1. Manuals
  2. Brands
  3. VMware Manuals
  4. Software
  5. VS4-STD-C - vSphere Standard - PC
  6. Evaluation manual

VMware VS4-STD-C - vSphere Standard - PC Evaluation Manual

Evaluator guide
Hide thumbs
Table of Contents

Advertisement

Quick Links

Download this manual
VMware
vSphere
5.0
®
Evaluation Guide
Volume One
T E C H N I C A L W H I T E P A P E R
V 1 . 1 / U P D A T E D A U G U S T 1 1 2 0 1 1

Advertisement

Table of Contents
loading

Related Manuals for VMware VS4-STD-C - vSphere Standard - PC

Summary of Contents for VMware VS4-STD-C - vSphere Standard - PC

  • Page 1 VMware vSphere ® Evaluation Guide Volume One T E C H N I C A L W H I T E P A P E R V 1 . 1 / U P D A T E D A U G U S T 1 1 2 0 1 1...

  • Page 2: Table Of Contents

    VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide, Volume One – Worksheet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11...
  • Page 3 VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One Host Isolation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Disabling VMware HA .
  • Page 4 VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One Evaluation Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .81 Prerequisites .

  • Page 5: About This Guide

    Hardware Requirements This guide makes the following assumptions about your existing physical infrastructure: Servers You must have at least three dedicated servers capable of running VMware ESXi™ 5.0 to provide resources for this evaluation. Storage You must have shared storage with enough space available to allow the creation of three 100GB dedicated datastores.

  • Page 6: Software And Licensing Requirements

    This volume of the VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide requires vSphere 5.0 and licensing for Essentials Plus. If the user intends to also complete the exercises in Volume Two of the VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide, a license for Enterprise Plus will be required. The vSphere 5.0 evaluation license available from the VMware evaluation portal provides Enterprise Plus functionality for 60 days and is the best choice for performing the vSphere 5.0 evaluations.

  • Page 7: Evaluation Guide Environment Setup

    Volume One Evaluation Guide Environment Setup The VMware Technical Marketing lab was built using a combination of Cisco UCS server hardware and EMC CLARiiON CX-4 Fibre Channel (FC) storage. The environment consisted of eight identical four-node “pods,” with most pods configured as a three-node ESXi cluster and a fourth node for management. In many cases, additional resources have been configured in the Technical Marketing test-bed configuration to support other evaluation projects, and are present in the diagrams.

  • Page 8: Server Configuration

    The first is for vSphere management traffic, including vSphere High Availability (VMware HA). The second is for VMware vSphere® vMotion® and the third is for virtual machine traffic. Each logical network is configured as a port group on a standard switch, with a corresponding VLAN configured to provide physical isolation of the network traffic.
  • Page 9 VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One Port groups vSwitch0 Name/VLAN VMK0: Management network VLAN 2912 vmnic0 TM-POD<xx>ESX<xx> Production02 VLAN 3001 (VM) vmnic1 vMotion VLAN 3002 (TBD) vmnic2 vmnic3 Not used in Evaluation Guide On the vSphere side, the network configuration looks like the following:...

  • Page 10: Storage Setup

    Virtual Machine Setup The VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluators Guide, Volume One, uses a total of six to seven virtual machines for testing. These can be Linux or Windows virtual machines. It is up to the user to configure virtual machines that can be brought up to a running state for testing.

  • Page 11: Vmware Vsphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide, Volume One - Worksheet

    VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide, Volume One – Worksheet You can use the following worksheet to organize your evaluation process. H A R D WA R E C H E C K L I S T: All hardware has been validated against the VMware vSphere 5.0 Hardware Compatibility List (HCL).

  • Page 12: Vsphere Evaluation Tasks

    • The infrastructure layer At this layer, VMware HA monitors the health of the virtual machine and will attempt to restart the virtual machine when a failure, such as the loss of a physical host, occurs. This protection is independent of the OS used within the virtual machine.

