January 2016 – Saurav Issar

Host & storage advance performance charts in vSphere Web Client

January 25, 2016 by saurav116, posted in ESXi6, Performance Chart, Uncategorized, vSphere 6, vSphere Web Client

In this blog post I will talk about some of the advance storage and host performance charts that we can create in vSphere web client to review performance statistics of vSphere environment.

I will start with the basic storage and performance graph available in vSphere Web Client and later we will look into some advance options which help us in understanding the current performance statistics of vSphere environment.

Storage overview charts:

(i) Log in to vSphere web client with the SSO administrator credential

(ii) In the left pane, click the Storage icon.

(iii)Expand the Storage inventory tree and select the Shared datastore you want to analyze.

(iv) In the middle pane, click the Monitor tab and click the Performance tab

(v) Above the charts, verify that Space is selected from the View drop-down menu.

(vi)Review the overview charts to find the performance values.

(vii) Space that is used by virtual disks, in the By File Type chart

(viii) Total space that is used by the top objects, in the By Virtual Machines (Top 5) chart

ESXi Host overview charts:

(i) In the left pane, click the Hosts and Clusters icon.

(ii) In the Hosts and Clusters inventory tree, select the host you want to analyze, in my case it is esxi01.vclass.local.

(iii) In the center pane, click the Monitor tab and click the Performance tab.

(iv) Above the charts, verify that Home is selected from the View drop-down menu.

(v) The time of any significant CPU spike, in the CPU (%) chart

(vi) The time of any significant latency spike, in the Disk (ms) chart

Now I will show how to configure advance custom charts in vSphere Web Client:

(i) In the chart links panel, click the Advanced link.

(ii) Collapse the links panel by clicking the << icon.

(iii) The viewable chart area can be increased by collapsing the chart links panel.

(iv) Above the chart graphic, select Memory from the View drop-down menu.

(v) The View drop-down menu appears above the top-right corner of the graphical chart, to the right of the chart title.

(vi) To the left of the View drop-down menu, click the Chart Options link and customize the chart options.

(vii) In the Chart Metrics panel on the left side of the window, verify that only Memory is selected.

(viii) Select Real-time from the Timespan drop-down menu.

(ix) Select Stacked Graph per VM from the Chart Type drop-down menu.

(x) In the Select object for this chart panel, click all to select all the listed objects.

(xi) In the Select counters for this chart panel, click none to deselect all counters and select the Usage check box.

(xii) Click OK to close the Chart Options window.

The customized chart displays the memory usage counter for all virtual machines that are in a running state, as well as for the ESXi host.

(i) Examine the performance chart legend.

(ii)Scroll down to uncover the performance chart legend.

(iii)The Average column is the last column in the table and might not appear until more space is made available by resizing columns.

(iv)Point to the average column values to determine the average memory usage for esxi01.vclass.local and the Linux01 virtual machine.

(v)Export an advanced chart as a graphic image.

(vi)Scroll to the top of the chart pane.

(vii)Click the Export icon and select To PNG.

The exported image looks like below:

Like this we can create custom advance charts for CPU and storage parameters as well.

I am planning to write a blog post on resxtop commands in future which can be used to capture performance data via command line.

i hope you liked the post , any feedback’s from the readers regarding the content are welcomed. keep learning and sharing.

Working with vSphere Management assistant

January 18, 2016 by saurav116, posted in ESXCLI, ESXi6, vCenter Server 6, vSphere 6, vSphere Management Assistant

Before I talk about the various commands we can use with VMA , first let me explain bit about VMA.”vSphere Management Assistant enables administrators to run scripts or agent that interact with ESXi host and VMware vCenter server systems without authenticating each time. VSphere Management Assistant is easy to download and install, and configure through vSphere Web Client.

vSphere Management assistant is a virtual appliance that consist of following components:

– SUSE Linux Enterprise Server

– vmware tools

– vSphere SDK for Pearl

– vSPhere CLI

– Java JRE Version 1.6

– vi-fastpass , an authentication component for the appliance

vSphere Management Assistant requires ESXi Host that supports 64-bit virtual machines. The CPU on the ESXi host must be AMD opetron , rev E or later, or an Intel processor with EM64T support with VT enabled.by default vSphere Management Assistant uses 1 vCPU , 600 MB RAM and 3 GB of virtual disk. VSphere Management Assistant is used with vSphere 5.x or 6.

Let’s get started now.

