Home

Using VMware ESX Server

1. vpx monitor_dev vmnet_0 00 50 56 92 02 74 Network0 true dev fd0 false win2000Serv atapi cdrom dev cdrom true 384 normal normal 16 true vmxbuslogic nonpersistent yrnhbaO 0 0 6 Untitled vmdk true false 50 32 fd Od 61 b4 b2 b4 ac eb 7c 59 32 TOO DE DS be Dirac an c 56 4d 7d 2e 04 67 2b b9 73 Sc 2c 3 a Cancel he option in the entry field to the 139 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide Viewing a List of Connected Users To see a list of users that are connected to a virtual machine with a remote console click the Users and Events tab The Users and Events page appears Z testserver Microsoft Windows NT Microsoft Internet Explorer Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 root a ee ee N aC Chem Users and Events Mumma eer Last updated Thu Nov 18 17 46 32 PST 2004 a E Microsoft Windows NT Powered off Remote Console Connections Permissions No users are connected to this virtual machine Current User root View virtual machine status Allow Modify virtual machine configuration Allow Control virtual machine Allow Events 15 Most Recent Thursday 11 18 2004 Power off 06 3 8 PM Thursday 11 18 2004 Question answered OK by local gui 05 59 38 PM Thursday 11 18 2004 No bootable CD floppy or hard disk was detected
2. 3 Click Restart or Shut Down to reboot or shut down the server respectively A prompt appears Explorer User Prompt xi Poea etene resad Dh LG eae here ted eet a 4 Enter the reason for the reboot or shutdown then click OK This information is logged for reliability monitoring 256 www vmware com CHAPTER 6 Administering ESX Server The system reboots or shuts down and you are logged out of the management interface 257 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 258 www vmware com U CHAPTER sing SNMP with ESX Server Simple network management protocol SNMP is a communication protocol between an SNMP client for example a workstation and an SNMP agent management sofi ware that executes on a remote device including hosts routers X terminals and so on The SNMP client queries the SNMP agent that provides information to the clie SN nt regarding the device s status The SNMP agent controls a database called the P Management Information Base MIB a standard set of statistical and control values SNMP allows the extension of these standard values with values specific to a pa ticular device This chapter contains the following information about using SNMP with ESX Server Using SNMP to Monitor the Computer Running ESX Server on page 260 Overview of Setting Up ESX Server SNMP on page 263 Configuring the ESX Server Agent on page 264 Configuring SNMP o
3. Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 root Options View add or modify virtual machine configuration parameters directly Virtual Machine Configuration Yerbose Options checkpoint cptConfigName config version displayName draw Ethernet0 addressType Ethernetd connectionType Ethernet0 devName Ethernet0 generatedAddress Ethernet0 networkName Ethernet0 present floppy0 fileName floppyO startConnected guestoS ideO 0 deviceType ide0 0 fileName ideO 0 present memsize priority grabbed priority ungrabbed RemoteDisplay depth scsil present scesi0 virtualDey scsi0 0 mode scsi0 0 name scsi0 0 present usb present uuid bios uuid location virtualHW version Help Click Add win2000Sery b01a6376 6 Windows 2000 Server adi vpx monitor_dev vmnet_0 00 50 56 92 02 74 Network0 true dev fdo false winz000Sery atapi cdrom dev cdrom true 384 normal normal 16 true vmxbuslogic nonpersistent vmhba0 0 0 6 Untitled vmdk true false 50 32 fd Od 61 b4 b2 b4 ac eb 7c 56 4d 7d 2e 04 67 2b b9 73 Sc 2c 3 B Cancel A prompt appears Enter a name for the option then click OK For example if you want to enable repeatable resume in the virtual machine create an option called resume repeatabl Another prompt appears Enter a
4. Storage and File Systems File System Management on SCSI Disks and RAID 285 286 Viewing and Manipulating Files in the vmfs Directory VMFS Volumes Labelling VMFS Volumes VMFS Accessibility Changing Storage Configuration Options Using vmkfstools vmkfstools Command Syntax vmkfstools Options Basi Advanced vmkfstools Options Examples Using vmkfstools Accessing Raw SCSI Disks Using a Physical Disk in a Virtual Machine Determining SCSI Target IDs Sharing the SCSI Bus Setting Bus Sharing Options Using Storage Area Networks with ESX Server Understanding Storage Arrays Installing ESX Server with Attached SANs Configuring VMFS Volumes on SANs Sca 287 287 288 288 289 290 290 291 ic vmkfstools Options 291 294 299 302 302 306 308 w O w w Ww pas nning for Devices and LUNs Changing VMkernel Configuration Options for SANs Troubleshooting SAN Issues with ESX Server Using Ww ww w uw Persistent Bindings Determining Target IDs through the Service Console pbind pl Script Exa Using Choosing Path Management Tools Viewing the Current Multipathing State Set Specifying Paths Savi Ww w mples Using the pbind pl Script ultipathing in ESX Server Ww Ww OW AN DU NHWH 0O00 Ww Ww ing Your Multipathing Policy for a LUN 321 321 ng Y
5. Determine how machines and its Servic SAN and attached storage devices Create and modify olumes suitable for storing virtual disk files E Network Connections amp Swap Configuration c modify and actvate swap files that allow your virtual es to use more memory then is physically available Tune the performance features of the network adapters dedicated to your virtual machines Users and Groups GB Advanced Settings Service Console Settings View and modify the list of local users and groups that have access View and modify parameters that fine tune the operation of your to your VMware ESX Server system VMware ESX Server system and its virtual machines security Settings GA System Logs Availability Report Enable and disable manitor and contro t FIP NFS and SSL encrypted view o your system and m alerts warnings and other messages for the VMkernel rvice Console SNMP Configuration Scripted Installation Enable disable your VMware ES SNMP nfigure the agents that allow you to monitor Setup this ESX machine to serve as network installer for system and its virtual machines via automated ESX installations Virtual Machine Startup and Shutdown 2 Licensing and Serial Numbers ify the behavior of virtual machines st system startup Third Party system Management and Backup Tools Download instructions and installers for integrabng third party
6. Check to see if there has been a loss in IP connectivity Check that the NIC duplex or speed matches with the Ethernet switch Check that the service console is not swapping Check that the root file system has available disk space 27 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 28 Problem Suggestions Can t connect to the VMware Remote Console Check to see if there has been a loss in IP connectivity Check that the NIC duplex or speed matches with the Ethernet switch Check that the service console is not swapping Check that the root file system has available disk space www vmware com CHAPTER 1 Introduction to VMware ESX Server Where to Find More Information The latest ESX Server documentation is available in the VMware Web site at www vmware com support pubs esx_pubs html Additional technical information covering such topics as hardware compatibility is available at www vmware com support resources esx_resources html 29 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 30 www vmware com CHAPTER Creating and Configuring Virtual Machines The following sections describe how to create and configure virtual machines and install the VMware Remote Console e Creating a New Virtual Machine on page 32 e Installing a Guest Operating System and VMware Tools on page 40 e Using PXE with Virtual Machines on page 52 e Configuring a Virtual Machine to Use the LSI Log
7. Image File Name Untitled vmdk Capacity 4000 M Virtual Device Virtual SCSI Node 0 0 Ez Disk Mode Changes are immediately and permanently written to the virtual disk Persistent Changes are discarded when the virtual Nonpersistent machine powers off C Undoable Changes are saved discarded or appended at your discretion C Append Changes are appended to a redo log when the virtual machine powers off A Help Back Next gt l Cancel l Choose the location for the new virtual disk In the VMFS Volume list choose the volume on which to locate the virtual disk The amount of free space is listed next to the volume name so you know how large you can make the virtual disk b Give the virtual disk a name In the VMware Disk Image entry field specify the disk name making sure the file has a vmdk extension Specify the size of the virtual disk In the Capacity entry field specify the size of the virtual disk in MB The default entry indicates the lesser of either 4000MB or the amount of free space available on the volume Specify the virtual device node Select the appropriate SCSI ID in the Virtual SCSI Node list Choose the disk mode Under Disk Mode click Persistent Nonpersistent Undoable or Append For a discussion of disk modes see Using Disk Modes on page 147 Note A new virtual machine with a blank virtual disk is like a new computer with a blank hard disk You must install a
8. Make sure that the status of the master SNMP agent is Running If you re interested in VMware specific SNMP MIBs then make sure the status and VMware traps of the VMware SNMP subagent is Enabled Optional If you want the master SNMP agent and the VMware SNMP subagent if its status is Enabled to start automatically upon booting then make sure the Startup Type is Automatic Configure your traps See Configuring SNMP Trap Destinations on page 268 265 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 266 Configuring the ESX Server Agent from the Service Console Use the snmpsetup sh script to configure the ESX Server SNMP subagent to work with the default snmpd or with a third party management application Note If you re not interested in VMware specific SNMP modules then you shouldn t run this script This script sets up a connection between the master snmpd daemon and the vmware snmpd daemon which enables access to ESX Server MIB items Caution Do not use the snmpsetup sh script to set up third party SNMP daemons Using the VMware SNMP Daemon with the Default SNMP Daemon 1 2 3 Log into the service console as the root user and run the script as follows Type the following snmpsetup sh default The default option sets up the snmpd conf file for the default master MP daemon This connects snmpd to vmware snmpd enabling you to uery for ESX Server MIB items ayn The script then starts both the master
9. VMware ESX Server Administration Guide Using Your NUMA System ESX Server 2 5 includes additional support for machines that are based on NUMA Non Uniform Memory Access architecture NUMA machines are made up of multiple nodes also called CECs on some multiple node machines Each node comprises one to four processors and main memory In a node each CPU has the same distance from its local memory Each processor can access memory on any node but accessing memory on a different node referred to as remote memory is substantially slower than accessing local memory that lies on the same node as the processor That is the memory access speed for CPUs on a node vary depending on the distance of the memory from the node For additional information on NUMA and supported NUMA platforms refer to the VMware ESX Server2 NUMA Support White Paper available at www vmware com pdf esx2_NUMA pdf For more information on NUMA management by VMware ESX Server see the numa 8 man page NUMA Configuration Information This section describes how to obtain statistics about your NUMA system Obtaining NUMA Statistics This command checks for the presence of a NUMA system If it finds a NUMA system it also lists the number of nodes the amount of memory and the physical CPUs on the NUMA node Type the following cat proc vmware NUMA hardware An example output is NUMA Nodes 2 Total memory 8192 MB
10. a Current Directory New Home tup Change nr ymware x wx directory Fri Jan 9 16 52 22 2004 o anaconda ks cfg rw 1iMB Wed Jan 7 03 41 36 2004 a a a a a a Bi a a a a a a a a a Selected res Select all To perform an action on a file or folder directory click the check box beside its listing then click the appropriate button at the bottom of the screen to delete edit properties cut or copy After you have cut or copied a file or folder you may then paste it into the same or a different folder If you copy a file or folder then paste it into the same folder the new file or folder is renamed with copy_of_ before the original name You may then select it and use Edit Properties to give it a name of your choice When you start a long running operation for example pasting a file larger than 10MB after a copy or moving it between logical file systems a progress bar appears so you can track the progress of the operation When you copy and paste or cut and paste a virtual disk file from the VMFS file system to the service console s file system or vice versa the file manager uses vmk fstools to import or export the file translating the format appropriately Among other things www vmware com CHAPTER 3 Using the VMware Management Interface to Manage Your Virtual Machines this means a virtual disk larger than 2GB will be split into multiple files when it
11. id Close Window To configure the SNMP agents see Configuring the ESX Server Agent through the VMware Management Interface on page 264 For more complete information about SNMP see Using SNMP with ESX Server on page 259 226 www vmware com CHAPTER 6 Administering ESX Server Viewing the License and Changing Serial Numbers Use the Licensing and Serial Numbers option to view the current license information for this product If you have a new serial number for either ESX Server or VMware Virtual SMP for ESX Server you may enter them here 3 testserver Licensing and Serial Numbers Microsoft Internet Explorer of x Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 root E End User License Agreement Please read and accept the following contract to continue END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT FOR VMWARE R ESX SERVER TM and VMWARE R VIRTUAL SMP TM SOFTWARE PRODUCTS VMWARE INC LICENSES THIS ESX SERVER SOFTWARE PRODUCT TO YOU SUBJECT TO THE TERMS CONTAINED IN THIS END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT EULA READ THE TERMS OF THIS EULA CAREFULLY BY INSTALLING COPYING OR OTHERWISE USING THE SOFTWARE 4S DEFINED BELOW YOU AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS ina Print Current License End User License Agreement M 1 accept the terms in the license agreement Serial numbers VMware ESX Server DOGO VMware Virtual SMP for ESX Server POO License Capabilities Expiration Date None Number of Virtual Mach
12. vmkfstools createfs vmfs2 blocksize 2m numfiles 32 vmhbal 3 0 1 vmkfstools C vmfs2 b 2m n 32 vmhbal 3 0 1 If the vmk f stools command fails and you don t know why then check the log files in var log vmkernel or use the management interface to view the latest warning 1 Log in to the VMware Management Interface as root The Status Monitor page appears 2 Click the Options tab The Options page appears 3 Click System Logs Basic vmkfstools Options Basic options are common tasks that you may perform frequently You may also perform through the management interface Creates a VMFS on the specified SCSI device C createfs vmfsl1 vmfs2 b blocksize gGmMkK n numfiles This command creates a VMFS version vmfs1 or version 2 vmfs2 file system on the specified SCSI device For advanced users 291 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 292 e Specify the block size by using the b option The block size must be 2 a power of 2 and at least 1MB The default file block size is 1MB You can specify the size in kilobytes megabytes or gigabytes by adding a suffix of k kilobytes m megabytes g gigabytes respectively e Specify the maximum number of files in the file system with the n option The default maximum number of files is 256 files Lists the attributes of a VMFS volume or a raw disk mapping P querypartitions lt VMFS_volume_name gt P querypartit
13. 0 Bps normal Write Bandwidth 0 Bps f 3 Click Edit The Disk Resource Settings page appears E testserver Windows 2000 Server Configuration Microsoft Internet Explorer Of x Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 root tes Resource Settings gs Adjust the disk resources allocated to your virtual machine Edit Disk Resources Number of Shares vmhba0 0 0 normal B ie Poe aver 4 Specify the shares value then click OK Configuration File Options You may edit the configuration file using a text editor on the service console or through the management interface To edit configurations parameters in the management interface complete the following steps Click the arrow to the right of the terminal icon and select Configure Options in the Virtual Machine menu In the Options page in the Verbose Options section click click here 429 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide w 2 a n existing parameter 4 Click OK ick Add to add a new configuration parameter or click in the text field to edit If you edit a virtual machine s configuration file by hand use the following formats to control disk bandwidth allocation for the virtual machine This configuration option specifies scsi0 l name lt fsname gt lt diskname gt vmdk This is the standard format for specifying the VMFS file underlying a virtual disk sched scsi0 l shares n he initial disk bandwidth share
14. 2 Use the VMware Management Interface to reconfigure the server Log in as root and go to http lt hostname gt pcidivy then click the Edit link for the configuration you want to change Find the table row that lists the Ethernet controller assigned to the console and click the radio button in the Virtual Machine column to reassign it Click Save Configuration then reboot the machine when prompted When the machine reboots no network adapter is assigned to the service console so you must do this step at the server Add the appropriate lines to etc rce d rce local For example if et ho is the only network adapter that you intend to share between the VMkernel and the service console and if it is named vmnico0 in the VMkernel you add the lines insmod vmxnet_console devName vmnic0 ifup eth0 If you are unsure what name the VMkernel has assigned to the network adapter that formerly was eth0 in the service console you can determine its name using the indnic program see The VMkernel Network Card Locator on page 361 Note The adapter you wish to share may be assigned to an adapter bond If so you need to specify the bond name of the form bond lt n3 gt instead of the adapter name See Finding Bonds and Adapters in the Service Console on page 370 for instructions on how to find a bond name The next time you reboot the system the network adapter is shared by the service console and the virtual machines To be
15. 220 www vmware com il 2 3 4 CHAPTER 6 Administering ESX Server Expand the Groups list Click the plus sign next to Groups then click Add The Edit Users and Groups page appears 3 testserver Users and Groups Microsoft Internet Explorer iof x Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 root Users and Groups View and modify your VMware ESX Server system s users and groups Edit Group New Group Group Name Users Select a user z al a rae eer In the Group Name field type the name of the new group To add one or more users to the group click Add then select a user from the list Repeat this step for each user you want to add to the group Note Ifyou want to remove a user from the group click Remove next to the user name When you are finished setting up the new group click OK to save the new group information and close the window 221 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide Editing and Removing Users and Groups To change information for or remove a user complete the following steps 1 3 Expand the Users list Click the plus sign next to Users then click the user you want to edit or remove The Edit Users and Groups page appears 2 testserver Users and Groups Microsoft Internet Explorer Of x Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 root t Users and Groups View and modify your VMware ESX Server system s users and groups Edit User
16. Display Configure your virtual machine s display adapter Edit Display Configuration Display Depth Colors Thousands of Colors 16 bit z Help OK Cancel 2 Inthe Colors list select the display depth or the number of colors you want available to the virtual machine Select 256 Colors 8 bit Thousands of Colors 15 bit Thousands of Colors 16 bit or Millions of Colors 24 bit 3 Click OK to save your change and close the window www vmware com CHAPTER 3 Using the VMware Management Interface to Manage Your Virtual Machines Configuring a Virtual Machine s Generic SCSI Device You can configure any generic SCSI devices in a virtual machine Make sure the virtual machine is powered off then complete the following steps 1 To configure an existing generic SCSI device on the Hardware page under Generic SCSI Device click Edit The Generic Device SCSI lt ID gt page appears 3 esx244 Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Configuration Microsoft Internet Explorer E3 Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 11152 root esx244 eng vmware com Generic Device SCSI 0 3 Configure your virtual machine s direct access to a systern SCSI device Edit Generic SCSI Device Configuration Device Status Connected if Connect at Power On Vv Device Connection Device vmhbao 4 0 0 Virtual SCSI Node isa z i j j Help OK Cancel 2 To connect this virtual machine to the server s SCSI device when the virtual m
17. Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 11152 244 eng vmware com oes Physical Adapters Refresh Help Close Network Connections Edit Adapter Configure your network adapter Virtual Machine Adapter Outbound Adapter 0 Virtual Switch nwi Configured Speed Duplex Autonegotiate z Actual Speed Duplex 1000 Mbps full duplex Model BROADCOM Corporation Netxtreme BCM5703 Gigabit Ethernet rev 02 Location PCI 2 1 0 B OK Cancel From the Physical Adapters details page choose the settings you want from the Configured Speed Duplex pull down list Click OK to save the updated configured speed 218 www vmware com CHAPTER 6 Administering ESX Server Changing Users and Groups Use the Users and Groups option to add modify and remove ESX Server users and groups This dialog box lists each user the groups to which the user belongs each group and the users that are part of each group F testserver Users and Groups Microsoft Internet Explorer _ 5 x Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 roo Users and Groups View and modify your VMware ESX Server system s users and groups E Users User Groups adm adm sys bin bin daemon sys daemon daemon adm bin Ip ftp ftp games gopher halt Ip Ip mail mail news news nfsnobody nfsnobody nobody nobody ntp ntp operator root root root adm wheel 7 rpc rpc rpcuser rpcuser rpm rpm shutdown root sshd sshd sync root uucp uucp
18. Network Device Configuration You need an additional virtual network adapter to be used by Microsoft Cluster Service to maintain the cluster heartbeat To add this adapter click the Hardware tab for this virtual machine then take the following steps 1 2 3 4 Click Add Device Click Network Adapter From the Device Binding drop down list choose vmnet_0 This attaches the second Ethernet adapter to a private network between the cluster nodes Click OK You have created the first cluster node virtual machine Installing the Guest Operating System Now you need to install Windows 2000 Advanced Server in the virtual machine you just created 1 Insert the Windows 2000 Advanced Server CD in the ESX Server machine s CD ROM drive In the management interface click the blue terminal icon next to the virtual machine s name to launch the remote console Log on as the user who created the virtual machine or as root Click Power On Install Windows 2000 Advanced Server on the disk connected to scsi0 333 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide Accept all the default options during the installation Do not install the clustering service at this time When the installation is completed install VMware Tools in the guest operating system Cloning the Virtual Machine Now that you have a virtual machine with Windows 2000 Advanced Server installed you can save time by cloning this virtual machine as follows
19. Note Only SMP virtual machines can use multiple virtual CPUs Using procfs You can also use procfs to manage CPU resources Use the following command cho lt new_value gt gt lt proc_filename gt in the service console where lt new_value gt is the value you wish to set and lt proc_filename gt is the full path name of the configuration option s proc entry See Examples on page 395 for additional information Note For SMP virtual machines you can use the lt id gt of any of the virtual CPUs to view or change configuration options for that virtual machine www vmware com CHAPTER 12 VMware ESX Server Resource Management proc vmware vm lt id gt cpu min Reading from this file reports the minimum CPU percentage allocated to the virtual machine identified by lt id gt Specifying a percentage lt minPercent gt to this file changes the minimum percentage allocated to the virtual machine identified by lt id gt to lt minPercent gt The valid range of values for lt minPercent gt is 0 to 100 multiplied by the number of virtual CPUs that is 100 percent for uniprocessor virtual machines and 200 percent for dual virtual CPU virtual machines Note If there is not enough unreserved CPU time available in the system to satisfy a demand for an increase in min then the reservation will not be changed proc vmware vm lt id gt cpu max Reading from this file reports the maximum CPU percentage allocated to the virtual m
20. adm Remove Home Directory var adm New Password Confirm New Password Groups Add adm adm daemon root Remove sys adm bin root Remove im ji f Help OK Cancel Do any of the following To change the user s home directory in the Home Directory field type the name of the default directory for the user in the service console To change the user s password in the New Password field type the password for the user s account in the Confirm New Password field type the same password To add the user to one or more groups click Add then select a group from the list Repeat this step for each group to which you want to add the user To remove the user from any group click Remove next to the group name To remove the user completely click Remove next to the user s name You are prompted to confirm you want to remove the user The window closes automatically When you are finished changing the user account click OK to save your changes and close the window To change information for or remove a group complete the following steps 222 www vmware com 1 CHAPTER 6 Administering ESX Server Expand the Groups list Click the plus sign next to Groups then click the group you want to edit or remove The Edit Users and Groups page appears 3 testserver Users and Groups Microsoft Internet Explorer of x YMware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 root Users and