  • Page 13: Connect To Virtual Server

    VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One Connect to Virtual Server Figure 1. Connecting to Virtual Server Using the vSphere Client, connect to your virtual server instance. T E C H N I C A L W H I T E P A P E R / 1 3...

  • Page 14: Go To Cluster Summary

    VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One Go to Cluster Summary Figure 2. Cluster Summary Once connected to your virtual server instance, select your cluster by clicking on its name on the left-hand panel. Select the Summary tab to bring up the cluster summary screen.

  • Page 15: Edit Cluster Settings

    VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One Edit Cluster Settings Figure 3. Editing Cluster Settings In the cluster summary screen, select the Edit Settings option. This will bring up a wizard that you can use to modify the settings of the cluster. Click the check box next to Turn On vSphere HA and select OK. This will close the wizard and the system will initialize VMware HA.

  • Page 16: Wait For Task To Complete

    Wait for Task to Complete Figure 5. Tasks Showing Completed Status Wait until all the tasks show a Completed status. This should only take a minute. At this point, VMware HA is now providing protection for the virtual machines that are powered on.
  • Page 17 VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One Figure 7. VMware HA Cluster Status Screen Under this screen, you will notice three tabs. There is one tab each for Hosts, VMs, and Heartbeat Datastores. On the Hosts tab, you will see the system that is acting as the Master node. You will also see the number of hosts that are currently connected to this Master.
  • Page 18 Under the VMs tab, a summary of the virtual machine protection states is displayed. The virtual machines that were powered on when VMware HA was enabled are in the Protected state. T E C H N I C A L W H I T E P A P E R / 1 8...
  • Page 19 VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One Figure 9. Heartbeat Datastores Information Clicking the Heartbeat Datastores tab will display information about the datastores that were selected as heartbeat datastores. Heartbeat datastores allow a secondary means of communication between the hosts in case of a loss of the management network.

  • Page 20: Virtual Machine Protection State

    Machines tab for a cluster. Right-clicking the title bar enables you to select the vSphere HA Protection field. Once the field is selected, you will see a column that displays the current VMware HA protection state for every virtual machine within the cluster.

  • Page 21: Host Protection State

    The VMware HA state can be identified for an individual host by selecting the desired host from the navigation tree and selecting the Summary tab. Here you will see the VMware HA state for the host as well as the role that this node plays within the cluster.

  • Page 22: Vmware Ha Advanced Options

    Figure 13. Displaying the HA State for All Hosts Within a Cluster To display the VMware HA state for all of the hosts within a cluster, select the cluster from the navigation tree and then click the Hosts tab. Right-click the title bar and ensure that the vSphere HA State column is enabled.
  • Page 23 Volume One Figure 15. Cluster Settings Wizard This brings up the wizard that allows you to edit the cluster settings. Once VMware HA is enabled, additional settings are displayed allowing for the configuration of VMware HA. T E C H N I C A L W H I T E P A P E R / 2 3...

  • Page 24: Admission Control

    Host Monitoring Status and Admission Control attributes. Host monitoring enables VMware HA to take action if a host fails to send heartbeats over the management network. During maintenance operations on the management network, it is possible that the hosts will not be able to send heartbeats.

  • Page 25: Virtual Machine Options

    Select Virtual Machine Options from the left-hand navigation pane. Here, you can define the behavior of virtual machines for VMware HA. The two settings you can edit are the VM restart priority and the Host Isolation response. T E C H N I C A L W H I T E P A P E R / 2 5...
  • Page 26 VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One The VM restart priority enables you to specify the order that virtual machines will be started in the event of a failure. In cases where there might not be enough resources available within the cluster to accommodate the restart of a series of virtual machines, this setting allows a level of prioritization, allowing the most important virtual machines to be restarted first.

