tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-82345262869241136642024-02-20T15:19:54.239+08:00Midus RenaissanceJust happy sharing nuggets. My Personal Wiki.
Blog contains mostly technical stuff which may be of interest to some but mostly useful for me. Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14654660947628431388noreply@blogger.comBlogger80125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8234526286924113664.post-91598053523567174842017-04-26T11:00:00.002+08:002018-02-02T14:49:21.473+08:00WSUS Deep Dive - Too much information!I'm just using this as a "notepad" of sorts.<br />
Just took over a site with many downstream WSUS and trying fix the existing issues.<br />
Don't expect a complete solution here!<br />
This will be updated as I go along but then again, maybe not!<br />
<br />
WSUS Tips & Tricks:<br />
<a href="https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/1677852-how-to-administer-wsus">https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/1677852-how-to-administer-wsus</a><br />
<br />
No update files downloaded in WSUS Content folder:<br />
<a href="http://clintboessen.blogspot.sg/2013/09/windows-server-2012-wsus-server-not.html">http://clintboessen.blogspot.sg/2013/09/windows-server-2012-wsus-server-not.html</a><br />
<a href="https://thwack.solarwinds.com/thread/54281">https://thwack.solarwinds.com/thread/54281</a><br />
<a href="https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsserver/en-US/97e1170e-0506-4cf1-918c-6d472b352ff6/wsus-not-downloading-the-updates?forum=winserverwsus">https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsserver/en-US/97e1170e-0506-4cf1-918c-6d472b352ff6/wsus-not-downloading-the-updates?forum=winserverwsus</a><br />
<a href="https://serverfault.com/questions/754267/wsus-upstream-server-is-not-showing-current-downstream-server-status">https://serverfault.com/questions/754267/wsus-upstream-server-is-not-showing-current-downstream-server-status</a><br />
<br />
SQL Script to clean WSUS:<br />
<a href="https://community.spiceworks.com/scripts/show/2998-adamj-clean-wsus">https://community.spiceworks.com/scripts/show/2998-adamj-clean-wsus</a><br />
<br />
WSUS Error Codes:<br />
8024401F - Equivalent to a HTTP 500 error; IIS had an internal server error while processing download request; check your default ports on WSUS if they match GPO settings. If that's not the issue see this:- <a href="http://kaustubhghanekar.blogspot.sg/2011/05/advanced-wsus-troubleshooting-for-error.html">http://kaustubhghanekar.blogspot.sg/2011/05/advanced-wsus-troubleshooting-for-error.html</a><br />
<br />
WSUS Error Codes Database:<br />
<a href="http://inetexplorer.mvps.org/archive/windows_update_codes.htm">http://inetexplorer.mvps.org/archive/windows_update_codes.htm</a><br />
<br />
Script for WSUS cleanup:<br />
<a href="https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/wsus/invoke-wsusservercleanup?view=win10-ps">https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/wsus/invoke-wsusservercleanup?view=win10-ps</a><br />
<br />
Troubleshooting:<br />
IIS Logs<span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "segoe ui" , "lucida grande" , "verdana" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> C:\inetpub\logs\LogFiles</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "segoe ui" , "lucida grande" , "verdana" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "segoe ui" , "lucida grande" , "verdana" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Alternative method of deploying drivers from WSUS:</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "segoe ui" , "lucida grande" , "verdana" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><a href="https://decentsecurity.com/drivers-through-wsus/">https://decentsecurity.com/drivers-through-wsus/</a></span><br />
<br />
Downloading Drivers using WSUS:<br />
<a href="http://www.runonazure.com/downloading-drivers-into-wsus-bad-idea/">http://www.runonazure.com/downloading-drivers-into-wsus-bad-idea/</a><br />
<a href="https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/sus/2008/08/20/a-large-number-of-driver-updates-showing-up-in-wsus/">https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/sus/2008/08/20/a-large-number-of-driver-updates-showing-up-in-wsus/</a><br />
<a href="http://www.runonazure.com/downloading-drivers-into-wsus-bad-idea/">http://www.runonazure.com/downloading-drivers-into-wsus-bad-idea/</a><br />
<br />
Deleting WID:<br />
<a href="https://systemspecialist.net/2013/05/15/move-or-delete-a-wsus-4-windows-internal-database-wid-on-windows-server-2012/">https://systemspecialist.net/2013/05/15/move-or-delete-a-wsus-4-windows-internal-database-wid-on-windows-server-2012/</a><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14654660947628431388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8234526286924113664.post-60115708449841075542017-01-30T13:09:00.001+08:002017-01-30T13:09:54.566+08:00Windows 10 Insider Preview update issues from build 15007 to 15019; this probably will apply to some situations outside this scenario.For those of you on Windows Insider Preview 10 build 15007 trying to move up to build 15019, go to services, disable "Delivery Optimization" service, reboot and retry. I used the Resource Manager to monitor network connections out and notice that after disabling the "Delivery Optimization" service, "svchost.exe (netsvcs)", started receiving incoming data. After the download for 15019 was completed, I set the service back to Automatic but did not start it. This is just in case having this in disabled state will mess up future installations. My setup is a VM on VMware Workstation so YMMV. Good luck guys. :)<br />
<br />
I've placed the screenshots of the process in a public post on Facebook for reference:<br />
https://www.facebook.com/midus/posts/10154325183861724Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14654660947628431388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8234526286924113664.post-89923128783925279532016-10-14T14:14:00.003+08:002016-10-14T14:14:35.217+08:00Clearing space on C: drive on Windows 7It's been a REALLY long time since I've blogged anything.<br />
<br />
Anyhow, I've been with my current company for almost five years and have been using the same notebook running on Windows 7 for all these years.<br />
<br />
Yes, they have given me a new notebook after 3 years, but I've stuck with the current one for reasons which shall not be covered in this article. :P<br />
<br />
Basically, I ran out of space on my C: drive. I had only 10.5GB left out of 108GB.<br />
<br />
Here's how a quick and dirty note on how to clear space besides using "Disk Cleanup".<br />
<br />
DISCLAIMER:<br />
Make sure you have a Systems Image backup in case you FUBAR your machine.<br />
This "note" here is meant for my own future reference.<br />
If you destroy, break, damage, get yourself into hot soup in office because of this, it's your decision and choice. I cannot be held responsible for your choice of actions.<br />
<br />
Now that that's been said...<br />
<br />
1. Run "PatchCleaner" and MOVE the orphaned/old patch folders to another location. This program can be gotten from "http://download.cnet.com/PatchCleaner/3000-18512_4-76399133.html" - this effectively managed to clear about 11GB of space.<br />
<br />
2. Move your Windows Search Index off to another drive. How to do that?<br />
- Open a administrative command prompt<br />
- Run this command line "rundll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL srchadmin.dll"<br />
- Click on "Advanced", on next screen, click on "Select New" and choose the folder you want to move the index files to.<br />
- Click "OK" and wait.<br />
<br />
Once control returns to the application, you will have more free space on your C: drive. I got back another 11.5GB of space on my C: drive.<br />
<br />
Hope the above steps helps. And as usual, YMMV.<br />
<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14654660947628431388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8234526286924113664.post-79719173087058865112015-06-20T10:58:00.000+08:002015-06-20T11:02:50.821+08:00A geek's comments (review?) about the Amazon Fire Phone - It's actually pretty good! I've owned this phone since February. I've been using it as my spare phone at home only. But I've grown to really like this phone. That's possibly because I'm also heavily invested into the Amazon eco-system. :) I've got the Amazon Echo, several kindles (The Kindle HDX 8.9 is my favorite device)<br />
<br />
Anyhow, now that SwiftKey and Google Play services are successfully installed on my Amazon Fire Phone, I can honestly say this is the best value phone you can get on the market. For less than 300 bucks, 32GB storage, quad core. It's got good heft and excellent build quality. Anyone wants to get a feel of it? So far all my tech colleagues whom have handled it all like it. Pity Amazon didn't get a fair chance.<br />
<br />
Excellent screen, excellent fonts. Excellent sound processing. There is a noticeable difference in audio quality compared to my Xperia Z2 when streaming to a Bluetooth speaker. The sound is warm and fuller. I don't know. I'm just growing to enjoy this phone the more I use it. Am typing this review on this phone right now.<br />
<br />
I'm still using the default Amazon UI. The gesture controls grow on you. So much so that I even ended up mistakenly swiping up on my Xperia Z2.<br />
<br />
What I don't like: The default keyboard. That's probably because I'm too used to the auto correct and prediction functionality of SwiftKey. I don't use flow. I'm used to back swiping for deleting. I also can't seem to find where the context switching button is. I'm used to quickly switch applications but on the fire phone... Where the hell is that?Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14654660947628431388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8234526286924113664.post-45116726182217002862015-04-28T12:05:00.001+08:002015-04-28T12:05:41.120+08:00Long live VMFS3! VAAI enabled storage, ESXi 5.x and above, thin VMDK files = Not able to recover unused (null) space.Basically we still need a VMFS3 datastore as a "AUX" to shrink disks.<br />
<br />