21. config version 6 This line should already be present in the configuration file for any virtual machine created with ESX Server 1 5 x and later If the virtual machine was created under ESX Server 1 0 or 1 1 and has not already been updated add the config version 6 line to the configuration file Note When the virtual machine starts after you update the virtual hardware version you see a dialog box with the message The CMOS of this virtual machine is incompatible with the current version of VMware ESX Server A new CMOS with default values will be used instead Click OK As the virtual machine 145 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 146 starts the guest operating system may detect new virtual hardware and install drivers for it Respond to any messages as you would if upgrading the hardware on a physical computer 5 Start the virtual machine using the remote console As it starts to boot click inside the remote console window then press F2 to enter the virtual machine s BIOS setup Go to the Advanced I O Device Configuration section and configure the parallel port mode for the virtual machine to bidirectional Now your virtual machine can use a dongle or other parallel port device Note As you start the virtual machine you may see a message warning that the parallel port is starting disconnected If you do connect to the virtual machine with a remote console and use the remote console s Devices menu to con
22. e dead indicates that the path should be active but the software cannot connect to the disk through this path The report lists the mode of each path in the third column e preferred identifies the primary path ESX Server uses to access the disk e active identifies the actual path used by ESX Server to access the disk Be aware that the preferred mode is only used by ESX Server to access fixed policy disks If a disk has a most recently used MRU policy then the preferred mode is displayed in the report above but ESX Server does not use it to access the disk Note Reports returned by vmkmultipath list paths to both physical disks and storage controllers In the example above the disks listed as having no space available are actually storage processors You can display the multipathing status for a single disk by specifying it in the query command For example to display the report for disk vmhba0 0 6 enter vmkmultipath q vmhba0 0 6 www vmware com CHAPTER 9 Storage and File Systems Setting Your Multipathing Policy for a LUN You can specify the default policy for the multipathing feature There are two policies e fixed ESX Server always uses the preferred path to the disk if it cannot access the disk through the preferred path then it tries the alternate paths Fixed is the default policy for active active storage devices Enter the following command to select the fixed policy for a disk in th
23. proc vmware net vmnic0 config This allows the guest operating systems in all virtual machines using vmnicO to enable promiscuous mode If the adapter is using a different network such as vmnet_0 make the appropriate substitution in the command 3 Take the appropriate steps in the guest operating system to enable promiscuous mode on the virtual network adapter You may want to allow only some adapters on a particular network to use promiscuous mode In that case you can selectively disable promiscuous mode based on the MAC address of the virtual machine s Ethernet adapter Perform the following 1 Connect to the virtual machine with the remote console and use the appropriate guest operating system tools to determine the MAC address of the virtual Ethernet adapter 2 Log in to the service console and enter the following command echo PromiscuousAllowed no gt proc vmware net vmnic0 lt MACAddress gt In place of lt MACAddress gt substitute the virtual Ethernet adapter s MAC address in the standard format 00 05 69 XX YY ZZ If the adapter is using a different network such as vmnet_0 make the appropriate substitution in the command www ymware com 364 CHAPTER 11 Networking Sharing Network Adapters and Virtual Networks In many ESX Server configurations there is a clear distinction between networking resources used by the virtual machines and those used by the service console This may be import
24. 87 Using the VMware Service Console Characteristics of the VMware Service Console 90 Using DHCP for the Service Console 90 Managing the Service Console 91 Connecting to the Service Console 91 Commands Specific to ESX Server 91 Common Linux Commands Used on the Service Console 93 203 Authentication and Security Features Authenticating Users 203 Default Permissions 205 TCP IP Ports for Management Access 205 Using Devices With ESX Server 207 207 Supporting Generic Tape and Media Changers Editing the vmware device map local File 207 Finding Disk Controllers 207 When You Change Storage Adapters 208 Enabling Users to View Virtual Machines Through the VMware Remote Console 209 Administering ESX Server 211 Modifying VMware ESX Server 212 Updating the Startup Profile 214 Changing Network Connections 215 Configuring Physical Adapters 217 Changing Users and Groups 219 Configuring Security Settings 224 226 Configuring the SNMP Agent www ymware com Viewing the License and Changing Serial Numbers Configuring Storage Area Networks Adapter Bindings Viewing Failover Paths Connections Configuring a Swap File Changing Advanced Settings Configuring the Service Console Viewing System Logs and Reports
25. A Add Device What type of hardware do you want to install Device Type Hard Disk B Network Adapter B DVD CD ROM Drive 8 Floppy Drive Generic SCSI Device Create a new virtual disk use an existing virtual disk or access a VMFS volume directly Attach a new network adapter to a virtual network of your choosing Create a new virtual DYD or CD ROM drive to access a system drive or an ISO image Create a new virtual floppy drive to access a system drive or a floppy image file Create a new virtual device that directly accesses a system SCSI device 2 Click Generic SCSI Device The SCSI Device page appears E testserver Windows 2000 AS Configuration Microsoft Internet Explorer Mware ESX Server 2 0 0 build 5139 roo passthru Configure your virtual machine s direct access to a system SCSI device Edit Generic SCSI Device Configuration Device Status Connected Connect at Power On Device Connection Device Virtual SCSI Node r A vmhba0 1 1 0 B OK Cancel 132 www vmware com CHAPTER 3 Using the VMware Management Interface to Manage Your Virtual Machines 3 To connect this virtual machine to the server s SCSI device when the virtual machine is powered on check Connect at Power On 4 Inthe Device entry field type vmhba lt x gt lt y gt lt z gt 0 5 Specify the virtual device node Select the appropriate SCSI ID in the Virtual SCSI Node
26. CHAPTER 10 Configuration for Clustering 2 In the management interface click the blue terminal icon next to the virtual machine s name to launch the remote console Log on using the user account that created the virtual machine or as root Click Power On Install Windows 2000 Advanced Server on the disk connected to scsi0 ON I S Accept all the default options during the installation You may opt to install the applications at this time Network Load Balancing is installed by default 7 When the installation is completed install VMware Tools in the guest operating system 8 Remove the Windows 2000 Advanced Server CD from the server s CD ROM drive Cloning the Virtual Machine Now that you have a virtual machine with Windows 2000 Advanced Server installed you can save time by cloning this virtual machine as follows 1 Run sysprep exe which is available on the Windows 2000 CD in the support tools deploy cab file This strips the security ID assigned to the guest operating system and resets the machine information as well as the TCP IP network configuration 2 Shut down the guest operating system and power off the virtual machine 3 On the management interface s Overview page click Manage Files 4 Drill down to the vmfs folder then the vms folder This may take some time to refresh Select the check box next to the cluster1 vmdk file Click Copy Click Paste oN DY When the copy process is complete sel
27. Change the virtual SCSI adapter to your choice For example for the scsi0 virtualDev option change wmxbuslogic to vmxlsilogic 3 Click OK to save your change and close the Options window Note Ifyou change a virtual machine s virtual SCSI adapter to a custom adapter your choice is retained if you change the guest operating system in the virtual machine 157 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 158 If however you change the guest operating system on a virtual machine with a BusLogic or LSI Logic SCSI virtual adapter the virtual SCSI adapter is updated to the default for the new guest operating system For example if you have a virtual machine with a Linux operating system and change the guest operating system to Windows 2003 Server then the virtual SCSI adapter is LSI Logic the default virtual SCSI adapter for a Windows 2003 Server guest operating systems www vmware com CHAPTER 3 Using the VMware Management Interface to Manage Your Virtual Machines Using the VMware Management Interface File Manager Using the VMware Management Interface you can manage the file system of your VMware ESX Server machine remotely Use the file manager to change the permissions of any file on the physical machine create new directories on the physical machine or cut copy paste and delete files as you would if you were working directly on the file system itself To use the file manager click Manage Files on the Sta
28. H Help OK Cancel If this partition is formatted for VMFS 1 you can convert it to the newer VMFS 2 format See File System Management on SCSI Disks and RAID on page 286 for detailed information on the VMFS 2 file system The changes you can make to the partition may include certain partitions do not allow you to change all of the following Setting the volume s type Changing the name of the volume label Setting the volume s access mode Setting the volume s maximum file size www vmware com CHAPTER 6 Administering ESX Server Setting the Volume s Access Mode There are two modes for accessing VMFS volumes public or shared e Public mode is the default mode for ESX Server VMware recommends you use this mode With a public VMFS version 1 VMFS 1 volume multiple ESX Server computers have the ability to access the VMware ESX Server file system as long as the VMFS volume is on a shared storage system for example a VMFS on a storage area network However only one ESX Server can access the VMFS volume at a time With a public VMFS version 2 VMFS 2 volume multiple ESX Server computers can access the VMware ESX Server file system concurrently VMware ESX Server file systems with a public mode have automatic locking to ensure file system consistency e Shared mode is used for a VMFS volume that is used for failover based clustering among virtual machines on the same or different ESX Servers Note Ifyo
29. If you previously defined the option for this switch just change the current mode value to out ip 4 Save the file and close it Configuring the Bond Failure Mode You can select one physical adapter to be the primary network connection for a virtual switch In this configuration ESX Server routes all traffic through the primary adapter and reserves the other adapters in case of connection failure This type of redundant connection switch is defined as using a failover configuration 371 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 372 Select a primary adapter by setting the home_1ink option for a virtual switch 1 Log into the Service Console as root 2 Edit etc vmware hwconfig 3 Define the primary adapter For example to choose vmnic2 for bondl nicteam bondl home_link wmnic2 If you previously defined the option for this switch just change the current mode value to vmnic2 4 Save the file and close it Note Designating a primary link for a virtual switch overrides the load balancing mode If you set the home_link option ESX Server ignores the value of load_balance_mode ESX Server monitors the primary link for physical connection failures When the primary adapter loses contact ESX Server transfers the network traffic to one of the secondary adapters while continuing to monitor the primary adapter When ESX Server detects that the physical connection of the primary link has been restored it transfers
30. Installing new software in an ESX Server virtual machine is just like installing it on a regular computer If you are using physical media you need to have access to the ESX Server computer to insert installation CD ROM discs or floppy disks into the server s drives You may use image files in place of physical floppy disks and CD ROM discs To connect the virtual drive to a floppy or ISO image use the Devices menu and edit the settings for the drive you want to change The following steps are based on using a Windows guest operating system and physical media If you are using a Linux guest operating system or if you are using ISO or floppy image files some details are different www vmware com CHAPTER 4 Using the VMware Remote Console 1 Be sure you have started the virtual machine and if necessary logged on Check the Devices menu to be sure the virtual machine has access to the CD ROM and floppy drives 2 Insert the installation CD ROM or floppy disk into the proper drive If you are installing from a CD ROM the installation program may start automatically 3 If the installation program does not start automatically click the Windows Start button go to Settings gt Control Panel then double click Add Remove Programs and click Add New Programs Follow the instructions on screen and in the user manual for your new software Cutting Copying and Pasting Be sure you have installed and started VMware Tools in
31. Next to Virtual Disk click Edit Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 roo Virtual Disk SCSI 0 0 Configure your virtual machine s hard disk Edit irtual Disk Configuration Disk Image Image Location Image File Name Capacity Virtual Device vmhbao 0 0 6 8 0 G free z Untitled vmdk z 4000 M You are configuring the boot device The first device on SCSI Controller 0 usually 0 0 is used to boot your virtual machine if you reconfigure its virtual SCSI node currently 0 0 your virtual machine may not boot as expected To continue click here Disk Mode Persistent Nonpersistent Undoable C Append Help Changes are immediately and permanently written to the virtual disk Changes are discarded when the virtual machine powers off Changes are saved discarded or appended at your discretion Changes are appended to a redo log when the virtual machine powers off 3 Click Nonpersistent then click OK to save your change www vmware com CHAPTER 3 Using the VMware Management Interface to Manage Your Virtual Machines 4 Click the Options tab then under Verbose Options click the link The configuration file opens in an editor E testserver Windows 2000 Server Configuration Microsoft Internet Explorer Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 roo Options View add or modify virtual machine configuration parameters directly
32. Restart the guest operating system In the system console type restart server After you install VMware Tools make sure the VMware Tools virtual CD ROM image net ware iso is not attached to the virtual machine If it is disconnect it Right click the CD ROM icon in the status bar of the console window and select Disconnect Starting VMware Tools Automatically You may find it helpful to configure your guest operating system so VMware Tools starts when you start X The steps for doing so vary depending on your Linux distribution and the desktop environment you are running Check your operating system documentation for the appropriate steps to take For example in a Red Hat Linux 7 1 guest using GNOME follow these steps 1 Open the Startup Programs panel in the GNOME Control Center Main Menu the foot in the lower left corner of the screen gt Programs gt Settings gt Session gt Startup Programs 2 Click Add 3 Inthe Startup Command field enter vmware toolbox 4 Click OK click OK again then close the GNOME Control Center The next time you start X VMware Tools start automatically About the VMware Guest Operating System Service When you install VMware Tools in a virtual machine the VMware guest operating system service is one of the primary components installed The guest service can do the following e Synchronize the time of the guest operating system with the time on the physical computer See Synchronizing th
33. Seeing How Memory Is Utilized Configuring Startup and Shutdown Options for Virtual Machines System Configuration Settings Enabling the System s Configuration Settings Disabling the System s Configuration Settings Specifying the Order in which Virtual Machines Start Rebooting or Shutting Down the Server 256 Using SNMP with ESX Server Using SNMP to Monitor the Computer Running ESX Server Overview of Setting Up ESX Server SNMP 259 260 263 Installing the ESX Server SNMP Agents 263 Configuring the ESX Server Agent 264 Configuring the ESX Server Agent through the VMware Management Interface 264 Configuring the ESX Server Agent from the Service Console Configuring SNMP 266 268 Configuring SNMP Trap Destinations 268 Configuring SNMP Management Client Software 268 Configuring SNMP Security 268 Using SNMP with Guest Operating Systems 269 VMware ESX Server SNMP Variables 270 Using VMkernel Device Modules Configuring Your Server to Use VMkernel Device Modules Loading VMkernel Device Modules 277 278 278 VMkernel Module Loader 278 Other Information about VMkernel Modules 281 Controlling VMkernel Module Loading During Bootup 282 Customizing Parameters of VMkernel Device Driver Modules on Bootup _ 282 Customizing Loading of VMkernel Device Driver Modules on Bootup _ 283
34. Switching User Names Command Example and Explanation su Switch user By default this allows you to log in as the root user if you know the root user s password You can also use the command to log in as any other user if you know the appropriate user name and password Enter the command then enter the password when prompted su User2 Log in as User2 exit Log out If you have used su to log in as a different user this returns you to your previous user name The proc File System The proc file system is a set of directories beginning with proc that exist in memory while ESX Server is running The contents of these directories are not stored on disk The proc vmware directory contains information specific to the running of the ESX Server virtualization layer in virtual machines You can use the cat command to check status and use the echo command to write values to certain files in the proc file system to change the configuration of ESX Server Note Most of this information is also available through the VMware Management Interface and we strongly recommend that you obtain and set information through this management interface Do not add or change any options in this directory unless you are instructed to by VMware support to solve an issue with ESX Server www vmware com CHAPTER 5 Using the VMware Service Console Caution Do not use the proc interface to set any values other than those mentioned in t
35. To install an operating system insert 05 59 38 PM a bootable CD or floppy and restart the virtual machine by clicking the Reset button Thursday 11 18 2004 Power on 05 58 53 PM The list under Remote Console Connections identifies any users connected to the virtual machine with a remote console The list includes the time and IP address from which the user connected to the virtual machine The list under Permissions indicates what you can do with the virtual machine You are either allowed or denied the following abilities e Viewing virtual machine status e Modifying the virtual machine s configuration e Controlling the virtual machine powering it on or off suspending or resuming it Activities you can perform when viewing a virtual machine s user and event information include e Connecting to a Virtual Machine with the VMware Remote Console on page 91 e Using the Virtual Machine Menu on page 92 www vmware com 140 CHAPTER 3 Using the VMware Management Interface to Manage Your Virtual Machines e Changing the Power State of a Virtual Machine on page 93 e Using Common Controls on page 101 Click the tabs at the top of the page to view more information about the virtual machine Viewing a Log of a Virtual Machine s Events A log of the 15 most recent virtual machine events is available Click the Users and Events tab The Users and Events page appears e testserver Microsoft Windows NT Microsoft Internet Explor
36. cumulative CPU usage in seconds proc vmware sched cpu Reading from this file reports the status information for all virtual machines in the entire system Each virtual CPU is displayed on its own line with information including uptime time used and resource management parameters proc vmware config Cpu SharesPerVcpuLow This option specifies the a numerical value for the low value By default this number is 500 Since this value is expressed in shares per virtual CPU the allocation for a uniprocessor virtual machine is 500 shares or 1000 shares for a dual virtual CPU SMP virtual machine proc vmware config Cpu SharesPerVcpuNormal This option specifies the a numerical value for the normal value By default this number is 1000 For a uniprocessor virtual machine the default allocation is 1000 shares or 2000 shares for a dual virtual CPU SMP virtual machine proc vmware config Cpu SharesPerVcpuHigh This option specifies the a numerical value for the high value By default this number www vmware com 394 CHAPTER 12 VMware ESX Server Resource Management is 2000 For a uniprocessor virtual machine the default allocation is 2000 shares or 4000 shares for a dual virtual CPU SMP virtual machine Examples Suppose that we are interested in the CPU allocation for the virtual machine with ID 103 To query the number of shares allocated to virtual machine 103 simply read the file cat proc vmware vm 103 cpu sha
37. vmserverd limits memhard 65536 These changes raise the soft memory limit for the vmware serverd process to 48 MB 48 multiplied by 1024 and the hard memory limit to 64 MB 64 multiplied by 1024 Note You must restart the vmware serverd process by rebooting ESX Server or by logging in to the service console as root and issuing the command killall HUP vmware serverd Running Many Virtual Machine with a Significant CPU Load If you plan to run a large number of virtual machines with applications that use a significant amount of CPU then increase the service console shares to 10000 1 Log into the VMware Management Interface as the root user 2 Click the Options tab then click Service Console Settings The CPU page should be displayed If not click the CPU tab 3 Click Edit 4 Type 10000 in the Shares field and click OK If the management interface is unresponsive then you need to make these changes through the service console 1 Log into the service console as the root user 2 Type cat proc vmware sched cpu 3 Find the line that has console for the name For example vcpu vm name uptime status 125 125 console 71272 3178 RUN 126 126 idlel 71272 378 RUN 127 127 idle2 71272 378 RUN 4 Use the echo command to change the number of service console shares echo 10000 gt proc vmware vm lt name gt cpu shares For the preceding output you would type echo 10000 gt proc vmware vm 125 cpu shares
38. vpxuser vpxuser xfs xfs Groups Group Users adm adm daemon root bin bin daemon root daemon bin daemon root dip disk Help 219 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide Adding Users and Groups To add a new user complete the following steps 1 Expand the Users list Click the plus sign next to Users then click Add The Edit Users and Groups page appears F testserver Users and Groups Microsoft Internet Explorer ioj x Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 root testserver Users and Groups View and modify your VMware ESX Server system s users and groups Edit User New User User Name Home Directory New Password Confirm New Password In the User Name field type the name of the new user In the Home Directory field type the name of the default directory for the user in the service console In the New Password field type the password for the user s account In the Confirm New Password field type the same password To add the user to one or more groups click Add then select a group from the list Repeat this step for each group to which you want to add the user Note If you do not want the user to be part of a group click Remove next to the group name When you are finished setting up the new user account click OK to save the new user information and close the window To add a new group complete the following steps
39. wv ii a Windows 2000 Server Powered on PID 1449 VMID 140 Removable Devices Other Hardware amp Floppy Drive Remove Edit Processors and Memory Connected No Processors 1 Connect at Power On No Memory 384 M Device System Floppy Drive B Display Location dev fd0 Edit Colors Thousands of Colors 16 bit D D CD ROM Drive IDE 0 0 Remove Edit Connected Yes Connect at Power On Yes Device System DVD CD ROM Drive Location dev edrom Network Adapter Remove Edit Connected Yes Connect at Power On Yes Network Connection NetworkO Virtual Device vlance Add Device 3 Click Add Device The Add Device Wizard starts Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 Add Device What type of hardware do you want to install Device Type Hard Disk Create a new virtual disk use an existing virtual disk or access a VMFS volume directly E network Adapter Attach a new network adapter to a virtual network of your choosing B DVD CD ROM Drive Create a new virtual DVD or CD ROM drive to access a system drive or an ISO image 8 Floppy Drive Create a new virtual floppy drive to access a system drive or a floppy image file e Generic SCSI Device Create a new virtual device that directly accesses a system SCSI device 303 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 4 Click Hard Disk The Virtual Disk Type page appears p testserver Microsoft Windows NT Configuration Microso
40. 0 AS PXE boot server www vmware com CHAPTER 2 Creating and Configuring Virtual Machines e Remote installation of a supported guest operating system from a Ghost image using Windows 2000 and Ghost RIS Boot package e Remote installation of a supported guest operating system from an Altiris image using a Windows 2000 Altiris server e Network booting a Linux virtual machine by connecting with the Linux Diskless option to a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 0 AS server Note ESX Server does not support installation of a Windows XP guest operating system using PXE 53 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 54 Configuring a Virtual Machine to Use the LSI Logic SCSI Adapter ESX Server virtual machines can use virtual BusLogic and virtual LSI Logic SCSI adapters By default virtual machines use the BusLogic adapter However new Windows Server 2003 virtual machines are configured to use the LSI Logic adapter by default You can add the LSI Logic SCSI adapter to any virtual machine by modifying its configuration file For an existing virtual machine or for a new Windows XP or Windows 2000 virtual machine further steps are needed in the guest operating system Windows XP and Windows 2000 do not include a driver for the LSI Logic SCSI adapter so these guests use the BusLogic adapter by default However to use the LSI Logic SCSI adapter with a Windows XP or Windows 2000 virtual machine you must download the driver from the D