  • Page 27: Virtual Machine Monitoring

    OS or application running within a virtual machine. In order to use this feature, you must have VMware Tools installed within the virtual machine. T E C H N I C A L W H I T E P A P E R / 2 7...
  • Page 28 VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One Figure 20. Selecting Custom Option for VM Monitoring By selecting the Custom option, you can exert a fine level of control over the various parameters involved. You can specify these settings on a per–virtual machine basis.

  • Page 29: Storage Heartbeats

    Validating VMware HA Operation In order to see VMware HA in action, we need to inject faults into the environment. This section will demonstrate the ways in which to do this for the most common failure cases, so that you can validate the operation of VMware HA and can test ways to recover from a failure.
  • Page 30 VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One When this event occurs, VMware HA will identify the failure of the host and will attempt to restart the protected virtual machines on a functional host. Figure 22. Checking Virtual Machines First, use the vSphere Client to examine the virtual machines hosted within the cluster. In this example, we are going to cause the system tm-pod1-esx01.tmsb.local to fail.
  • Page 31 Next, remove the power from one of your hosts. By looking at the hosts within the cluster, you will see that VMware HA will detect the failure of the host and generate an alert. Figure 24. Failure Detection by VMware HA By examining the events, you will see messages similar to the ones demonstrated in the preceding figure validating that VMware HA has detected the failure.
  • Page 32 Volume One Figure 26. Viewing Log Messages After Restart Attempt You can also examine the events for a host to see the log messages denoting that VMware HA has attempted to restart the virtual machine. T E C H N I C A L W H I T E P A P E R / 3 2...
  • Page 33 VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One Figure 27. Summary of a Failed Host By selecting the Summary tab for the failed host, you will notice that the issue is displayed in multiple places. The first is located at the top of the screen and second location is the vSphere HA State.

  • Page 34: Host Isolation

    The following will demonstrate how to create this situation and induce the default actions that will be taken by VMware HA. Figure 28. Identifying a Host to Be Isolated First, you want to identify a host that will be isolated.
  • Page 35 VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One Figure 30. Obtaining Console Access to the Target Host To insert a fault within the environment, you need to obtain console access to the target host. This will allow you to continue to access the host after the fault has been inserted, allowing you to recover gracefully afterwards. It is important to note that this procedure requires two networks –...
  • Page 36 VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One Figure 31. Authenticating to the Host At the console, hit F2 to access the console menu. You will need to authenticate to the host first before it will allow access to the console menu.
  • Page 37 VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One Figure 33. Enabling ESXi Shell From here, select the Enable ESXi Shell option to enable the ESXi Shell. This shell will enable you to remove the network connections to the host. Figure 34. vSphere Client Warning Message Once you do this, you will notice that the vSphere Client displays a warning message.
  • Page 38 VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One Figure 36. Using the esxcfg-vswitch Command In order to disrupt the network connection to the host, you can use the esxcfg-vswitch command. Using esxcfg- vswitch –l, obtain a list of the uplinks that are present on the host. In this example, there are two – vmnic0 and vmnic1 –...
  • Page 39 VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One Figure 37. Identifying Host Isolation Using the vSphere Client, select the host from the left-hand navigation pane and select the Summary tab. The host will be identified as being isolated both at the top of the screen and in the vSphere HA State notification.
  • Page 40 Volume One Figure 38. Log Messages About Host Isolation Moving to the Tasks & Events tab, you will also see the log messages that were generated when VMware HA detected the host isolation. Figure 39. Observing the Virtual Machines on the Isolated Host Examine the output of the Virtual Machines tab of the cluster.
  • Page 41 VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One If you would like to see the effects of the various isolation response settings in this situation, simply change the isolation response to the desired setting and perform this test again. Figure 40. Restoring Uplinks for the Host with the esxcfg-vswitch –l Command To restore normal operation, utilize the ESXi Shell to execute the esxcfg-vswitch -l command for each of the uplinks that were previously removed.
  • Page 42 VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One Figure 41. Examining Events for the Host Once you restore the uplinks for the host, you can utilize the vSphere Client to examine the events for the host. This will show you that communication with the other hosts in the cluster has been re-established. Even after you have re-established the network connections, you’ll notice that the host still displays a warning.