This is interesting! Basically, logically, in plain English.. what happens is since the VAAI datamover used is not at the ESXi layer, the storage doesn't know what is on the VMDK and _has-to_ copy everything. There is no chance for ESXi layer to figure out which blocks to drop!<br />
<br />
The conditions - ESXi 5.x onwards (VMFS5) + VAAI capable/enabled storage, Thin Provisioned VMs<br />
<br />
"...When the source filesystem uses a different blocksize from the destination filesystem, the legacy datamover (FSDM) is used. When the blocksizes of source and destination are equal, the new datamover (FS3DM) is used. FS3DM decides if it will use VAAI or just the software component. In either case, null blocks are not reclaimed"<br />
<br />
Thanks to Boon Hong for highlighting this.<br />
<br />
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2004155Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14654660947628431388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8234526286924113664.post-64241422302063908022015-02-17T17:07:00.000+08:002015-02-17T17:07:27.880+08:00Temporarily disabling password complexity on hardened CentOS 6.5<br />
Navigate to etc/pam.d<br />
(system-auth is symbolic link to system-auth-ac)<br />
<br />
Rename original file:<br />
"mv system-auth-ac system-auth-ac-backup"<br />
<br />
Create a new file<br />
"cp system-auth-ac-backup system-auth-ac"<br />
<br />
Edit "system-auth-ac"<br />
Look for line that starts with "password required pam_cracklib.so"<br />
Change parameters "minlen=1", "dcredit=0", "ucredit=0", "ocredit=0", "lcredit=0"<br />
Save the file (No reboot is required)<br />
Change password with "passwd"<br />
<br />
Revert original file:<br />
"cp system-auth-ac-backup system-auth-ac"<br />
<br />
Remove bash history<br />
make sure you're in your "profile" directory<br />
"rm .bash_history" - you will be prompted if you want to delete the file.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14654660947628431388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8234526286924113664.post-81741815510196445302015-02-17T14:37:00.000+08:002015-02-17T17:30:01.106+08:00Patching CentOS 6.5 on VMwareJust a quick and dirty post for my future reference.<br />
<br />
Sometimes, the OS gets confused. Especially if there are additional lines for VMXNET.<br />
When you run "system-config-network", eth0 should show the VMware NIC type, for example "VMXNET3"<br />
<br />
Otherwise;<br />
1. Remove the unnecessary lines from /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules<br />
2. Make sure the MAC address matches matches the ESXi assigned<br />
3. Restart the services "service network restart"<br />
4. "yum clean all" (in case cache is pointing to dead update locations)<br />
4. yum update<br />
<br />
Location of network configuration file: (assumption for 1st network adapter)<br />
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14654660947628431388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8234526286924113664.post-24361800437748106992015-01-16T18:40:00.000+08:002015-01-16T18:40:18.369+08:00vSphere Web Client Abobe Flash Offline InstallerJust a very quick post for future reference:<br />
<br />
Platform to install on: Windows 2008 R2 Server, IE.<br />
<br />
See this URL from Adobe Forum:<br />
https://forums.adobe.com/thread/889580<br />
<br />
Direct download of IE active-x installer (Version 13 extended support):<br />
http://download.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/current/licensing/win/install_flash_player_13_active_x.exe<br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14654660947628431388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8234526286924113664.post-3202924986654684752014-09-17T10:29:00.002+08:002014-09-17T10:29:55.012+08:00Insomniac Ramblings is now Midus Renaissance.This is not a technical post.<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
However I feel that this will be useful for people with problems sleeping.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
As I'm no longer having sleep issues, I thought maybe it's time to update the name of this blog.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The "solution" I found in the end for this disorder was through the holistic path.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In short, I finally consulted with a Tradition Chinese doctor and "resetting" my internal flow has allowed me to sleep well at night after years of battling.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I think Insomnia is prevalent among many in our times - it detracts from the overall quality of life and can inadvertently, insidiously affect other aspects of one's life.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
As this is an update and not a technical post (yet) I'd like to leave the topic open and hoping maybe someone else can be helped.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Looking forward to robust discussions (if any)</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14654660947628431388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8234526286924113664.post-15238138367027634012014-09-17T09:33:00.000+08:002014-09-17T13:29:22.881+08:00Advantages of using VMware PVSCSI interface vs LSI SAS and it's caveats<b><u>Updated (again) 1330hrs:</u></b><br />
Appended some other interesting information from the discussion resulting from that Facebook post.<br />
Thanks guys!<br />
<br />
LSI SAS by defaults supports only queue depth of 25. (needs further confirmation) vs PVSCSI.<br />
<br />
<b><u>Original Post:-</u></b><br />
<br />
While there are host OS (HOS) and guest OS (GOS) optimizations that will increase performance, there are caveats to note.<br />
<br />
My recommendation would be to follow VMwares' best practice (gleaned from various forum posts and blogs - not sure if there are any such official articles/KBs) and <i>do not</i> configure your OS disk/partition with PVSCSI especially in a production environment where you may have a few other VMware administrators.<br />
<br />
However, for a controlled test environment like home labs, by all means try it. All my home lab VMs are running PVSCSI on OS disks too. ;)<br />
<br />
The details of why "don't do that" follow:<br />
<br />
This is a reply to a post on Facebook's VMUG ASEAN to a question on how to configure PVSCSI replacement interface.<br />
<br />
(Don't know if this <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/vmware.users/707341442693097/?comment_id=707463109347597&ref=notif&notif_t=like" target="_blank">hotlink</a> to the post on VMUG ASEAN will work. If anyone knows a sure-fire way to link Facebook posts let me know in the comments below :D )<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKPbmmIvakyRbfswqDvXTmrNw6jwgjjyEfPYkIlHu4VmDNvmEWPM95lc-X7YqhsZRgheDwK7KrCd-de-i4d3eA0ge0tgnBxzyjSbQaLQh6SwAFZy-3RzKKj8qc-vWQzxCZ954C1wvzpLmx/s1600/2014-09-17_9-19-00.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKPbmmIvakyRbfswqDvXTmrNw6jwgjjyEfPYkIlHu4VmDNvmEWPM95lc-X7YqhsZRgheDwK7KrCd-de-i4d3eA0ge0tgnBxzyjSbQaLQh6SwAFZy-3RzKKj8qc-vWQzxCZ954C1wvzpLmx/s1600/2014-09-17_9-19-00.jpg" /></a></div>
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<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span data-reactid=".39.1:3:1:$comment707341442693097_707463109347597:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body.0.$text1:0:$0:0" style="background-color: #f6f7f8; color: #141823; line-height: 15.3599996566772px;">Here's my 2 cents. <span class="emoticon emoticon_smile" style="background-image: url(https://fbstatic-a.akamaihd.net/rsrc.php/v2/yP/r/90b8T5aM1AH.png); background-position: 0px -7986px; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: auto; display: inline-block; height: 16px; vertical-align: top; width: 16px;" title=":)"></span> I did some deep dive research on PVSCSI and there are caveats. Some OS may have issues with it. Particularly VMware View. For PVSCSI to work, VMtools has to be installed and functional. There may be some situations where when you update or lose the VMtools you might lose connectivity to the disks connected using the PVSCSI device. I had considered using PVSCSI as the OS boot interface (after switching the vNIC using the article </span><a class="profileLink" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=1136612731&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" data-reactid=".39.1:3:1:$comment707341442693097_707463109347597:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body.0.$range1:0" dir="ltr" href="https://www.facebook.com/lalitsharma81" style="background-color: #f6f7f8; color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; line-height: 15.3599996566772px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Lalit Sharma</a><span data-reactid=".39.1:3:1:$comment707341442693097_707463109347597:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body.0.$end:0:$0:0" style="background-color: #f6f7f8; color: #141823; line-height: 15.3599996566772px;"> mentioned. However, if you get into a situation where you need to boot the OS (Windows in this case, Linux I don't have enough experience) to repair the OS, you will have to reconfigure the interface back to LSI or the default Windows boot media won't be able to access the OS disk. So take these things into consideration. Anyhow for my home lab, everything is on PVSCSI. Just it may not be wise in production environment especially if you have other vSphere admins that may not be as familiar.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span data-reactid=".39.1:3:1:$comment707341442693097_707463109347597:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body.0.$end:0:$0:0" style="background-color: #f6f7f8; color: #141823; line-height: 15.3599996566772px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span data-reactid=".39.1:3:1:$comment707341442693097_707463109347597:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body.0.$end:0:$0:0" style="background-color: #f6f7f8; color: #141823; line-height: 15.3599996566772px;">Appends:-</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span data-reactid=".39.1:3:1:$comment707341442693097_707463109347597:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body.0.$end:0:$0:0" style="background-color: #f6f7f8; color: #141823; line-height: 15.3599996566772px;"><br /></span></span>
