Category: vSphere

New and updated VMware flings for September 2017

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Intro

No WWE quotes,clips or sounds this month. So here I am reporting from couch central that there have been three updated flings in September. One steady name in this monthly post has been the vSphere HTML5 Web client but don’t underestimate the VMware OS Optimization Tool that is been in here a couple of times already as well. A new name is the Horizon Migration Tool, while it’s been there for quite some time it doesn’t get a lot of updates but it gets them and that’s awesome.

New Flings

None, nada, nothing, you can’t expect to have a new one every month do you?

Updated Flings

[sta_anchor id=”horizonmigrationtool” unsan=”Horizon_Migration_Tool”]Horizon Migration Tool[/sta_anchor]

The Horizon Migration Tool has been created to help companies migrate from Citrix to Horizon View.

Changelog

Version 3.0.0

  • Supports Citirx to Horizon 7.2 migration
  • Added Citrix PVS Desktop pool migration to Horizon 7.2
  • Added Citrix Dedicate MCS Desktop Pool migraiton to Horizon 7.2 as manual pool, linked-clone pool or instant clone pool
  • Fixed Bug: XenApp applications with customerized path includes spaces will migrate properly.

[sta_anchor id=”osot”]VMware OS Optimization Tool[/sta_anchor]

Like I said before the VMware OS Optimization Tool  is THE tool to use when you want (and you need to!) optimize any Golden Image. No matter if it’s build for VDI,RDS or even physical desktops this is THE go to tool for that.

Changelog

September 20, 2017

  • Supports new mode for optimization item: display-only
  • Supports more easy information retrieval. For example, installed product version, service current status

[sta_anchor id=”html5webclient”]vSPhere HTML5 Web Client[/sta_anchor]

Clearly the vSphere HTML5 Web Client is getting a lot of updates. In the August version of this post the newest was 3.20 while we’re at 3.23 at the moment. I will give all updates, fixes and known issues since then.

Changelog
Fling 3.23 – Build 6682372

New Features

  • Download folder from the File Browser

Improvements

  • DRS groups can be filtered by member.
  • Replication group are shown on the VM Storage Policy portlet

Known Issues

  • If you see error in the vSphere Client (HTML5) similar to this – ‘getHostIsAssignLicenseActionAvailable’, then you can resolve this error by following below steps:
    • If vSphere Client (HTML5) Fling appliance is pointed to a vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA), then you should reregister the fling appliance by logging in to FAMI UI (or by running the config-ui CLI). Refer the instructions document to follow the steps for configuring Fling appliance for VCSA.
    • If vSphere Client (HTML5) Fling appliance is pointed to a Windows vCenter Server, then reregister by downloading latest server-configure.bat from the Download section of this website. Refer the instructions document to follow the steps for configuring Fling appliance for Windows vCenter Server.
Fling 3.22 – Build 6613965

New Features

  • The list of software packages installed on a host can be viewed (for ESXi version 6.5)
  • Edit Video Card information for a VM

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed few bugs related to snapshots

Known Issues

  • If you see error in the vSphere Client (HTML5) similar to this – ‘getHostIsAssignLicenseActionAvailable’, then you can resolve this error by following below steps:
    • If vSphere Client (HTML5) Fling appliance is pointed to a vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA), then you should reregister the fling appliance by logging in to FAMI UI (or by running the config-ui CLI). Refer the instructions document to follow the steps for configuring Fling appliance for VCSA.
    • If vSphere Client (HTML5) Fling appliance is pointed to a Windows vCenter Server, then reregister by downloading latest server-configure.bat from the Download section of this website. Refer the instructions document to follow the steps for configuring Fling appliance for Windows vCenter Server.
Fling 3.21 – Build 6555866

New Features

  • Create and edit VM customization specifications with custom network configurations
  • Edit/Clone Storage Policy Component
  • Datastore capability sets (Datastore > Configure > Capability sets)
  • Create, edit and delete Link Aggregation Groups on Distributed Switches

Improvements

  • Confirmation on logout when there is upload file task in progress
  • Quick filter is introduced in the network selection dialog at Edit VM Settings > Network Adapter > Browse. It replaces the per-column filtering.
  • Enable/disable IPv6 on ESXi hosts.
  • Shares information is now available on Resource Allocation views for clusters and resource pools.
  • ESXi hardware health: when deployed against 6.5 vCenter, timestamps for sensor readings are displayed.

