Tag: Fling

The VMware Labs flings monthly for July 2020- Reach is back!

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A couple of days late but I had  good excuse: I was away on a holiday. I needed it and enjoyed it and have a week left before I start work again. This month there was one new release and nine flings received an update. Overall it’s a EUC rich overview since no less than seven of those are Horizon / App Volumes related.

New Releases

App Volumes Packaging Utility

Updated flings

HCIBench

App Volumes Migration Utility

Horizon Session Recording

Power vRA Cloud

Horizon Reach

Desktop Watermark

App Volumes Entitlement Sync

vSphere Mobile Client

VMware OS Optimization Tool

New Releases

App Volumes Packaging Utility

This App Volumes Packaging Utility helps to package applications. With this fling, packagers can add the necessary metadata to MSIX app attach VHDs so they can be used alongside existing AV format packages. The MSIX format VHDs will require App Volumes 4, version 2006 or later and Windows 10, version 2004 or later.

Updated Flings

HCIBench

HCIBench is a VMware wrapper around VdBench or Fio to test the capabilities of your HCI environement. I would recommend always to test with your own settings so you can do an honest comparison.

Changelog

Version 2.4.0

  1. Fixed tvm deployment bug when specifying host
  2. enabled easy run to support stretched cluster
  3. fixed timezone issue on pdf report, and added more vSAN info into PDF report
  4. set testname and testcase as variables in grafana
  5. added CPU workload into fio config page
  6. updated rbvmomi to support vsphere 7.0+
  7. enhanced fio and vdbench graphite dashboards

MD5 Checksum: 0cfd6cc852e33e5ce32022a66539b4c9 HCIBench_2.4.0.ova

App Volumes Migration Utility

The App Volumes Migration Utility helps the users in moving from App Volumes 2.18 to App VOlumes 4 so app stacks don’t need to be reprovisioned.

Changelog

Version 1.0.3 Update

  • Field “uniqueId” is added in the metadata JSON for migrated appstacks.

Version 1.0.2 Update

  • Fix for fling bug 983.
  • The customer bug on the fling, exposed an un handled scenario.
  • Prior to migration if the appstacks registry database contained registry keys with embedded NUL
  • (\0) chars in their name, Migration fails.
  • This scenario has now been addressed with this update.

Horizon Session Recording

The Horizon Session Recording is a usefull tool when an Horizon Admin wants to be able to record sessions and see what the users are doing exactly when a problems happens.

Changelog

Version 2.1 Update

  • Many bugfixes in agent side

Power vRA Cloud

PowervRA Cloud is a PowerShell module that abstracts the VMware vRealize Automation Cloud APIs to a set of easily used PowerShell functions. This tool provides a comprehensive command line environment for managing your VMware vRealize Automation Cloud environment.

Changelog

Version 1.3

  • 4 x New Cmdlets for VMC
  • 5 x New Cmdlets for AWS
  • Powershell 7 on Windows Support
  • Bugfixes

Horizon Reach

If you don’t have any other 3rd partly tooling (like ControlUp, sorry gotta plug my employer 😛 ) to manage your Horizon environment than Reach is a very useful tool. This is not an update but a re-release, read below why.

Warning: Horizon Versions 7.10 through 7.12 have a known issue which can cause Horizon Reach to trigger a low memory issue on the Horizon Connection Server.

For Horizon 7.10, ensure to deploy Horizon 7.10.2. For 7.11 and 7.12, please refer to the following document here.

Desktop Watermark

The Desktop Watermark fling gives you the option to visible and unvisible mark the desktop that you are using.

Changelog

v1.2 – Build 20200713-signed Version Update

  • Added support for multiple displays.

App Volumes Entitlement Sync

The App Volumes Entitlement Sync flings helps an APp VOlumes admin to sync various App Volumes Environments like test/dev/prod or different pod’s for example.

Changelog

Version 4.1 Update:

  • Get App Volumes version from an API value which always returns the build number.
  • App Volumes 2006 and later has a problem with version 4.0 of the Fling in returning a string value.

vSphere Mobile Client

Manage vSphere from your phone or tablet with the vSphere Mobile Client fling, do I need to say more?