<span data-reactid=".39.1:3:1:$comment707341442693097_707463109347597:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body.0.$end:0:$0:0" style="background-color: #f6f7f8; color: #141823; font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.3599996566772px;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/roshan.jha.524?fref=ufi" target="_blank">Roshan Jha</a>: Posted a recent VMware blog article (which I did not see earlier). </span><br />
<span data-reactid=".39.1:3:1:$comment707341442693097_707463109347597:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body.0.$end:0:$0:0" style="background-color: #f6f7f8; color: #141823; font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.3599996566772px;">It's VSAN related but relevant.</span><br />
<span data-reactid=".39.1:3:1:$comment707341442693097_707463109347597:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body.0.$end:0:$0:0" style="background-color: #f6f7f8; color: #141823; font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.3599996566772px;"><br /></span>
<span data-reactid=".39.1:3:1:$comment707341442693097_707463109347597:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body.0.$end:0:$0:0" style="background-color: #f6f7f8; color: #141823; font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.3599996566772px;"><a href="http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2014/02/vscsi-controller-choose-performance.html" target="_blank">Which vSCSI controller should I choose for performance?</a> - <a href="http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/author/mark_achtemichuk" target="_blank">Mark Achtemichuk</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span data-reactid=".39.1:3:1:$comment707341442693097_707463109347597:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body.0.$end:0:$0:0" style="background-color: #f6f7f8; color: #141823; line-height: 15.3599996566772px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: #f6f7f8; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15.3599996566772px;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/kasim.hansia?fref=ufi" target="_blank">Kasim Hansia</a>: "LSI only supports 32 queue depth and PVSCSI queue depth default values are 64 (device) and 254 (adapter). You can increase PVSCSI queue depths to 256 (device) and 1024 (adapter) inside a Windows or Linux Virtual Machine. "</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f6f7f8; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15.3599996566772px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: #f6f7f8; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15.3599996566772px;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/tanwk?fref=ufi" target="_blank">Tan Wee Kiong</a> - thanks for the correction of the initial assumption and the following KB article:</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f6f7f8; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15.3599996566772px;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #f6f7f8; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15.3599996566772px;">"</span><span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 15.3599996566772px;"><a href="http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2053145" target="_blank">Large-scale workloads with intensive I/O patterns might require queue depths significantly greater than Paravirtual SCSI default values (2053145)</a>"</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f6f7f8; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15.3599996566772px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: #f6f7f8; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15.3599996566772px;">"</span><span style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 15.3599996566772px;">The large-scale workloads with intensive I/O patterns require adapter queue depths greater than the Paravirtual SCSI (PVSCSI) default values. Current PVSCSI queue depth default values are 64 (for device) and 254 (for adapter). You can increase PVSCSI queue depths to 256 (for device) and 1024 (for adapter) inside a Windows virtual machine or Linux Virtual Machine."</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 15.3599996566772px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 15.3599996566772px;">Note that the article has made a distinction between a "device" and the "adapter".</span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14654660947628431388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8234526286924113664.post-2707127350594864552014-07-01T15:06:00.000+08:002014-07-02T11:25:05.472+08:00Disabling many AD user accounts on Windows Server 2003 without powershellThis may or may not help you but it's for my future reference.<br />
<br />
My source was from dumping using MAP (Microsoft Assessment and Planning) toolkit using report "ActiveDevicesUsageTracker"<br />
<br />
My AD wasn't using the default OU structure<br />
Usable output = "Username" column = samID<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><u>Retrieve User-DN on Windows Server 2003</u></span><br />
With the samID above, for each name<br />
<br />
dsquery user -samid <username></username><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><u>Disable AD user accounts on Windows Server 2003</u></span><br />
dsmod user user-DN -disabled yes<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">References (just got the important bits):</span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">http://technet.microsoft.com/en-sg/library/cc781527(v=ws.10).aspx</span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">https://kb.bluecoat.com/index?page=content&id=KB4548</span><br />
<br />
Not related but I needed to get the AD group membership of those disabled AD accounts for clean up purposes.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><u>Retrieve by AD user object AD group membership:</u></span><br />
dsget user "<dn of="" the="" user="">" -memberof -expand </dn><br />
<br />
Reference:<br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/2195.active-directory-dsquery-commands.aspx</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14654660947628431388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8234526286924113664.post-84545954099600981502014-06-24T19:42:00.001+08:002014-07-21T09:25:20.069+08:00VMware vSphere Snapshots (draft-WIP)This post aims to condense and place into a single page important information with regards to snapshots, svmotion (snapshots are used), cloning (snapshots used there too!) and some general issues and questions which I've encountered in my working environment. (quiescing errors, during Avamar backup, during cloning of "hardened" windows GOS)<br />
<br />
I started out looking for supporting articles but ended up going in and out of KBs and losing track of what belongs to what, where belongs to where. Hence this post. It's mostly my notes of what I think will be useful and important while troughing through the maze of KB articles.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><u>Start here (Understanding how Snapshots work on different versions of ESX/ESXi)</u></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&docTypeID=DT_KB_1_1&externalId=1015180</span><br />
<ul style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'Bitstream Vera Sans'; font-size: 12px;">
<li><b style="border: 0px none; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Quiesce</b>: If the <code style="border: 0px none; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><quiesce></quiesce></code> flag is 1 or true, and the virtual machine is powered on when the snapshot is taken, VMware Tools is used to quiesce the file system in the virtual machine. <b>Quiescing a file system is a process of bringing the on-disk data of a physical or virtual computer into a state suitable for backups</b>. This process might include such operations as flushing dirty buffers from the operating system's in-memory cache to disk, or other higher-level application-specific tasks.<br /><br /><strong style="border: 0px none; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Note</strong>: Quiescing indicates pausing or altering the state of running processes on a computer, particularly those that might modify information stored on disk during a backup, to guarantee a consistent and usable backup. Quiescing is not necessary for memory snapshots; <b>it is used primarily for backups</b>.</li>
<li>If the virtual disk is larger than 2TB in size, the redo log file is of <code style="border: 0px none; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><vm>-<number>-sesparse.vmdk </number></vm></code>format.</li>
<li><code style="border: 0px none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><vm>.vmsd</vm></code><br />The <code style="border: 0px none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">.vmsd</code> file is a database of the virtual machine's snapshot information and the primary source of information for the snapshot manager. The file contains line entries which define the relationships between snapshots as well as the child disks for each snapshot.</li>
<li><code style="border: 0px none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><vm>Snapshot<number>.vmsn</number></vm></code>The <code style="border: 0px none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">.vmsn</code><span class="filepath" id="GUID-38F4D574-ADE7-4B80-AEAB-7EC502A379F4__FILEPATH_C18F1C28A3B4492EB2179E3B0CC31A8E" style="border: 0px none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></span> file includes the current configuration and optionally the active state of the virtual machine.</li>
<li>The above files will be placed in the working directory by default in ESX/ESX 3.x and 4.x.</li>
<li>In ESXi 5.x and later snapshots descriptor and delta VMDK files will be stored in the same location as the virtual disks (which can be in a different directory to the working directory). </li>
<li>When removing a snapshot, the snapshot entity in the snapshot manager is removed before the changes are made to the child disks. The snapshot manager does not contain any snapshot entries while the virtual machine continues to run from the child disk. </li>
<li> During a snapshot removal, if the child disks are large in size, the operation may take a long time. This can result in a timeout error message from either VirtualCenter or the VMware Infrastructure Client.</li>
