide the administrative credentials for your vCenter server.  Click on Test Connection to test your connectivity. You can add multiple vCenter Servers using the option ” Add vCenter Server”. Click on Save.

Click on Advanced options under ” Configure ESXi hosts to send logs to Log Insight” to Configure all ESXi hosts or to configure specific ESXi hosts. Select the particular ESXi hosts from the list to configure it.

ESXi 4 hosts can only have one syslog target. You can define the option to handle the logs collection for ESXi 4 hosts. Select either one of the options to handle the ESXi 4 hosts syslog target. You have a option to configure the protocol for your syslog traffic.

1. Overwrite  existing syslog target for ESXi 4 hosts

2. Do not overwrite (logs from ESXi 4 hosts will not be send to Log Insight)

Once the Integration of  the vCenter Log Insight with vSphere is completed. You will be able to see the events from your vCenter server are started reporting on the homepage of the vCenter Log Insight.

you will be able to see the log files sending to your vCenter Log Insight from your ESXi hosts under Interactive Analytics.

Cool isn’t.  we will see detailed procedure  to perform  various operations using vCenter Log Insight. Thanks for reading!!. I hope this is informative for me. Sharing it in social media, If you feel worth sharing it.

ESXi shell and SSH are the 2  command line option mostly used by the VMware Administrators along with PowerCLI. Mostly ESXi Shell will be used for the initial configuration of ESXi host after the build and at the time of ESXi server is not reachable on the network. SSH is mostly used all the times by administrators. So, We will be enabling ESXi shell and SSH mostly in our virtual environment for administrative purposes.

If you have enabled this 2 options (SSH and ESXi shell) in your ESXi host, There will be annoying alert always displaying the Configuration Issues (ESXi shell for the host has been enabled and SSH for the host has been enabled) under your ESXi host summary tab.

This annoying alert can be suppressed by simply changing the advanced settings of your ESXi host. Login to your vCenter server or ESXi host using vSphere client.

Under Configuration tab, Click on Advanced Settings -> Click on UserVars

Change the Value of “ UserVars.SuppressShellWarning” = 1 to suppress the warnings . Click on ok. Default value is 0.

Once Value has been set, Your annoying warning on the ESXi host will disappear. I hope this is informative for you. Thanks for Reading !!!! Be social and share it in social media, if you feel share it.

This post will be really helpful when you are troubleshooting your ESXi host network communication issue. As ESXi admin, We will not be knowing much information about the physical switch  configuration for our ESXi host but still we will be able to get the phsyical switch information using the CDP (Cisco Discovery Protocol). The Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP) is a Cisco’s proprietary Data Link Layer protocol used to share information about other directly connected Cisco equipment, such as upstream Physical switch.

CDP allows ESX and ESXi administrators to determine the vSwitch is connected to which Cisco switch port. You will be able to see the properties of the Cisco switch, such as device ID, software version, and timeout from the vSphere Client when the CDP is enabled on the vSwitch. This information is useful when troubleshooting network connectivity issues related to VLAN tagging methods on virtual and physical port settings.

Image thanks for VMware.com

Good to know. Ok, Let’s imagine the situation,  ESXi host is not reaching in the network. You are not able to connect to your ESXi host using Putty or vSphere Client. How to do identify the CDP information and collect the network switch and Port details in which your ESXi host vSwitch or vmnic is connected. This post helps you to achieve this just from the ESXi shell from your console Connection such as ILO or DRAC. This command can also be used when you connect your ESXi host using SSH connection.

Execute the below command to identify the Switch Name and Switch Port ID in which your vmnic “vmnic0″ is Connected:

~ # vim-cmd hostsvc/net/query_networkhint –pnic=vmnic0 | egrep ‘portId|devId’

devId = “cisco-swt1.vmwarearena.com(SSI55030KNE)”,

portId = “Ethernet107/1/13″,

In the baove command, DevID is the Switch name and PortId is the Ethernet port on the switch.

