Automating VCB using Script

Recently we migrated the Virtual Machines from FAS 3050 to 3070. All our our data and LUN's are assigned from FAS3050 . So before migrating data from one filer to other filer we took the Virtual Machine Back up using the below script.

1. Save the below script as a VCB.cmd

@echo off

set filename=%1%

set clustername=%2%

FOR /F "delims=|" %%I IN (%filename%) DO start "%%I" vcbs.cmd "%%I" "%clustername%"

2. Save the below script as a vcbs.cmd

@echo off

set vcbExePath=C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Consolidated Backup Framework

set VCaddress=Virtual Center IP address

set ADuser=Login Name to the Virtual Center

set ADpassword=password

set VMname=%~1

set Clustername=%~2

set BackupPath=path for the backup

"%vcbExePath%\vcbMounter" -h %VCaddress% -u %ADuser% -p %ADpassword% -a name:"%VMname%" -r "%BackupPath%%VMname%" -t fullvm -m san

3. Save list of servers on text file eg: serverlist.txt

4.Run the below command on VCB server from Run->cmd.

vcb.cmd serverlist.txt Groupname

Groupname is use simply for grouping backups in one directory

Error while installing Software on Windows 2008 Server

I was installing software on newly built Windows 2008 Server all of sudden i got the below error and it is not allowing me to install anything on the server even though i am local administrator to the server.

Don't be panic.. Just set the Windows Installer service to " Automatic" and restart the service.

init commands and their use

The best solution to know about these init levels is to understand the " man init " command output on Unix.

There are basically 8 runlevels in unix. I will briefly tell some thing about the different init levels and their use.

Run Level: At any given time, the system is in one of eight possible run levels. A run level is a software configuration under which only a selected group of processes exists. Processes spawned by init for each of these run levels are defined in /etc/inittab. init can be in one of eight run levels, 0-6 and S or s (S and s are identical). The run level changes when a privileged user runs /sbin/init.

init 0 : Shutdown

init 1 : Single user mode or emergency mode means no network no multitasking is present in this mode only root has access in this runlevel

init 2 : No network but multitasking support is present .

init 3 : Network is present multitasking is present but with out GUI .

init 4 : It is similar to runlevel 3; It is reserved for other purposes in research.

init 5 : Network is present multitasking and GUI is present with sound etc.

init 6 : This runlevel is defined to system restart.

init s : Tells the init command to enter the maintenance mode. When the

system enters maintenance mode from another run level, only the system console

is used as the terminal.

init S : Same as init s.

init m : Same as init s and init S.

init M : Same as init s or init S or init m.

How To Recover Windows Administrator Password

Please don't use this ISO image for making any fun or hack other machines password.

I have tested this method in few windows servers and worked fine!

During My migration project i forgot to reset the password for one of Citrix Production server and there are multiple password combinations for Local Admin account ( and Tried all the combinations but no LUCK) So I called my team lead and explained the situation and he gave me a link to down load an ISO image which helped me to wipe up the Local Administrator password to "Blank".

http://home.eunet.no/pnordahl/ntpasswd/

Instructions to Reset the password:

http://home.eunet.no/pnordahl/ntpasswd/

Find Model Number and Serial Number of your computer Using Dos Commands

Desktops and Laptops purchased from manufactures like DELL, IBM, etc comes with a serial number(or service tag) and a model name. If you ever loose this information, then you can use MS DOS commands to retrieve the information

To retrieve serial number of the computer run the following command

wmic bios get serialnumber

To retrieve model name of the computer run the following command

wmic csproduct get name

ESX Server 3.5

Following are limitations for the ESX Server 3.5

Number of virtual machines per server 170
Number of hosts per DRS cluster 32
Number of hosts per HA cluster 32
Number of hosts per VirtualCenter server 200

Cloning or Migrating VM having snapshots

You can't clone/migrate the VM having snapshots in regular method because you will loose all your snapshots .

Follow the below method for VM's having snapshots:

1. Logon to the Service Console of target machine

2. Go inside the datastore and create folder using following command

mkdir foldername(VM name/Servername)

3.On the source host , Go inside the Virtual machine folder and run the following command

[root@sourcehost VM]# scp * root@hostname/vmfs/volumes/targetdatastore/targetfoldername/ .