  • Page 43: Disabling Vmware Ha

    VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One Figure 43. Verifying That Host is Operating Normally Use the vSphere Client to show all of the hosts within the cluster and verify that the previously isolated host is now operating normally and has reconnected to the cluster.

  • Page 44: Go To The Cluster Summary

    VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One Go to the Cluster Summary Figure 45. Cluster Summary Screen Once connected to your virtual server instance, select your cluster by clicking its name on the left-hand panel. Select the Summary tab to bring up the cluster summary screen.

  • Page 45: Edit Cluster Settings

    Click the check box next to Turn On vSphere HA to deselect it and select OK. This will close the wizard and the system will unconfigure VMware HA. Figure 47. Viewing the Progress of the Unconfigure Task of VMware HA Under the Recent Tasks pane of the vSphere Client, you can observe the progress of the unconfigure task of HA on the systems within the cluster.

  • Page 46: Wait For Task To Complete

    Table 1. Summary of vSphere 5 .0 Command-Line Tools This section of the VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide, Volume One, covers the new esxcli command-line interface. The esxcli command allows you to manage many aspects of an ESXi host. You can run esxcli commands remotely from the vCLI or locally from the ESXi Shell.

  • Page 47: The New Esxcli Command

    NOTE: In vSphere 5.0, the esxcli command does not yet provide a full set of command capabilities. Continue to use the esxcli command in conjunction with the vicfg- and other vCLI commands (that is, vmware-cmd, vmkfstools, and vifs). The esxcli command in vSphere 5.0 is not backward compatible with earlier versions of the command, because it introduces a new syntax that is different from earlier vSphere releases.
  • Page 48 VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One At any time, you can use the --help option to discover information about the available namespaces and commands relative to your current namespace. In the following example, the --help parameter is used to get more information about the available namespaces and commands under the network namespace: Figure 51.

  • Page 49: Remote Esxcli Command Authentication

    VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One Although the esxcli command is unified for both local and remote administration, the syntax does vary slightly, depending upon if you are running commands locally from the ESXi Shell or remotely through the vCLI.

  • Page 50: Enabling Access To The Esxi Shell

    VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One Enabling Access to the ESXi Shell Before you can run esxcli commands on the host, you must enable the ESXi Shell. Complete the steps in this section to enable the ESXi Shell on each ESXi host.

  • Page 51: Enabling Ssh Access To The Esxi Shell

    VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One Figure 56. Enable ESXi Shell from vSphere Client Enabling SSH Access to the ESXi Shell In addition to running commands directly from the ESXi console, you can also enable SSH services to allow remote access to the ESXi Shell.

  • Page 52: Enabling The Ssh From The Vsphere Client

    VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One Figure 57. Enable SSH from DCUI Enabling the SSH from the vSphere Client Perform the following steps to enable the ESXi Shell from the vSphere Client: • Log in to the vSphere Client. • Select the ESXi host and choose Configuration -> Security Profile. • From the Services section, select Properties.

  • Page 53: Vsphere Client Notification When The Esxi Shell And Ssh Are Enabled

    Installing the vCLI on Linux The vCLI installation package for Linux includes the vCLI scripts and the VMware vSphere 5.0 SDK for Perl. In can be installed on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5 server, SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 and 11 servers, and the Ubunto 10.04 server.

  • Page 54: Sample Esxcli Commands Run Locally From The Esxi Shell

    VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One Sample esxcli Commands Run Locally from the ESXi Shell The following examples show esxcli commands executed from the local ESXi Shell. Because they are being run from the ESXi Shell, it is not necessary to provide the server information or user credentials with the command.
  • Page 55 VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One Figure 62. Display Storage Devices from the ESXi Shell Use the esxcli network ip interface ipv4 get command to list all the configured IPv4 addresses on the ESXi host, as follows: Figure 63. Display Configured IPs from the ESXi Shell...