41. 121 UUID modifying 76 V Variables SNMP 270 275 Verbose Options Hyper Threading 389 Veritas Cluster Service 326 Virtual disk 35 exporting 67 183 sharing 308 Virtual Machine multiprocessor 59 Virtual machine backing up 170 cloning 334 340 351 352 configuring 74 creating 32 deleting from VMware Management Interface 149 150 display name 33 437 438 exporting 292 Hyper Threading 106 ID number 91 importing 293 legacy mode 62 monitoring with SNMP 261 registering 69 shutting down 187 SMP 59 suspending and resuming 94 viewing through remote console 209 Virtual Machine Wizard 32 Virtual machines special power options 178 Virtual network 365 Virtual switches 369 beacon monitoring 372 failover 371 load balancing 371 vlance network driver 118 VMFS 290 mounting 286 naming 288 294 VMFS 2 converting to 230 232 VMkernel device modules 278 oading during bootup 282 VMkernel messages 243 VMkernel warnings 242 vmkfstools 290 vmkload_mod 192 278 vm list 69 204 vmnet network adapter 118 vmnic network adapter 118 VMware GSX Server migrating virtual machines 62 VMware guest operating system service VMware Tools 46 VMware Management Interface 83 156 and Apache server 154 ASCII characters 32 83 attaching VMware Remote Console 91 browsers required 88 changing virtual machine power state 93 configuration options 133 configuring for Windows systems 86 connected users 140 contro
42. 361 To configure the virtual machine s virtual network adapter complete the following steps 1 Inthe Hardware page under Network Adapter click Edit The Network Adapter page appears 3 testserver Microsoft Windows NT Configuration Microsoft Internet Explorer oj x YMware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 root Network Adapter Configure your virtual machine s network adapter Edit Network Adapter Configuration Device Status Connected i Connect at Power On Vv Device Connection Network Connection NetworkO z Virtual Device vlance zj i j Help OK Cancel 2 In the Network Connection list select the virtual network device which you want the virtual machine to use 3 Inthe Virtual Device list select the network driver you want the virtual machine to use Choose either the vlance or vmxnet driver 4 Click OK to save your changes and close the window Configuring a Virtual Machine s SCSI Controllers You can configure the settings for the virtual machine s virtual SCSI controller These settings include the virtual SCSI controller driver and whether the SCSI bus is shared with virtual or physical devices To configure the virtual machine s virtual SCSI controller complete the following steps 119 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 120 1 4 In the Hardware page under SCSI Controller click Edit The SCSI Controller page appears testserver Microsoft Windows NT Co
43. Administration Guide 356 www vmware com CHAPTER Networking This section contains the following Setting the MAC Address Manually for a Virtual Machine on page 358 The V Forcin Enabli Sharin Using kernel Network Card Locator on page 361 g the Network Driver to Use a Specific Speed on page 363 ng a Virtual Adapter to Use Promiscuous Mode on page 364 g Network Adapters and Virtual Networks on page 365 Virtual Switches on page 369 Troub eshooting on page 375 357 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 358 Setting the MAC Address Manually for a Virtual Machine VMware ESX Server automatically generates MAC addresses for the virtual network adapters in each virtual machine In most cases these MAC addresses are appropriate However there may be times when you need to set a virtual network adapter s MAC address manually for example e Virtual network adapters on different physical servers share the same subnet and are assigned the same MAC address causing a conflict e You want to ensure that a virtual network adapter always has the same MAC address This section explains how VMware ESX Server generates MAC addresses and how you can set the MAC address for a virtual network adapter manually How VMware ESX Server Generates MAC Addresses Each virtual network adapter in a virtual machine gets its own unique MAC address ESX Server attempts to ensure that the network adapters for each virtual m
44. Balloon Driver memory reclaimed from virtual machines by cooperation with the VMware Tools vmmemctl driver and guest operating systems This is the preferred method for reclaiming memory from virtual machines since it reclaims the memory that is considered least valuable by the guest operating system The system inflates the balloon driver to increase memory pressure within the virtual machine causing the guest operating system to invoke its own native memory management algorithms When memory is tight the guest operating system decides which particular pages of memory to reclaim and if necessary swaps them to its own virtual disk This proprietary technique provides predictable performance that closely matches the behavior of a native system under similar memory constraints Unused memory that has never been accessed by the virtual machines and consequently has not yet been allocated Total total memory allocated to virtual machines Virtual Machines Virtual Machine Name For each running virtual machine this chart includes a breakdown of the virtual machine s memory allocation RAM maximum amount of memory configured for use by the guest operating system running in the virtual machine This value is often larger than the actual amount of memory currently allocated to the virtual machine which may vary depending on the current level of memory overcommitment Private memory allocated to the virtual machine
45. CPU Virtualization Each virtual machine appears to run on its own CPU or set of CPUs fully isolated from other virtual machines with its own registers translation lookaside buffer and other control structures Most instructions are directly executed on the physical CPU allowing compute intensive workloads to run at near native speed Privileged instructions are performed safely by the patented and patent pending technology in the virtualization layer Memory Virtualization While a contiguous memory space is visible to each virtual machine the physical memory allocated may not be contiguous Instead noncontiguous physical pages are remapped efficiently and presented to each virtual machine Some of the physical memory of a virtual machine may in fact be mapped to shared pages or to pages that are unmapped or swapped out This virtual memory management is performed by ESX Server without the knowledge of the guest operating system and without interfering with its memory management subsystem Disk Virtualization Support of disk devices in ESX Server is an example of the product s hardware independence Each virtual disk is presented as a SCSI drive connected to a SCSI adapter This device is the only disk storage controller used by the guest operating 15 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 16 system despite the wide variety of SCSI RAID and Fibre Channel adapters that might actually be used in the system This abstract
46. Device Modules on page 278 281 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 282 Controlling VMkernel Module Loading During Bootup You can customize the loading of VMkernel device driver modules during bootup by editing one of the following files e etc vmware hwconfig Automatically supply extra parameters to a driver when it is loaded during bootup e etc vmware vmkmodule conf Supply extra parameters to a driver add or prevent a driver module from loading or determine the order in which the driver modules are loaded during bootup Caution Editing these files are recommended for advanced users only If you have any questions be sure to contact your authorized service provider before editing these files Customizing Parameters of VMkernel Device Driver Modules on Bootup Caution Do not modify the etc vmware hwconfig file other than to add extra parameters as described in this section Instead use the VMware Management Interface to manage your hardware You can supply extra parameters to be passed to a driver when it is loaded during bootup You do this by editing the file et c vmware hwconfidg This file contains information about the hardware on your system including device driver modules As an example of passing a parameter to the Emulex device driver first identify the bus slot and function holding the first or only Emulex card You can find this information by looking at the Startup Profile page in
47. Groups View and modify your VMware ESX Server system s users and groups Edit Group adm Remove Users Add adm adm sys Remove daemon daemon adm bin Ip Remove root root adm wheel 7 Remove L OK Cancel Do any of the following To add one or more users to the group click Add then select a user from the list Repeat this step for each user you want to add to the group e To remove any user from the group click Remove next to the user name e To remove the group completely click Remove next to the group s name You are prompted to confirm you want to remove the group The window closes automatically When you are finished changing the group click OK to save your changes and close the window 223 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 224 Configuring Security Settings Use the Security Settings option to configure ESX Server security properties You can set up unencrypted Web access and enable SSH telnet and FTP access to the server and enable NFS file sharing 3 testserver Security Settings Microsoft Internet Explorer Of x Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 root te Security Settings Control how your VMware ESX Server is accessed Current Security Settings Select one of the following security configurations High Do not allow unencrypted VMware Management Interface and Remote Console sessions Disable FTP Telnet and NFS file sharing services Ena
48. In this section we attempt to highlight some of these features by listing tasks that you should perform on your ESX Server system The information contained in this table presumes that you have successfully installed and configured ESX Server on your hardware To get help refer to the VMware ESX Server Installation Guide Familiarizing Yourself with ESX Server The following table includes tasks from the VMware Management Interface for an Administrator root user who manages and maintains ESX Server Task Description Log into the VMware Management Interface and familiarize yourself with its features As the root user you have additional privileges that other users don t have In addition to the Status Monitor page you have access to the Options page that allows you to configure ESX Server including networking security SNMP users and groups storage configuration and so on See Modifying VMware ESX Server on page 212 Create users and groups Create users and place them into groups for different access to ESX Server For best practice we suggest that the root user doesn t own virtual machines In general users who create access and modify virtual machines don t need to have the additional administrative privileges of the root user You might choose to have a virtual machine owned by a flagship user instead of a real person By using a flagship user only one user account owns the vi
49. Network Card Locator on page 361 191 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 192 Managing a VMware ESX Server File System The vmk f stools command lets you create and manipulate files on SCSI disks managed by ESX Server Note You must be logged in as the root user to run the vmk fstools command The format for the vmk stools command when specifying a SCSI device is vmkfstools lt options gt lt device_or_VMFS_volume gt lt file gt where lt device_or_VMFS_volume gt specifies a SCSI device a SCSI disk or a partition on a SCSI disk being manipulated or a VMFS volume and lt options gt specifies the operation to be performed If lt device_or_VMFS_volume gt is a SCSI device then it is specified in a form such as vmhbal 2 0 3 lt device_or_VMFS_volume gt may also be a VMFS volume name as set in the management interface or with the vmkfstools setfsname command The variable lt file gt is the name of a file stored in the VMFS volume on the specified device The format for the vmk stools command when specifying a VMFS volume or file iS vmkfstools lt options gt lt path gt where lt path gt is an absolute path that names a directory or a file under the vmfs directory For a detailed explanation on using this command and its options see Using vmkfstools on page 290 Automatically Mounting VMFS Volumes VMFS volumes are automatically mounted in the vmfs directory
50. Node ID MachineMem ManagedMem CPUs 0 00 4096 MB 3257 MB 012 3 1 01 4096 MB 4096 MB 4567 The absence of the proc vmware NUMA directory indicates that this system is not a NUMA system There are two NUMA nodes The fields in the table are defined as follows 41 4 www vmware com CHAPTER 12 VMware ESX Server Resource Management e Node Node number e ID Hardware ID number of the NUMA node MachineMem Amount of physical memory located on this NUMA node including memory that may be used by the service console e ManagedMem Amount of physical memory located on this NUMA node xcluding memory used by the service console and the ESX Server virtualization io layer e CPUs A space separated list of the physical processors in this node Physical CPUs 0 1 2 and 3 are in NUMA node 0 and physical CPUs 4 5 6 and 7 are in NUMA node 1 Total memory tells you how much memory is physically installed on each NUMA node However not all of this memory may be managed by the VMkernel as some of the memory is used by the service console Determining the Amount of Memory for each NUMA Node Type the following cat proc vmware mem An example output is Node Total MB FreeHi MB FreeLow MB Reserved MB Kernel MB 0 836022 3265 98304 384 737528 2880 34574 135 190 0 1 2621440 10240 2601144 10160 0 0 0 0 20296 79 Totals 2699448 10544 737528 2880 In this preceding example the total memory managed by
51. OUls 00 0C 29 and 00 50 56 that are unique to virtual machines www vmware com 360 CHAPTER 11 Networking The VMkernel Network Card Locator When network interface cards are assigned to the VMkernel sometimes it is difficult to map from the name of the VMkernel device to the physical network adapter on the machine For example if there are four Intel EEPro cards in a machine and all are dedicated to he VMkernel these four cards are called vmnic0O vmnicl vmnic2 and vmnic3 The name of a card is based on its order in the PCI bus slot hierarchy on the machine the lower the bus and slot the lower the number at the end of the name f there is more that one type of network interface card then the first driver that is oaded claims its virtual NICs vmnic in PCI slot order then the next driver that is oaded claims its virtual NICs vmnic in PCI slot order and so on This naming policy is also valid for the functions within a slot for multifunction devices for example a dual port NIC which occupies a single slot but has two functions bus1 slot1 function and bus1 slot1 function2 The functions are enumerated for each slot in the same way that the slots are enumerated for each device type findnic Command If you know the bus and slot order of the adapters you can figure out which adapter has which name However if you don t you can use the findnic program to help you make the proper association of network
52. Resources Used Memory Resource Settings Total Allocated Minimum Recently Used Shared Maximum Shares Reclaimed Memory Written to Swap File Reclaimed by VMMemCtl Module Virtualization Overhead Total Overhead The Memory page shows how much memory is being used by the virtual machine and how memory resources are allocated to the virtual machine Understanding Performance Values The values under Performance are based on the past five minutes The period of time these statistics cover can be modified See Configuring the Statistics Period for the VMware Management Interface on page 85 Performance information displayed includes e Used Memory value which represents the amount of memory allocated to the virtual machine when it was configured how much memory has been used recently by the virtual machine and how much memory has been shared 107 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide between all running virtual machines on the server and within the virtual machine itself e Reclaimed Memory value which represents how much memory has been reclaimed by ESX Server under heavy loads or when you are overcommitting memory e Virtualization Overhead represents how much extra memory the virtual machine process is using in addition to the amount of memory allocated to it 1 08 www vmware com CHAPTER 3 Using the VMware Management Interface to Manage Your Virtual Machines Understanding Resource Values The
53. Since the driver has been installed the guest should find it automatically Sometimes moving the virtua devices around causes the PCI slots to change so the guest might detect some devices like the vmxnet network driver again Let the operating system detect the devices and continue Configuring the LSI Logic SCSI Adapter in a Linux Guest Operating System The following steps apply to existing virtual machines running Red Hat Linux 7 3 and to SuSE Linux 8 0 guest operating systems and later distributions The kernels that come with these and later distributions include a driver that supports the LSI Logic SCSI adapter The driver is called mpt scsih and depends on another module called mptbase Earlier this adapter Note For anew kernels may have the mpt scsih driver but they do not support Linux virtual machine in which you intend to install a Red Hat Linux 7 3 or SUSE Linux 8 0 guest operating system or a later distribution you only need to install the guest operating system The guest is configured to use the LSI Logic adapter during installation To use the LSI Log ic adapter in an older distribution upgrade the virtual machine s kernel or patch the kernel with the source from the LSI Logic Web site and re compile the kernel Verify t guest type hat the LSI Logic adapter is detected At a command prompt in the modprobe mptscsih If there are no errors verify with 1smod that mpt scsih and mptbase ar
54. Specify the cluster IP address This is the address that will represent the cluster It must be on the same network as that of the vmnic0 Specify the cluster service account created above Specify that both shared disks should be managed by the cluster service Indicate the shared disk Q to be the quorum disk Specify which network adapter is public and which is private Stop the cluster service on the local node from Cluster Manager right click the node name so the second virtual machine can access the shared disks Start the node 2 virtual machine 337 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 338 27 Repeat step 2 and step 3 above 28 Start the Disk Administrator and assign the first shared disk to Q quorum and the second disk to R 29 Start dcpromo exe and add this virtual machine as a domain controller in the same domain created in step 8 above or add it to an existing domain You must match the setup done in step 8 30 In the node 1 virtual machine start the cluster service by reversing step 25 above 31 In the node 2 virtual machine repeat step 14 step 24 above with one exception In step 18 select Join a Cluster This concludes the Microsoft Cluster Service installation and configuration Running Microsoft Cluster Service Microsoft Cluster Service should operate normally in the virtual machine once it is installed Note Some disk errors are recorded in the Windows event log in normal opera
55. Suspend suspends a powered on virtual machine without running a script Power On Resume powers on a stopped virtual machine or resumes a suspended virtual machine without running a script Reset resets the virtual machine immediately without running a script This is the same as pressing the reset button on a physical computer Unregister Virtual Machine unregisters the virtual machine The virtual machine no longer appears on the Status Monitor page so it cannot be managed or accessed For information on registering virtual machines see Registering and Unregistering Virtual Machines on page 164 Delete Virtual Machine lets you delete a virtual machine or just its configuration provided the virtual machine is powered off See Deleting a Virtual Machine Using the VMware Management Interface on page 149 Changing the Power State of a Virtual Machine Depending upon your permissions you can change the power state of the virtual machine in the management interface Your permissions are listed in the Users and Events tab for the virtual machine For more information see Viewing a List of Connected Users on page 140 93 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide To change the virtual machine s power state click the button that indicates the virtual machine s current power state A popup menu appears displaying the following buttons Button Description i Shuts down the guest operati
56. Suspend File Location Enable Logging m Run with Debugging Information mE Help Note You can change the display name when the virtual machine is powered on 2 Make your changes then click OK to save them 3 Close the window Modifying the Configuration File Directly Advanced Users Only If you need to add or change a configuration option for a virtual machine that cannot be accessed from elsewhere in the management interface you can edit the virtual machine s configuration file the file with the vmx extension from the Options tab For example if you want to enable repeatable resume in the virtual machine you would add the option to the configuration file in the manner described below Caution You should not add or change any options in your configuration file unless you have been given a specific option to add to the file in another part of the user documentation or if you are working with VMware support to solve an issue with your virtual machine To add an option to the configuration file vmx make sure you are logged into the management interface as the virtual machine user or a user with the proper permissions to modify this virtual machine such as the root user then complete the following steps 137 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 138 1 Under Verbose Options click the link The Options window appears i testserver Windows 2000 Server Configuration Microsoft Internet Explorer
57. VMkernel network adapters and virtual networks you must install the vmxnet_console module When you install it you provide a list of VMkernel network adapters and virtual networks that the vmxnet_console module should attach to For example if the VMkernel had an adapter named vmnic1 anda virtual network named vmnet_0 and you wanted to provide access to them from the service console you would use the following command to install the vmxnet_console module 365 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 366 insmod vmxnet_console devName vmnicl vmnet_0 The devName parameter is a semicolon separated list of names of VMkernel network adapters and virtual networks When you install the module it adds the appropriate number of eth lt n gt devices on the service console in the order that you list the VMkernel network adapter and virtual network names after the devName parameter In the example above if the service console already had a network adapter named et h0 when you load vmxnet_console with vmnicl and vmnet_0 vmnicl is seen as eth1 on the service console and vmnet_0 is seen as eth2 Once the eth lt n gt devices are created on the service console you can bring the interfaces up in the normal manner For example if you want the service console to use IP address 10 2 0 4 for the network accessed via the vmnic1 adapter use the following command ifconfig ethl up 10 2 0 4 If you want an easy way to see which eth lt n gt
58. VMware Management Interface on page 85 Performance information displayed includes e CPU Utilization how much of the server processor or processors each virtual processor is utilizing Understanding Resource Values The values under Resources indicate a range of percentages of a processor to which the virtual machine is entitled Resource information displayed includes e Minimum represents the minimum amount of processor capacity that must be available in order to power on the virtual machine e Maximum represents the highest amount of processor capacity the virtual machine can ever consume even if the processor is idle The maximum value can be larger than 100 if the virtual machine has more than one virtual CPU e Shares represents a relative metric for allocating processor capacity The values low normal and high are compared to the sum of all shares of all virtual machines on the server and the service console Share allocation symbolic values can be used to configure their conversion into numeric values e Isolated from Hyper Threading represents the CPU operation state of the virtual machine Enabling this option prevents a virtual machine from sharing a physical CPU with other virtual machines when Hyper Threading is enabled Note Enabling this option prevents other virtual machines from using the second logical processor as long as this virtual machine is using the first logical processor For mo
59. Virtual Machine Configuration Yerbose Options checkpoint cptConfigName win2000Serv b01a6376 config version 6 displayName Windows 2000 Server draw adi Ethernet0 addressType px Ethernet0 connectionType monitor_dev Ethernet0 devName vrnnet_O Ethernet0 generatedAddress 00 50 56 92 02 74 Ethernet0 networkName NetworkO Ethernet0 present true floppy0 fileName fdev fd0 floppy0 startConnected false guestOS win2000Serv ideO O0 deviceType atapi cdrom ide0 0 fileName dev cdrom ide0 0 present true memsize 384 priority grabbed normal priority ungrabbed normal RemoteDisplay depth 16 scsi0 present true scsiO virtualDey vmxbuslogic scsi0 0 mode nonpersistent scsi0 0 name vmhba0 0 0 6 Untitled vmdk scsi0 0 present true usb present false uuid bios 50 32 fd Od 61 b4 b2 b4 ac eb 7c uuid location 56 4d 7d 2e 04 67 2b b9 73 5c 2c virtualHW version 3 Help Cancel 5 Click Add then create an option called resume repeatable and set its value to TRU E a 6 Click OK to save and close the configuration file 99 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 7 Power on the virtual machine 8 Using the remote console take the steps necessary to reach the state in which you want
60. a maximum memory of 256MB and with its shares settings as normal then this virtual machine has 10 times 256 or 2560 shares Similarly a virtual machine with a maximum memory of 1GB with a normal share setting has 10240 shares sched mem maxmemctl lt size gt This configuration file option specifies the maximum amount of memory that may be reclaimed from the virtual machine using vmmemct 1 to be lt size gt MB If additional memory needs to be reclaimed the system swaps instead of using vmmemct 1 The default maximum size is half of the specified maximum virtual machine size sched mem affinity lt NUMA_node gt This configuration file option specifies that if possible all of the virtual machine s memory should be allocated on the specified NUMA node For more information see Associating Future Virtual Machine Memory Allocations with a NUMA Node on page 418 407 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 408 Service Console Commands proc vmware vm lt id gt mem min Reading from this file reports the minimum memory size in megabytes for the virtual machine identified by lt id gt Writing a number lt size gt to this file changes the minimum memory size for the virtual machine identified by lt id gt to lt size gt MB proc vmware vm lt id gt mem shares Reading from this file reports the number of memory shares allocated to the virtual machine identified by lt id gt Writing a number lt n gt
