mainesysadmin.com

• SSH over to the ESX server required.  You’ll need sudo or root access to complete the following.
• To view the file:  cat /etc/syslog.conf
• To modify the file:  vi /etc/syslog.conf (google for vi help if required, i = insert.  esc = exit insert mode)
• Move to the bottom of the file and add the line in the next step if you want ALL the logs to be sent over to your syslog server.
• #syslog server setup
  *.*    @syslogsrv.mydomain
• The first line in the above line is commented out by the # sign, the second line tells all the log files to be sent to “syslogsrv.mydomain”.  Use an ip address for the syslog server if you want this to work when your DNS server goes down.
• service syslog restart (restarts the syslog service)
  
• esxcfg-firewall -o 514,udp,out,syslog (opens the local firewall to allow remote syslogging)
  
• esxcfg-firewall -l (reloads the new firewall configuration)

This vague message turned into a nightmare for myself this past Sunday.  I was able to get the problem fixed with minimal downtime as the issue only came up during a Sunday maint. window (ironic).

I had patched my ESX hosts to Update2 (patched version) and started receiving the error “VMware HA Agent has an error” in my virtual infrastructure client.  First step is to make sure you’re running a compliant version of Virtual Center with your ESX.  Ok, Check.

Next check your host files in each esx host located here:  /etc/hosts

You should see the default line of 127.0.0.1 for localhost, below there needs to be at least one linewith the host your working on.

192.168.1.103     esx9.yourdomain.com     esx9

Over the past 3 years I’ve seen conflicting guidance over the configuration of the host files .  In 3.0.2 I was required to enter all my hosts in each host file, but now that seems to be resolved and only requires the local details of the host you’re working with.  In short make sure that you can ping your hosts from each host with the FQDN and/or friendly name and you should be all good there.

The next steps were found on some vmtn.net postings, and I lost the URL amongst all my troubleshooting but I saved the resolution.  For myself I found the following steps helpful in resolving the problem….

The problem in my situation was specifically around the Virtual Center agents and conflicting versions.

• Check the vpxa version on your host:  rpm -qa |grep vpxa
• That will give you the current version of vpxa that you’re running. eg:  VMware-vpxa-2.5.0-104215
• Stop the VMware mgmt service:  service mgmt-vmware stop
• Stop the vpx agent:  /etc/init.d/vmware-vpxa stop
• The vpx agent error can be ignored (warning: /etc/vmware/vpxa.cfg saved as /etc/vmware/vpxa.cfg.rpmsave)
• Remember your vpx version from the first step and use it here to remove the vpx agent.
• rpm -e VMware-vpxa-2.5.0-104215
• Switch over to your Virtual Center client and remove the host you just modified (guest vms will remain)
• Reboot the host (vm’s will go down)
• After boot reconnect the host to VC and the latest vpx agent will be intstalled.
• Enable HA and the error should disappear.

Luckily my event occurred on a Sunday.  This was the first time that the guest vm’s experienced unplanned downtime without being able to vmotion in 3 years.  Be careful with those VMware patches!

For a task that is REALLY easy it took a more googling than I had anticipated to come up with the solution.  Once your volume has been delivered to the server it is important to initialize the disk but not to create any partitions.

1. Open Windows Disk management.
2. Click Action -> Rescan disks to make your new disk appear, if greater than 2tb it will appear as 2 partitions on 1 disk
3. Right click on the disk and initialize the disk
4. Open a windows command prompt
5. type “diskpart”
6. type “list disk”
7. select the new disk that’s over 2tb
8. convert gpt
9. Now from windows Disk Management you should see a single disk greater than 2tb

Information on the diskpart utility:   http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/300415

The most important prereqs include Windows 2k3 is up to at least sp1 and that no partitions exist on the disk.

Before recently I had not required to publish any flash animations with a windows server running IIS6.  Come to find out that it is really easy to do.  I ran across the following blog below with the correct information.  I’ll include the steps below the url for posterity.

http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/rymoore/adding-flv-mime-type-in-iis-4198

Adding .flv MIME type in IIS

1) Select the site to configure in IIS, right click and select “Properties”
2) Under HTTP Headers Tab, select “File Types” under the MIME Map section and select “New Type”
3) Type “.flv” as the associated extension and “video/x-flv” as the content type.
4) Select “OK” and you’re ready to fly!

I’ve used a lot of different Palm Treos.  Now that I’ve switched to a Centro I knew the battery cover was going to be a problem for resetting the device.  I googled for a soft reset application and found one that is very useful.  You can set a default app to load upon every execution of soft reset.  I use it to launch Good Mobile Messaging which will in turn launch the broadband connection required for that application.  Works very well!

http://software.treonauts.com/product.asp?id=1819

I came into work this morning and one of the ESX hosts had HA disabled.  The network engineers replaced the core switch and I have to assume the NIC connectivity caused HA to disable since they were all down at once.  One command helped me get HA enabled:

SSH to the host that is disabled and as root execute:

service mgmt-vmware restart

Then enable HA after successfully running the command.

While working with vmware support on the phone they required me to run a job from Virtual center to gather diagnostic log data from our VI3 cluster.  You can try this by opening your, “Virtual Infrastructure Client” and selecting the “Administration” menu and then “Export Diagnostic Data”.  When I run this command for as little or much information required I ALWAYS get the following error, “Failed to create diagnostic bundle.”

If you ssh to your host directly you can run the following command from each host and sftp the logs from the host afterwards.

vm-support