  • Page 56: Sample Esxcli Commands Run Remotely From The Vcli

    VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One Sample esxcli Commands Run Remotely from the vCLI The following examples show methods for using esxcli from the vCLI. For these examples, we will use the vMA. Because these commands are being run remotely, it is necessary to provide the --server and --username credentials as part of the esxcli command.
  • Page 57 VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One With the fast pass target set to our ESXi host, we can now run the commands without specifying the options for the ESXi host, user name, or password. In the following example, we use the esxcli system coredump partition list command to show the configured core dump partition: Figure 67.

  • Page 58: Formatting Esxcli Output

    VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One Formatting esxcli Output It is common to use the output of the esxcli command as input to another program or for inclusion in a report. To facilitate this, the esxcli command enables you to format and filter the command output in one of three formats: comma-separated values (CSV), key-value pair, or XML.

  • Page 59: The Localcli Command

    After you run the localcli command, you must restart hostd. Run esxcli commands after the restart. NOTE: Use the localcli command only under the direction of VMware technical support, because improper use can result in an inconsistent system state and potential failure of the ESXi host.

  • Page 60: Bringing It All Together

    VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One Bringing It All Together The following example shows how to generate a list of the VMFS file systems on an ESXi host that have not been upgraded to VMFS-5. In this example, we will demonstrate the syntax discovery feature of esxcli.
  • Page 61 VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One Figure 75. esxcli storage filesystem list Command from ESXi Shell This command gives us what we need. However, there is a lot of extra information in the output, making it hard to extrapolate the VMFS version information needed for our report. We can use the --formatter option with the --format-param filter to show only the information we need, as follows: Figure 76.

  • Page 62: Vsphere Powercli By Example

    VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One vSphere PowerCLI by Example Introduction vSphere PowerCLI is a snap-in (add-on) to Microsoft Windows PowerShell, a command-line scripting environment designed for Windows. It leverages the .NET object model, and was designed as an administrative language with system administrators in mind, because it provides administrators with easy-to-learn management and automation capabilities.
  • Page 63 VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One From the Windows start menu, type PowerShell. Once the PowerShell program is displayed on the start menu, right-click Windows PowerShell and select Run as administrator. A PowerShell prompt will be started, as follows: Figure 78.
  • Page 64 Once the software has been downloaded, start the installation by double-clicking the vSphere PowerCLI .exe file. Figure 81. Notification of VMware VIX Installation The installer will first notify you that an additional component, VMware VIX, will be installed as part of the vSphere PowerCLI installation. Click OK.
  • Page 65 This will bring you to the following welcome screen: Figure 83. Welcome Screen The welcome screen will now be shown, welcoming you to the install wizard for vSphere PowerCLI. Click Next to continue. This will bring you to the following VMware Patents screen: T E C H N I C A L W H I T E P A P E R / 6 5...
  • Page 66 VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One Figure 84. VMware Patents Screen Click Next to continue. This will bring you to the following License Agreement screen: Figure 85. License Agreement Screen Select the option, I accept the terms in the license agreement and then click Next to continue.
  • Page 67 Click Install to begin the Installation of PowerCLI. This will bring you to the Installing VMware vSphere PowerCLI screen. T E C H N I C A L W H I T E P A P E R / 6 7...
  • Page 68 VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One Figure 88. Installing vSphere PowerCLI Wait while the installation is completed. Figure 89. Installation Finish Screen When the installation is successful, the finish screen will be displayed. To complete the installation, click Finish.