61. admission control policy to enforce this guarantee You cannot power on a new virtual machine if it is not possible to reserve its minimum CPU percentage e Its maximum rate max The maximum CPU percentage represents an absolute fixed upper limit on the consumption of a single physical CPU s processing power The virtual machine will never consume more than this maximum percentage of a CPU s resources even if there is idle time on the system e Its shares allocation www vmware com CHAPTER 12 VMware ESX Server Resource Management CPU shares entitle a virtual machine to a relative fraction of CPU resources For example a virtual machine that has twice as many shares as another is generally entitled to consume twice as much CPU time subject to their respective minimum and maximum percentages You may specify shares by specifying a numerical value or specifying high normal or low By default the setting for normal shares is twice that of low Similarly high shares are twice that of normal or four times that of low You have the option of specifying a minimum percentage a maximum percentage CPU shares or a combination of these The system automatically allocates CPU time to each virtual machine somewhere between its minimum and maximum percentages refined by the number of shares Admission Control Policy ESX Server uses an admission control policy While CPU reservations are used for admission control actual CPU time
62. affected virtual machine in he preceding traps vmware vmwOlD There are no variables in this group This group is used to allocate a unique identifier for the product denoted by the vmwSystem vmwoOlID variable vmware vmwExperimental There are currently no variables in this group This group is reserved for VMware ephemeral experimental variables 275 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 276 www vmware com CHAPTER Using VMkernel Device Modules The ESX Server virtualization layer also known as the VMkernel runs on the native hardware It manages all the operating systems on the machine including both the service console and the guest operating systems running on each virtual machine The VMkernel supports device driver modules Using these modules the VMkernel can provide access to all devices on the server This chapter includes the following sections e Configuring Your Server to Use VMkernel Device Modules on page 278 e Controlling VMkernel Module Loading During Bootup on page 282 277 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 278 Configuring Your Server to Use VMkernel Device Modules Loading VMkernel Device Modules The installation process should detect the devices that are assigned to the VMkernel and automatically load appropriate modules into the VMkernel to make use of these devices However there may be situations in which you wish to load VMkernel device module
63. allocation for a virtual machine for the disk scsi0 1 to ben shares The valid range of numerical values for n is 1 to 100000 You may also use the special values low normal and high These values are automatical configuration options DiskShar DiskSharesHigh described in is not specified the assigned alloca y converted into numbers through the esLow DiskSharesNormal and the next section If the number of shares for a disk ion is normal with a default value of 1000 shares Note It is possible for a configuration file to have multiple lines specifying the number of shares If this happens the last value specified is used Configuration File Examples scsi0 virtualdev vm scsi0 l present TRU scsi0 1 name vmhba0 scsi0 1 mode persis sched scsi0 1 shares scsi0 2 present TRU scsi0 2 name scratc sched scsi0 2 shares xbuslogic 2 0 5 rh6 2 vmdk tent high E hfs scratchl vmdk 800 In the example above the first four lines in the first group and the first two lines in the second group are present in the configuration file before you make your changes The final line in each group is the adde Managing Disk Bandwidt Use the following guidelines for th d line to specify the disk bandwidth allocation h from the Service Console e service console commands to monitor and manage allocation of disk bandwidth on an ESX Server computer proc vmware vm lt id gt disk vm
64. allocations vary dynamically and unused reservations are not wasted Note If ESX Server is unable to guarantee a virtual machine s specified minimum percentage it will not allow you to power on that virtual machine Over the next few sections we discuss managing CPU resources using CPU percentages CPU shares and scheduling affinity by assigning virtual machines to run on specific processors e Specifying Minimum and Maximum CPU Percentages on page 385 e Assigning Virtual Machines to Run on Specific Processors on page 386 e Using Proportional share Scheduling by Allocating Shares on page 387 e Managing CPU Time with Percentages and Shares on page 388 Specifying Minimum and Maximum CPU Percentages Starting with ESX Server 2 0 you have the option to specify a minimum and maximum percentage of CPU for each virtual machine The minimum percentage represents an absolute fixed lower limit while the maximum percentage represents an absolute fixed upper limit A virtual machine will always be able to use at least as much CPU time as specified by the minimum percentage and never use more CPU time than the specified maximum percentage For a single virtual CPU virtual machine the percentage ranges from 0 to 100 For a dual virtual CPU machine the percentage ranges from 0 to 200 Note Seta virtual machine s minimum for the minimal acceptable performance 385 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 386 For example if
65. and Explanation ifconfig Display the network interface configuration information for all network devices When using this command NICs allocated to the vmkernel are shown as vmnic lt N gt where N is the number of the NIC e g vmnic0O vmnicl and so orth insmod nstall a loadable module into the running kernel insmod parport nstall the loadable module named parport into the running kernel kill lsmod ill a specified process kill 3456 ill the process with a process ID of 3456 kill 9 isthe surest way to kill a process however use it only as a last resort since it will not save editor buffers List all loaded modules lspci List PCI devices available to the service console lspci v List PCI devices in verbose mode mount passwd ount a specified storage device at a specified location in the file system mount dev fd0 mount floppy Mount the first physical floppy drive so its contents are visible in the directory mount floppy The directory mount floppy must already exist Change your password passwd user Change the password for a user named user You must be logged in as the root user su to change another user s password ps Show names process IDs and other information for running processes ps ef Show full information about every e running process shutdown Shut down the computer shutdown h 5 Completely halt
66. and grow as needed up to the designated maximum size Mware Tools Properties Ea Options Devices Scripts Shrink About Supported partitions Unsupported pattitions Select the partitions to prepare for shrinking If you plan to export a virtual disk for use under GSX Server click the Shrink tab be sure there is a check beside the name of the disk you plan to export then click Prepare to shrink Note When you export the virtual disk using the file browser in the management interface or the vmk stools command a single virtual disk may be exported to multiple dsk vmdk files 183 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 184 Viewing Information About VMware Tools On the About tab you see general information about VMware Tools installed in the virtual machine Mware Tools Properties x Options Devices Scripts Shrink About VMware Tools for Windows Build build 3938 Copyright 1998 2003 The VMware Tools Service is running OK Cancel Apply Help This tab contains the following information e The VMware Tools build number which lets you verify your VMware Tools version matches the VMware ESX Server version you are running and is useful when you request support e An indication as to whether the VMware guest operating system service is running e A button you click to visit the VMware Web site Installing New Software Inside the Virtual Machine
67. and subagent SNMP daemons Using the VMware SNMP Daemon with Third Party Management Applications 1 Install your third party management application Refer to your management application documentation and the ESX Server release notes at www vmware com support esx2 doc releasenotes_esx2 htm Log into the service console as the root user and run the script as follows Type the following snmpsetup sh connect The connect option configures exporting ESX Server MIB items through your third party SNMP daemon You should use this option if you want to enable the export of ESX Server MIB items after installing the third party management application The script connects the third party application snmpd daemon with the vmware snmpd subagent daemon The script then starts both daemons www vmware com CHAPTER 7 Using SNMP with ESX Server Starting the SNMP Agents Automatically You can set the master and subagent SNMP daemons to start automatically whenever ESX Server boots by logging in as the root user in the service console and running the chkconfig commands chkconfig snmpd on chkconfig vmware snmpd on The first command enables starting the master SNMP daemon either the default SNMP daemon shipped with ESX Server or your third party management application SNMP daemon on boot The second command enables starting the subagent vmware snmpd daemon on boot Note The master snmpd daemon can run by itself or to
68. are handled as HTTP redirects to TCP ports 80 or 443 High Security e 443 HTTPS used by the VMware Management Interface e 902 vmware authd used when you connect with the remote console e 22 SSH used for a secure shell connection to the service console Medium Security e 443 HTTPS used by the VMware Management Interface e 902 vmware authd used when you connect with the remote console e 22 SSH used for a secure shell connection to the service console e 23 Telnet used for an insecure shell connection to the service console 205 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide e 21 FTP used for transferring files to and from other machines 111 portmap used by the NFS client when mounting a drive on a remote machine Low Security e 80 HTTP used by the VMware Management Interface e 902 vmware authd used when you connect with the remote console e 22 SSH used for a secure shell connection to the service console e 23 Telnet used for an insecure shell connection to the service console e 21 FTP used for transferring files to and from other machines 111 portmap used by the NFS client when mounting a drive on a remote machine 206 www vmware com CHAPTER 5 Using the VMware Service Console Using Devices With ESX Server n this section we discuss any considerations in using devices with ESX Server Supporting Generic Tape and Media Changers n order for the guest operating system to see and contro
69. back to VMware ESX Server Note The following example illustrating the e and i options result in the export or import of a virtual disk This example illustrates migrating a virtual machine s virtual disk file from ESX Server to VMware GSX Server or VMware Workstation then migrating the virtual disk back to ESX Server vmkfstools e winXP vmdk vmhba0 6 0 1 winXP vmdk The preceding command exports the winXP vmdk virtual disk file to one or more vmdk files maximum size 2GB that you can use as a virtual disk in a virtual machine on GSX Server or Workstation The resultant winXP vmdk file s can reside on a VMFS volume or an ext2 ext 3 or NFS file system www vmware com CHAPTER 9 Storage and File Systems The following example imports a GSX Server or Workstation virtual disk file into the VMFS volume on the specified SCSI device vmkfstools i winXP vmdk vmhba0 6 0 1 winXP vmdk By contrast if you are importing directly into a raw partition the example becomes vmkfstools i winXP vmdk vmhba0 6 0 1 Lists the files on the VMFS of the specified device vmkfstools l1 vmhba0 2 0 0 This command illustrates listing the contents of the file system including redo logs virtual disk files and swap files on target 2 of SCSI adapter 0 301 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 302 Accessing Raw SCSI Disks You can access raw disks directly or use the vmkfstools r command to map them to files on VMFS 2 volum
70. be configured only when the virtual machine is powered off testserver Windows 2000 Server Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 x Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 roc Status Monitor CPU Memory Disk Network Hardware Options Users and Events Refresh Help Close Last updated Thu Nov 18 16 00 50 PST 2004 ia wu Windows 2000 Server Powered on PID 1449 YMID 140 Removable Devices Other Hardware G amp Floppy Drive Remove Edit Processors and Memory Connected No Processors 1 Connect at Power On No Memory 384 M Device System Floppy Drive B Display Edit ecation issues Colors Thousands of Colors 16 bit DvD CD ROM Drive IDE 0 0 Remove Edit Connected Yes Connect at Power On Yes Device System DVD CD ROM Drive Location dev cdrom Network Adapter Remove Edit Connected Yes Connect at Power On Yes Network Connection Network0 Virtual Device vlance Add Device Activities you can perform when configuring a virtual machine s hardware include e Configuring a Virtual Machine s Floppy Drive on page 115 e Configuring a Virtual Machine s DVD ROM or CD ROM Drive on page 116 e Configuring a Virtual Machine s Memory and Virtual Processors on page 116 e Configuring a Virtual Machine s Virtual Network Adapters on page 118 e Configuring a Virtual Machine s SCSI Controllers on page 119 e Configuring a Virtual Machine s Virtual Disks on page 120 e Configuring a Virtual Machine s Display Setti
71. can then use appropriately that is it can set a new IP address for the virtual machine if that is what was passed in the string originally From the service console you can prevent the service console from passing a string to the guest operating system via the guest service To do this set the following line in your virtual machine s configuration file Gl isolation tools machine id get disable TRUI 51 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 52 Using PXE with Virtual Machines You can use a preboot execution environment commonly known as PXE to boot a virtual machine over a network When you use PXE with a virtual machine you can e Remotely install a guest operating system over a network without the need for the operating system installation media e Deploy an image of a virtual disk to the virtual machine e Boot a Linux virtual machine over the network and run it diskless You use PXE with your virtual machine in conjunction with remote installation tools such as Windows 2000 Remote Installation Services or the Red Hat Linux 9 0 installer s PXE package You can use Ghost or Altiris to stream an image of an already configured virtual disk to a new virtual machine ake sure the virtual machine has a virtual network adapter one is installed by default ESX Server supports PXE when the virtual machine is configured to use either he vmxnet or vlance virtual network adapter The virtual machine
72. center As with mainframe virtualization the VMware virtual machine offers complete hardware virtualization the guest operating system and applications those operating www vmware com CHAPTER 1 Introduction to VMware ESX Server inside a virtual machine can never directly determine which specific underlying physical resources they are accessing such as which CPU they are running on ina multiprocessor system or which physical memory is mapped to their pages The virtualization of the CPU incorporates direct execution non privileged instructions are executed by the hardware CPU without overheads introduced by emulation The virtualization layer provides an idealized physical machine that is isolated from other virtual machines on the system It provides the virtual devices that map to shares of specific physical devices these devices include virtualized CPU memory O buses network interfaces storage adapters and devices human interface devices BIOS and others Each virtual machine runs its own operating system and applications they cannot talk to each other or leak data other than via networking mechanisms similar to those used to connect separate physical machines This isolation leads many users of VMware software to build internal firewalls or other network isolation environments allowing some virtual machines to connect to the outside while others are connected only via virtual networks through other virtual machines
73. changes then click OK Note You cannot change VMFS accessibility if there are any open files on the VMFS volume The attempted operation returns errors Close any open files then edit the VMFS volume See Configuring Storage Disk Partitions and File Systems on page 228 for additional information 289 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 290 Using vmkfstools The vmk fstools command supports the creation of a VMware ESX Server file system VMFS on a SCSI disk Use vmk stools to create manipulate and manage files stored in VMFS volumes You can store multiple virtual disk images on a single VMFS volume Note You can also do most of the vmk stools operations through the VMware Management Interface vmkfstools Command Syntax Note You must be logged in as the root user to run the vmk stools command vmkfstools Syntax When Specifying a SCSI Device The format for the vmk stools command when specifying a SCSI device is vmkfstools lt options gt lt device_or_VMFS_volume gt lt file gt where lt device_or_VMFS_volume gt specifies a SCSI device a SCSI disk or a partition on a SCSI disk being manipulated or a VMFS volume and lt options gt specifies the operation to be performed If lt device_or_VMFS_volume gt is a SCSI device then it is specified in a form such as vmhbal 2 0 3 Here vmhbal specifies the second SCSI adapter activated by the command vmkload_mod XXX o vmhb
74. chapter contains the following sections VMware ESX Server System Architecture on page 14 e Using VMware ESX Server on page 21 13 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 14 VMware ESX Server System Architecture VMware ESX Server incorporates a resource manager and a service console that provides bootstrapping management and other services The design of the ESX Server core architecture implements the abstractions that allow hardware resources to be allocated to multiple workloads in fully isolated environments The key elements of the system s design are e The VMware virtualization layer which provides the idealized hardware environment and virtualization of underlying physical resources e The resource manager which enables the partitioning and guaranteed delivery of CPU memory network bandwidth and disk bandwidth to each virtual machine e The hardware interface components including device drivers which enable hardware specific service delivery while hiding hardware differences from other parts of the system Console Windows 2000 cpu Memory Dis Nic Virtualization The VMware virtualization layer brings hardware virtualization to the standard Intel server platform The virtualization layer is common among VMware desktop and server products providing a consistent platform for development testing delivery and support of application workloads from the developer desktop to the workgroup to the data
75. config MemBalancePeriod below for more information Reallocations are also triggered by significant changes in the amount of free memory proc vmware mem Reading from this file reports the maximum size with which a new virtual machine can be powered on admission control status including the amount of unreserved www vmware com CHAPTER 12 VMware ESX Server Resource Management memory and unreserved swap space and the current amount of free memory in the system proc vmware pshare status Reading from this file reports various detailed statistics about the current status of transparent page sharing proc vmware swap stats Reading from this file reports various detailed swap statistics proc vmware config Mem SharesPerMBLow This option specifies the a numerical value for the low shares value By default this number is 5 This number is multiplied by the virtual machine s maximum memory size to obtain the number of shares proc vmware config Mem SharesPerMBNormal This option specifies the a numerical value for the normal shares value By default this number is 10 This number is multiplied by the virtual machine s maximum memory size to obtain the number of shares proc vmware config Mem SharesPerMBHigh This option specifies the a numerical value for the high shares value By default this number is 20 This number is multiplied by the virtual machine s maximum memory size to obtain the number of shares proc vmware c
76. console in case another user has performed the same or a conflicting operation right before you To refresh the page click Refresh at the top of a page Note Your management interface sessions times out after a 60 minute period of idle time This setting is represented by the variable vmware_SESSTON_LENGTH stored in usr lib vmware mui apache conf access conf You can block access to the management interface for all users by setting vmware_SESSION_LENGTH to 0 minutes On the other hand you can allow for persistent sessions that never time out by setting vmware_SESSION_LENGTH to T www ymware com CHAPTER 3 Using the VMware Management Interface to Manage Your Virtual Machines Configuring the Statistics Period for the VMware Management Interface By default the VMware Management Interface provides statistics about the server and virtual machines that reflect the past five minutes of activity The statistics get updated every 20 seconds You can co you can co Increasing of every 20 improving nfigure this setting for a period of one minute to see more usage details or nfigure it for a period of 15 minutes to smooth out short term spikes he statistics period changes the update frequency to every minute instead seconds it also reduces the amount of load on the service console he performance of a server running a large number of virtual machines To configure the statisti
77. console on that computer Press Alt F2 to get to the login screen Depending on the security settings for your ESX Server computer you may be able to connect remotely to the service console using SSH or Telnet For more information on the security settings see Authentication and Security Features on page 203 Detailed usage notes for most service console commands are available as manual or man files To view the manual file or man page for a particular command use the man command followed by the name of the command for which you want to see information See Getting Help for Service Console Commands on page 202 Whether you use the service console locally or through a remote connection you must log in using a valid user name and password Commands Specific to ESX Server Identifying Network Cards The findnic command lets you send network traffic from a specified network adapter so you can observe the LEDs on the adapters and see which physical adapter is associated with that device name The format of the command is findnic lt options gt lt nic name gt lt local ip gt lt remote ip gt Option Explanation f Do a flood ping i lt seconds gt Send pings at specified interval Example findnic f vmnicl 10 2 0 5 10 2 0 4 Binds VMkernel device vmnic1 to IP address 10 2 0 5 then tries to flood ping the remote machine with the IP address 10 2 0 4 For more information see The VMkernel
78. control panel and drivers still work correctly Follow the remaining steps Choose directories for the various files Choose a display size for the virtual machine Enter the number for the choice and press Enter If you wish start X and your graphical environment and launch the VMware Tools background application vmware toolbox amp Note If you created this virtual machine using the vmxnet driver you now need to run net config or another network configuration utility in the virtual machine to set up the virtual network adapter Installing VMware Tools in a NetWare 6 0 SP3 6 5 or 5 1 SP6 Guest 1 2 Power on the virtual machine Prepare your virtual machine to install VMware Tools Choose File gt Install VMware Tools The remaining steps take place inside the virtual machine 3 Load the CD ROM driver so the CD ROM device mounts the ISO image as a volume Do one of the following a In the system console for a NetWare 6 5 virtual machine type LOAD CDROM b In the system console for a NetWare 5 1 virtual machine type LOAD CD9660 NSS 45 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 46 4 When the driver finishes loading you can begin installing VMware Tools In the system console type vmwtools setup ncf 5 When the installation finishes the message VMware Tools for NetWare are now running appears in the Logger Screen NetWare 6 5 guests or the Console Screen NetWare 5 1 guests 6
79. delete them from the etc vmware config file Increasing Memory to the Apache Process By default Apache allocates a shared memory segment of 24MB to contain all the virtual machines data This value of 24 MB is sufficient for 80 virtual machines If you have more than 80 up to the maximum of 200 registered virtual machines Apache may run out of memory If that happens you may see a Panic out of memory message in usr 1lib vmware mui apache logs error_logand the VMware Management Interface shuts down 1 Use a text editor and add the following option to etc vmware config mui vmdb shmSize 37748736 where 37748736 represents 36MB 36 multiplied by 1024 multiplied by 1024 2 Restart the Apache server etc rce d init d httpd vmware restart Note Increasing this value may impact the performance of the virtual machines since the Apache processes will require more memory in the service console Increasing the Timeout Value for the vmware authd Process As root use a text editor and add the following configuration parameter to the etc vmware config file vmauthd connectionSetupTimeout 120 This increases the timeout value to 2 minutes from the default of 30 seconds 167 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 168 Increasing Memory for the vmware serverd Process As root use a text editor and add the following configuration parameter to the etc vmware config file vmserverd limits memory 49152
80. domain Spanning Tree Protocol If an adapter loses the physical connection to an externa a delay duplica physica switch that is using the Spanning Tree Protocol the switch may induce in reconnecting the link while it applies the protocol to check for te active connections ESX Server can only detect that the link has been ly restored but not that the port is blocked by the Spanning Tree check Portfast Mode You can use the Portfast mode to reduce errors caused by Spanning Tree checks If you cannot disable the Spanning Tree Protocol for an external switch configure the ports connected to the server to use Portfast mode This reduces Spanning Tree delays resulting in fewer false indications of link failures www vmware com CHAPTER 11 Networking Troubleshooting If while booting your virtual machine you see an error message stating that the Ethernet device cannot be detected then check the following e Network Connections page Be sure that the correct physical adapters are assigned to a bond e VM Configuration page Be sure the correct bond is selected for the specified Ethernet device and that the selected vmnic is not already assigned to a bond device or already in use Make the appropriate change s then reboot your virtual machine to see if the error message persists 375 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 376 www vmware com CHAPTER VMware ESX Server Resource Manageme