Changelog

Version 1.13.2 Update:

New:

  • Datastore details page (link from VM details page)

Improvements:

  • Fixed issues related to connecting to standalone ESXi VM console
  • Fixed issues when switching between servers

VMware OS Optimization Tool

Do you build golden images or templates? Than use the VMware OS Optimization Tool to optimize them!

Changelog

August, 2020, b1170 Update

Templates

  • New combined template for all versions of Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016 and 2019. Optimizations can have optional parameters to filter the version that a setting is applied to.

Optimizations

  • Turn off NCSI is no longer selected by default as this was shown to cause issues with some applications thinking they did not have internet connectivity.
  • New Optimizations added and some removed, For details see: https://techzone.vmware.com/resource/vmware-operating-system-optimization-tool-guide#Template_Updates

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed issues with re-enabling Windows Update functionality on Server 2016 and 2019.
  • Fixed issue that was preventing Windows Antimalware from being disabled properly.

Common Options

  • Changed interface and language on the Common Options page for Windows Update to remove confusion. This option can only be used to disable Windows Update as part of an optimization task. To re-enable Windows Update functionality, use the Update button on the main menu ribbon.

Guides

Updates to the VMware Horizon Helpdesk fling

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Today a new version has been released of the VMware Horizon Helpdesk fling by Andrew Morgan. One big change is that the Helpdesk license isn’t required anymore so at least a part of the functionality is available to owners of advanced or standard Horizon licenses.

the entire changelog:

Version 1.4.0.1

  • No longer requires a helpdesk license! Yay!
  • Added the ability to interact with vCenter machines
  • Added the ability to open vCenter VM consoles
  • Added the ability to perform bulk machine actions
  • Added the ability to perform refresh / recompose tasks directly from helpdesk.
  • Fixed performance issues with multiple windows open (see single instance).
  • Fixed a crash when logon durations could not be accessed.
  • Added polling to allow logon durations to be received if notavailable when the session page is requested.
  • Fixed a crash in the ending of processes.
  • Fixed a metric ton of bugs with delegated administration.
  • Fixed a memory leak in the tray icon menu, of all places.
  • Removed the logon page graphic as it was to much of a pain to change it’s colour when changing themes
  • Fixed some layout issues when changing themes.
  • Removed empty sites from the viewon the change pod tray menu.
  • Added preliminary support for Horizon 7.9.

 

Let’s look into some of the new options (will do the options without the helpdesk license last)

Added the ability to interact with vCenter machines 

From the pool view you’ll see an extra button for vCenter actions

And that will give these options

These all speak for themselves in functionality.

Added the ability to open vCenter VM consoles 

Open VM console will give an popup that asks for vCenter credentials.

Hit logon and a vrmc client should start if it’s installed

Added the ability to perform bulk machine actions 

The vCenter actions above can be done against multiple vm’s but also the various actions from View itself

Added the ability to perform refresh / recompose tasks directly from helpdesk. 

No longer requires a helpdesk license! Yay! 

when you use the std license the biggest difference is that you can’t view any specifics inside sessions since that’s all limited to the helpdesk license.

New fling: mobile vSphere management

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Every once in a while there’s a fling that looks too good to only be mentioned in my monthly updates. The vSphere mobile Client is one of those in my opinion. For years and years I have seen questions about apps to manage vSphere from your mobile device and there indeed have been a couple in the past. With the amount of available API’s some VMware engineers now have decided on creating a fling for it. Currently it’s only available for Android devices but it is an awesome step in the right direction.

vSphere Mobile Client enables administrators to monitor and manage vSphere infrastructure directly from any mobile device. Whether you want to check on the current or historical resource consumption; you want to get notifications on long running tasks; or you want to check the currently running tasks – the vSphere Mobile Client is there to help.