  • Page 69: Getting Started With Vsphere Powercli

    VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One Getting Started with vSphere PowerCLI On your start menu in the VMware -> VMware vSphere PowerCLI folder, you will now have access to the following items: • vSphere PowerCLI (32-Bit) • vSphere PowerCLI • vSphere PowerCLI Administration Guide • vSphere PowerCLI Cmdlets Reference • vSphere SDK for .NET API Reference • vSphere SDK for .NET Dev Guide...
  • Page 70 Volume One From the start menu, select VMware -> VMware vSphere PowerCLI -> VMware vSphere PowerCLI. This will launch a new PowerShell session and automatically import the VMware snap-in used to manage the VMware environment, as follows: Figure 91. Connecting to vCenter Server Use the Connect-VIServer cmdlet to connect to your vCenter Server.

  • Page 71: Using Vsphere Powercli

    VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One Once connected, you will be returned to the vSphere PowerCLI prompt. You are then ready for your next cmdlet to be executed, as follows: Figure 92. Certificate Warning During this “vSphere PowerCLI by Example” section, the certificate warning can be ignored.
  • Page 72 VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One To retrieve a list of virtual machines attached to the connected vCenter server, type Get-VM. This will return the Name, PowerState, Num CPUs and Memory (MB). These are all called properties of the virtual machine. vSphere PowerCLI returns more information than what is shown on the screen.
  • Page 73 VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One Figure 95. To select properties that we would like to see, we can use the Select-Object cmdlet to choose the properties of the virtual machine we would like returned. Type: Get-VM | Select Name, PowerState, VMHost, NumCPU, MemoryMB | Format-Table This will retrieve the selected properties and show them in a table view in our console.
  • Page 74 VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One To export the information into a comma-separated values file, type Get-VM | Export-CSV -NoTypeInformation C:\Export\AllVMs.csv To export the information into a html file, type Get-VM | ConvertTo-Html | Out-File C:\Export\AllVMs.htm To export the information into a plain text file, type Get-VM | Out-File C:\Export\AllVMs.txt Figure 97.
  • Page 75 VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One To do this, type the following: New-VM -Name VM_08 -ResourcePool (Get-VMHost tm-pod01-esx03*) -Datastore (Get-DatastoreCluster “Datastore Cluster 01”) -NumCPU 2 -MemoryMB 4096 -DiskMB 40000 -NetworkName Production02 -Floppy -CD -DiskStorageFormat Thin Figure 98. The New-VM cmdlet can also be used to create any number of virtual machines with the same configuration.
  • Page 76 VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One Further virtual machine operations can be performed with vSphere PowerCLI. To see the cmdlets that can be used with virtual machines, type Get-ViCommand *VM To find more information on one of these cmdlets, type Get-Help Move-VM -Full Figure 100.
  • Page 77 VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One Figure 102. The Get-VMHost cmdlet can be used in conjunction with other cmdlets to retrieve and set information for that host. To list the NTP servers on each host in the vSphere Client, you would need to go to the host and clusters view, select a host, click the configuration tab and select the time configuration setting to view.
  • Page 78 VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One To gain more information about all snapshots, type Get-VM | Get-Snapshot | Select VM, Name, Description, Created, SizeMB | Format-Table In addition to reporting, PowerCLIvSphere PowerCLI also provides cmdlets for the management of snapshots.
  • Page 79 VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One As with the creation of snapshots, it is very easy to remove them in large numbers with the Remove-Snapshot cmdlet. The following example will remove all snapshots with a name of “Patch Tuesday”: Get-Snapshot -Name “Patch Tuesday”...
  • Page 80 VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One Figure 108. vSphere PowerCLI reporting can also be used to ensure that your virtual configurations are correct. If a port group is missed, or the name is incorrect, or the VLANID has been set incorrectly, this can cause fundamental issues with clusters and the vSphere Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS).