Execute the below command to identify the Switch Name and Switch Port in which you vmnic “vmnic1″ is Connected:

~ # vim-cmd hostsvc/net/query_networkhint –pnic=vmnic1 | egrep ‘portId|devId’

devId = “cisco-swt1.vmwarearena.com(SSI55030KNE)”,

portId = “Ethernet108/1/13″,:

Execute the below command to identify the VLAN Id’s which are tagged for your vmnic “vmnic1″:

~ # vim-cmd hostsvc/net/query_networkhint –pnic=vmnic1 | egrep ‘vlan’

vlanId = 32,

vlanId = 87,

vlanId = 88,

vlanId = 89,

vlanId = 3052,

vlanId = 0,

vlanId = 3061,

vlanId = 59,

vlan = 1,

VLAN’s which are visible from the command output are listed by your vmnic using CDP. There may be a chance that some vlan’s which are tagged by not visible in the above command. It is  best to collaborate with your network team to get more detailed networking information.

 Execute the below command to Get the observed IP subnet information of your vmnic “vmnic1″ :

~ # vim-cmd hostsvc/net/query_networkhint –pnic=vmnic1 |egrep ‘ipSubnet’

ipSubnet = “192.161.28.224-192.161.28.254″,

ipSubnet = “192.162.27.206-192.162.27.206″,

ipSubnet = “192.164.83.171-192.164.83.171″,

ipSubnet = “192.162.10.1-192.162.11.254″,

ipSubnet = “192.162.125.2-192.162.125.2″,

ipSubnet = “192.161.1.1-192.161.1.1″,

ipSubnet = “172.16.192.128-172.16.192.143″,

ipSubnet = “0.0.0.1-255.255.255.254″,

 Execute the below command to collect the complete network hint information for your vmnic “vmnic1″. It displays the the VLAN info, IP address information, Physical Switch name, Physical Switch information like switch model, software version ,location,etc and network configurations of the physical switch.

~ # vim-cmd hostsvc/net/query_networkhint –pnic=vmnic1

(vim.host.PhysicalNic.NetworkHint) [

(vim.host.PhysicalNic.NetworkHint) {

dynamicType = <unset>,

device = "vmnic1",

subnet = (vim.host.PhysicalNic.NetworkHint.IpNetwork) [

(vim.host.PhysicalNic.NetworkHint.IpNetwork) {

dynamicType = <unset>,

vlanId = 32,

ipSubnet = "192.162.21.192-192.162.21.254",

},

(vim.host.PhysicalNic.NetworkHint.IpNetwork) {

dynamicType = <unset>,

vlanId = 87,

ipSubnet = "192.162.27.206-192.162.27.206",

},

(vim.host.PhysicalNic.NetworkHint.IpNetwork) {

dynamicType = <unset>,

vlanId = 88,

ipSubnet = "192.164.83.171-192.164.83.171",

},

(vim.host.PhysicalNic.NetworkHint.IpNetwork) {

dynamicType = <unset>,

vlanId = 89,

ipSubnet = "192.162.10.1-192.162.11.254",

},

(vim.host.PhysicalNic.NetworkHint.IpNetwork) {

dynamicType = <unset>,

vlanId = 3052,

ipSubnet = "192.162.125.2-192.162.125.2",

},

(vim.host.PhysicalNic.NetworkHint.IpNetwork) {

dynamicType = <unset>,

vlanId = 0,

ipSubnet = "192.161.1.1-192.161.1.1",

},

(vim.host.PhysicalNic.NetworkHint.IpNetwork) {

dynamicType = <unset>,

vlanId = 3061,

ipSubnet = "172.16.192.128-172.16.192.143",

},

(vim.host.PhysicalNic.NetworkHint.IpNetwork) {

dynamicType = <unset>,

vlanId = 59,

ipSubnet = "0.0.0.1-255.255.255.254",

}

],

connectedSwitchPort = (vim.host.PhysicalNic.CdpInfo) {

dynamicType = <unset>,

cdpVersion = 2,

timeout = 0,

ttl = 146,

samples = 11606,

devId = “cisco-swt1.vmwarearena.com(SSI55030KNE)”,

address = “192.162.160.24″,

portId = “Ethernet108/1/13″,

deviceCapability = (vim.host.PhysicalNic.CdpDeviceCapability) {

dynamicType = <unset>,

router = false,

transparentBridge = false,

sourceRouteBridge = false,

networkSwitch = true,

host = false,

igmpEnabled = true,

repeater = false,

},

softwareVersion = “Cisco Nexus Operating System (NX-OS) Software, Version 5.2(1)N1(4)”,

