Nothing groundbreaking here folks, but this is a quick and easy way to upgrade the drivers (in this case Network Intel & Broadcom) on your host(s) I’ve done this many times for various reasons: Misbehaving drivers after upgrades, Version control, “’cause I wanna’”. etc Login to your host with the Continue Reading
Virtualisation
Auto ESXi Host Configuration Backups with PowerCLI
Regularly throughout the year, I like to take PIT (Point in Time) backups of my ESXi host configurations. These form part of my Critical Config backups that I hope I’ll never have to use. But like any backup, these are merely another safety net as we strive to have more Continue Reading
VMware ESXi CBT bug — FIXED, sort of.
I’ve previously posted in detail about the VMware ESXi CBT bug here It’s taken a while but VMware have today released patches to address this issue for older versions of ESXI 5.0 & 5.1 Disappointingly, still no fix for ESXI 4.0 and more importantly ESXi 5.5 (Rumoured to be coming Continue Reading
PowerCLI – Break glass in case of emergency
Nothing like a bit of Hyperbole, but some days are better than others! One thing I have learned over the years is to always expect the unexpected. Yesterday’s ‘unexpected‘ was one of these; That’s cool, HA kicked in and the stranded guests began to Continue Reading
VMware ESXi CBT Bug – Your data may be at risk
Changed Block Tracking (CBT) is a great feature introduced in ESXi 4.0, that effectively brought incremental backup technology to our virtual machines. Third parties were able to leverage this so backups would only require the processing of blocks that have changed rather than all blocks. This saved inordinate amounts of time, Continue Reading
Out now, vSphere 5.5U2
Hot off the Press ! vSPhere 5.5 Update 2 was made GA. Lots of issues resolved, and a bit of a ‘maintenance release’ imo. vCenter 5.5U2 Release Notes. ESXi 5.5U2 Release Notes. Notable inclusions; Edit Hardware V10 guest settings from the C# Client – Hooray ! And the community breathed Continue Reading
VMware EVO:RAIL : SDDC in a box
Rumours of the VMware hyper-converged appliance have been riding high for some months under the guise of “Project Marvin”, now official, the details are out about EVO:RAIL VMware EVO:RAlL landing page is here. From the release; VMware EVO: RAIL™ combines compute, networking, and storage resources into a hyper-converged infrastructure appliance Continue Reading
vSphere – “Another task is already in progress..” fix with esxcli
I recently had the ‘pleasure’ of an unresponsive vm that had basically turned into a ZOMBIE ! It could not be restarted, edited, snapshot’d and was of course, unresponsive from an OS perspective (No RDP, ping or comms just totally off the air) Any attempted operation from the vSphere client returned Continue Reading
PowerCLI for basic vCenter/ESXi config management
Many admins use Host Profiles, vCM, vCOPS and the like to ensure element compliance within their VI inventory. While these can be fine solutions, many companies do not have the luxury of owning these products. In many cases the targeted use of powerCLI commands across your environment can help to Continue Reading
vSphere Web client – tweaks & hotkeys
I’m not particularly enamoured with the vSphere web client, but one thing it has encouraged me to do is get more proficient using scripting/shell utilities like PowerCLI. When it was first released, it showed promise. But I, like many others was unimpressed by the lag and general slowness in navigation and Continue Reading