  • Page 81: Vsphere Powercli Summary

    OS management. It can be used with other PowerShell snap-ins provided by Microsoft or third-party companies to integrate VMware technologies easily into other products and reach inside the guest OS.
  • Page 82 VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One Figure 110. 4. The warning sign on the host tm-pod01-esx01.tmsb.local is regarding the SSH service. Figure 111 shows the summary screen with the warning displayed. Enabling SSH service could be a security risk, so the platform provides the warning.
  • Page 83 VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One Figure 111. 5. To stop the service, you have to click the Services Properties link as shown in Figure 112. Figure 112. T E C H N I C A L W H I T E P A P E R / 8 3...
  • Page 84 VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One 6. This will bring up the panel shown in Figure 113. Select SSH and click Options. You can start or stop any services that are listed in this panel. Figure 113. Figure 114.

  • Page 85: Testing Access With Ssh Service Stopped

    VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One Testing Access with SSH Service Stopped After stopping the SSH remote access service, you can test if any client can connect to Host1 (tm-pod01-esx01. tmsb.local) on TCP port 22. In this example environment, you can use virtual machine VM_02 running on Host3 (tm-pod01-esx03.tmsb.

  • Page 86: Creating Firewall Rules To Block Ssh Access

    VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One Figure 116. This demonstrates that by shutting down the SSH service, you can completely deny remote access. Instead of blocking all access by stopping a service, you can selectively restrict remote access through the ESXi firewall.
  • Page 87 VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One Figure 117. Figure 118. 3. Click Start in the SSH Options panel, as shown in Figure 118. This will start the SSH service again. You can now configure the firewall rules for this service.
  • Page 88 VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One Figure 119. Figure 120. T E C H N I C A L W H I T E P A P E R / 8 8...

  • Page 89: Testing Ssh Firewall Rules

    VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One 5. After clicking the firewall Properties link, you will see the Firewall Properties panel, as shown in Figure 120. Select the SSH Server under the Secure Shell category, and click Firewall. 6. In this example environment, you have to enable the SSH remote access only from virtual machine VM_02 with IP address 10.91.35.55.
  • Page 90 VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One Figure 122. Figure 123 shows the login screen of Host1. You can log in to the host with root credentials. Figure 123. T E C H N I C A L W H I T E P A P E R / 9 0...

  • Page 91: Image Builder

    VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One When you repeat the step of establishing the SSH connection from VM_04 (10.91.35.67), you will get the “Network error: Connection timed out” message as shown in Figure 124. This is because the ESXi firewall blocks access on TCP port 22 from any IP address other than 10.91.35.55.

  • Page 92: Image Builder Prerequisites

    Complete the following steps prior to beginning your evaluation of Image Builder 5.0: Install vSphere PowerCLI Download and install vSphere 5.0 PowerCLI from www.vmware.com. The download file is a self-extracting executable file. Simply double-click on the .exe file to invoke the vSphere PowerCLI installer and follow the prompts.
  • Page 93 VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One Depending on your login credentials, you might be prompted to enter the vCenter user name and password, as follows: Figure 127. Connect-VIServer Login Prompt vSphere PowerCLI will show the vCenter Server name/IP and the port and user. During the Image Builder evaluation, the certificate error can be ignored.

  • Page 94: Import The Esxi Offline Bundle

    VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One Import the ESXi Offline Bundle This section shows how to import an ESXi software depot using the ESXi offline depot staged in the C:\ ImageBuilder directory during the preparation tasks. PowerCLI C:\> Add-EsxSoftwareDepot C:\ImageBuilder Figure 129. Add Software Depot The software depot is a collection of vSphere packages used to create and maintain ESXi images. The following steps show how to view information about the software depots added to your vSphere PowerCLI session.

  • Page 95: Display Vibs

    Volume One Display VIBs A vSphere Installation Bundle (VIB) is a packaging format used in vSphere. VMware and its partners package solutions, drivers, CIM providers and applications as VIBs. VIBs are then grouped together to create ESXi image profiles. To view the available VIBs from the software depots added to your vSphere PowerCLI session, use the Get-EsxSoftwarePackage cmdlet.