</ul>
<div>
<h3 style="background-color: white; border: 0px none; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'Bitstream Vera Sans'; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 14px; padding: 10px 0px 5px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The child disk</h3>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px none; color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'Bitstream Vera Sans'; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The child disk, which is created with a snapshot, is a sparse disk. Sparse disks employ the copy-on-write (COW) mechanism, in which the virtual disk contains no data in places, until copied there by a write. This optimization saves storage space. The grain is the unit of measure in which the sparse disk uses the copy-on-write mechanism. Each grain is a block of sectors containing virtual disk data. The default size is 128 sectors or 64KB</div>
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px none; color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'Bitstream Vera Sans'; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px none; color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'Bitstream Vera Sans'; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div>
<h3 style="background-color: white; border: 0px none; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'Bitstream Vera Sans'; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 14px; padding: 10px 0px 5px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The disk chain</h3>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px none; color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'Bitstream Vera Sans'; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Generally, when you create a snapshot for the first time, the first child disk is created from the parent disk. Successive snapshots generate new child disks from the last child disk on the chain. The relationship can change if you have multiple branches in the snapshot chain.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px none; color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'Bitstream Vera Sans'; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
This diagram is an example of a snapshot chain. Each square represents a block of data or a grain as described above:</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px none; color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'Bitstream Vera Sans'; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<img border="0" src="http://kb.vmware.com/Platform/Publishing/images/1015180_diskchain.bmp" height="454" hspace="0" style="border: none; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="" width="649" /><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Reverting virtual machines to a snapshot causes all settings configured in the guest operating system since that snapshot to be reverted. The configuration which is reverted<b> includes, but is not limited to,</b> previous IP addresses, DNS names, UUIDs, guest OS patch versions, etc.</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif, Bitstream Vera Sans;"><span style="font-size: 12px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><u>When performing Storage vMotion</u></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2011/09/storage-vmotion-storage-drs-virtual-machine-snapshots.html</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: proxima-nova, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;">"It should also be noted that if you do a Storage vMotion of a VM with snapshots </span><em style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #666666; font-family: proxima-nova, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">and </em><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: proxima-nova, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;">the VM has the</span><em style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #666666; font-family: proxima-nova, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"> workingDir </em><span style="background-color: white; font-family: proxima-nova, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #666666;">parameter set,</span><b><span style="color: red;"> the</span></b></span><em style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: proxima-nova, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"><b><span style="color: red;">workingDir </span></b></em><span style="background-color: white; font-family: proxima-nova, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="color: red;">setting will be removed from the .vmx & the .vmsn snapshot data file will be moved to the home folder of the VM on the destination datastore.</span></b><span style="color: #666666;"> You do get a warning in the migration wizard about this"</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: proxima-nova, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: proxima-nova, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;">"</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: proxima-nova, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;">Therefore, if you use the </span><strong style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #666666; font-family: proxima-nova, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">snapshot.redoNotWithParent = "TRUE" </strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: proxima-nova, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;">parameter, you should refrain from doing Storage vMotion operations."</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: proxima-nova, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: proxima-nova, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;">This happens regardless even if you set the parameters above - in other words, try as best as possible to avoid putting the snapshot files on a datastore away from the parent -flat file disks if all the datastores involved are backing an SDRS cluster...</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: proxima-nova, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: proxima-nova, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><u>Troubleshooting</u></b></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: proxima-nova, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;">http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&docTypeID=DT_KB_1_1&externalId=1031200</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: proxima-nova, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;">Disable selective VSS writers for troubleshooting</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: proxima-nova, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: proxima-nova, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;">http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?cmd=displayKC&externalId=5962168</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: proxima-nova, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;">Using custom "pre-freeze" and "post-thaw" scripts.</span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: proxima-nova, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;">Covers SYNC and LGTO_SYNC drivers, not VSS.</span></span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: proxima-nova, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;">This article details why the VM may become unresponsive and seem "hung" during a snapshot process.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: proxima-nova, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: proxima-nova, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;">http</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: proxima-nova, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;">://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?cmd=displayKC&externalId=1007696</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: proxima-nova, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;">Details VSS troubleshooting. This article also includes the services that need to be running on the GOS., </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: proxima-nova, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;">Issues with </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: proxima-nova, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">quiescing.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: proxima-nova, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: proxima-nova, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: large; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;"><u>When performing cloning on vSphere v5.x on a VM with snapshots</u></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: proxima-nova, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;">This is what's been observed: Base disk + snapshot will be copied over to the destination VM merging the snapshot(s) into a single VMDK at destination.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: proxima-nova, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: proxima-nova, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: large; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;"><b><u>When you've run out of space on the datastore and snapshots cannot be deleted</u></b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: proxima-nova, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;">http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1004545</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: proxima-nova, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;">This post details the steps to take with a command line tool provided you already have another datastore with sufficient space or have been able to increase the space on the same datastore that had run out of space.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: proxima-nova, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><u>There is a limit on how many open vmdk files an ESXi host can address depending on the VMFS version. </u></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1004424</span><br />