Features

  • VM overview: Review the status of your VMs including state (powered on/off), resource usage and configuration information
  • VM management: Change the power state of a VM or restart it. Locating the virtual machine to operate on can be done through search.
  • Task monitoring: Subscribe to any running task and receive a notification on your mobile device upon task completion, even when your device is in-active or you have another application running on the foreground.
  • Performance charts: Monitor the resource usage of a VM in real time or a day, week, month or year back. Counters include CPU, Memory, Storage and Network.

NOTE: vSphere Mobile Client is currently available for Android devices and vCenter 6.0+ deployments. Check the “Requirements” tab for more details. Access to vSphere infrastructure may require a secure access method such as VPN on a mobile device.

This is a technical preview release and as such it only has a limited subset of the intended functionality. The team would be releasing updates with new features regularly, but our main task is to gather feedback so please do not hesitate to reach out to us.

There are some screenshots on the fling site and the one below from my phone but once I am able to connect to my lab I will add some more.

The Horizon Helpdesk Utility fling version 1.3.3.1 has been released

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Last august I posted about a then new fling: the Horizon Helpdesk Utility While that release was great Andrew added a whole lot more of awesomeness.

Changelog

Version 1.3.3.1

  • Removed machine listings from session view (overkill)
  • Improved Environment view to include metrics on all connected infrastructure:
    • vSphere
    • Hosts
    • Datastores
    • Remote Pods
    • Events
    • Problem Machines
  • Added repeated queries for logon breakdown if missed on first instance
  • Added event query support for logon breakdown
  • Added events view for Farm and Desktop pools
  • Added inbuilt find / search to users / machines in pool views
  • Added support for multiselect in pool / farm views
  • Added graph / chart views of machines / sessions and problem machines on the environment overview
  • Added a pod switcher to the environment overview
  • Added a global search to the environment overview
  • Added support for Pod Jumping.
    • the ability to jump to a pod on demand
    • the ability to jump to a pod a session belongs to
  • Added support for an architecture view of Desktop Pools
  • Added support for an architecture view of Farms
    • Enhanced view of servers load evaluator value
  • Added bulk user tasks via pool or farm views:
    • Bulk messaging
    • Bulk log off
    • Bulk disconnect
    • Bulk reset
    • Bulk restart
  • Added support for a local pod view (AKA environment view):
    • Connection servers
    • Farms
    • Desktop pools
  • Added documentation (finally)
  • Added MSI installation support
  • Added a start time column to user sessions (this will persist as a preference)

Let’s take a look some of the new goodies, the first change is that you now get a proper connection alert:

The POD switcher

The show environment button will show you the environment as seen from the pod you are currently connected to. A lot of tabs with health information about those components and some counts on sessions, machines and problem machines.

The address behind Connected To will send you to the Horizon Admin Console, this might sound small but I like it!

When you open a pool this is what you see

All of the events for that pool and yes you can sort & filter them!

Some details for a users session

If there are multiple sessions (unlike in my lab) you can select them and mass send messages or do other actions against them.

The view for an RDS farm

So yes the best Horizon helpdesk tool ever just got improved by a 100%!

 

 

 

New EUC fling released: Horizon Helpdesk Utility

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Ok, normally I do a post each month with the latest and greatest flings and I will still do that tomorrow. Today though Andrew Morgan from VMware OCTO has released a fantastic new fling: Horizon Helpdesk Utility! But we already have the Helpdesk tool you might say? Well this fling is everything the helpdesk tool should have been. While it isn’t bad this one is way better.

First of all this fling is an app that you need to install on your own computer or a management server. It will keep its settings in C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming\HorizonHelpDeskAgent\ .net Framework 4.5.2 is required but most will already have that or a higher version installed. Installation itself is a quick next next finish with the warning that the signer of the application is not trusted, I have been told that this might be fixed in the next release. After installation you will find a new application in your start menu. I have already attached it to my start menu as well.

After starting you will get a box where you will need to fill in the server address including the http part and your credentials (the same role is required as the regular helpdesk tool)

If you don’t have a trusted certificate you will get a box to accept that certificate.

After that I was looking for something to popup but I just had a small icon added down right

Right click on this and you’ll see a small search box. This search is more easily reachable by using ctrl+F12

Put in a name and you’ll get a box that contains all matching names

Double click the correct account or session and the real deal will open up for you.