Bug Fixes

  • Cluster > Monitor > vSphere HA > Heartbeat now displays the actual set of datastores used by HA (used to display only the user-configured datastores)

Known Issues

  • If you see error in the vSphere Client (HTML5) similar to this – ‘getHostIsAssignLicenseActionAvailable’, then you can resolve this error by following below steps:
    • If vSphere Client (HTML5) Fling appliance is pointed to a vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA), then you should reregister the fling appliance by logging in to FAMI UI (or by running the config-ui CLI). Refer the instructions document to follow the steps for configuring Fling appliance for VCSA.
    • If vSphere Client (HTML5) Fling appliance is pointed to a Windows vCenter Server, then reregister by downloading latest server-configure.bat from the Download section of this website. Refer the instructions document to follow the steps for configuring Fling appliance for Windows vCenter Server.

New and updated VMware flings for August 2017

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Intro

(For those of you who ever watch or used to watch WWE think: New Age Outlaws. For those who never did watch this from about 1:40.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, nerds of all ages. Retouw.nl proudly brings to you, the monthly  VMware Labs updated Fliiiiings. The new, the updated change logs and all.

“And if you ain’t down with that I got two words for ya: read it!”

This month we had two new flings and six updated including a dinosaur that I even forgot it existed!

New Flings

vRealize Operations Export tool

Ever felt the need to export all of that vRops data because you don’t trust the recommendations it makes for you? This is your chance to do just that. The vRealize Operations Export Tool actually is an Open Source Fling and can be found on Github. If you want to know more about the VMware Open Source initiative visiting this site might be usefull.

Changelog

No changelog yet.

DRS Dump Insight

While DRS Lens already gives you some insight in why DRS actions might be happening the DRS Dump Insight actually uses drmdump files created on vCenter and analyses why a DRS action really happened or not and you can also run what-if scenarios to see what would happen if a threshold had been breached.

Changelog

Again no changelog yet.

Updated flings

Like I said 6 updated flings and let’s start with the Dinosaur you (like me) might have forgotten.

Visual Esxtop

WHAT? Yes Visual Esxtop has been updated! Duncan wrote about this over four years ago and I believe it might actually be older then that. The name says enough, this shows you the output from ESXtop in a graphical way and since I can never ever describe it better then Duncan head over there to read about it!

Changelog

I could copy the only changelog item but since that mentions vSphere 5.5 I think this might be an old one 🙂

ESXi Embedded Host Client

The ESXi Embedded Host client is in the GA product since 6.x but there’s still lab updates being released. Some very nice fixes have been implemented.

Changelog

Version 1.23.0 build 6360286 (Fling 18) – August 16, 2017

Minor features and bugfixes

  • General
    • Display the VM List in the Host autostart settings
    • Fix role selection in IE 11
    • Correct partition info portlet
    • Better handling of unknown partition types
    • Fix issue with fractional cores per socket in VM settings
    • Several wizard fixes
    • Remove persistent warning when importing VMs that include a floppy drive
    • Fix hidden selection when using the ‘select all’ checkbox in a filtered VM list
    • Handle OVAs with a missing description field
    • Available NICs display correctly
    • Default VMFS to the most recent version when formatting
    • Security fixes

VMware OS Optimization Tool

This is THE go to application if it comes to building golden images for VDI or SBC environments. If it is Horizon or Citrix if you don’t optimize you will fail!

Changelog

August 2, 2017

  • New Template: App Volumes Packaging Machine – This template is intended to be used by Application Packagers who are responsible for creating AppStacks and should only be used on the ‘Packaging machine’.

vSphere HTML5 Web Client

The HTML5 client  got a couple of updates with heaps of new features and bugfixes.

Changelog

Fling 3.20 – Build 6433743

New Features

  • Installed I/O Filters for Cluster and Host
  • Create and configure network resource pools in Network I/O Control v3

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed exception when navigating to VM summary page and configuring VM overrides: “Could not fetch query binding: com.vmware.vsphere.client.clusterui.model.services.VmFailureResponsesData”

Known Issues

  • If you see error in the vSphere Client (HTML5) similar to this – ‘getHostIsAssignLicenseActionAvailable’, then you can resolve this error by following below steps:
    • If vSphere Client (HTML5) Fling appliance is pointed to a vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA), then you should reregister the fling appliance by logging in to FAMI UI (or by running the config-ui CLI). Refer the instructions document to follow the steps for configuring Fling appliance for VCSA.
    • If vSphere Client (HTML5) Fling appliance is pointed to a Windows vCenter Server, then reregister by downloading latest server-configure.bat from the Download section of this website. Refer the instructions document to follow the steps for configuring Fling appliance for Windows vCenter Server.