hardwarePlatform = ” N5K-C5596T “,

ipPrefix = “0.0.0.0″,

ipPrefixLen = 0,

vlan = 1,

fullDuplex = true,

mtu = 1500,

systemName = “cisco-swt1″,

systemOID = “1.7.6.1.5.1.9.12.13.1.3.1384″,

mgmtAddr = “192.162.160.24″,

location = “India,Bang-KR “,

},

lldpInfo = (vim.host.PhysicalNic.LldpInfo) null,

}

]

I hope this is informative for you. Thanks for Reading!!!. Be Social and share it in social media, if you feel worth sharing it.

As you all aware that, VMware vCenter Log Insight is a Virtual appliance from VMware that allows administrators to view, analyze and manage the syslog data. It allows the administrators to consolidate, monitor and analyze the logs to troubleshoot the vSphere efficiently and also it helps to perform security auditing and compliance management. vCenter Log Insight appliance is multipurpose appliance that includes syslog server, log consolidation and log analysis. vCenter Log Insight delivers automated log management through aggregation, analyze and search, providing operational intelligence and enterprise-wide visibility in dynamic hybrid cloud environments. It reads ,collects and analyze all types of machine generated log data such as application logs, configuration files, performance data and messages. You can connect almost operating systems, storage,firewalls, networks devices such as routers and switches to vCenter Log Insight.

This post is going to explain you with the procedure to configure your vCenter Server Appliance (vCSA) to send its logs files to the vCenter Log Insight server. So that you will  have the log files of your vCenter Server appliance also included in the Log Insight server and it will ready for the intelligent analysis incase of troubleshooting.

Log in to your vCenter Server Appliance(vCSA) server with your root credentials using SSH connection such as Putty.  Browse towards the directory, /etc/syslog-ng using the below command

cd /etc/syslog-ng

Edit the syslog-ng.log using the editor such as Vi editor. Enter the below command to edit the syslog file

vi syslog-ng.conf

Add the following text at the end of the file “Syslog-ng.conf”. Using the below config, we are sending the following log files (vpxd.log, vpxd-alert.log, vws.log, vmware-vpxd.log, ds.log) from your vCenter server appliance to your vCenter Log Insight server. You can add or remove the log files by your choice.

source vpxd {
file(“/var/log/vmware/vpx/vpxd.log” follow_freq(1) flags(no-parse));
file(“/var/log/vmware/vpx/vpxd-alert.log” follow_freq(1) flags(no-parse));
file(“/var/log/vmware/vpx/vws.log” follow_freq(1) flags(no-parse));
file(“/var/log/vmware/vpx/vmware-vpxd.log” follow_freq(1) flags(no-parse));
file(“/var/log/vmware/vpx/inventoryservice/ds.log” follow_freq(1) flags(no-parse));
};
destination loginsight { udp(“<loginsight-host>”); };
log { source(vpxd); destination(loginsight); };

Enter the Log Insight host name in the place of “<loginsight-host>” in the above text. Even you can specify the protocol TCP in the place of UDP. Once the above lines are added in the config file. Save the file and exit using the below command by pressing Esc key and enter :wq!  to save and exit the config file.

Restart the Syslog server for the configuration to apply. Restart using the below command

Service syslog restart

That’s it.  Your vCenter Log Insight server will start receiving the log files from your vCenter Server Appliance(vCSA). I hope this is informative for you. Thanks for reading!!!.