81. file for this example would be DEVICE eth1 BOOTPROTO static BROADCAST 10 255 255 255 IPADDR 10 2 0 4 NETMASK 255 0 0 0 NETWORK 10 0 0 0 ONBOOT yes In this case the lines you add to etc rc d rce local would be insmod vmxnet_console devName vmnicl vmnet_0 ifup ethl ifup eth2 Sharing the Service Console s Network Adapter with Virtual Machines Caution If you intend to share the adapter that is eth0 on the service console be careful as you implement the following steps In order to configure ESX Server initially you need to have a network connection Once the initial configuration is set you make several changes At one point in the process there is no network connection to the service console and you must work directly at the server When you first install and configure ESX Server the VMkernel is not loaded so the service console needs to control the network adapter that is eth0 When you configure ESX Server assign the adapter that is eth0 to the service console Once you have completely configured ESX Server properly and rebooted the machine the VMkernel is loaded At that point you need to take the following steps 1 Edit etc modules conf and comment out the line that refers to alias etho If the original line is alias eth0 e100 edit it to be alias eth0 e100 This disables et hO on the service console when it boots 367 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 368
82. following The steps for each guest operating system assume that you are working from a remote console connected to your virtual machine Prepare your virtual machine to install VMware Tools Choose Settings gt VMware Tools Install This option prepares the CD ROM drive in the virtual machine to use an ISO image file containing the VMware Tools packages This image which appears as a regular CD ROM disk in the virtual machine was placed on your server machine when you installed VMware ESX Server Installing VMware Tools in a Windows Server 2003 Guest 1 3 Choose Settings gt VMware Tools Install This step connects the virtual machine s CD ROM drive to an ISO image file on the ESX Server machine If autorun is enabled in your guest operating system the default setting for Windows operating systems a dialog box appears after a few seconds It asks if you want to install VMware Tools Click Install to launch the installation wizard If autorun is not enabled the dialog box does not appear automatically If it doesn t appear run VMwareTools exe from the CD ROM drive choose Start gt Run gt D VMwareTools exe where D is the first CD ROM drive in your virtual machine to install VMware Tools During the installation two Hardware Installation messages appear stating that the VMware SVGA and VMware Pointing Device drivers have not passed Windows Logo testing Accept these messages and continue Reboot the gue
83. for input message appears in the Display Name column When you click that link a popup window appears prompting you for a response After you provide your answer the popup window closes The log shows the date and time the event occurred and an explanation of the event Some events have a symbol associated with them that corresponds to the type of event that occurred amp This type of event indicates a question or a warning was generated by the virtual machine This type of event indicates an error occurred in the virtual machine Click the tabs at the top of the page to view more information about the virtual machine www vmware com CHAPTER 3 Using the VMware Management Interface to Manage Your Virtual Machines Modifying Virtual Machine Peripherals A virtual machine s peripheral devices can be viewed and modified through the management interface This section provides an overview of the configuration modification options The changes you can make include e Adding More than Six SCSI Virtual Disks to a Virtual Machine on page 143 e Using a Physical Raw Disk in a Virtual Machine on page 144 e Using Parallel Ports in a Virtual Machine on page 145 e Using Serial Ports in a Virtual Machine on page 146 e Using Disk Modes on page 147 Caution These procedures involve modifying a virtual machine s configuration file settings directly Only advanced users should do this Consider backing up the configuration file vmx b
84. for that virtual machine click the arrow to the right of the terminal icon and select Configure Hardware or Configure Options in the Virtual Machine menu see Using the Virtual Machine Menu on page 92 A new browser window appears allowing you to make changes to the virtual machine s configuration Configuring a Virtual Machine s CPU Usage To review and configure the virtual machine s processor usage click the CPU tab The CPU page appears F testserver Microsoft Windows NT Microsoft Internet Explorer Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 ro Status Monitor Ji Memory Disk Network Hardware Options Users and Events Refresh Help Close Last updated Thu Nov 18 16 20 33 PST 2004 a wa alnis Windows NT owered on PID 1499 VMID 141 Performance Resources CPU Utilization Resource Settings Minimum Maximum Share Isolated from Hyper Threading Scheduling Affinity Run on Pro The CPU page shows how much of the server processor or processors each virtual processor is utilizing how CPU resources are allocated to the virtual machine whether 105 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 106 Hyper Threading is enabled and if there is any scheduling affinity to any specified processors on the server Understanding Performance Values The values under Performance are based on the past five minutes The period of time these statistics cover can be modified See Configuring the Statistics Period for the
85. guest operating system before you can www vmware com CHAPTER 2 Creating and Configuring Virtual Machines use the virtual machine See Installing a Guest Operating System and VMware Tools on page 40 e Click Existing to add an existing virtual disk to the virtual machine Then specify the following E testserver Novell NetWare 6 Configuration Microsoft Internet Explorer Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 roc Virtual Disk Ga Add a hard disk to your virtual machine Edit irtual Disk Configuration Disk Image Image File Location vmhba0 0 0 6 4 1 G free z Image File Name Untitled dsk z Capacity 4000 M Virtual Device virtual SCSI Node Disk Mode Persistent Changes are immediately and permanently written to the virtual disk Nonpersistent Changes are discarded when the virtual machine powers off Undoable Changes are saved discarded or appended at your discretion C Append Changes are appended to a redo log when the virtual machine powers off B u Cancel a Choose the location of the virtual disk you want to use In the VMFS Volume list choose the volume on which the virtual disk is located b In the VMware Disk Image list select the virtual disk you want The size of the virtual disk appears in the Capacity field you cannot change this value c Specify the virtual device node Select the appropriate SCSI ID in the Virtual SCSI Node list d Choose the di
86. it is not being used by a virtual machine Binding Physical Adapters You can group physical adapters by binding them together This is the functional equivalent for NIC teaming in ESX Server Certain options you can configure through the Service Console refer to grouped adapters as a bond You should bind together similar physical adapters whenever possible ESX Server uses only features or capabilities common to all adapters when defining the functionality of a bonded switch For example ESX Server can use a hardware acceleration feature for a bond only if all adapters in the bond include that feature Hardware acceleration features supported by ESX Server include e VLAN tag handling e Checksum calculations e TCP Segmentation Offloading Binding together identical models of physical adapters ensures that all features of the adapter can be used by ESX Server 369 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 370 When you choose a network connection for a virtual machine ESX Server links it to the associated virtual switch The operation of the virtual machine depends on the configuration of its network connection Thus you cannot bind or detach physical adapters while a virtual switch is being used by a virtual machine You can bind up to ten physical adapters to each virtual switch Finding Bonds and Adapters in the Service Console When you bind together adapters in a virtual switch ESX Server assigns a bond numbe
87. machine Go to the console of the second ESX Server machine This is where you will copy the virtual disk that resulted from creating the first node Log on as root Change directories cd vmfs vms This assumes that the internal storage for the second server is in a VMFS partition labeled vms Use the ftp command ftp lt serverl hostname gt Change directories cd vmfs vms This changes the current directory to the VMFS partition on the first server where you created the first node s virtual disk Set the type to binary bin This sets the transfer mode to binary If you use text transfer mode the virtual disk may not be usable on the target server Type hash on This turns on the display of a series of hash signs as a transfer progress indicator www vmware com CHAPTER 10 Configuration for Clustering 10 Retrieve the virtual disk file get cluster1 vmdk This initiates the transfer of the virtual disk file to the current directory on the second ESX Server machine 11 Quit the ftp session bye After the file transfer is completed type the bye command to end the FTP session 12 Rename the file mv clusterl vmdk cluster2 vmdk This renames the virtual disk to cluster2 vmdk This concludes the cloning process Continue with creating the second node virtual machine Creating the Second Node Virtual Machine Follow the procedure in Creating the First Node s Base Virtual Machine on page 331 noting th
88. memory and disk and two virtual Ethernet adapters In reality they share the same physical CPU and access noncontiguous pages of memory with part of the memory of one of the virtual machines currently swapped to disk Their virtual disks are actually set up as files on a common file system Each of these example virtual machines has two virtual NICs Virtual NICs 1a and 2a are attached to the virtual switch that is bound to physical NICs 1a and 2a Virtual NICs 1b and 2b are attached to a purely virtual switch Software Compatibility In the VMware ESX Server architecture guest operating systems interact only with the standard x86 compatible virtual hardware presented by the virtualization layer This provides the capability for VMware to support any x86 compatible operating system 17 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide In practice however VMware supports a subset of x86 compatible operating systems that are tested throughout the product development cycle VMware documents the installation and operation of these guest operating systems and trains its technical personnel in their support Because applications interact only with their guest operating system and not the underlying virtual hardware once operating system compatibility with the virtual hardware is established application compatibility is not an issue Service Console Service Console Functions The ESX Server system management functions and interfaces are im
89. min 0 and max 200 The virtual machine s allocation of 2000 shares currently entitles it to consume processor time equivalent to 72 of a single processor Since powering on the virtual machine has received about 124 seconds of CPU time above its entitlement by consuming extra time leftover from other virtual machines that did not fully utilize their allocations www vmware com CHAPTER 12 VMware ESX Server Resource Management Memory Resource Management VMware ESX Server provides dynamic control over the amount of physical memory allocated to each virtual machine You may overcommit memory if you wish so the total size configured for all running virtual machines exceeds the total amount of available physical memory The system manages the allocation of memory to virtual machines automatically based on allocation parameters and system load You may specify initial memory allocation values for a virtual machine in its configuration file You may also modify most memory allocation parameters dynamically using the VMware Management Interface the procfs interface on the service console or the VMware Scripting API Reasonable defaults are used automatically when parameters are not specified explicitly You have access to information about current memory allocations and other status information through the management interface the procfs interface on the service console and the VMware Scripting API For additional information
90. module exports its symbols making them available for use by other modules Loading Modules vmkload_mod usr lib vmware vmkmod e100 0 vmnic vmkload_mod usr lib vmware vmkmod aic7xxx o vmhba The first of these commands loads a module to control the EEPro Ethernet device s reserved for the VMkernel The second loads a module to control the Adaptec SCSI device s The last argument supplied vmnic and vmhba in the above examples determines the base name that VMware uses to refer to the device s in the VMware virtual machine configuration file For example suppose your machine has two EEPro Ethernet cards and three Adaptec SCSI cards and you assigned one Ethernet card and two SCSI cards to the VMkernel during the installation process After you issue the two commands above the EEPro Ethernet card assigned to the VMkernel is given the name vmnic0O and the two SCSI cards assigned to the VMkernel are given the names vmhba0 and vmhbal Note You only need to load the Adaptec VMkernel module once even though two Adaptec SCSI cards are assigned to the VMkernel The VMkernel can also share SCSI adapters with the service console rather than exclusively controlling them The installation process allows you to specify SCSI www vmware com CHAPTER 8 Using VMkernel Device Modules adapters that are shared and load the device module appropriately However if you wish to control the sharing explicitly assign the SCSI device to the service c
91. must have a virtual disk without a guest operating system installed When a virtual machine boots and there is no guest operating system installed it proceeds to boot from devices hard disk CD ROM drive floppy drive network adapter in the order in which they occur in the boot sequence specified in the virtual machine s BIOS If you plan to use PXE with a virtual machine it is a good idea to put the network adapter at the top of the boot order When the virtual machine first boots press F2 to enter the virtual machine s BIOS and change the boot order there As the virtual machine boots from the network adapter it tries to connect to a DHCP server The DHCP server provides the virtual machine with an IP address and a list of any PXE servers available on the network After the virtual machine connects to a PXE server it can connect to a bootable disk image such as an operating system image or a Ghost or Altiris disk image and start installing a guest operating system VMware has tested and supports the following PXE configurations with ESX Server e Remote installation of a Windows Server 2003 guest operating system from a server running Windows Server 2003 Automated Deployment Services e Remote installation of a Windows 2000 guest operating system from a server running Windows 2000 Server Advanced Server Remote Installation Services e Remote installation of a Linux guest operating system from a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3
92. nf shaper instance query the network filtering status which contains a list of all filters attached to virtual machines cat proc vmware filters status Suppose the reported status information indicates that the filter attached to virtual machine 104 is nfshaper 2 104 The procfs node for this filter can be used to obtain status information cat proc vmware filters xmit nfshaper 2 104 The same procfs node can also be used to issue commands supported by the nfshaper class For example you can dynamically adjust the bandwidth limits by issuing a config command echo config 128k 256k 20k gt proc vmware filters xmit nfshaper 2 104 When a virtual machine is terminated all attached network filters are automatically removed and destroyed To manually remove a shaper instance you can issue an xmitpop command as described in Managing Network Bandwidth from the Service Console on page 425 Note that root privileges are required to detach a filter echo 104 gt proc vmware filters xmitpop 427 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 428 Managing Disk Bandwidth ESX Server provides dynamic control over the relative amount of disk bandwidth allocated to each virtual machine You can control disk bandwidth separately for each physical disk or logical volume The system manages the allocation of disk bandwidth to virtual machines automatically based on allocation parameters and system load This is done in a way that maintain
93. nf shaper instance to a virtual machine detach an nfshaper instance from a virtual machine query the status of an nf shaper instance or issue a dynamic command to an active nf shaper instance Service Console Commands config lt bpsAverage gt lt bpsPeak gt lt burstSize gt lt periodPeak gt Dynamically reconfigure the shaper to use the specified parameters average bandwidth of lt bpsAverage gt bits per second peak bandwidth of lt bpsPeak gt bits per second maximum burst size of lt burstSize gt bytes and an optional peak bandwidth enforcement period lt periodPeak gt in milliseconds Each parameter may optionally use the suffix k 1k 1024 or m 1m 1024k maxq lt nPackets gt Dynamically set the maximum number of queued packets to lt nPackets gt reset Dynamically reset shaper statistics Examples Suppose that you want to attach a traffic shaper to limit the transmit bandwidth of the virtual machine with ID 104 To create and attach a new shaper instance issue an xmitpush command as described in Managing Network Bandwidth from the Service Console on page 425 Note that root privileges are required to attach a filter echo 104 nfshaper 1m 2m 160k gt proc vmware filters xmitpush www vmware com CHAPTER 12 VMware ESX Server Resource Management This attaches a traffic shaper with average bandwidth of 1Mbps peak bandwidth of 2Mbps and maximum burst size of 160Kb To find the number of the attached
94. one of the following e Inthe management interface click the arrow to the right of the terminal icon for that virtual machine and select Configure Options in the virtual machine menu see Using the Virtual Machine Menu on page 92 then click the link under Verbose Options Create an option called uuid bios and set the value as described below e Login to the service console and using a text editor there open the virtual machine s configuration file vmx Add the following line uuid bios lt uuidvalue gt The UUID value lt uuidvalue gt must be surrounded by quotation marks A sample configuration option might look like this uuid bios 00 11 22 33 44 55 66 77 88 99 aa bb cc dd ee EET After adding this option to the configuration file restart the virtual machine The new UUID is used when the virtual machine restarts Setting the UUID for a Virtual Machine that Is Being Moved If you plan to move a virtual machine and want it to have the same UUID it did before the move you must note the UUID being used before the move and add that UUID to the configuration file after the move Follow these steps 1 Before moving the virtual machine examine its configuration file Complete one of the following e Inthe management interface click the arrow to the right of the terminal icon for that virtual machine and select Configure Options in the virtual machine www vmware com CHAPTER 2 Creating and Configuring Virt
95. one of your virtual machines is running an important application you can specify a higher minimum percentage for this virtual machine compared to the other virtual machines on your ESX Server Note You can set CPU percentages for some or all of your virtual machines Alternately you may choose to set only minimum or only maximum CPU percentages You do not need to set both For example you plan to run 20 virtual machines on your ESX Server machine but have currently deployed only five virtual machines Normally these five virtual machines would utilize any extra CPU time that is available on the ESX Server machine However after you deploy an additional 15 virtual machines these five initial virtual machines will receive a smaller share of CPU time than what they were used to previously If you prefer not to have the users of these original five virtual machines become accustomed to this higher level of CPU time you could set a maximum CPU percentage for these five virtual machines and limit the amount of CPU time they receive Then these users won t see a difference when you deploy the additional virtual machines Note The CPU percentage s you choose represent an absolute fixed limit for that virtual machine Assigning Virtual Machines to Run on Specific Processors In multiprocessor systems you can also restrict the assignment of virtual machines to a subset of the available processors by specifying an affinity set f
96. or maximum memory usage by a virtual machine Shares on the other hand represent relative importance or priority You set shares to specify which virtual machines will get preferential treatment when ESX Server is overcommitted For example virtual machine A has a minimum memory size of 192MB and a maximum memory size of 256MB while virtual machine B has a minimum memory size of 256MB and a maximum memory size of 512MB You then decide to give virtual machine A high memory shares and virtual machine B normal memory shares By default the setting for high is twice that of normal or four www vmware com CHAPTER 12 VMware ESX Server Resource Management times that of low For example a virtual machine with high shares has twice as many shares as a virtual machine with normal shares or four times as many shares as a virtual machine with low shares If you want to change these defaults see Service Console Commands on page 408 ESX Server interprets this allocation so that virtual machine A will never have less than 192MB memory while virtual machine B will never have less than 256MB memory in any situation However if one or more virtual machines are not actively using their allocated memory for example the virtual machines are idling then ESX Server may redistribute a portion of this unused memory proportionally based on the virtual machines memory shares Active virtual machines benefit when extra resources a
97. password then hands them off to PAM which performs the authentication Once a user is authenticated vmware authd accepts a path name to a virtual machine configuration file Access to the configuration file is restricted in the following ways e The user must have read access to the configuration file to see and control the virtual machine in the VMware Management Interface and to view the virtual machine details pages 203 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 204 e The user must have read access to the configuration file to use the local console on the service console or to connect to the virtual machine with the VMware Perl API e The user must have read and execute access to the configuration file to connect to and control start stop reset or suspend a virtual machine in a remote console with the VMware Perl API or with the management interface e The user must have read and write access to the configuration file to change the configuration using the Configure VM page in the management interface Note Ifyou have users with list access but not read access they may encounter errors in the VMware Management Interface If a vmware process is not running for the configuration file you are trying to use vmware authd examines etc vmware vm list the file where you register your virtual machines If the configuration file is listed in vm list vmware authd not necessarily the user who is currently authenticated
98. plan to run concurrently on the server e 192MB for lt 8 virtual machines e 272MB for lt 16 virtual machines e 384MB for lt 32 virtual machines e 512MB for gt 32 virtual machines Virtual Machine Memory Pool The remaining pool of system memory is used for running virtual machines ESX Server manages the allocation of this memory to virtual machines automatically based on administrative parameters and system load ESX Server also attempts to keep some memory free at all times in order to handle dynamic allocation requests efficiently ESX Server sets this level at approximately 6 percent of the memory available for running virtual machines www vmware com CHAPTER 12 VMware ESX Server Resource Management Virtual Machine Memory Each virtual machine consumes memory based on its configured size plus additional overhead memory for virtualization The dynamic memory allocation for a virtual machine is bounded by its minimum and maximum size parameters The maximum size is the amount of memory configured for use by the guest operating system running in the virtual machine By default virtual machines operate at their maximum allocation unless memory is overcommitted The minimum size is a guaranteed lower bound on the amount of memory that is allocated to the virtual machine even when memory is overcommitted The minimum size should be set to a level that ensures the virtual machine has sufficient memory to run effi
99. procedure calls RPCs sched Scheduler statistics on memory and CPU scsi Information on SCSI devices and mappings between storage controllers and virtual machines shrdev Statistics on shared devices stats Counts of various low level events in ESX Server 201 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 202 proc vmware Entry Description swap Swap statistics thermmon Thermal monitoring information for each Pentium 4 processor timers State of ESX Server internal timed event scheduler uptime ESX Server uptime vm Statistics for individual virtual machines by VMID vmkperf Statistics on ESX Server performance S watchpoints atistics for debugging Getting Help for Service Console Commands Detailed usage notes for most service console commands are available as manual or man files To view the manual file or man page for a particular command use the man command followed by the name of the command for which you want to see information Command Example and Explanation man Displays the manual page for a specified command Press the spacebar to go to the next screen of text Press q to exit from the display when you are finished man cat Display the manual page for the command cat man f cat Display a brief description of the command cat www ymware com CHAPTER 5 Using the VMware Service Console Authentication and Secur
100. service console and has a minimum CPU percentage of 20 and a maximum CPU percentage of 50 Meanwhile the service console has a minimum percentage of 30 and no specified maximum percentage You then decide to give the virtual machine 3000 CPU shares and the service console 1000 CPU shares ESX Server interprets this allocation so that the virtual machine never has less than 20 of the total physical CPU resources while the service console never has less than 30 of the total physical CPU resources in any situation However if other virtual machines on the same disk are idling then ESX Server redistributes this extra CPU time proportionally based on the virtual machine s and service console s CPU shares Active virtual machines benefit when extra resources are available In this example the virtual machine gets three times as much CPU time as the service console subject to the specified CPU percentages 239 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 240 That is the virtual machine has three times as much CPU time as the service console as long as the virtual machine s CPU percentage is between 20 and 50 In actuality the virtual machine may only get twice the CPU time of the service console because three times the CPU time exceeds 50 or the maximum CPU percentage of the virtual machine These values can be modified Click Edit The Edit CPU Resources window appears E esx244 Service Console Configuration Micro