Creating a quiesced snapshot failed because the (user-supplied) custom pre-freeze script in the virtual machine exited with a non-zero return code

During the V2V'ing process i got the above error message.

Solution: Just re-install the VMWare tools on it and try again.

RPC server is unavailable

Some times if you are trying to RDP into the server you will get following message:

" The system cannot log you on due to the following error:

The RPC Server is uvavailable.

Please try again or consult your system administrator."

Most of the times you will get this kind of message when RPC service in stop state.

To fix this issue:

Rebooting server will fix this issue because it will start the RPC service.

or

Start the RPC service from Services.msc manually.

How to Reset ILO

Some times ILO behaves differently and it won't perform job so in that case we need to reset the ILO.

There are two ways to reset the ILO

1. Using GUI from Browser

2. a. Putty into the ILO using ILO IP

b. Execute the following commands

1. cd /map1

2. reset

VMWARE - The destination does not support 64bit guests

I'm trying to migrate my Server 2003 x64 into a virtual server but when running the migration process i get a message saying that destination server will not support 64x bit servers..

Answer is simple..........

Enable VT in advanced Processor Options in Bios.

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/194544

vSphere -Time to download

Admins,it is the time to download and test vSphere...

Download from Below link:

https://www.vmware.com/download/vsphere/

Kill a VM from Service Console

sometimes Virtual Center won't perform task.If your virtual machine is in hung state and not able to kill from VC so please use the following method to kill the VM from Service Console.

[root@XXXXX]# vmware-cmd /vmfs/volumes/datastore/VMfoldername/VM.vmx stop

Note: Don't use friendly datestore name.

if the above fails,then try it with the hard option,

[root@XXXXX]# vmware-cmd /vmfs/volumes/datastore/VMfoldername/VM.vmx stop hard

Introducing VMware vCenter Mobile Access

I was flicking around the VMware website when I come across something which made me rather excited…. “Access to your Virtual Center features from your mobile phone”

Below Ive done a copy and paste from the origionl VMTN blog which covers this, if you want to have a read you can find it here.

vCMA allows you to monitor and manage VMware Infrastructure from your mobile phone with an interface that is optimized for such devices. Specifically, it allows you to:

• Search for virtual machines in your data center
• Migrate virtual machines from one host to another using vMotion
• Execute recovery plans using VMware Site Recovery Manager
• Access Scheduled Tasks, Alarms and Events
• And much more…

In order for you to access vCMA, you will need to deploy a virtual appliance; call it the vCMA server. The vCMA server must be connected to VMware vCenter or any of the ESX servers that you want to manage. Once the server component is set up, you can manage your datacenter from the convenience of your mobile phone.

Please see the below link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UxDnV2qaeM&eurl=http://goingvirtual.wordpress.com/category/site-recovery-manager/&feature=player_embedded#t=69

For me the ability to perform tasks such as VMotion from the mobile is pretty cool, but personaly its the VMware Site Recovery intergration that interests me the most, this is really good stuff !

Audit your VMware Environment using RV Tools

RVTools is a small .NET 2.0 application which uses the VI SDK to display information about your virtual machines. Interacting with VirtualCenter 2.x or ESX 3.x RVTools is able to list information about cpu, memory, disks, nics, cd-rom, floppy drives, snapshots, VMware tools, ESX hosts, datastores and health checks. With RVTools you can disconnect the cd-rom or floppy drives from the virtual machines and RVTools is able to list the current version of the VMware Tools installed inside each virtual machine. and update them to the latest version.

Note: This application only supports ESX Server 3.x, VirtualCenter 2.x and ESX Server 3i.

How to rename Virtual Machines in VMWare

You can clone the VM to a new one with the proper name, but that requires a lot of downtime usually.

Follow are the two ways to rename the VM in VMWare ESX.:

1.Shut down the VM

2.Choose “Remove from inventory”

3.Log into the ESX console and cd to the place where your VM is

4.Rename the directory

5.Rename all the files in the directory

6.Change the names in the vmdk, vmsd, vmx, and vmxf files

7.Browse the datastore and add the new vmx to the inventory

(OR)

cd /vmfs/volumes/vmfs-data6

mv OldVM NewVM

cd NewVM

rename OldVM NewVM *

perl -pi -e 's/OldVM/NewVM/g' NewVM.vm*