Start SSH and vSphere ESXi Shell Services on the ESXi host you want to manage from vSphere Management assistant
Login to VMware vSphere Management Assistant, You use PuTTY to establish an SSH session to the VMware vSphere Management Assistant appliance.
using vi-admin as the user name and password that you have set during the initial power on the appliance
Now we need to add vCenter Server systems and ESXi hosts as vSphere Management Assistant target servers to simplify commands
Add the vCenter Server system as a server target.
vifp addserver vc01.vclass.local –authpolicy fpauth –username administrator@vsphere.local
Any user with sufficient vCenter Server privileges can be specified, including VMware vCente Single Sign-On users. The vSphere administrator user name is used here because it is the default vCenter Server Appliance administrator account.
When prompted for a password, enter the password you have set
When prompted to store the user name and password in the credential store, enter yes.
Add the ESXi host as a server target.
vifp addserver esxi01.vclass.local –authpolicy fpauth –username root
When prompted for a password, enter password yo have set
List the configured target servers.
vifp listservers
vCenter Server system and the ESXi host appear in the list.vc01.vclass.local and esxi01.vclass.local must be listed
Now I will add ESXi host thumbprint to the certificate store on the vCenter Server system so that a trust relationship exists between the host and the server. This trust relationship is necessary to run ESXCLI commands.
Let me show what happens when I run the command without adding ESXi host thumbprint to the certificate store on the vCenter Server system
Add the ESXi host thumbprint to the vCenter Server certificate store.
/usr/lib/vmware-vcli/apps/general/credstore_admin.pl add -s esxi01.vclass.local -t thumbprint
thumbprint is displayed in the last command. You can copy the thumbprint into the command by selecting and right-clicking it.
Now you can use ESXCLI commands to query the ESXi host properties , I will show you some important command that you can use in day to day administration of vSphere environment
Set the ESXi host as the current target server.
vifptarget -s esxi01.vclass.local
As a result of running the command, the name of the target server appears as part of the command prompt.1.Display the CPU characteristics of the ESXi host.
esxcli hardware cpu list
Use the command output to determine CPU characteristics.
Number of CPUs installed on the host
Brand of the first CPU
Family and model of the first CPU
Core speed of the second CPU
2.Display the ESXi host memory.
– esxcli hardware memory get
Use the command output to determine memory characteristics.
Amount of physical memory
NUMA node count
3.Display the platform on which the ESXi software is installed.
esxcli hardware platform get
Use the command output to determine platform characteristics.
Product name
IPMI supported status
4.List the software version of ESXi that is installed on the host.
esxcli system version get5.Display the time and date on the host.
esxcli hardware clock get
6.Determine the system host name.
esxcli system hostname get
7.Determine the system’s boot device.
esxcli system boot device get 8.Last command i want to highlight is vicfg-ntp commands in the vSphere Management Assistant which you can use to query and configure Network Time Protocol (NTP) settings.
(i) List the NTP servers that are configured onesxi01.vclass.local.
vicfg-ntp –list
NTP servers are not yet configured.
(ii) top the NTP service.
vicfg-ntp –stop
(iii) Add an NTP server.
vicfg-ntp –add 172.20.10.5
(iv) List the configured NTP server.
vicfg-ntp –list
(v) Start the NTP service.
vicfg-ntp –start

Configuring vCenter Server 6 Appliance to use Active Directory Services

January 13, 2016 by saurav116, posted in Active Directory, ESXi6, vCenter Server 6, VCSA6, vSphere 6

In this blog i will show how to configure Active directory in vCenter server appliance in vSphere 6 . i will also show how to grant the ESX Admins group in active directory right to log in to VMware vCenter Serve as administrators.

First we need to add the acitve directory to VCSA as follow:

– login to web client using administrator account.
– Point to the Home icon and select Home.
– In the left pane, click Administration and click System Configuration.

– in the left pane, click Nodes and select vc01.vclass.local.(vCenter server)

– On the System Configuration page, click the Manage tab.
– In the middle pane, click Active Directory and click Join.

– In the Domain text box, enter vclass.local.(enter your domain here)
– leave the Organizational unit text box empty.
– In the user name and password text boxes
– Click OK.– At the top of the middle pane, click Actions and select Reboot.
– In the Reboot window, enter a reason for the reboot and click OK.

– vCenter Server Appliance takes several minutes to reboot. You can refresh the vSphere Web Client page, or close the browser window and reopen it, to show when the appliance is back up.
– After the reboot you should see the domain as below:

Now i will add active directory as an identity resource in web client and grant the ESX Admins group in active directory the right to log in to VMware vCenter Server™ as administrators.

– Point to the Home icon and select Home.
– In the left pane, click Administration.
– Under Single Sign-On, select Configuration.
– Click the Identity Sources tab.
– Click the Add Identity Source (green plus sign) icon.

– In the Add identity source dialog box, select Active Directory as a LDAP Server for the Identify source type.
– In the Name text box, entervclass.local.
– In the Base DN for users text box, enter CN=Users, DC=vclass, DC=local.
– In the Domain name text box, entervclass.local.
– In the Domain alias text box, entervclass.
– In the Base DN for groups text box, enter CN=Users, DC=vclass, DC=local.
– In the Primary server URL text box, enter ldap://vclass.local:389.
– In the Username text box, enter username in domain\Administrator format.
– In the Password text box, enter password
– Click Test Connection.

– A dialog box appears indicating that the connection has been established.
– Click OK.
– Click OK to close the Add identity source dialog box.
– In the left pane under Single-Sign-On, select Users and Groups.
– Click the Groups tab.
– Under Group Name, click Administrators.
– In the bottom Group Members pane, click the Add member (blue person with green plus sign) icon.
– Select the domain you just added.
– Select the Domain Admins group and click Add.

-click OK.

i hope this blog was helpful. keep learning and keep sharing 🙂

License vCenter Server & ESXi Host in vSphere 6

January 12, 2016January 12, 2016 by saurav116, posted in vCenter Server 6, vSphere 6

This blog post is regarding assigning new licenses in vSphere 6 environment.

First thing is to add the vCenter and ESXi licenses in vSphere web client, for this:

– Log in to vSphere web client using administrator account.

-In the left pane, click Administration and click Licenses.

– In the middle pane, click the Licenses tab, in the middle pane, click the plus sign to create new licenses.

– In the text box on the Enter license keys page, enter the license keys one per line, and click next.

– On the Edit license names page, enter the new license names for vCenter Server and Enterprise Plus in the License Name dialog boxes and click Next.

On the Ready to complete page, click Finish.

Now that we have added the licenses to vCenter , its time to assign the vCenter server and ESXi host licenses.

Assign vCenter Server license key to the vCenter Server instance.
– In the middle pane, click the Assets tab, Click the vCenter Server systems tab and click the Assign License link.

– In the Assign License dialog box, select the vCenter Server license key.
– Click OK

Assign the vSphere Enterprise Plus Edition 6 license key to the ESXi host.
– In the center pane, click the Hosts tab and click the Assign License link.