This article is very interesting technically. Covers all versions of ESXi till date. There are changes to the HEAP size between version updates. Useful. Here's the table of limits reproduced:<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; border: 0px none; color: #666666; float: none; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'Bitstream Vera Sans'; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 640px;"><tbody style="border: 0px none; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<tr style="border: 0px none; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><td style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px; padding: 3px; vertical-align: top;"><strong style="border: 0px none; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Version/build</strong></td><td style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px; padding: 3px; vertical-align: top;"><strong style="border: 0px none; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Default heap amount</strong></td><td style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px; padding: 3px; vertical-align: top;"><strong style="border: 0px none; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Default allowed open VMDK storage per host</strong></td><td style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px; padding: 3px; vertical-align: top;"><strong style="border: 0px none; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Minimum heap amount</strong></td><td style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px; padding: 3px; vertical-align: top;"><strong style="border: 0px none; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Maximum heap amount</strong></td><td style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px; padding: 3px; vertical-align: top;"><strong style="border: 0px none; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Maximum heap value</strong></td><td style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px; padding: 3px; vertical-align: top;"><strong style="border: 0px none; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Maximum open VMDK storage per host</strong></td></tr>
<tr style="border: 0px none; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><td style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px; padding: 3px; vertical-align: middle;">ESXi/ESX 3.5/4.0</td><td style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px; padding: 3px; vertical-align: middle;">16 MB</td><td style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px; padding: 3px; vertical-align: middle;">4 TB</td><td style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px; padding: 3px; vertical-align: middle;">N/A</td><td style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px; padding: 3px; vertical-align: middle;">N/A</td><td style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px; padding: 3px; vertical-align: middle;">N/A</td><td style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px; padding: 3px; vertical-align: middle;">N/A</td></tr>
<tr style="border: 0px none; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><td style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px; padding: 3px; vertical-align: middle;">ESXi/ESX 4.1</td><td style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px; padding: 3px; vertical-align: middle;">80 MB</td><td style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px; padding: 3px; vertical-align: middle;">8 TB</td><td style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px; padding: 3px; vertical-align: middle;">N/A</td><td style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px; padding: 3px; vertical-align: middle;">128 MB</td><td style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px; padding: 3px; vertical-align: middle;">128</td><td style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px; padding: 3px; vertical-align: middle;">32 TB</td></tr>
<tr style="border: 0px none; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><td style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px; padding: 3px; vertical-align: middle;">ESXi 5.0 Update 2 (914586) and earlier</td><td style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px; padding: 3px; vertical-align: middle;">80 MB</td><td style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px; padding: 3px; vertical-align: middle;">8 TB</td><td style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px; padding: 3px; vertical-align: middle;">N/A</td><td style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px; padding: 3px; vertical-align: middle;">256 MB</td><td style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px; padding: 3px; vertical-align: middle;">255</td><td style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px; padding: 3px; vertical-align: middle;">25 TB</td></tr>
<tr style="border: 0px none; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><td style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px; padding: 3px; vertical-align: middle;">ESXi 5.0 Patch 5 (1024429) and later</td><td style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px; padding: 3px; vertical-align: middle;">256 MB</td><td style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px; padding: 3px; vertical-align: middle;">60 TB</td><td style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px; padding: 3px; vertical-align: middle;">256 MB</td><td style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px; padding: 3px; vertical-align: middle;">640 MB</td><td style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px; padding: 3px; vertical-align: middle;">255</td><td style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px; padding: 3px; vertical-align: middle;">60 TB</td></tr>
<tr style="border: 0px none; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><td style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px; padding: 3px; vertical-align: middle;">ESXi 5.1 Patch 1 (914609) and earlier</td><td style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px; padding: 3px; vertical-align: middle;">80 MB</td><td style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px; padding: 3px; vertical-align: middle;">8 TB</td><td style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px; padding: 3px; vertical-align: middle;">N/A</td><td style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px; padding: 3px; vertical-align: middle;">256 MB</td><td style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px; padding: 3px; vertical-align: middle;">255</td><td style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px; padding: 3px; vertical-align: middle;">25 TB</td></tr>
<tr style="border: 0px none; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><td style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px; padding: 3px; vertical-align: middle;">ESXi 5.1 Update 1 (1065491) and later</td><td style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px; padding: 3px; vertical-align: middle;">256 MB</td><td style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px; padding: 3px; vertical-align: middle;">60 TB</td><td style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px; padding: 3px; vertical-align: middle;">256 MB</td><td style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px; padding: 3px; vertical-align: middle;">640 MB</td><td style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px; padding: 3px; vertical-align: middle;">255</td><td style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px; padding: 3px; vertical-align: middle;">60 TB</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><u><b>Disks (VMDK) larger than 2TB (for ESXi 5.5 with VMFS5 only. If using NFS, backend must be on file system that has large file support like EXT4. Extending disks beyond 2TB also requires the use of the Web Client or vCLI)</b></u></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&docTypeID=DT_KB_1_1&externalId=2058287</span></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'Bitstream Vera Sans'; font-size: 12px;">Changes in virtual machine snapshots for VMDKs larger than 2 TB:</span><br />
<ul style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif, 'Bitstream Vera Sans'; font-size: 12px;">
<li>Snapshots taken on VMDKs larger than 2 TB are now in Space Efficient Virtual Disk (SESPARSE) format. No user interaction is required. The redo logs will be automatically created as SESPARSE instead of VMFSSPARSE (delta) when the base flat VMDK is larger than 2 TB.</li>
<li>Extending a base flat disk on VMFSSPARSE or SESPARSE is not supported.</li>
<li>The VMFSSPARSE format does not have the ability to support 2 TB or more.</li>
<li>VMFSSPARSE and SESPARSE formats cannot co-exist in the same VMDK. In a virtual machine, both types of snapshot can co-exist, but not in the same disk chain. For example, when a snapshot is taken for a virtual machine with two virtual disks attached, one smaller than 2 TB and one larger than 2 TB, the smaller disk snapshot will be VMFSSPARSE the larger disk snapshot will be SESPARSE.</li>
<li>Linked clones will be SESPARSE if the parent disk is larger than 2 TB.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><u><b>What else can cause snapshots consolidation to fail?</b></u></span><br />
Main reference article in spanish:<br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2046576</span><br />
1. Locks (files are locked)<br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&docTypeID=DT_KB_1_1&externalId=10051</span><br />
2. Temporary loss of communication between vCenter and ESXi hosts during confirmation - this does not mean that the ESXi hosts are shown to be disconnected from vCenter. To "restore" connectivity restart management agents from the host. (My note from field experience - there is a chance that during the restart of the management agents, your host may really get disconnected from vCenter AND if your cluster is EVC enabled, you will have to shutdown all the running VMs on that host in order for that host to rejoin the EVC cluster - so beware!)<br />
3. A snapshot configuration file with extension .vmsd in the VM home directory may interfere. Rename, move or delete that file.<br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&docTypeID=DT_KB_1_1&externalId=1003490</span><br />