101. swap file This conversion may take several minutes When your prompt returns the conversion is complete Note In ESX Server 2 5 private VMFS volumes are deprecated If you have an existing VMFS version 1 VMFS 1 private volume then the newly created VMFS 2 volume s access mode is automatically changed to public Before starting this conversion check the following e Back up the VMFS 1 volume that is being converted e Be sure there are no virtual machines powered on using this VMFS 1 volume SAN only Be sure no other ESX Server is accessing this VMFS 1 volume e SAN only Be sure this VMFS 1 volume is not mounted on any other ESX Server Caution The VMFS 1 to VMFS 2 conversion is a one way process Once the VMFS volume is converted to VMFS 2 you cannot revert it back to a VMFS 1 volume Note The first time you access a newly converted VMFS 2 volume the initial access will be slow because of internal volume consistency checking Examples Using vmkfstools This section includes examples using the vmk f stools command with the different options described previously Create a new file system vmkfstools C vmfs2 b 2m n 32 vmhbal 3 0 1 This example illustrates creating a new VMFS version 2 vmf s2 on the first partition of target 3 LUN 0 of SCSI adapter 1 The file block size is 2MB and the maximum number of files is 32 Extends the new logical volume by spanning two partitions vmkfstools Z vmhba0 1 2 4 vm
102. that is not shared Shared memory allocated to the virtual machine that is shared Swapped memory forcibly reclaimed from the virtual machine and stored in the system swap files Balloon Driver memory reclaimed from virtual machines by cooperation with the VMware Tools vmmemctl driver and the guest operating system Unused memory that has never been accessed by the virtual machine and consequently has not yet been allocated Active memory that has been accessed recently by the virtual machine Swap I O rate at which the virtual machine is reading from and writing to system swap files in bytes per second 248 www vmware com CHAPTER 6 Administering ESX Server To adjust the allocation of server memory to a virtual machine click the virtual machine name This takes you to the Status Monitor where you view details about the virtual machine Click the virtual machine s Memory tab to set the number of memory shares granted to the virtual machine 249 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 250 Configuring Startup and Shutdown Options for Virtual Machines Using the system wide Virtual Machine Startup and Shutdown option you can e Configure your server to determine if virtual machines start up or shut down when the system starts or shuts down e Seta delay for starting or stopping one virtual machine before starting or stopping the next This delay helps to prevent overburdening the system due t
103. the ESX Server redo log API described in Providing Optimum Data Integrity In Virtual Machine Backups Without Downtime on page 171 to keep the interval during which an extra log is used to a minimum To do this take the following general steps e Add the new redo log e Take a snapshot of the mirror using your disk subsystern s or volume manager s interfaces e Commit the changes to the live log You may still back up from the stable disk image on the snapped mirror then reconnect the mirror to have it pick up the latest changes in time for your next backup Using Network based Replication Tools Many enterprise disk storage subsystems can be configured to replicate or mirror their data to another subsystem at a local or remote location This replication can occur either synchronously or asynchronously e Ifthe replication is synchronous a write operation does not appear to be completed locally until the data is committed to disk at the remote location e This improves data integrity but presents a potential performance bottleneck e Ifthe replication is asynchronous the remote copy is permitted to be some number of write operations behind the most current local data e This accepts a higher potential of inconsistent data at the remote site in exchange for increased performance Either of these hardware based approaches may be used with ESX Server In addition some disaster protection software products implement remot
104. the Swap Configuration option to create and configure a swap file which enables your virtual machines to use more memory than is physically available on the server For background see Memory Resource Management on page 399 E esx244 Swap Configuration Microsoft Internet Explorer ioj x YMware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 11152 root esx244 eng v Swap Configuration A swap file allows virtual machines to use more memory than is physically available Active Swap Files 10 17 21 244 0 vswp Swap Space 1000 0 M 1000 0 M available Configured Swap Files vmfs vmhba0 1 0 2 10 17 21 244 0 vswp Swap Space 1000 0 M Activation Policy Active at system startup i You can manage a single swap file with the management interface ESX Server can manage up to 8 swap files but you must use vmk stools to do so For information on vmkfstools see Using vmkfstools on page 290 To change your swap file settings click Edit E esx244 Swap Configuration Microsoft Internet Explorer ioj xi YMware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 11152 roo 244 eng v mware com Swap Configuration A swap file allows virtual machines to use more memory than is physically available Edit Swap File Configuration Configured Swap File VMFS Volume vmfs vmhba0 1 0 2 11 1 G Available z File Name 10 17 21 244 0 vswp z File Size 2 G recommended 1000 M Activation Policy Active at system startup a id Help OK Cancel You c
105. the connection for the virtual switch back to the primary This basic failure detection mode passively monitors an adapter for loss of physical connection to an external switch You can configure ESX Server to actively search for network failures using beacon monitoring Using Beacon Monitoring The beacon monitoring feature broadcasts beacon packets on the external network linked to the server to detect distributed connection failures ESX Server issues beacon packets from one adapter addressed to other adapters assigned to a virtual switch By monitoring beacon reception the server can determine the state of connections in a multi point network route You can configure beacon monitoring for each virtual switch and for the entire server Beacon monitoring is designed to be used in configurations where the multiple adapters assigned to a virtual switch are connected to more than one external switch Physical link monitoring only indicates whether an adapter is communicating with one external switch Beacon failures can detect connection failures between external switches or routing errors among switches in a distributed network domain ESX Server uses beacon monitoring as a variable indicator of network connection failure The server indicates a connection loss after it fails to receive a set number of broadcast beacons in succession Only when the number of failed beacons exceeds www vmware com CHAPTER 11 Networking the failure t
106. the output of the vmkfstools g command If the disk geometry information is different then specify the correct information from the output of the vmk stools g command in the configuration file of the newly created virtual machine See Migrating VMware Workstation and VMware GSX Server Virtual Machines on page 62 for complete details on specifying the disk geometry in a virtual machine s configuration file Extends the specified VMFS to the specified length xX xtendfile gGmMkkK Use this command to extend the size of a disk allocated to a virtual machine after the virtual machine has been created The virtual machine that uses this disk file must be powered off when you enter this command Also the guest operating system must be able to recognize and use the new size of the disk for example by updating the file system on the disk to take advantage of the extra space You specify the size in kilobytes megabytes or gigabytes by adding a suffix of k kilobytes m megabytes g gigabytes respectively Manages SCSI reservations of physical targets or LUNs L lock reserve release reset Caution Be careful when using these commands The reserve release and reset commands can interrupt the operations of other servers on a storage area network SAN so use these commands with great caution www vmware com CHAPTER 9 Storage and File Systems The L reserve command reserves the specified raw disk or the d
107. the virtual machine If there is a script associated with shutting down the guest operating system it executes after the guest operating system restarts This is the same as choosing Start gt Shut Down gt Restart in a Windows operating system or issuing a reboot command in a Linux operating system VMware Tools Settings The following description of the settings for VMware Tools is based on a Windows 2000 guest operating system Similar configuration options are available in VMware Tools for other guest operating systems To open the VMware Tools control panel double click the VMware Tools icon in the virtual machine s system tray The VMware Tools Properties dialog box appears Setting Options with VMware Tools You can specify time synchronization and the display of the VMware Tools icon in the Options tab Mware Tools Properties x Options Devices Scripts Shrink About Miscellaneous Options I Time synchronization between the virtual machine and the host operating system M Show VMware Tools in the taskbar Cancel Apply Help Time synchronization You can specify whether you want to synchronize the ime in the guest operating system with the time in the service console Note You can synchronize the time in the guest operating system with the ime in the service console only when the time in the guest is earlier than the ime in the service console www vmware com CHAPTE
108. they are automatically registered in the file etc vmware vm list onthe server s service console The remote management software checks this file for pointers to the virtual machines you want to manage If you want to manage virtual machines that you set up in some other way without using the wizard you must first register them To do so be sure the virtual machine is powered off Then on the Status Monitor page of the management interface point to the terminal icon for the virtual machine you want to register and click Edit Configuration Select Registered at the top of the Edit Configuration page Note Registered virtual machines appear in the list only if their configuration files are stored locally on the ESX Server computer If the configuration files are stored on an NFS mounted drive the virtual machines are not listed You can also register the virtual machines from the service console To do so use this command vmware cmd s register lt configpath gt lt configfile gt vmx To remove a virtual machine from the list use this command vmware cmd s unregister lt configpath gt lt configfile gt vmx 69 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 70 Installing the Remote Console Software Use the package that corresponds to the operating system running on your management workstation and follow the installation steps below Installer files are available on the distribution CD ROM You may also downloa
109. to suspend the virtual machine so QO ick Suspend to activate repeatable resume 10 After you do this each time you resume the virtual machine it will resume from md he suspend point you have set When you click Power Off the virtual machine will power off ready to resume at the suspend point you have set If you no longer want to resume the virtual machine using the repeatable resume point shut down the virtual machine and manually remove the suspended state std file from the virtual machine directory Once it is deleted you may suspend the virtual machine in a new state to create a new repeatable resume point otherwise you can set the resume repeatable flag to FALSE in the configuration file Viewing Information about a Virtual Machine Important virtual machine information is readily available on the Status Monitor page e The link in the Display Name column indicates the display name for the virtual machine if one is not specified then the path to the configuration file for the virtual machine appears here instead This column also contains the virtual machine s power state and its process ID and virtual machine ID if it is running it also notes if VMware Tools is not installed If the virtual machine is waiting for a response to a system message a Waiting for input link appears here Click the link to view the message and respond to it Click the virtual machine name link for more details
110. to this file changes the number of memory shares allocated to the virtual machine identified by lt id gt to lt n gt The valid range of numerical values for lt n gt is 0 to 100000 You may also use the special values low normal and high These values are automatically converted into numbers through the configuration options MemSharesPerMBLow MemSharesPerMBNormal and emSharesPerMBHigh described below ote that a value of zero 0 shares causes the virtual machine memory size allocation to be exactly equal to its specified minimum size even if excess memory is available proc vmware vm lt id gt mem status Reading from this file reports current status information for the virtual machine identified by lt id gt including the specified shares minimum size and maximum size parameters as well as the virtual machine name current status whether the virtual machine is currently waiting for memory to be reserved current memory usage current target size memory overhead for virtualization and the amount of allocated memory actively in use All memory sizes are reported in kilobytes proc vmware sched mem Reading from this file reports the memory status information for all non system virtual machines in the entire system as well as several aggregate totals Writing the string realloc to this file causes an immediate memory reallocation Memory is normally reallocated periodically every MemBalancePeriod seconds See proc vmware
111. value for option you specified then click OK For example set the value of resume repeatable to TRUE za Click OK in the Options window to save the change to the configuration file www vmware com To change an option in the configuration file vmx complete the following steps 1 2 Locate the option then change the value for 3 Click OK to save your change and close the Options window Under Verbose Options click the link The Options window appears Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 ro Options Virtual Machine Configuration Yerbose Options checkpaint cptConfigName config version displayName draw Ethernet0 addressType Ethernet0 connectionType Ethernet devName Ethernet0 generatedAddress Ethernet0 networkName Ethernet0 present floppy0 fileName floppy0 startConnected guestoS ideO 0 deviceType ide0 0 fileName ideO 0 present memsize priority grabbed priority ungrabbed RemoteDisplay depth scsi0 present scsiO virtualDev scsi0 0 mode scsi0 0 name scsi0 0 present usb present uuid bios uuid location virtualHW version Help right of the option Fi testserver Windows 2000 Server Configuration Microsoft Internet Explorer CHAPTER 3 Using the VMware Management Interface to Manage Your Virtual Machines View add or modify virtual machine configuration parameters directly win2000Sery b01a6376 6 Windows 2000 Server gdi
112. values under Resources indicate a range of system memory to which the virtual machine is entitled Resource information displayed includes Minimum represents the minimum amount of memory that must be available in order to power on the virtual machine Maximum represents the amount of memory allocated to the virtual machine when it was configured Shares a value which represents a relative metric for allocating memory to all virtual machines Symbolic values low normal and high are compared to the sum of all shares of all virtual machines on the server and the service console Share allocation symbolic values can be used to configure their conversion into numeric values For more information on share values refer to the resource management man pages cpu diskbw and mem Memory Affinity if displayed this represent the NUMA nodes on the ESX Server system to which the virtual machine can be bound when the ESX Server system a NUMA system For information about NUMA systems see Using Your NUMA System on page 414 Modifying Memory Values To modify memory values click Edit For information on changing memory settings see Managing Memory Resources from the Management Interface on page 406 Other activities you can perform when configuring a virtual machine s memory information include Connecting to a Virtual Machine with the VMware Remote Console on page 91 Using the Virtual Machine Menu on page 92 Changing the Powe
113. virtual machine you should make sure you upgraded the virtual machine hardware before proceeding Install the latest version of VMware Tools If necessary power off the virtual machine and upgrade the virtual hardware Make sure the guest operating system boots completely Power off the virtual machine and back it up Now you are ready to add the LSI Logic adapter To add the LSI Logic SCSI adapter to the virtual machine see Configuring a Virtual Machine to Use the LSI Logic SCSI Adapter on page 54 Migrating VMware Workstation and VMware GSX Server Virtual Machines You can migrate virtual machines created with VMware Workstation 4 or earlier or VMware GSX Server 2 5 1 or earlier to your VMware ESX Server system The virtual machine you want to migrate must have been configured with a virtual SCSI disk and have a supported guest operating system installed For the list of supported guest operating systems see the VMware ESX Server Installation Guide Note Virtual machines created under versions earlier than GSX Server 2 0 or Workstation 3 2 must be upgraded to ESX Server 1 5 before they can be migrated to ESX Server 2 5 Once these virtual machines run under ESX Server 1 5 you can migrate them to ESX Server 2 5 See the upgrade instructions in the ESX Server Installation Guide at www vmware com support pubs www vmware com First you need to new virtual mach CHAPTER 2 Creating and Configuring Virtual Machines import the virtu
114. vmfs directory may eventually fail after reporting an I O error Settings for QLogic Adapters For QLogic cards you may want to adjust the PortDownRetryCount value in the QLogic BIOS This value determines how quickly a failover occurs when a link goes down fthe PortDownRetryCount value is lt n gt then a failover typically takes a little onger than lt n gt multiplied by 2 seconds A typical recommended value for lt n gt is 15 so in this case failover takes a little longer than 30 seconds For more information on changing the PortDownRetryCount value refer to your QLogic documentation www vmware com CHAPTER 9 Storage and File Systems Failover in Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003 Guest Operating Systems For the Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003 guest operating systems you may want to increase the standard disk TimeOutValue so that Windows will not be extensively disrupted during failover 1 Se 2 In Cu 3 Se 60 ect Start gt Run type regedit exe and click OK he left panel hierarchy view double click HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE System rrentControlSet Services then Disk ect the TimeOut Value and set the Data value to x03c hexadecimal or decimal By making this change Windows waits at least 60 seconds for de ayed disk operations to complete before generating errors 4 Click OK and exit the Registry Editor program 323 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 32
115. you must ensure that the Do not save encrypted pages to disk option is disabled For information on encrypting remote connections see Configuring Security Settings on page 224 When this option is enabled Internet Explorer does not save any files to disk including the files it needs to hand off to helper applications This prevents the remote console from launching automatically Caution This option may have been enabled deliberately at your site to prevent the saving of sensitive files to disk Disabling it may permit other sensitive information to be saved to disk To disable the option complete the following steps 1 In the Internet Explorer 6 0 window open the Internet Options control panel Choose Tools gt Internet Options 2 Click the Advanced tab 3 Scroll down to the Security section and uncheck Do not save encrypted pages to disk 4 Click OK 86 www vmware com CHAPTER 3 Using the VMware Management Interface to Manage Your Virtual Machines Connecting to the Management Interface On a Proxy Server If your network is protected behind a proxy server there are certain steps you must take in order to use the management interface in Internet Explorer 6 0 on a Windows system Follow the steps for the appropriate Windows operating system Windows Server 2003 Systems 1 Launch Internet Explorer 6 0 2 Choose Tools gt Internet Options then click the Security tab 3 Select Trusted sites then click Si
116. your virtual machine s system ID machine name or IP address In the following example we use a Linux guest to illustrate how you can use the guest service to retrieve a string containing what becomes the virtual machine s machine name and IP address We use RedHat62VM as the machine name and 148 30 16 24 as the IP address 1 Define the machine id string Define the following option in your virtual machine s configuration file as described in Modifying the Configuration File Directly Advanced Users Only on page 137 machine id RedHat62VM 148 30 16 24 Then launch a virtual machine using this configuration file Retrieve the machine id string in the virtual machine In your system startup script before the network startup section add the following command etc vmware vmware guestd cmd machine id get Note in a Windows guest the command to retrieve the string is VMwareService cmd machine id get You need to further customize this startup script so it uses the string the guest service retrieved during startup to set the virtual machine s network name to RedHat62VM and its IP address to 148 30 16 24 This should be located in the script before the network services are started If you re using a Windows 2000 50 www vmware com CHAPTER 2 Creating and Configuring Virtual Machines guest operating system for example you can call the NetShell utility net sh and pass it the contents of the string which it
117. 1 wn lt so GON D 2 3 Run sysprep exe which is available on the Windows 2000 CD in the support tools deploy cab file This strips the security ID assigned to the guest operating system and resets the machine information as well as the TCP IP network configuration Shut down the guest operating system and power off the virtual machine Remove the Windows 2000 Advanced Server CD from the server s CD ROM drive On the management interface s Overview page click Manage Files Drill down to the vmf s folder then the vms folder This may take some time to refresh Select the check box next to the cluster1 vmdk file Click Copy Click Paste When the copy process is complete select the check box next to the file copy of clusterl vmdk Click the Edit Properties button Change the filename to cluster2 vmdk Click OK Close the Manage Files window his concludes the cloning process Now continue with creating the second node rtual machine 334 www vmware com CHAPTER 10 Configuration for Clustering Creating the Second Node Virtual Machine Create a new virtual machine as follows il 2 On the management interface s Overview page click Add Virtual Machine Keep the default Guest Operating System selection of Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Change the Display Name field to describe the virtual machine for example MSCS Node 2 Kena Change the Location to home lt user g
118. 1 one to enable the parameter or 0 zero to disable the parameter 5 Click OK to close the window and save the setting Configuring Physical Adapters Use the Network Connections option to view and configure the physical adapters assigned to the virtual machines This option allows you to change the speed and duplex settings of the adapters Z esx244 Network Connections Microsoft Internet Explorer iol x Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 11152 ro x244 eng vymware com CEES Physical Adapters Refresh Help Close Network Connections Physical Adapters The following network adapters are installed on your system Dedicated to Virtual Machines Outbound Adapter 0 Virtual Switch nwi Configured Speed Duplex Autonegotiate Actual Speed Duplex 1000 Mbps full duplex Model BROADCOM Corporation Netxtreme BCM5703 Gigabit Ethernet rev 02 Location PCI 2 1 0 217 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide Configuring Network Speed and Duplex Settings When you use the VMware Management Interface to configure network settings for the Ethernet adapters assigned to virtual machines you see the actual speed and duplex settings for each adapter If the adapter is configured to Autonegotiate these settings are automatically negotiated by the adapter If these settings are not appropriate click Edit next to the physical adapter you want to change Zj esx244 Network Connections Microsoft Internet Explorer of x
119. 2 e Connecting to a Virtual Machine with the VMware Remote Console on page 91 e Using the Virtual Machine Menu on page 92 Changing the Power State of a Virtual Machine on page 93 e Using Common Controls on page 101 Click the tabs at the top of the page to view more information about the virtual machine Enabling Traffic Shaping When network traffic shaping is enabled outbound network bandwidth is limited according to the values specified here Because network traffic is bursty separate parameters are provided to control both the long term sustainable Average transmit rate and the short term Peak transmit rate The Burst parameter controls the amount of data that may be sent in one burst while exceeding the Average rate The Peak rate limits the maximum bandwidth during such bursts To enable network traffic shaping complete the following steps 1 In the Network page click Edit The Network Resource Settings page appears 3 testserver Microsoft Windows NT Configuration Microsoft Internet Explorer Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 root testserver Network Resource Settings gs Adjust the network resources allocated to your virtual machine Edit Network Resources Traffic Shaping Enable Traffic Shaping Average Bandwidth Peak Bandwidth Burst Size Help i 2 To enable traffic shaping check Enable Traffic Shaping then define network traffic parameters 112 www vmware com CHAPTER 3 Using the VMware