  • Page 96: Create A New Image Profile

    • All VIB dependencies must be met. Create a New Image Profile by Manually Selecting Individual VIBs Create a new image profile named “MyNewProfile” that contains the ESXi base image. PowerCLI C:\> New-EsxImageProfile –NewProfile “MyNewProfile” –vendor “VMware” – SoftwarePackage esx-base Figure 134. New-EsxImageProfile T E C H N I C A L W H I T E P A P E R / 9 6...
  • Page 97 VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One Next, add the VIB “esx-tboot” to “MyNewProfile” as follows: PowerCLI C:\> Add-EsxSoftwarePackage -ImageProfile “MyNewProfile” –SoftwarePackage “esx-tboot” Figure 135. Add-EsxSoftwarePackage esx-tboot Next, add the VIB “net-e1000e” to “MyNewProfile” as follows: PowerCLI C:\> Add-EsxSoftwarePackage -ImageProfile “MyNewProfile” –SoftwarePackage “net-e1000e”...

  • Page 98: Create A New Image Profile By Cloning An Existing Image Profile

    PowerCLI C:\> Get-EsxImageProfile Figure 140. Get-EsxImageProfile with MyClonedProfile Removing VIBs from an Image Profile The cloned image profile “MyCloneProfile” includes the VMware Tools package. We can make the size of this image profile smaller by removing the VMware Tools package. PowerCLI C:\> Remove-EsxSoftwarePackage –ImageProfile MyClonedProfile – SoftwarePackage tools-light Figure 141. Remove-EsxSoftwarePackage T E C H N I C A L W H I T E P A P E R / 9 8...

  • Page 99: Compare Image Profiles

    In the previous section, we created a clone of the default image profile called “MyCloneProfile”. We then removed the VMware Tools package from the custom image. We can now use the Compare- EsxImageProfile cmdlet to compare the two images and verify the changes that were made.

  • Page 100: Export As A Bootable Iso Image

    VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One Export As a Bootable ISO Image In order to use a custom image profile to install ESXi hosts, you must export the image profile as a bootable ISO. Use the Export-EsxImageProfile cmdlet with the -ExportToIso option.

  • Page 101: Using Storage Performance Statistics

    VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One Using Storage Performance Statistics Introduction vSphere 5.0 introduces several new performance views. These views allow for a quick overview of the current health of your datastores. There are two different types of views: performance and space.
  • Page 102 VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One 3. Click on the Performance tab. This will show you the current Space Utilization statistics for this particular datastore by default. Figure 148. 4. Click on Time Range to change the range from 1 Day to 1 Week. This will show if virtual machines have grown or have been migrated to other datastores, and any other trends over the last seven days.

  • Page 103: Monitoring Performance Statistics Of A Datastore

    VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One Monitoring Performance Statistics of a Datastore The second part of this exercise shows the performance statistics available on the Datastores and Datastore Clusters view. These views are showing the most relevant and important metrics to monitor, like Average Device Latency 8Average Write Latency per Virtual Machine Disk.
  • Page 104 VMware vSphere 5.0 Evaluation Guide – Volume One Figure 152. 4. You have now successfully completed the Using Storage Performance Statistics exercise. T E C H N I C A L W H I T E P A P E R / 1 0 4...

  • Page 105: Help And Support During The Evaluation

    Help and Support During the Evaluation This guide provides an overview of the steps required to ensure a successful evaluation of VMware vSphere. It is not meant to be a substitute for product documentation. Refer to the online vSphere product documentation for more detailed information (see the following links).
  • Page 106 VMware, Inc. 3401 Hillview Avenue Palo Alto CA 94304 USA Tel 877-486-9273 Fax 650-427-5001 www .vmware .com Copyright © 2011 VMware, Inc . All rights reserved . This product is protected by U .S . and international copyright and intellectual property laws . VMware products are covered by one or more patents listed at http://www .

This manual is also suitable for:

Vsphere 5.0

Table of Contents