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<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14654660947628431388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8234526286924113664.post-41789042041125946792014-06-20T09:11:00.002+08:002014-06-20T09:11:59.993+08:00Things to look out for when using VMware PVSCSI Well, since VMXNET3 is optimum, why not PVSCSI?<br />
<br />
Rolling out to a production environment we have to make sure we know the possible caveats and limitations so that the stakeholders can be informed and operations have the correct information for deployments.<br />
<br />
Following is a summary of things to look out for based on URL here:<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1010398</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>The VMware PVSCSI adapter driver is also compatible with the Windows Storport storage driver</li>
<li>PVSCSI adapters are not suited for DAS environments.</li>
<li>Cannot be used as a boot disk for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5 (32 and 64 bit) and all update releases</li>
<li>Hot-adding a PVSCSI adapter is only supported for those versions that support booting from a PVSCSI adapter.</li>
<li>Hot add or hot remove requires a bus rescan from within the guest.</li>
<li>Disks with snapshots might not experience performance gains when used on Paravirtual SCSI adapters if memory on the ESX host is over committed.</li>
<li>Do not use PVSCSI on a virtual machine running Windows with spanned volumes. Data may become inaccessible to the guest operating system.</li>
<li>If you upgrade from RHEL 5 to an unsupported kernel, you might not be able to access data on the virtual machine's PVSCSI disks. You can run vmware-config-tools.pl with the kernel-version parameter to regain access.</li>
<li>If a virtual machine uses PVSCSI, it cannot be part of a Microsoft Cluster Server (MSCS) cluster.</li>
</ul>
<div>
I remember seeing somewhere some other considerations for View deployments and will update this post once there is more information.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Have a great day ahead!</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14654660947628431388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8234526286924113664.post-71615048815146209602014-04-30T11:25:00.001+08:002014-04-30T12:10:39.873+08:00A timeout (30000 milliseconds) was reached while waiting for a transaction response from the (name-of-service) service (WIP)Post is purely to reference bookmarks during troubleshooting (Work-In-Progress)<br />
<br />
General consensus so far looks like it's related to some third party application issues.<br />
<div>
In my environment, eventlogs reported multiple user registry leaks.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
My guess it has to do with the server being under load or some hardware (possibly disk?) related issues combined with the software combination and communications between tiers.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<br />
<a href="http://www.eversity.nl/blog/2012/08/a-timeout-30000-milliseconds-was-reached-while-waiting-for-a-transaction-response-from-the-name-of-service-service/">http://www.eversity.nl/blog/2012/08/a-timeout-30000-milliseconds-was-reached-while-waiting-for-a-transaction-response-from-the-name-of-service-service/</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsserver/en-US/77a521a1-e3d5-4ab2-9c0f-be4a5498ce1c/windows-server-2008-sp2-stops-responding-as-multiple-services-timeout?forum=winserverTS">http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsserver/en-US/77a521a1-e3d5-4ab2-9c0f-be4a5498ce1c/windows-server-2008-sp2-stops-responding-as-multiple-services-timeout?forum=winserverTS</a><br />
<br />
This thread has a bit more variations to the issue:<br />
<a href="http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/2c4b8121-da1c-4c11-b11d-2dff099ba245/windows-server-2008-r2-sp1-rds-hang-and-stop-responding-new-rdp-session-already-connected-session?forum=winserverTS">http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/2c4b8121-da1c-4c11-b11d-2dff099ba245/windows-server-2008-r2-sp1-rds-hang-and-stop-responding-new-rdp-session-already-connected-session?forum=winserverTS</a><br />
<br />
<br />
Official articles on how to change timeout. May not solve the root cause.<br />
<a href="http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922918">http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922918</a> (EventID: 7011)<br />
<a href="http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/1458.event-id-7011-basic-service-operations.aspx">http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/1458.event-id-7011-basic-service-operations.aspx</a><br />
<br />
Other (may be related)<br />
<a href="http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc756342%28v=ws.10%29.aspx">http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc756342%28v=ws.10%29.aspx</a> (EventID: 7009)<br />
<br />
Affecting VMtools:<br />
<a href="http://ambitech.blogspot.sg/2013/01/esxi-5x-error-messages-in-windows-vm.html">http://ambitech.blogspot.sg/2013/01/esxi-5x-error-messages-in-windows-vm.html</a><br />
Based on article comments, recommendation of not "updating OS patches + VMtools installation together" is not conclusive. (as in my environment, we patch first, then update tools)<br />
<br />
Normal client OS with SSD:<br />
<a href="http://www.bradymoritz.com/a-timeout-was-reached-30000-milliseconds-while-waiting-for-the">http://www.bradymoritz.com/a-timeout-was-reached-30000-milliseconds-while-waiting-for-the</a><br />
Seem to point to NOT disk issues. Hmmm...<br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14654660947628431388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8234526286924113664.post-29012294467207807312014-04-28T10:55:00.000+08:002014-04-28T10:57:33.056+08:00How-To fix RDP connection issue with error "The Local Security Authority cannot be contacted"Can be caused by:<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>User must change password on next logon and RDC is set to use only Network Level Authentication. Affects "workgroup" computers or computers on another domain (compared to the one you're logging in from). </li>
<li>Missing language pack </li>
</ol>
<br />
<div>
References:</div>
<div>
<a href="http://blog.mnewton.com/articles/Solution-RDP-The-Local-Security-Authority-cannot-be-contacted/">http://blog.mnewton.com/articles/Solution-RDP-The-Local-Security-Authority-cannot-be-contacted/</a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
On how to disable NLA (assuming you can get access to your remote server using the suggested methods:</div>
<div>
<a href="http://blog.mnewton.com/articles/Solution-RDP-The-Local-Security-Authority-cannot-be-contacted/">http://blog.mnewton.com/articles/Solution-RDP-The-Local-Security-Authority-cannot-be-contacted/</a></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14654660947628431388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8234526286924113664.post-25318877053472714942014-04-22T22:00:00.000+08:002014-04-22T22:20:08.046+08:00Heartbleed remediation for vCenter (build 1750787), ESXi (build 1746018), Web Client Integration plug-in (build 1750778), vSphere C# client (build 1746248)Glad to report the vCenter update went without a hitch on my home lab. As aways YMMV.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigwkOE_4yl-b4Do0pw3ffAHycxI3jY_1XQhyAz26wtLJeoxGqFgDeUAt11d-hnPRlBjDZTpf2ycWvXdEDx83rd5iswK3IvUrmCyEug-28iSoJ3BcVKyIjUm50IWRKbdPa6scDnEJm_kySE/s1600/2014-04-22_14-49-00.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigwkOE_4yl-b4Do0pw3ffAHycxI3jY_1XQhyAz26wtLJeoxGqFgDeUAt11d-hnPRlBjDZTpf2ycWvXdEDx83rd5iswK3IvUrmCyEug-28iSoJ3BcVKyIjUm50IWRKbdPa6scDnEJm_kySE/s1600/2014-04-22_14-49-00.jpg" height="307" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;">Updating to vCenter 5.5.0u1a - install in sequence following custom install. No reboot required. All other components remain the same as 5.5.0u1</span></b></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3nPYdDX8gfHZrEvENeUQqLFgkQLazErH9nnu14b_B7tZPhMXQzDP4PGA2AgGJWYyGQMWjrhtiByYJapZUz85ABuqjTedcWNfJ-FwNqSiPT5GMR1IRsFzo1XFkeGlVzZERAtef0M9Zkg2P/s1600/2014-04-22_15-45-21.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3nPYdDX8gfHZrEvENeUQqLFgkQLazErH9nnu14b_B7tZPhMXQzDP4PGA2AgGJWYyGQMWjrhtiByYJapZUz85ABuqjTedcWNfJ-FwNqSiPT5GMR1IRsFzo1XFkeGlVzZERAtef0M9Zkg2P/s1600/2014-04-22_15-45-21.jpg" height="90" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;"><b>Versions of updated 5.5.0u1a vCenter SSO, Inventory Service, Web Client and vCenter Server.</b></span></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigwkOE_4yl-b4Do0pw3ffAHycxI3jY_1XQhyAz26wtLJeoxGqFgDeUAt11d-hnPRlBjDZTpf2ycWvXdEDx83rd5iswK3IvUrmCyEug-28iSoJ3BcVKyIjUm50IWRKbdPa6scDnEJm_kySE/s1600/2014-04-22_14-49-00.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigwkOE_4yl-b4Do0pw3ffAHycxI3jY_1XQhyAz26wtLJeoxGqFgDeUAt11d-hnPRlBjDZTpf2ycWvXdEDx83rd5iswK3IvUrmCyEug-28iSoJ3BcVKyIjUm50IWRKbdPa6scDnEJm_kySE/s1600/2014-04-22_14-49-00.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigwkOE_4yl-b4Do0pw3ffAHycxI3jY_1XQhyAz26wtLJeoxGqFgDeUAt11d-hnPRlBjDZTpf2ycWvXdEDx83rd5iswK3IvUrmCyEug-28iSoJ3BcVKyIjUm50IWRKbdPa6scDnEJm_kySE/s1600/2014-04-22_14-49-00.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigwkOE_4yl-b4Do0pw3ffAHycxI3jY_1XQhyAz26wtLJeoxGqFgDeUAt11d-hnPRlBjDZTpf2ycWvXdEDx83rd5iswK3IvUrmCyEug-28iSoJ3BcVKyIjUm50IWRKbdPa6scDnEJm_kySE/s1600/2014-04-22_14-49-00.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisTdcL5M1-AF4bP409YPaWmcCHXCwPGq-Dud-dEK5lDhiA-SiSLgWQeklV0pFtJCdOev8COjlW48q3P0Y-qlSUTxj91QlNLLM659k0nn5jGMLEJxnhEwsAQrayc6O8UiCyjO1YEezFSELy/s1600/2014-04-22_15-47-54.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisTdcL5M1-AF4bP409YPaWmcCHXCwPGq-Dud-dEK5lDhiA-SiSLgWQeklV0pFtJCdOev8COjlW48q3P0Y-qlSUTxj91QlNLLM659k0nn5jGMLEJxnhEwsAQrayc6O8UiCyjO1YEezFSELy/s1600/2014-04-22_15-47-54.jpg" height="86" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span aria-live="polite" class="fbPhotosPhotoCaption" id="fbPhotoSnowliftCaption" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; line-height: 18px; outline: none; text-align: left; width: auto;" tabindex="0"><span class="hasCaption"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>VMware Update Manager will be restarted during installation.