Fling 3.19 – Build 6365405

New Features

  • Add host and client USB device to a VM
  • Add USB controller
  • Assign License action on VC/Cluster/Host
  • Edit/Clone VM Storage Policy
  • Edit Storage Policies of a VM (Actions > VM Policies > Edit VM Storage Policies…)
  • Storage Policy components view
  • Create/Delete Storage Policy components
  • Related VM Templates view for a Storage Policy
  • Mount VVOL datastore action
  • VVOL Capability Profiles Capacity portlet
  • Create and edit VM customization specifications (without custom network configurations)
  • Configure per disk option on Select storage page when cloning VM/template
  • Host lists can be sorted by consumed CPU and memory
  • Monitoring DRS memory utilization for clusters allows switching between active and consumed memory for the charts
  • Updated UI of the compatibility issues dialog in the migrate wizard – ability to sort the compatibility by VM, host or compatibility issue

Bug Fixes

  • The list of physical network adapters didn’t render correctly for some ESX hosts and an error message was appearing on the top of the page
  • Setting the DRS advanced option “PercentIdleMBInMemDemand” through the advanced settings now works for any value

Known Issues

  • If you see error in the vSphere Client (HTML5) similar to this – ‘getHostIsAssignLicenseActionAvailable’, then you can resolve this error by following below steps:
    • If vSphere Client (HTML5) Fling appliance is pointed to a vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA), then you should reregister the fling appliance by logging in to FAMI UI (or by running the config-ui CLI). Refer the instructions document to follow the steps for configuring Fling appliance for VCSA.
    • If vSphere Client (HTML5) Fling appliance is pointed to a Windows vCenter Server, then reregister by downloading latest server-configure.bat from the Download section of this website. Refer the instructions document to follow the steps for configuring Fling appliance for Windows vCenter Server.
  • If you see this error when you click on the VM – “Could not fetch query binding: com.vmware.vsphere.client.clusterui.model.services.VmFailureResponsesData cause: java.lang.RuntimeException: Could not fetch query binding: com.vmware.vsphere.client.clusterui.model.services.VmVmcpSupportData”, collaps the HA portlet in the VM summary. We are working on fixing this.

HCIBench

HCIBench is a tool to test your hyperconverged infrastructure. No vSan required, any HCI is good as long as it runs vSphere.

Changelog

Version Version 1.6.3

  • Enhanced vSANPerformanceDiagnose function call
  • Enhanced port 443 validation
  • Enhanced results calculation
  • Added host maintenance mode validation
  • Added deployment validation

Horizon Toolbox

This one came out at the very last moment of August. Some bugs have been fixed and a couple of old features that had been removed have been re-added but have been marked deprecated.

Changelog

2017-Aug-31 Horizon Toolbox 7.2.1

Bugs fixed

  • Auditing – Export CSV failed
  • Console Access – Some vCenter versions were not supported. Now, almost all vCenter versions after 5.5 are supported.
  • Console Access – “Parent VMs” show all VMs. Now only the VMs which are (or ready to be) parent VMs are shown.
  • Installation sometimes failed due to Tomcat error. Now, the installation should be successful every time if the Connection Server is good.

New Features

  • Console Access – “Problem VMs” show the VMs with View Agent, but in abnormal status like “error”, “unavailable” or others.

The following features are added back since some customers strongly require these features, but they are marked as “deprecated”, since we suggest using the production features in Horizon or VIDM.

  • Management- Remote Assistance
  • Management- Device Access Filter

Altaro VM backup 7: the restores (part 2)

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So a couple of weeks ago I managed to get my homelab backups running with Altaro.  Backups off course are nice but are worthless if you can’t recover them. This is  why this 2nd and last part of mini serie is about restoring the backups. Altaro has several options available: Restore clone, to a different host, File level restore and Exchange Item level restore plus the option to do a sandbox restore or simulation for testing those backups.