The diagrams hardly need any explanation, please also notice the user experience rating on the top right. The image in my lab doesn’t have anything installed so I can’t really show a lot but here are the views from the other tabs as well:

All entitlements for the user

This is pulled directly from the event database

Some more fancy diagrams about the blast protocol

The last tab shows all processes on the desktop, this can easily be filtered on any of the info shown

A possible improvement here would be some kind of checkbox to show only the users own processes because otherwise things can get confusing at RDS hosts. I’ve already talked with Andrew about that (actually the checkbox was his idea).

On the top left there’s a couple of pull down menus to allow for some actions on the session or the machine itself.

The remote control functionality starts windows’ own mrsa tool.

Despite running it against my own very small lab the tool seems to perform very well. I consider it for the few moments that I have used it as a very decent replacement for the original helpdesk tool.

 

 

The VMware Labs flings monthly for June 2018

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It’s less than two months before VMworld US is on us, are you looking forward to it? I know I am! In June there have been six updates to VMware flings:

ESXi Compatibility Checker

This was a new fling last month and now the ESXi Compatibility checker has been expanded with several functions like offline and multiple vCenter support. With this tool it is possible to check if your ESXi hosts will work with the latest and greatest that VMware has to offer.

Changelog

Build 8951845

Offline case support

  • The current script requires to be executed with access to both public internet and target hosts. The new version can separately validate compatibility from collecting hardware information. Hence, user can collect hardware information on a system without public internet access and save the information in a json file. And he can validate compatibility of collected hardware from a saved json file on a system with public internet access.

Example

  • The ‘-g’ option will collect hardware information and generate a json file. (no need to have internet access)
$compchecker.py -s <host> -u <user> -g <json-data-filename>
  • The ‘-f’ option will validate compatibility from a json file (no need to access target hosts)
$compchecker.py -f <json-data-filename>

Multiple virtual centers support

  • The host parameter with the ‘-s’ option now accepts comma separated multiple hostnames. This feature will be useful to create a single compatibility report for multiple VCs

example

$compchecker.py -s <host1>,<host2>,<host3> -u <user>(,<user>)

More information in the compatibility report

  • “Installed Release”, “Checked Release”, and hardware information have been added in the report.

The “-p” option to set a proxy server

  • The https proxy server can be specified with the “-p” option

Cross vCenter Workload Migration Utility

The Cross vCenter Workload Migration Utility provides a GUI to migrate vm’s between vCenters.

Changelog

Version 2.1, June 21, 2018

  • Increased simultaneous migration limit to 100 from 10
  • Added check to ignore unknown fields for inventory info
  • Fixed source/target site names in task status view
  • Updated status API to include version number

 

DRS Lens

As VMware vSphere DRS has become more widely adopted now, more and more users are interested in knowing how it works. They need more insights into DRS activity and actions. They want to know the value that DRS provides to their clusters. DRS Lens is an attempt to provide a UI-based solution to help understand DRS better. (yes this is a lame copy/paste, it’s too hot to come up with original stuf)

Changelog

Version 1.3

  • Upgraded apache tomcat to version 8.5.31 for security compliance.

vSphere HTML5 Web Client

What would this monthly overview be without the vSphere HTML5 Web client?

Changelog

Fling 3.39 – Build 8835608

New Features

  • All the features of Auto Deploy (when compared with the vSphere Web Client)
    • Software Depots
    • Deploy Rules
    • Deployed Hosts
    • Discovered Hosts
    • Configure (Auto-Deploy configuration)
  • Script Bundles support for Auto-Deploy (Available only in the vSphere Client)
    • Script Bundles view where all bundles are listed
    • Ability to Upload a script bundle
    • Ability to Add/Edit deploy rules with script bundles
  • New virtual switches view on a host which includes topology diagrams for standard and host proxy switches

Improvements

  • vApp properties create, edit, delete and set value functionality
  • VM vApp option properties create, edit, delete and set value functionality
  • vCenter Extensions
  • VM SDRS create, edit and delete

VMware OS Optimization Tool

Being an EUC guy this is simply my favorite fling, nothing new this time, it’s just a bug fix release.