120. 264 Configuring the ESX Server Agent There are two ways to configure the ESX Server agent described in the following sections e Configuring the ESX Server Agent through the VMware Management Interface on page 264 e Configuring the ESX Server Agent from the Service Console on page 266 Configuring the ESX Server Agent through the VMware Management Interface To configure the ESX Server SNMP subagent complete the following steps 1 Log in to the VMware Management Interface as root The Status Monitor page appears 2 Click the Options tab The Options page appears 3 Click SNMP Configuration www vmware com CHAPTER 7 Using SNMP with ESX Server The options in this page act as toggle between two choices To change an option click the link E testserver SNMP Configuration Microsoft Internet Explorer Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 root SNMP Configuration Enable disable and configure your system monitoring agents Current SNMP Status and Configuration Master SNMP Agent Status Stopped Startup Type Manual Startup Script fete init d snmpd Configuration File etc snmp snmpd conf Mware SNMP SubAgent Status Disabled VMware Traps Disabled iol x Start Automatic Change Change Enable Enable lid Make sure the paths to the snmpd daemon startup script and its configuration file are correct If either of these is incorrect then click Change and type the correct path
121. 4 www vmware com CHAPTER Configuration for Clustering ESX Server clustering capabilities are ideally suited for development testing and training applications Any clustering configuration based on ESX Server should not be deployed in a production environment unless it has been rigorously tested and reviewed The following sections outline how to use VMware ESX Server to provide clustered virtual machines in a variety of environments e What Is Clustering on page 326 e Clustering Virtual Machines on page 328 e Network Load Balancing on page 349 325 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 326 What Is Clustering Clustering is simply described as providing a service via a group of servers to get high availability scalability or both For example all nodes in a cluster serve a Web site that serves static content The main gateway distributes requests to all nodes according to load It redirects requests to remaining nodes if one crashes This gives better availability and better performance Network Load Balancing in Windows 2000 provides such a service Another example of a more complex configuration A single node serves a database If that node crashes the clustering software must restart the database on another node The database application knows how to recover from a crash In normal operation other nodes are used for running other applications Microsoft Cluster Service and Veritas Cluster Service provide such a
122. 65 366 Sharing the Service Console s Network Adapter with Virtual Machines ___ 367 Using Virtual Switches 369 Choosing a Network Label 369 Binding Physical Adapters 369 Creating a Virtual Switch 370 Choosing a Load Balancing Mode 371 Configuring the Bond Failure Mode 37 Using Beacon Monitoring 372 Configuring External Network Switches 374 Troubleshooting 375 VMware ESX Server Resource Management Virtual Machine Resource Management 377 379 Service Console Resource Management 379 380 Using ESX Server Resource Variables Improving Performance 382 CPU Resource Management Allocating CPU Resources 384 Admission Control Policy 385 Specifying Minimum and Maximum CPU Percentages Assigning Virtual Machines to Run on Specific Processors Using Proportional share Scheduling by Allocating Shares anaging CPU Time with Percentages and Shares 385 386 387 388 Using Hyper Threading 389 Managing Virtual Machine CPU Resources 390 anaging CPU Resources from the Management Interface anaging CPU Resources from the Service Console 390 391 Memory Resource Management 399 Allocating Memory Resources 399 Setting Memory Minimum Maximum and Shares Admission Control Policy Allocating Memory Dynamically Reclaiming Memory from Virtual Machines Sharin
123. 86 cpu 0 early measured cpu speed is 2399912223 Hz Nov 18 15 48 31 esx244 vmkernel TSC 627436 cpu0 MTR MTRR cap 0x508 Nov 18 15 48 31 esx244 vmkernel TSC 656756 cpu0 MTRI MTRR 0 start O0x0 end 0x80000000 type 6 Nov 18 15 48 31 esx244 vmkernel TSC 706664 cpu0 MTR i x0 type 0x606060606060606 Nov 18 15 48 31 esx244 vmkernel TSC 764848 cpu0 MTRI xa0000 type 0x0 Nov 18 15 48 31 esx244 vmkernel TSC 810988 cpu0 MTR start 0xc8000 type 0x5050505 Nov 18 15 48 31 esx244 vmkernel TSC start 0xd8000 type 0x0 Nov 18 15 31 esx244 vmkernel TSC start 0xe8000 type 0x505050505050505 Nov 18 15 48 31 esx244 vmkernel TSC start 0xf8000 type 0x505050505050505 Nov 18 15 48 31 esx244 vmkernel TSC 110090444 cpu0 Host 3254 vector 0x31 for irq 0 on 00 02 Nov 18 15 48 31 esx244 vmkernel TSC 110128344 cpu0 Host 3258 vector 0x22 for irq 2 on 00 NO PIN Nov 18 15 48 31 esx244 vmkernel TSC 110164816 cpu0 Host 3254 vector 0x49 for irq 6 on 00 06 Nov 18 15 48 31 esx244 vmkernel TSC 110201072 cpu0 Host 3254 vector 0x59 for irq 8 on 00 08 Nov 18 15 48 31 esx244 vmkernel TSC 110239044 cpu0 Host 3254 vector 0x69 for irq 13 on 00 13 Nov 18 15 48 31 esx244 vmkernel TSC 110278712 cpu0 Host 3254 vector 0x79 for irq 15 on 00 15 Nov 18 15 48 31 esx244 vmkernel TSC 110317384 cpu0 Host 3254 vector 0x89 for irq 17 on 01 01 Nov 18 15 48 31 esx244 vmkernel TSC 110354948 cpu0 Host 3254 vector 0x99 for irq 19 on 01 03 Nov 18 15 48 31 esx244 vmkernel
124. Administration Guide 382 Improving Performance Before deploying all your virtual machines we suggest that you create a list of all the virtual machines you plan to run on ESX Server For each virtual machine identify its primary functions and applications Based on its primary function determine its limiting resources For example a Web server s most limiting resource may be memory while a terminal services server s most limiting resource may be CPU Similarly a database server s most limiting resource may be disk bandwidth In this section we provide some general guidelines on improving performance on VMware ESX Server However some of these guidelines may not be appropriate for you depending on your particular workplace situation Note Determine which virtual machines are more important and which ones will benefit more from additional resources You should not need to optimize each resource for each virtual machine For example you may want to give more memory shares and a higher memory minimum to a virtual machine Web server for Platinum customers compared to a virtual machine Web server for Silver customers or for an internal Web server Note Ifyou run several virtual machines with similar guest operating systems on ESX Server then likely you will be able to have a higher overcommitment of memory without noticing a performance degradation in ESX Server In general similar guest operating systems enable greater memory
125. CSI command issued to the disk effectively consumes one unit by default and additional units proportional to the size of the data transfer associated with the command Throughput to the disk is maximized through the use of a scheduling quantum for disk requests from a virtual machine to a disk A virtual machine is allowed to issue a number of requests to a disk the scheduling quantum without being preempted by another virtual machine The issuing of a multiple requests without preemption is applicable only if these requests access sequential sectors on the disk www vmware com CHAPTER 12 VMware ESX Server Resource Management Managing Disk Bandwidth from the Management Interface You may also view and change settings from the virtual machine details pages in the VMware Management Interface To change disk bandwidth settings you must be logged in as root and the virtual machine must be running On the server s Status Monitor page click the name of an individual virtual machine The details page for that virtual machine appears 2 Click the Disk tab F testserver Microsoft Windows NT Microsoft Internet Explorer Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 ro Status Monitor CPU Memory Disk Network Hardware Options Users and Events Refresh Help Close Last updated Thu Nov 18 16 23 49 PST 2004 Ga wa Microsoft Windows NT Powered on PID 1499 VMID 141 a Performance Resources l Read Bandwidth Number of Shares Edit
126. CSI target ID to use in the storage configuration page as displayed by the VMware Management Interface See Configuring Storage Disk Partitions and File Systems on page 228 307 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 308 Sharing the SCSI Bus Normally VMware ESX Server enforces locking and does not allow two virtual machines to access the same virtual disk VMFS file at the same time If a second virtual machine tries to access a VMFS file it gets an error and does not power on However it is often useful to have more than one virtual machine share a disk in order to provide high availability This configuration is commonly used for disk based failover in which one machine takes over running an application when the primary machine fails The data required for the application is typically stored on a shared disk so the backup machine can immediately access the necessary data when the failover occurs See Configuration for Clustering on page 325 for complete information on clustering with ESX Server The bus sharing setting is used to determine if virtual machines are allowed to access the same virtual disk simultaneously Setting Bus Sharing Options Use the VMware Management Interface to change the bus sharing settings for each virtual machine that will access the same virtual disk simultaneously There are three bus sharing options e None Disks cannot be shared by other virtual machines e Virtual Disks can be share
127. Connect at Power On Vv Device Connection D ce System DVD CD ROM Drive Location dev cdrom E OK Cancel To connect this virtual machine to the server s DVD CD ROM drive check Connected Note Only one virtual machine can connect to the DVD CD ROM drive on the server at a time To connect this virtual machine to the server s DVD CD ROM drive when the virtual machine is powered on check Connect at Power On Specify whether to connect to the server s DVD CD ROM drive or to an ISO image In the Device list select System DVD CD ROM Drive or ISO Image Enter the location of the drive or ISO image in the Location field For example the server s CD ROM drive could be dev cdrom Click OK to save your changes and close the window Configuring a Virtual Machine s Memory and Virtual Processors You can change how much memory to allocate to a virtual machine You can also review the amount of memory recommended by ESX Server the maximum amount of memory that can be allocated to the virtual machine and the maximum amount of memory for smooth running of the virtual machine given the number of virtual processors www vmware com CHAPTER 3 Using the VMware Management Interface to Manage Your Virtual Machines Depending upon the guest operating system in the virtual machine and the number of processors on the server you can change the number of virtual processors it uses However keep in mind the following e V
128. D comprising the Manufacturer and Product Name which is stored in the SMBIOS system information descriptor It can be accessed by standard SMBIOS scanning software and used for systems management in the same way you use the OEMID of a physical computer By default the Manufacturer string is VMware Inc and the Product Name string is VMware Virtual Platform If the virtual machine s configuration file has the option SMBIOS reflectHost TRUE then the Manufacturer and Product Name strings in the virtual machine are the same as the Manufacturer and Product Name of the host system These strings are updated copied from the host BIOS to the virtual machine BIOS on every virtual machine BIOS POST Power On Self Test www vmware com CHAPTER Using the VMware Management Interface to Manage Your Virtual Machines The following sections describe various aspects of using the VMware Management Interface Running the VMware Management Interface on page 83 Configuring the Statistics Period for the VMware Management Interface on page 85 Using Interne page 86 Logging Into Using the Sta Configuring a odifying Vir Deleting a Vir page 149 Explorer 6 0 to Access the VMware Management Interface on he VMware Management Interface on page 88 us Monitor on page 90 Virtual Machine on page 103 ual Machine Peripherals on page 143 ual Machine Using the VMware Management Interface on anaging ESX Serve
129. Display string Product build number vmware vmwVirtMachines This group consists of virtual machine configuration information in six tables vmTable a table containing information on virtual machines that have been configured on the system Each row provides information about a particular virtual machine Name Data type Description vmldx nteger This is a dummy number for an index Index field vmDisplayName_ Display string Name by which this virtual machine is displayed vmConfigFile Display string Path to the configuration file for this virtual machine vmGuestOS Display string Operating system running on this virtual machine vmMemSize nteger Memory configured for this virtual machine in MB vmState Display string Virtual machine on or off www vmware com CHAPTER 7 Using SNMP with ESX Server Name Data type Description vmVMID Integer If a virtual machine is active an ID is assigned to it like a pid Not all virtual machines may be active so this cannot be used as the index vmGuestState Display string Guest operating system on or off hbaTable a table of disk adapters seen by this virtual machine Name Data type Description vmidx nteger This number corresponds to the index of the virtual machine in Index field vmTable hbaldx nteger There is a correspondence to the order of the SCSI device Index field module loaded
130. Explorer Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 root Status Monitor age Cts MC a Co a Gm aime eae TT ee Last updated Thu Nov 18 16 18 29 PST 2004 a oo gt gj Windows NT owered on PID 1499 VMID 141 Processors 1 Last 5 Minutes Memory Last 5 Minutes a Average System Usage Average System Usage Minimum 0 Minimum Maximum Maximum Summary Status State Powered on Up Time 22 minutes 59 seconds Not running Not available 5 minute average Not available Configuration Hardware Options ing System Microsoft Windows NT 1 Memory 256 M Configuration File home vmware Microsoft Windows NT Microsoft Windows NT vmx The Status Monitor page contains the following information The current power state of the virtual machine whether it is powered on powered off or suspended e The process ID of the virtual machine e The VMID of the virtual machine which is the vmkerne1 version of the PID fora running virtual machine e The minimum maximum and average percentage of server processor capacity that the virtual machine used in the previous five minutes Note The period of time these statistics cover can be modified See Configuring the Statistics Period for the VMware Management Interface on page 85 e The minimum maximum and average amount of server memory that the virtual machine used in the previous five minutes 103 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide Note The period of time these statis
131. Logic 2200 hosts pbind pl a proc scsi qla2200 This example adds binding for QLogic 2200 host 2 pbind pl a proc scsi qla2200 2 Note Typing a wildcard character forexample pbind pl a proc scsi qla2200 is invalid 317 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 318 Using Multipathing in ESX Server ESX Server 2 5 includes multipathing support to maintain a constant connection between the server machine and the storage device in case of the failure of a host bus adapter HBA switch storage controller or storage processor abbreviated as SP in the following diagram or a Fibre Channel cable Unlike previous versions of ESX Server this version of multipathing support does not require specific failover drivers Storage In the preceding diagram there are multiple redundant paths from each server to the storage device For example if HBA1 or the link between HBA1 and the Fibre Channel FC switch breaks HBA2 takes over and provides the connection between the server and the switch This process is called HBA failover Similarly if SP1 or the link between SP1 and the switch breaks SP2 takes over and provides the connection between the switch and the storage device This process is called SP failover VMware ESX Server 2 5 provides both HBA and SP failover with its multipathing feature SP failover may not be supported by all disk arrays For information on supported SAN hardware download the VMware ESX Serve
132. Machines 69 69 70 70 Installer 70 Linux Tar Installer 70 e Compatibility Configuring a Virtual Machine for Use with Citrix MetaFrame XP 71 71 Executing Scripts When the Virtual Machine s Power State Changes Issues Configuri Recommended Configuration Options Modifying the SMBIOS UUID to Consider ng Virtual Machines Enabling the Physical Hardware s OEM ID to Be Seen by the Virtual Machine Using the VMware Management Interface to Manage Your Virtual Machine Running Configuri S he VMware Management Interface ng the Statistics Period for the VMware Management Interface Using Internet Explorer 6 0 to Access the VMware Management Interface Launc Encrypted Server hing the Remote Console from the Management Interface on an Connecting to the Management Interface On a Proxy Server Logging Using the Status Monitor nto the VMware Management Interface Viewing Summary Information about VMware ESX Server Viewing Summary Information about Virtual Machines on VMware ESX Server Connecting to a Virtual Machine with the VMware Remote Console Using the Virtual Machine Menu Changing the Power State of a Virtual Machine Suspending and Resuming Virtual Machines Viewing Information about a Virtual Machine Downloading Remote Management Packages Creating a New Virtual Machine Unregistering a Virtual Machine Deleting a Virtual Mach
133. Management Interface to Manage Your Virtual Machines 3 Specify the average bandwidth In the Average Bandwidth field specify the average value for network bandwidth then specify whether that amount is in Megabits per second Mbps Kilobits per second Kbps or bits per second bps 4 Specify the peak bandwidth In the Peak Bandwidth field specify the peak value for network bandwidth then specify whether that amount is in Megabits per second Mbps Kilobits per second Kbps or bits per second bps 5 Specify the burst size In the Burst Size field specify how large a burst can be then specify whether that amount is in Megabytes M Kilobytes K or bytes B 6 Click OK to save your changes and close the window For more information about managing network resources see Managing Network Bandwidth from the Management Interface on page 424 Configuring a Virtual Machine s Hardware To review and configure the virtual hardware inside a virtual machine click the Hardware tab The Hardware page appears The Hardware page lists the virtual hardware in the virtual machine configured devices like the virtual disk removable devices like floppy CD ROM or DVD ROM drives virtual network adapter memory allocated to the virtual machine and the display settings More information about each device is listed and you can configure each virtual hardware component 113 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide Most hardware can
134. Mkernel deschedules an idle virtual machine By default this option is enabled a setting that ensures much better performance when running multiple virtual machines When you are running only a single virtual machine such as for benchmarking VMware ESX Server add the monitor SleepWhenIdle option to the virtual machine s configuration file if you want to achieve the best possible performance in the virtual machine at the expense of responsiveness in the service console Create an option called monitor SleepWhenIdle and set the value of this option to 0 as described in Modifying the Configuration File Directly Advanced Users Only on page 137 Optimizing Disk Access Failure Modes ESX Server includes configuration options that allow you to optimize how virtual machines handle disk access failures In particular the scsi lt n gt returnBusyOnNoConnectStatus option determines how ESX Server reports a failure to connect with a virtual SCSI adapter or failure to access it after initiating a connection By setting the option to TRUE or FALSE you can determine how the failure to access to a physical disk is represented to your virtual machine e Ifthe option is set to TRUE ESX Server returns the error message SCSI BUSY e Ifthe option is set to FALSE the value ESX Server returns depends on the type of SCSI controller you chose for that particular virtual device e If you chose the BusLogic adapter i e if Virtual D
135. Ns option takes a string comprised of the adapter name target ID and comma separated range list of LUNs to mask The format is as follows lt adapter gt lt target gt lt comma_separated_LUN_range_list gt For example you want to mask LUNs 4 12 and 54 65 on vmhba 1 target 5 and LUNs 3 12 15 and 17 19 on vmhba 3 target 2 To accomplish this set the DiskMaskLUNs option to the following ymhbal 5 4 12 54 65 vmhba3 2 3 12 15 17 19 Note LUN 0 cannot be masked The DiskMaskLUNs option subsumes the DiskMaxLUN option for adapters that have a LUN mask In other words continuing the preceding example there are four adapters vmhba0 vmhbal vmhba2 and vmhba3 and the DiskMaxLUN option is set to 8 In this example vmhba0 and vmhba2 only scan LUNs 0 7 but vmhbal and vmhba3 scan all LUNs that are not masked up to LUN 255 or the maximum LUN setting reported by the adapter whichever is less For administrative or security purposes you can use LUN masking to prevent the server from seeing LUNs that it doesn t need to access Refer to your documentation on disk arrays for more information Using IBM FAStT Disk Arrays An IBM FAStT disk array sometimes returns vendor specific status codes that ESX Server interprets as errors These status codes are temporary indicating for example www vmware com CHAPTER 9 Storage and File Systems that the firmware has been upgraded or that the battery for the disk cache needs
136. OM drive and the floppy disk drive In addition to the above devices the following is required for shared storage e A secondary virtual SCSI host adapter 330 www vmware com CHAPTER 10 Configuration for Clustering One or more virtual disks that will be shared attached to the secondary SCSI host adapter Important Notes Each virtual machine by default has five PCI slots available In this configuration two network adapters and two SCSI host bus adapters four of these slots are used This leaves one more PCI slot for a third network adapter if needed VMware virtual machines currently emulate only the SCSI 2 disk reservation protocol and do not support applications using SCSI 3 disk reservations However all popular clustering software including MSCS and VCS currently uses SCSI 2 reservations You may cluster only two nodes You cannot use VMotion with clustered virtual machines Two Node Cluster with Microsoft Cluster Service on a Single ESX Server Machine This procedure creates a two node cluster using Microsoft Cluster Service on a single ESX Server machine and uses the following Portsaid host name of node 1 of the cluster Kena host name of node 2 of the cluster Arish public host name of the cluster sharedfs VMFS volume label of the shared storage vms VMFS volume label of the local storage Note Virtual disks stored on vms and sharedfs can also be stored on the same partition In this case
137. ONF IG Otherwise the configuration is obtained m the management interface ine that does not begin with should contain the name of a module file the tag to be associated with the module in the VMkernel and possibly a sharing specification the argument specified with the a flag above The module file should just be the base file name without the usr lib vmware path A sample vmkmodule conf file is MANUAL CONFIG vmk Linux nfshaper o linux o nfshaper e100 0 vmnic aic7xxx o vmhba d 0 1 283 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 284 www vmware com CHAPTER Storage and File Systems This chapter contains information about SCSI disks accessed by local SCSI adapters or ona Storage Area Network SAN by Fibre Channel adapters Instructions given for using SCSI adapters apply to both local and Fibre Channel adapters Note For additional information about configuring SANs see the VMware SAN Configuration Guide at www vmware com support pubs esx_pubs html This chapter provides the following information e File System Management on SCSI Disks and RAID on page 286 e Using vmkfstools on page 290 e Accessing Raw SCSI Disks on page 302 e Determining SCSI Target IDs on page 306 e Sharing the SCSI Bus on page 308 e Using Storage Area Networks with ESX Server on page 310 e Using Persistent Bindings on page 315 e Using Multipathing in ESX Server on page 318 285 VMware ESX Server Ad
138. Power On o Device Connection Device System Floppy Drive z Location dev fd0 B Help Cancel l To have the floppy drive be connected to the virtual machine when you power it on check Connect at Power On Specify whether to connect to the server s floppy drive or to a floppy image In the Device list select System Floppy Drive or Floppy Image www vmware com CHAPTER 3 Using the VMware Management Interface to Manage Your Virtual Machines 5 Enter the location of the drive or floppy image in the Location field For example the server s floppy drive could be dev d0 6 Click OK to add the drive Adding a Generic SCSI Device to a Virtual Machine To add a new generic SCSI device to a virtual machine make sure the virtual machine is powered off then complete the following steps 1 On the Hardware page click Add Device The Add Device Wizard starts 3 testserver Microsoft Windows NT Configuration Microsoft Internet Explorer joj x Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 root te NS Add Device What type of hardware do you want to install Device Type Hard Disk Create a new virtual disk use an existing virtual disk or access a VMFS volume directly E network Adapter Attach a new network adapter to a virtual network of your choosing B DVD CD ROM Drive Create a new virtual DVD or CD ROM drive to access a system drive or an ISO image 8 Floppy Drive Create a new v
139. R 4 Using the VMware Remote Console e VMware Tools icon display in the taskbar If you choose not to display the VMware Tools icon in the system tray you can launch the control panel from the Start menu Start gt Settings gt Control Panel gt VMware Tools Connecting Devices with VMware Tools You can enable or disable removable devices in the Devices tab Mware To Tools Properties The devices you can enable or disable include the server machine s floppy disk drive the CD ROM drive and the virtual network interface card You can also set these options from the Devices menu of the ESX Server remote console window 181 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide Choosing Scripts for VMware Tools to Run During Power State Changes Through VMware Tools you can run scripts that execute when you power on power off suspend or resume the virtual machine Mware Tools Properties x Options Devices Scripts Shrink About ScriptEvent Si0SegmMe tye a lle ESE MIY Use Script Default script Custom script EAPrograrn Files VMware suspend vm defau Browse Edit Bun Now Cancel Apply Help A default script for each power state is included in VMware Tools These scripts are located in the guest operating system in C Program Files VMware When You This Default Script Runs Suspend the guest operating system suspend vm default bat Resume the guest ope