</b></span></span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO0j7WxwltkUiB541m4G4UdcgeU1z8mE0eCTx4j-XX_ZomeEZ6JrSajhTwalWrzsFjtBWV0T4q9cKgJC9VNaoDVVGq_qvt7nfI23UtT_8UMCVm-qaigmloieByVXg8vxbiKCd-kumPgwlu/s1600/2014-04-22_16-16-47.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO0j7WxwltkUiB541m4G4UdcgeU1z8mE0eCTx4j-XX_ZomeEZ6JrSajhTwalWrzsFjtBWV0T4q9cKgJC9VNaoDVVGq_qvt7nfI23UtT_8UMCVm-qaigmloieByVXg8vxbiKCd-kumPgwlu/s1600/2014-04-22_16-16-47.jpg" height="358" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>Web Client Integration Plugin will still have the same name as 5.5.0u1 but the build/version has been updated</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB0lvFwmgZmTK4uDyf3Des437QT5mi8TkqeelPMOdGWtqNbi5JKHnpv-cx0cLRW-76ysTy_jZOucUUyFwfVzhmoBkhyphenhyphenad4AXmaNyrZaML1Dmk-3NjYZy1g4MylTjsTD5Vka70ezN4T4xMS/s1600/2014-04-22_16-18-44.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB0lvFwmgZmTK4uDyf3Des437QT5mi8TkqeelPMOdGWtqNbi5JKHnpv-cx0cLRW-76ysTy_jZOucUUyFwfVzhmoBkhyphenhyphenad4AXmaNyrZaML1Dmk-3NjYZy1g4MylTjsTD5Vka70ezN4T4xMS/s1600/2014-04-22_16-18-44.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>vSphere Client updated to build 1746248. Not sure if it's only my home NAS that's slow but it looked like before updating, the stats and info page for ESXi hosts would not display properly.</b></span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV3is099HYqLvhCM1iT11kMyJjj4dSgfIthwQAEn9yfpqADVBNoS96hbAl0tsmS8D_x8OIf7OcDQVxau4jb4bXFhQzHckRPGlCuYPWjph0yYDEzyDZM4jG6Wl-7KYo-Hj-O_Zxcioqd11c/s1600/2014-04-22_17-02-47.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV3is099HYqLvhCM1iT11kMyJjj4dSgfIthwQAEn9yfpqADVBNoS96hbAl0tsmS8D_x8OIf7OcDQVxau4jb4bXFhQzHckRPGlCuYPWjph0yYDEzyDZM4jG6Wl-7KYo-Hj-O_Zxcioqd11c/s1600/2014-04-22_17-02-47.jpg" height="393" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>vSphere Client not displaying ESXi stats properly (before updating; could also be caused by my storage backend)</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b><u><br /></u></b>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14654660947628431388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8234526286924113664.post-28294412863603143542014-04-17T11:46:00.000+08:002014-04-17T11:46:28.282+08:00How to change Office 2013 keys<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; min-height: 19px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">
For 32 bit Windows:</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; min-height: 19px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">
cscript "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office15\OSPP.VBS" /inpkey:yourkeygoeshere </div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; min-height: 19px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">
<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; min-height: 19px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">
For 64 bit Windows (assuming you are using 32 bit Office):</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; min-height: 19px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">
cscript "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office15\OSPP.VBS" /inpkey:yourkeygoeshere</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14654660947628431388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8234526286924113664.post-86326858629556296582014-04-02T10:03:00.003+08:002014-04-02T10:05:47.767+08:00Gather information on a domain user (including last logon time, password status, NTFS group membership) without having to use ADUCFrom command prompt type:<br />
<br />
net user /do logonname<username></username><br />
<br />
output will be similar to:<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;">C:\Users\username>net user /do usernameexample</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;">The request will be processed at a domain controller for domain thdm.local</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;">User name usernameexample</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;">Full Name FirstnameLastname</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;">Comment </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;">User's comment</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;">Country code 000 (System Default)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;">Account active Yes</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;">Account expires Never</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;">Password last set 1/1/2014 01:26:20 AM</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;">Password expires 2/1/2014 01:26:20 AM</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;">Password changeable 2/2/2014 01:26:20 AM</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;">Password required Yes</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;">User may change password Yes</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;">Workstations allowed All</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;">Logon script logon.cmd</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;">User profile</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;">Home directory</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;">Last logon 2/4/2014 7:51:17 AM</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;">Logon hours allowed All</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;">Local Group Memberships</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;">Global Group memberships *ACCESS-EVERYTHING</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;">The command completed successfully.</span><br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14654660947628431388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8234526286924113664.post-55519019504449025872014-02-17T15:52:00.000+08:002014-04-03T10:47:24.938+08:00Can I perform a P2V conversion on an Active Directory domain controller? (Note!! Use at your own risk!)<div class="MsoPlainText">
<b><u>Updated 2014-Apr: </u></b><br />
<br />
Summary; you can do it. Just make sure all the FSMO roles are on the DC that is being P2Ved. Also Microsoft test-case is based on only ONE DC. The ramifications of performing this action on a mult-DC environment is not clear.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguO52IHxO4om_N3eZW9Q6OWQZXkdKE0cnZtd6t2HRs947uN3de8UfoJNmyJRx0cXwLk1V9WVCRPsgoQUis7SH-cZitldhMkUOf8Hy_pObKrbo5li6J3Die1bPsCTAbWHHPGMqgwDa-qEWJ/s1600/SCVMM+Process+2014-04-02_11-22-15.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguO52IHxO4om_N3eZW9Q6OWQZXkdKE0cnZtd6t2HRs947uN3de8UfoJNmyJRx0cXwLk1V9WVCRPsgoQUis7SH-cZitldhMkUOf8Hy_pObKrbo5li6J3Die1bPsCTAbWHHPGMqgwDa-qEWJ/s1600/SCVMM+Process+2014-04-02_11-22-15.jpg" height="168" width="320" /></a></div>
In essence, this P2V test case is based on SCVMM and not VMware Converter. There are multiple steps involved. SCVMM will use VSS to take a snapshot of the current state of the AD and simultaneously create a VM (on MS platform) and start cloning.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8234526286924113664" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div>
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8234526286924113664" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><br />
VMware Converter process:<br />
<br />
From the horses' mouth, this is how it coordinates with the ESXi layer, the source VM and the destination target VM.<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText">
1. Authenticate the Source Machine. (I take this as logging on to the source machine)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
2. Get the Source VM information.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
3. Install the Agent on the Source Computer.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
4. Create a new Destination VM.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
5. Call the VSS program to Clone or Snapshot the guest
machine internally.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
6. Copy the cloned info to the destination machine.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
7. Uninstall the agent from the Source Machine.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText">
"We do not invoke any other thing which will cause the
Source Machine to hamper."<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<b><u>Original post 17 Feb 14</u></b><br />
<br />
NOTE - Use these only at your OWN RISK. I cannot be held responsible for any issues that may arise through applying any of the following. It is generally a well known "no-no" to P2V and V2V a DC that is pre-2012.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
(From Microsoft Support - Advisory only - Further details, if any, will be updated as more information becomes available)</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Can I perform a P2V conversion on an Active Directory
domain controller?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Yes. You can perform an offline P2V conversion on a
domain controller. Performing the conversion offline helps avoid potential
Active Directory USN rollback issues during the process. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<a href="http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd221390.aspx">http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd221390.aspx</a>
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Recommendations:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Offline P2V:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
The impact to the original is when you perform P2V, the
source DC will restart into the Windows Preinstallation Environment. It is the
recommended solution if you need to P2V multiple domain controllers. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Online P2V:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
SCVMM Online P2V will not impact original Physical
environment, which has been double confirmed with System Center team. But it will cause USN rollback problem for
the virtual environment if you P2V multiple domain controllers. However, if you
only P2V one DC with FSMO roles, it will not cause any problem.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
If you P2V only one DC with FSMO role using Online P2V.