Table of Contents

Disk Usage
VM Restore
File level restore
Sandbox and verification
Boot from backup
Reports
Conclusion

Disk usage

Before restoring anything I was curious how much disk space is in use

Not that much, disk E is in use for the domain controller, file server, pfsense and server 2012 template while disk F is in use for the vCenter server, Platform Service controller and windows 7 template.

And this is how Altaro shows everything int he dashboard (can’t find any other reporting option on storage, yes that’s a hint Altaro I want that stuff in the mail!)

A very small growth rate but then I haven’t done a while lot with the homelab in this time. But the compression and dedupe are nice while the cpu doesn’t even spike that much each day.


VM restore

Ok, enough text about disk usage, let’s actually restore something! First up is VM restore.

To start select the datastore where the VM is saved. I would have preferred to select the VM first because at this point I don’t care where it is saved I want it back asap. And yes I can select all datastores but that shouldn’t be needed.

Click next and select the VM to be restored

Here I can select the point in time to restore from, the name of the restored VM (why does the default name contain clone while it’s a restore?), where to restore to and to disabled the NIC or not.

In vCenter you’ll see a new VM created, renamed and snapshotted

Now Altaro will fill it up and after 23 minutes of waiting (on my slow server) I had a fully functional VM that thought it had crashed 😉


File Level restore

File level restore isn’t that different from a VM level restore. I won’t bore you with the screenshots but first select the datastore and vm to restore from. Then select the point in time you want to get something back from. I don’t really get the order in which this is presented either.

Select the disk, partition, folder and eventually file to restore

Select the place to restore it to (why isn’t the original VM an option over here?)

And the file is restored


Sandbox and verification

Sandbox testing the VM’s is rather easy as well. First choose what you actually want to test. At first I’ll try the option to verify folders. For some steps I will only show the image because I am afraid that you’ve already fallen asleep by now.

Very weird but I can’t select any folders to test? My guess is that all folders will be tested, why do you name it verify folders then?

The full Test Restore is exactly the same but it mounts the VM so you can see it booting. To me this sounds exactly like restoring a VM with its NIC disabled. There seems to be no notification of a successful test and I needed to go to the dashboard to see if it succeeded. And there only the result is visible and no logs or anything. Also the option to remove the sandbox VM is missing.

The option to remove the test VM that seems to be missing is available in the Schedule test drills option. First refresh your infrastructure and select the VMware schedule type

Add a new Sandbox restore schedule, again there are 2 major options, file test and full test restore

So for the full test restore you can select after how much time the VM will be deleted. Besides the schedule not a whole lot of options.

After the schedule has been created you need to drag a VM to the schedule. I guess this will test the last version of the VM backup but for me it would be nice to also test two versions earlier or something.


Boot from backup

The storage I use won’t be able to handle this properly but Altaro also has the option to boot a VM directly from the storage it is saved on. First select if you want to do a verification or recovery mode boot. To show the screens I will take the first option.

It has the same screens to select storage,VM and date so I won’t bother you again with those. At the version tab you can again select the host, datastore to restore to and if you want to have the NIC’s disabled or not.


Reports

The reporting doesn’t really contain a whole lot except a list of succeeded or failed tasks. The detail button doesn’t add a whole lot of information either.

The error history shows a bit more information but still not a lot.


Conclusion

Altaro is a reasonable well done product that lack’s a bit in options for the professional in me. Getting it running is easy and for smaller environments (up to 50 VM’s) where there is no dedicated admin it should get the job done. If they make the move to a Linux based appliance that might be better because for these smaller environments every penny and thus license counts. What I do like are the build in options to actually test the backups.

Back to basics: Daily checks

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Something I still hear a lot that system engineers take their vSphere environment for granted and hardly check anything on a daily basis. I always point them at Alan Renouf‘s brilliant health check script while there are other ways to get your daily dose of health this one still rocks for me. You can remove unwanted plugins or make different selections of plugins for daily, weekly or monthly checks. Now and then I still hear people that had issues because of snapshots and there is no need for that anymore and hasn’t been for years! This script has saved me lots of times already + it helped me get management support for limiting other people’s access to the environment because they had no idea what they where doing.

Example of the output you can get:

2016-07-03 20_13_59-192.168.0.11 vCheck