Configure Virtual Machine-FEX with Cisco VIC and Nexus 5K – Part 1

Added April 9, 2014, By Sandeep KA with No Comments

Sick and tired of managing physical and virtual network for your data center from different management interfaces? VMFEX is Cisco’s answer to your problem. Cisco Virtual Machine Fabric Extender (VM-FEX) technology extends cisco’s fabric extender technology to virtual machines. In simpler words, with VMFEX you will be able to manage both physical and virtual network ports from your Nexus 5000.

The objective of this article is to help users setup a VMFEX solution very easily in their virtualized environment with Cisco Rack Servers. This document has been divided into 3 parts.

Part 1: Introduction and VIC configurations

Part2: Nexus 5000 configuration

Part 3: ESXi and vCenter configuration
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VMware vEXPERT 2014!!

Added April 3, 2014, By Sreejesh Damodaran with No Comments

On Monday VMware announced the complete list of vExpert 2014. This year 754 people were named as vExpert. I am one among them!! humbled!!.

For those unknown with the term: “vExpert” is not a technical certification or a general measure of VMware expertise. The annual VMware vExpert title is given to individuals who have significantly contributed to the community of VMware users over the past year. The title is awarded to individuals (not employers) for their commitment to sharing their knowledge and passion for VMware technology above and beyond their job requirements. Here is the complete list of vExperts 2014.

If you feel you have contributed to the VMware community and did not apply for vExpert, good news.. the Q2 applications are already open at http://www.jotformpro.com/form/40285638168967. Good luck!

ESXi bash script to automate Power ON VM if its Powered OFF

Added March 3, 2014, By Sreejesh Damodaran with 2 Comments

This script with the help of crontab will enable ESXi 5.1 to poll the VM state every hour to check if it is ON and if not power it ON.

1. SSH to the host.
2. Copy and paste the following content to the shell script (auto-poweron.sh) which is placed in a vmfs volume.

Eg :-
Having enabled ssh access to your ESXi server, ssh in as root.
~ #vi /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/auto-poweron.sh

vmname="testvm"
vmid=$(vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms | grep "$vmname" | awk '{print $1}')
stat1=$(vim-cmd vmsvc/power.getstate "$vmid" | grep "off")
if [ "$stat1" == "Powered off" ]
then
vim-cmd vmsvc/power.on "$vmid"
fi

vmname="testvm"

vmid=$(vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms | grep "$vmname" | awk '{print $1}')

stat1=$(vim-cmd vmsvc/power.getstate "$vmid" | grep "off")

if [ "$stat1" == "Powered off" ]

then

vim-cmd vmsvc/power.on "$vmid"

3. Replace ‘testvm’ with the appropriate vmName.
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PowerCLI script to list VMFS,RDM and Free LUNs in a cluster

Added February 25, 2014, By Sreejesh Damodaran with 10 Comments

Its always a time consuming job to find out the LUN is FREE, RDM or VMFS. The following script will help to get the details of LUNs from hosts in a cluster and will tell us the LUN is VMFS, RDM or FREE.

If the LUN is an RDM, we can see on which VM RDM is mapped. And if the LUN has VMFS volume, the datastore name will be displayed. Also the script provides the details like LUN number, Capacity and naa id (Canonical Name).

The CSV file that is produced by the script looks like this. In this example cluster has four hosts (esx1,esx2,esx3 and esx4), four LUNs (0,1,2 and 13) are shared among them.

You can see there are four values for TYPE.

1. VMFS :- VMFS volume (datastore)
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VM Inventory as e-mail with hyperlinks to vCenter Web UI and VM console

Added January 6, 2014, By Sreejesh Damodaran with 4 Comments

This post is to publish the enhanced version of the script PowerCLI sccript for exporting VM details to HTML. This version has the following features added.

1. Report will be sent as e-mail in HTML format.
2. Added Hyperlink to the vCenter Web Client to login.
3. Each VM will have the Hyperlink to the corresponding VM Console.