Please perform the following steps on the converted DC in virtual machine:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
1. Clean up
metadata for DCs no longer exist<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Clean up server metadata<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<a href="http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc736378(v=ws.10).aspx">http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc736378(v=ws.10).aspx</a><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
2. Please
disable initial synchronization when you start the virtual machine for the
first time:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
How to disable initial synchronization<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
On the PDC, go to the following registry:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\NTDS\Parameters<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Add the following Value:<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Value name: Repl
Perform Initial Synchronizations Value type:
REG_DWORD Value data: 0
=============================<o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14654660947628431388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8234526286924113664.post-44001596946884895912014-02-13T15:03:00.001+08:002014-02-13T15:03:25.854+08:00Status check of AD RID pool with email (Powershell)Import-Module activedirectory<div>
$RIDinfo=dcdiag /test:ridmanager /v | find "Available RID"</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
send-mailmessage -to demo@somewhere.com -from someone@somewhere.com -subject $RIDinfo -smtpserver 10.10.10.10</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14654660947628431388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8234526286924113664.post-45577708336115091022014-01-23T09:18:00.001+08:002014-01-23T09:18:24.210+08:00Excellent politically correct email on handling different sites with different administrative functions. <span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #1f497d; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Probably a good Idea to start passing things though <enter address="" email="" here="">, but I’ll
log this one for you. I’m not sure a fools guide may be any good to you
guys. While I was trying to install the printer on James’s Computer
yesterday I was blocked by a lack of admin rights on his computer rather than
technical know how, so even if you know what you’re doing I think you may get
stopped at the last hurdle. This sort of thing may be better aimed at
your <insert location="" of=""> team as they hold all the rights to your system. I’ve
copied in <oic ead=""> and others so we can work out what we can do going forward as
we are very willing to provide you with as much assistance as needed. I feel
even if we can’t get rights to your computers <b>it would be useful to know for
the future so we are all aware of who is supporting each element and in-turn
shortening the amount of time it takes to fix each of your problems</b></oic></insert></enter></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14654660947628431388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8234526286924113664.post-25238914529259447642013-10-11T10:37:00.001+08:002013-10-11T10:37:06.902+08:00How to diplomatically phrase an "out of scope" to customer email. Wow. Not 100% grammatically correct but very diplomatic.<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1f497d; font-size: 10.5pt;">Thanks for sharing with us on the details and it's good to
know the issue has been fixed.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1f497d; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Although we deliver a project based on <insert etc="" product=""> best
practice and experiences from past projects, but every project has different
situations, hereby we implement user pilot stage to discover and fix potential
issues, during the pilot stage of our project, we worked with your team covered
as many scenarios as possible, that is very important for the sanity of
the deployment and I believe there haven’t been too much outstanding issues in
past months. However, to be very frankly, the concurrency of external
user wasn’t included, from a methodology point of view, such hidden
issues normally will be further discovered and fixed during the gradually
production rolling out, either my team or <insert product="" support="" team=""> technical support team will
help on this along the way.<o:p></o:p></insert></insert></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1f497d; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Thanks for the understanding and have a nice day!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14654660947628431388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8234526286924113664.post-7509648528274711312013-10-08T09:52:00.000+08:002013-10-08T09:53:05.305+08:00How to reduce (Tweak) Synology Rebuild time - Use at your own risk!echo 90 > /proc/sys/vm/dirty_ratio<br />
echo 80 > /proc/sys/vm/dirty_background_ratio<br />
echo 6000 > /proc/sys/vm/dirty_expire_centisecs<br />
echo 4000 > /proc/sys/vm/dirty_writeback_centisecs<br />
<br />
For the next two, change "sda" to the device name; you may need to repeat for each device.<br />
echo deadline > /sys/block/sda/queue/scheduler<br />
echo 16384 > /sys/block/sda/queue/nr_requests<br />
<br />
For the next two, change "md2" to the volume name if different; you may need to repeat for each volume.<br />
echo 524288 > /sys/block/md2/md/stripe_cache_size<br />
blockdev --setra 4096 /dev/md2<br />
<br />
The following line can only be enabled while the array is healthy<br />
mdadm --grow /dev/md2 --bitmap=internal<br />
<br />
Edit /etc/sysctl.conf to add this line<br />
dev.raid.speed_limit_min=100000Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14654660947628431388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8234526286924113664.post-27317038330954596482013-07-17T10:23:00.000+08:002013-07-17T10:55:08.396+08:00Have multiple fields in excel to compare and output results? Use vlookup in excel--- Start of Rant ---<br />
<br />
Let me tell you something. Sometimes in IT you're stuck with an unenviable task of scripting mass changes to AD, you've got the starting point - the requirements and the objects that need to be changed, you have somehow managed to extract the data required to be changed. Now you need to eye-ball both spread sheets line by line to make sure you can produce the script that will update the required attributes.<br />
<br />
It's not fun.<br />
<br />
--- End of Rant ---<br />
<br />
With this it will be fun:<br />
<a href="http://www.techonthenet.com/excel/formulas/vlookup.php">http://www.techonthenet.com/excel/formulas/vlookup.php</a><br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14654660947628431388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8234526286924113664.post-31917082877945534062013-07-05T14:05:00.002+08:002013-07-05T14:05:57.962+08:00Things to take note of before messing with vShieldvShield adds this line to each VM's .vmx file.<br />
<br />
<em style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #444444; font-family: 'Open Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 24px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">ethernet0.filter0.name = “vshield-dvfilter-module”<br />ethernet0.filter0.param1 = “uuid=52393e32-ee4f-4420-808d-dd2683015301.000″</em>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14654660947628431388noreply@blogger.com0