Changelog

June 14, 2018

  • Issue fix: Crash in non-English locale (e.g. French)

Horizon Migration Tool

The Horizon Migration Tool helps you to migrate from Xendesktop/App to Horizon View. This is mainly a maintenance version for a tool they missed in the last release.

Changelog

Version 3.0.1

  • Fixed issue: add missed XenAppDumper.exe for XenApp 5.0

 

The VMware Labs flings monthly for March 2018

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So how was your april fools this year? I bet a lot of children have been looking for eggs that where never hidden. Luckily I got away with only a couple of good jokes by my kids. On the VMware flings front there are no new flings but seven have received one or more updates or more exact six have received an update and one has received a couple. The Cross vCenter Workload Migration Utility received it’s first update and for the App Volumes Utility it was several months ago. Besides those the Cross vCenter VM Mobility – CLI, HCIBench, VMware OS Optimization Tool, vSphere HTML5 Web Client and ESXi Embedded Host Client also received updates.

App Volumes Backup Utility

The App Volumes Backup Utility is one of the few ways to backup those writable volumes. Friends don’t let friends use them but if you do please make sure you have backups.

Version 2.1

  • Added missing pre and post backup prep files

Cross vCenter Workload Migration Utility

This is the graphical tool to move vm’s between vCenter servers. If you prefer a command line way please use the tool below.

Version 1.1.0, March 30, 2018

  • Added a detailed task info view for migration tasks
  • Fixed an issue with site name containing “DOT” characters
  • Display VM resource (CPU, Mem, Disk) info
  • Add a button to clear selected inventory data

Cross vCenter VM Mobility – CLI

This is the CLI way to move those vm’s between linked or not linked vCenter servers. If you prefer something visual then please use the tool above.

Version 1.6

  • Added support for bulk-relocate / bulk-clone which helps the user to migrate / clone multiple VMs specifying various destination locations in a single command.
  • Added support to choose destination resource pool

VMware OS Optimization Tool

Some use scripts, some use other tools but for me the OSOT is the preferred method to optimize my golden images.

March 30, 2018

  • [Template] Issue fix – DELETEVALUE actions do not do anything
  • [Template] Issue fix – DISM commands missing /NoRestart switch
  • [Tool] Issue fix – Switching to another tab loses all unsaved changes
  • [Tool] Enhancement – Simplify user interaction in Template Editor. Now editing template no longer requires repeated Update button click. Mac style editing is applied (Automatically save changes along with edit)

HCIBench

What is there to say about the HCIBench benchmarking tool for Hyperconverged Infrasturctures

Version 1.6.6.

  • Spectre & Meldown patch on both HCIBench VM and Client VM
  • Added client VM prefix field, allow running multiple HCIBench instances against single cluster
  • Attach testing log along with testing results
  • Enabled live vSAN Observer when running testing, using https://HCIBench_IP:8010
  • Updated the drop read/write cache script
  • Added more message info during the testing
  • Bug fixes

vSphere HTML5 Web Client

A couple of updates for the vSphere html5 client, more and more features are being added so it will end on par with the flash client.

Fling 3.36 – Build 8111348

New Features

  • Customize additional hardware devices/options during VM creation or cloning:
    • Host USB device
    • SCSI controller
    • USB controller
    • SATA controller
    • CPU > CPUID Mask > Advanced
    • VM Options > VMRC options
    • VM Options > VMware Tools > Power Operations
    • VM Options > Power Management > Wake up on LAN
    • VM Options > Advanced Configuration Parameters
    • VM Options > Fibre Channel NPIV
  • Warn when about to perform an operation on VM template(s) managed by a solution

Bug Fixes

  • SSO authentication error during accessing the vSphere Client from the fling appliance is resolved
Fling 3.35 – Build 7914771

Improvements

  • UI improvements on Quick search including
    • Search dropdown design is changed to show the top 10 results
    • View all results page design is modified to show grouping in the object navigator and the results in the right pane
  • UI improvements in grouping of hard disks in Edit Settings and VM Summary. If there are more than 4 harddisks for a VM, you will see them grouped in Edit settings. This enhancements will improve the performance of the VM Edit Settings.