The output that is produced by the script looks like this

Notes:
1. Hyperlinks will work only on vCenters with vSphere version 5.1 or above.
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Trigger e-mail when user RDP to vCenter server.

Added July 18, 2013, By Sreejesh Damodaran with 4 Comments

We have strict logon policy on VMware Management servers like vCenter, View connection brokers etc. We have been looking for a solution to get alerts when someone RDP to the Management Servers (all are Windows 2008/2012).

Combination of Windows Task Scheduler and PowerShell script did the tick.

1. The following Powershell script “Get-RDPUser.ps1” will get the last terminal server (RDP) session details and send e-mail to the team in HTML table format.

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PowerCLI one liner for finding HBA model, WWPN and driver details.

Added July 12, 2013, By Sreejesh Damodaran with No Comments

Its a one liner for getting HBA details of all hosts connected to a vCenter Server.

Connect-VIServer vCenter1

get-vmhost | Get-VMHostHba -Type FibreChannel | 
Select  VMHost,Device, model,Driver,PortWorldWideName,NodeWorldWideName |
Export-Csv -NoTypeInformation c:\output\HBA-details.csv

Connect-VIServer vCenter1

get-vmhost | Get-VMHostHba -Type FibreChannel |

Select VMHost,Device, model,Driver,PortWorldWideName,NodeWorldWideName |

Export-Csv -NoTypeInformation c:\output\HBA-details.csv

VMware Cloud Cred. Its real fun!!

Added June 12, 2013, By Sreejesh Damodaran with No Comments

Cloud Cred is a professional peer-based ranking system that makes it easy to identify the most credible, up-to-date and follow-worthy experts on cloud computing. Participants earn points for activities that demonstrate cloud knowledge, which is expressed as a numerical Cloud Cred score and a level of mastery. Achieving a certain Cloud Cred score also unlocks various rewards and incentives.
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Join VMware for a special Announcement!!

Added May 17, 2013, By Sreejesh Damodaran with No Comments

On May 21, VMware executives Pat Gelsinger and Bill Fathers will unveil a new cloud service that will seamlessly extend your data center to the cloud.
Find more details here.

http://www.vmware.com/now.html

PowerCLI to see the windows guest IPv4 Network Details.

Added April 25, 2013, By Sreejesh Damodaran with No Comments

Its a tiny script to find the IP address, DNS and WINS server of a windows VM. Its an example for invoking guest scripts through PowerCLI.

Connect-VIServer vcenterserver1

get-vm -Name vmname | %{
$_.Name; $_ | Invoke-VMScript -GuestUser "test" -GuestPassword "test" -ScriptType Bat -ScriptText "netsh interface ipv4 show addresses" -HostUser "test1" -hostpassword "test1"
$_.Name; $_ | Invoke-VMScript -GuestUser "test" -GuestPassword "test" -ScriptType Bat -ScriptText "netsh interface ipv4 show dnsservers" -HostUser "test1" -hostpassword "test1"
$_.Name; $_ | Invoke-VMScript -GuestUser "test" -GuestPassword "test" -ScriptType Bat -ScriptText "netsh interface ipv4 show winsservers" -HostUser "test1" -hostpassword "test1"
}

Connect-VIServer vcenterserver1

get-vm -Name vmname | %{

$_.Name; $_ | Invoke-VMScript -GuestUser "test" -GuestPassword "test" -ScriptType Bat -ScriptText "netsh interface ipv4 show addresses" -HostUser "test1" -hostpassword "test1"

$_.Name; $_ | Invoke-VMScript -GuestUser "test" -GuestPassword "test" -ScriptType Bat -ScriptText "netsh interface ipv4 show dnsservers" -HostUser "test1" -hostpassword "test1"

$_.Name; $_ | Invoke-VMScript -GuestUser "test" -GuestPassword "test" -ScriptType Bat -ScriptText "netsh interface ipv4 show winsservers" -HostUser "test1" -hostpassword "test1"

}