ESXi Embedded Host Client

This should eb installed on your ESXi hosts by default by now but ESXi embedded host client is  getting updates trough this channel.

Version 1.29.0 build 8122819 (Fling 20) – March 28, 2018
  • General
    • Reset selection on vm deletion
    • Fix issue with datastore wizard on very large datastores
    • Update available rdm disk list in vm wizard
    • Correct miscalculation of datastore total in wizard
    • Better support for NSX networks
    • Fix clicking issues on full-screen and new tab console screen
    • Prevent password maangers from autofilling optional field on login page.
    • Minor bug fixes and cosmetic changes

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

Updated flings for Horizon View in May

  By , ,

Yes I am a bit late but there are only two Horizon View related flings that received an update last month. First is the OS Optimization tool and second is the Ubuntu OVA for Horizon. The OSOT even already received an update in June but that’s for next month.

Ubuntu OVA for Horizon

Changelog:

v1.1.0

  • MATE Only Release
  • Increased vRAM to 128 MB instead of Automatic
  • Removed Audio Device
  • Updated default network device to VMXNET3
  • Updated repository for open-vm-tools to Ubuntu repo
  • Added Horizon 7.1 Agent Dependencies
  • Updated Dependency packages for Ubuntu 16.04 on Horizon 7.1
  • Agent installer script updated with Horizon 7.1 links
  • Updated Media Codec packages for Ubuntu 16.04
  • Updated MATE packages to Xenial
  • More reliable domain join
  • Password update optional
  • Timezone update optional
  • Option to change hostname
  • Desktop addons optional
  • Added retry attempts for failed wgets of smb and krb5 configuration files
  • Renamed ‘horizon-linux-installer.sh’ to ‘linux-agent-installer.sh

VMware OS Optimization Tool

Changelog

May 16, 2017

  • OSOT binary is now digital-signed, to make sure the integrity of distribution
  • Template update: Windows 10 – Item “Use small icons on taskbar” is unselected by default.

Updated flings for Horizon View

  By , ,

The last couple of weeks some of the flings applicable for Horizon View and that I had in my VMUG presentation have been updated. The Horizon Toolbox 2 has been updated so it now supports console access for vCenter 6.0u2 and 6.5 + it now supports horizon 7.1. The Horizon OS Optimization Tool got several bugfixes.

Recent change for the Horizon Toolbox 2:

2017-Mar-17 Horizon Toolbox 2.1.3

New Features

  • Support new Horizon version(7.1)
  • Support new VCenter version(VC6.5 and 6.0u2a) in Console Access feature

 

Recent changelog for the OSOT:

April 27, 2017 b1090b

  • Issue Fix: “the node to be removed is not a child of this node” when opitimize windows 10 template
  • Issue Fix: System.NullReferenceException occurs if the network can’t reach any of the public template repository.
  • Template Update (Windows 7/8/8.1): Correct the Menu Show Delay type to REG_SZ in item “Reduce Menu Show Delay”

April 18, 2017

Issue fixed

    • Some optimization items are skipped mistakenly. For example, Remote Apps in Windows 10 template. This is caused by a recent change in Conditional Check feature.

April 17, 2017 b1088

Feature

      • Conditional Check: you can specify on what condition an optimization should be run. For example, when a specific registry key match certain value.

Template

      • “Change Explorer Default View” has been changed to unselected by default, because of conflict to UEM. Details: it causes the locations in “user files” (desktop, downloads, favorites, music, videos , Documents, Pictures) folder is to the local drive c:\Users\Username, its Should be \\server\folder_redirection\%username% when use UEM folder redirection.

Enhancements

      • Public Templates tab: click template on the list is very slow, which should not be
      • Default public template repository URL updated
      • Loading public template repository takes too long

Issue Fix

    • Field validation: prevent user from creating template with blank name