140. Resource Management on page 399 e Allocating Memory Resources on page 399 e Admission Control Policy on page 401 e Allocating Memory Dynamically on page 402 e Reclaiming Memory from Virtual Machines on page 403 e Sharing Memory Across Virtual Machines on page 404 Managing Virtual Machine Memory on page 406 e Managing Memory Resources from the Management Interface on page 406 e Managing Memory Resources from the Service Console on page 407 Using Your NUMA System on page 414 e NUMA Configuration Information on page 414 www vmware com CHAPTER 12 VMware ESX Server Resource Management e Automatic NUMA Optimizations on page 416 e Manual NUMA Optimizations on page 416 Sizing Memory on the Server on page 420 e Server Memory on page 420 e Service Console Memory on page 420 e Virtual Machine Memory Pool on page 420 e Virtual Machine Memory on page 421 e Memory Sharing on page 421 e Memory Overcommitment on page 422 e Example Web Server Consolidation on page 423 Managing Network Bandwidth on page 424 e Using Network Filters on page 424 e Managing Network Bandwidth from the Management Interface on page 424 e Managing Network Bandwidth from the Service Console on page 425 e Traffic Shaping with nfshaper on page 426 Managing Disk Bandwidth on page 428 e Managing Disk Bandwidth from the Management Interface on page 429 e Managing Disk Bandwidth from the Service Console on page 430 381 VMware ESX Server
141. SI Controller 0 usually 0 0 is used to boot your virtual machine if you reconfigure its virtual SCSI node currently 0 0 your virtual machine may not boot as expected To continue click here Disk Mode C Persistent Changes are immediately and permanently written to the virtual disk Nonpersistent Changes are discarded when the virtual machine powers off Undoable Changes are saved discarded or appended at your discretion C Append Changes are appended to a redo log when the virtual machine powers off i Help OK Cancel For an existing virtual disk that is not a physical disk on a LUN you can change its disk mode Under Disk Mode click Persistent Nonpersistent Undoable or Append Click OK to save your changes and close the window 121 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 122 Configuring a Virtual Machine s Display Settings You can configure the display depth or number of colors in a virtual machine A higher color depth setting slows down screen redraws and increases network load when you use a remote console to view a virtual machine across a network connection However with greater color depth you get better color resolution and fidelity which may be an issue depending on the applications you intend to run on the virtual machine To configure the virtual machine s display settings complete the following steps 1 Inthe Hardware page under Display click Edit The Display page appears
142. Server root vmware win2000Serv win2000Serv vmx The following virtual disks are not in use at this time but will not be deleted by default If you want to delete a disk make the appropriate choice below Delete Save Virtual Disk umfs Untitled ymdk Delete Selected Files Cancel All the files that are to be deleted are listed For each disk file not associ ated with another registered virtual machine on this host choose one of the following e To save a virtual disk file select the Save option e To delete a virtual disk file select the Delete option 149 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 150 Note Any virtual disk files associated with another registered virtual machine do not appear in this window When you are ready to delete the virtual machine click Delete Selected Files The Confirm Deleting lt Virtual Machine gt page closes The virtual machine no longer appears in the management interface Note If you do not want to delete this virtual machine click Cancel www vmware com CHAPTER 3 Using the VMware Management Interface to Manage Your Virtual Machines Managing ESX Server Resources For information on managing server resources see VMware ESX Server Resource Management on page 377 151 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide Configuring VMware ESX Server To configure certain VMware ESX Server settings on the Status Monitor page click the Options tab T
143. Set the virtual machine s memory affinity to specify that all of the virtual machine s memory should be allocated on node 1 e Add the following in the virtual machine s configuration file sched mem affinity 1 Completing these two steps ensure that the virtual machine runs only on NUMA node 1 and when possible allocates memory from the same node 419 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 420 Sizing Memory on the Server These guidelines are intended to help system administrators determine an appropriate amount of hardware memory for running a virtual machine workload on ESX Server 2 5 Since the characteristics of your particular workload also influence memory needs you should follow up with testing to confirm that memory sizes computed according to these guidelines achieve the desired results ESX Server uses a small amount of memory for its own virtualization layer additional memory for the service console and all remaining memory for running virtual machines The sections below explain each of these uses and provide a quantitative sizing example Server Memory ESX Server 2 5 uses approximately 24MB of system memory for its own virtualization layer This memory is allocated automatically when the ESX Server is loaded and is not configurable Service Console Memory The recommended amount of memory to configure for the service console varies between 192MB and 512MB depending on the number of virtual machines you
144. TSC 110462580 cpu0 Host 3448 0 Nov 18 15 48 31 esx244 vmkernel TSC 110868652 cpu0 Host 3448 Nov 18 15 48 31 esx244 vmkernel TSC 110952820 cpu0 Init 255 Continuing init Nov 18 15 48 31 esx244 vmkernel TSC 127265860 cpu0 XMap 208 Range reduced to 28c 3d000 Nov 18 15 48 31 esx244 vmkernel TSC 191058808 cpu0 SMP 575 APICid 0x00 gt pepu 0 Nov 18 15 48 31 esx244 vmkernel TSC 191097788 cpu0 SMP 575 APICid 0x06 gt pepu 1 Nov 18 15 48 31 esx244 vmkernel TSC 191132856 cpu0 SMP 631 already added by MPS as pcpu 0 Nov 18 15 48 31 esx244 vmkernel TSC 191165140 cpu0 SMP 631 already added by MPS as pcpu 1 Nov 18 15 48 31 esx244 vmkernel TSC 191197380 cpu0 SMP 639 APICid 0x01 gt pepu 2 Nov 18 15 48 31 esx244 vmkernel TSC 191228868 cpu0 SMP 639 APICid 0x07 gt pepu 3 Nov 18 15 48 31 esx244 vmkernel TSC 191260628 cpu0 SMP 442 hyperthreading enabled 191321172 cpu0 Chipset 338 bus 000 PCI 191378392 cpu0 Chipset 338 bus 002 PCI 191419620 cpu0 Chipset 354 ioapic 14 0 fec00000 version 0x11 This information is useful if you are experiencing problems with ESX Server or your virtual machines If your log contains any alerts check the VMware Knowledge Base at or contact your VMware support representative For more information see the section the VMware ESX Server Installation Guide 243 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide Viewing Service Console Logs To vie
145. Using the VMware Managem ent Interface to Manage Your Virtual Machines Deleting a Virtual Machine Using the VMware Management Interface You can delete a virtual machine only if you are the root user the owner of the configuration file or if you have the correct permissions to the configuration directory where the configuration file is located When you delete a virtual machine the files associated with it that is loca same directory are deleted These files include its configuration file the log file and nvram file The redo log and any lock files are not deleted Any virtual disks that are not associated with another registered virtual mac file or the ted in the vmx file hine on the host can be deleted as well or you can save any or all of them for future use The directory containing these files is also deleted unless any disk files or other files not deleted still remain To delete a virtual machine complete the following steps 1 In the VMware Management Interface find the virtual machine you want to delete if the virtual machine is powered on or suspended power it off Access the virtual machine menu Click the arrow to the right of the terminal icon H Choose Delete Virtual Machine The Confirm Deleting lt Virtual Machine gt page appears in a new window 2 Confirm Deleting Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Microsoft Internet Explorer Deleting Microsoft Windows 2000
146. VERSION 2 5 ESX Server 2 Mainframe Class Virtual Machines for the Most Demanding Environments Administration Guide BEB S a g O B U G E Va VMware Inc 3145 Porter Drive Palo Alto CA 94304 www vmware com Please note that you will always find the most up to date technical documen tation on our Web site at http www vmware com support The VMware Web site also provides the latest product updates Copyright 1998 2004 VMware Inc All rights reserved Protected by one or more of U S Patent Nos 6 397 242 6 496 847 6 704 925 6 711 672 6 725 289 6 735 601 6 785 886 6 789 156 and 6 795 966 patents pending VMware is a registered trademark and the VMware boxes logo GSX Server ESX Server Virtual SMP VMotion and VMware ACE are trademarks of VMware Inc Microsoft Windows and Windows NT are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies Revision 20041129 Item ESX ENG Q304 002 Tabl
147. VMFS 1 volumes To successfully convert a file partition you may need to move files to allow for more disk space Removing a Disk Partition To remove the partition click Remove You are asked to confirm that you want to remove the partition To delete certain partitions you must click Edit then Remove If the volume is spanned to other volumes you cannot remove it For more information see File System Management on SCSI Disks and RAID on page 286 e Convert the partition to VMFS 2 Click the Convert to VMFS 2 link In order to convert the file system you must deactivate the swap partition if it exists To deactivate the partition see Configuring a Swap File on page 236 e Removing the partition Click Remove You are asked to confirm that you want to remove the partition You cannot remove a volume that is spanned Adapter Bindings This Adapter Bindings view displays the World Wide Port Names bound to each Fibre Channel host bus adapter HBA in the system You can also view the persistent binding status for each HBA With persistent bindings ESX Server assigns specific www vmware com CHAPTER 6 Administering ESX Server target IDs to specific SCSI devices This target ID association is retained from reboot to reboot unless changed by you eee elt Adapter Bindings Mesum eet G eles Storage Management Adapter Bindings Review the current state of your system s SAN adapters and persistent bindings vmhba1 QLogic Cor
148. X Server Virtual Machines on page 62 e Importing a GSX Server or Workstation Virtual Machine on page 65 e Exporting Virtual Machines on page 67 Configuring a Virtual Machine to Use More than One Virtual Processor When you create a virtual machine with ESX Server 2 5 you can choose to create it with one or two virtual processors In order to configure a virtual machine with more than one virtual processor you must meet the following conditions e The virtual machine must be created under ESX Server 2 5 VMware does not support upgrading a virtual machine created under ESX Server 1 5 2 to ESX Server 2 5 and configuring it as a multiprocessor or ACPI virtual machine Nor can you create a virtual machine under VMware GSX Server 2 5 1 or VMware Workstation 4 0 import it to ESX Server 2 5 and upgrade the number of virtual processors e You must have purchased the VMware Virtual SMP for ESX Server product and you must have created the virtual machine under ESX Server 2 5 For more information on the VMware Virtual SMP for ESX Server product contact VMware or your authorized sales representative Once you have the license you install the product by entering the serial number when you configure the ESX Server system See the VMware ESX Server Installation Guide e The guest operating system must support multiprocessor systems Examples include Windows Server 2003 Windows 2000 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS 2 1 Review the list of supported gue
149. a See VMkernel Module Loader on page 278 for details on vmk Lload_mod The second number specifies the target on the adapter the third number specifies the LUN logical unit number and the fourth number specifies the partition Partition O zero implies the whole disk otherwise the number specifies the indicated partition lt device_or_VMFS_volume gt may also be a VMFS volume label as set in the management interface or with the vmkfstools setfsname command lt file gt is the name of a file stored in the file system on the specified device vmkfstools Syntax When Specifying a VMFS Volume or File The format for the vmk stools command when specifying a VMFS volume or file is vmkfstools lt options gt lt path gt where lt path gt is an absolute path that names a directory or a file under the vmfs directory www vmware com CHAPTER 9 Storage and File Systems For example you can specify a VMFS volume by a path such as wmfs vmhbal 2 0 3 You can also specify a single VMFS file vmfs lunl rh9 vmdk vmkfstools Options This section includes a list of all the options used with the vmk stools command Some of the tasks in this section include options that are suggested for advanced users only These advanced options are not available through the VMware Management Interface Note The long and short single letter forms of options are equivalent For example the following commands are identical
150. aFrame on the virtual machine Virtual machines with this setting use more virtualization www ymware com CHAPTER 2 Creating and Configuring Virtual Machines overhead and ESX Server will be able to run fewer virtual machines simultaneously 5 When you are ready to proceed click Next p testserver Novell NetWare 6 Configuration Microsoft Internet Explorer tserver Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 root irtual Disk Ga Add a hard disk to your virtual machine Which type of virtual disk would you like to add Blank Create a new virtual disk Existing Attach an existing virtual disk to your virtual machine System LUN Disk Give your virtual machine direct access to a SAN LUN 6 Choose the type of virtual disk you want to add to the virtual machine The setup process allows you to create one virtual disk for your virtual machine You can add more virtual disks later using the virtual machine s Hardware in the management interface See Configuring a Virtual Machine s Virtual Disks on page 120 35 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 36 e Click Blank to create a new virtual disk Then specify the following 3 testserver Novell NetWare 6 Configuration Microsoft Internet Explorer Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 roc Virtual Disk Ga Add a hard disk to your virtual machine Edit Virtual Disk Configuration Disk Image Image File Location vmhba0 0 0 6 4 1 G free z
151. able Changes are saved discarded or appended at your discretion C Append Changes are appended to a redo log when the virtual machine powers off B Help Par Cancel Choose the location of the virtual disk you want to use In the Image File Location list choose the volume on which the virtual disk is located b In the Image File Name list select the virtual disk you want The size of the G virtual disk appears in the Capacity field Specify the virtual device node Select the appropriate SCSI ID in the Virtual SCSI Node list d Choose the disk mode Under Disk Mode click Persistent Nonpersistent Undoable or Append 4 Click OK to add the disk Adding a Virtual Network Adapter to a Virtual Machine To add a new virtual network adapter to a virtual machine make sure the virtual machine is powered off then complete the following steps 126 www ymware com CHAPTER 3 Using the VMware Management Interface to Manage Your Virtual Machines 1 On the Hardware page click Add Device The Add Device Wizard starts WA Add Device What type of hardware do you want to install Device Type Hard Disk Create a new virtual disk use an existing virtual disk or access a VMFS volume directly E network Adapter Attach a new network adapter to a virtual network of your choosing B DVD CD ROM Drive Create a new virtual DYD or CD ROM drive to access a system drive or an ISO image amp Floppy Dr
152. about the virtual machine The virtual machine s Status Monitor page appears in a new browser window For more information see Configuring a Virtual Machine on page 103 e The value in the Up column indicates the length of time the virtual machine has been running The value in the No column indicates the number of virtual processors in the virtual machine The value in the CPU column indicates the average percentage of host operating system processor capacity the virtual machine used during the final minute before the page was last updated More detailed processor information is available on the Status Monitor page e The value in the RAM column indicates the amount of memory allocated to the virtual machine For more information about memory usage see Configuring a 100 www vmware com CHAPTER 3 Using the VMware Management Interface to Manage Your Virtual Machines Virtual Machine s Memory Usage on page 107 For general information on memory see Virtual Machine Memory on page 421 Downloading Remote Management Packages You can download a remote management package from the VMware Management Interface Status Monitor page To download a remote console package from the Status Monitor page click the link at the bottom of the page for the appropriate installation file This allows you to quickly download the console you need without logging out of the management interface Creating a New Virtual Ma
153. above its minimum size may vary with the current memory load The system automatically determines allocations for each virtual machine based on two factors the number of shares it has been given and an estimate of its recent working set size ESX Server uses a modified proportional share memory allocation policy Memory shares entitle a virtual machine to a fraction of physical memory For example a virtual machine that has twice as many shares as another is entitled to consume twice as much memory subject to their respective minimum and maximum constraints provided that they are both actively using the memory they have been allocated In general a virtual machine with S memory shares in a system with an overall total of T shares is entitled to receive at least a fraction S T of physical memory However virtual machines that are not actively using their currently allocated memory automatically have their effective number of shares reduced by levying a tax on idle memory This memory tax helps prevent virtual machines from unproductively hoarding idle memory A virtual machine is charged more for an idle page than for a page that it is actively using www vmware com CHAPTER 12 VMware ESX Server Resource Management The MemIdleTax configuration option provides explicit control over the policy for reclaiming idle memory You may use this option together with the MemSamplePeriod configuration option to control how the system recla
154. access to that virtual machine s configuration ile Also the user must have execute x permission on all parent directories Setting Permissions for Owners of Virtual Machines on page 162 Configure your SNMP agent ESX Server ships with an SNMP agent that allows you to monitor the health of the physical machine where ESX Server is running and of virtual machines running on it See Configuring the SNMP Agent on page 226 and Configuring the ESX Server Agent through the VMware Management Interface on page 264 23 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 24 The following table includes tasks from the VMware Management Interface for a virtual machine user who creates and modifies virtual machines Task Description Log into the VMware Management Interface and download the remote console package You can use the remote console to power on and power off your virtual machines connect or disconnect devices including the CD drive and network adapter and set preferences including mouse keyboard and hot key behavior in the remote console window You can install the remote console from the Status Monitor page of the management interface Launch the remote console from your desktop Windows operating systems or from the management interface Click the appropriate link for the operating system on your workstation Learn to use the management interface After login the starting page of th
155. ach menu item corresponds to a button on the toolbar and opens a submenu containing the associated options The menu items may not be available depending upon the current power state of the virtual machine For example if the virtual machine is powered off you cannot select any power off suspend resume or reset options www vmware com 178 CHAPTER 4 Using the VMware Remote Console From a remote console you can choose from the following options when powering on a virtual machine Power On Virtual Machine powers on the virtual machine in the remote console This is the same as clicking the Power On button on the toolbar Power On Then Run Script powers on the virtual machine in a remote console then executes the associated script Options for Powering Off a Virtual Machine You can choose from the following options when powering off a virtual machine Power Off Virtual Machine powers off the virtual machine This is similar to turning off a physical computer by pressing its power button so any programs running in the virtual machine may be adversely affected Clicking the Power Off button on the toolbar powers off the virtual machine Shut Down Guest Operating System gracefully shuts the guest operating system down and if the guest operating system supports Advanced Power Management powers off the virtual machine If there is a script associated with this power operation it executes after the shut down begin
156. achine identified by lt id gt Specifying a percentage lt maxPercent gt to this file changes the maximum percentage allocated to the virtual machine identified by lt id gt to lt maxPercent gt The valid range of values for lt maxPercent gt is 0 to 100 multiplied by the number of virtual CPUs or 100 percent for uniprocessor virtual machines and 200 percent for dual virtual CPU virtual machines proc vmware vm lt id gt cpu shares Reading from this file reports the number of shares allocated to the virtual machine identified by lt id gt Writing a number lt n gt to this file changes the number of shares allocated to the virtual machine identified by lt id gt to lt n gt The valid range of numerical values for lt n gt is 1 to 100000 Or you may use the special values low normal and high These values are automatically converted into numbers through the configuration options CpuSharesPerVcpuLow CpuSharesPerVcpuNormal and CpuSharesPerVcpuHigh described in this section proc vmware vm lt id gt cpu affinity Reading from this file reports the number of each CPU in the current affinity set for the virtual machine identified by lt id gt Writing a comma separated list of CPU numbers to this file such as 0 2 3 changes the affinity set for the virtual machine identified by lt id gt Writing a11 or default to this file changes the affinity set to contain all available processors For SMP virtual machines writing t
157. achine is powered on check Connect at Power On 3 In the Device drop down list choose the appropriate device 4 Specify the virtual device node Select the appropriate SCSI ID in the Virtual SCSI Node list Note If the virtual device is on SCSI controller 0 0 a warning appears stating that changing the SCSI node may cause the virtual machine to boot improperly 5 Click OK to save your change and close the window 123 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide Adding a Virtual Disk to a Virtual Machine To add a new virtual disk to a virtual machine make sure the virtual machine is powered off then complete the following steps 1 On the Hardware page click Add Device The Add Device Wizard starts x testserver Microsoft Windows NT Configuration Microsoft Internet Explorer ioj x ai YMware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 r J Add Device What type of hardware do you want to install Device Type Hard Disk Create a new virtual disk use an existing virtual disk or access a VMFS volume directly network Adapter Attach a new network adapter to a virtual network of your choosing B DVD CD ROM Drive Create a new virtual DYD or CD ROM drive to access a system drive or an ISO image amp Floppy Drive Create a new virtual floppy drive to access a system drive or a floppy image file Generic SCSI Device Create a new virtual device that directly accesses a system SCSI device 2 Click Hard Dis
158. achine that are on the same subnet have unique MAC addresses The algorithm used by ESX Server puts a limit on how many virtual machines can be running and suspended at once on a given machine It also does not handle all cases when virtual machines on distinct physical machines share a subnet A MAC address is a six byte number Each network adapter manufacturer gets a unique three byte prefix called an OUI organizationally unique identifier that it can use to generate unique MAC addresses VMware has two OUls one for automatically generated MAC addresses and one for manually set addresses The VMware OUI for automatically generated MAC addresses is 00 0C 29 Thus the first three bytes of the MAC address that is automatically generated for each virtual network adapter have this value ESX Server then uses a MAC address generation algorithm to produce the other three bytes The algorithm guarantees unique MAC addresses within a machine and attempts to provide unique MAC addresses between ESX Server machines The algorithm that ESX Server uses is the following We use the VMware UUID Universally Unique Identifier to generate MAC addresses We then check for any conflicts If there is a conflict we add an offset and check again until there is no conflict The VMware UUID is based on the path to the virtual machine and the host s SMBIOS UUID www vmware com CHAPTER 11 Networking Once the MAC address has been generat
159. adapter to name The format of the command is findnic lt options gt lt nic name gt lt local ip gt lt remote ip gt The findnic program takes a VMkernel network device name an IP address to give the device on the local machine and an IP address that findnic should try to ping When you issue the command findnic pings the remote IP address This allows you to determine which adapter is which by looking at the LEDs on the cards to see which one has flashing lights or by seeing if the ping itself is successful Options f Do a flood ping i lt seconds gt Interval in seconds between pings 361 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 362 Examples findnic vmnicO 10 2 0 5 10 2 0 4 Binds VMkernel device vmnic0 to IP address 10 2 0 5 and then tries to ping the remote machine with the IP address 10 2 0 4 findnic f vmnicl 10 2 0 5 10 2 0 4 Binds VMkernel device vmnic1 to IP address 10 2 0 5 then tries to flood ping the remote machine with the IP address 10 2 0 4 www vmware com CHAPTER 11 Networking Forcing the Network Driver to Use a Specific Speed The V This setting will work correctly with network switches set to autonegotiate If your kernel network device drivers start with a default setting of Autonegotiate switch is configured for a specific speed and duplex setting you must force the network driver to use the same speed and duplex setting If you encounter problems in partic
160. al machines often consumes less memory than it would when running on physical machines As a result higher levels of overcommitment can be supported efficiently System Summary Reserved Memory This chart shows the current allocation of reserved memory and swap space on the server RAM e Reserved memory committed for guaranteed allocations to existing virtual machines e Unreserved uncommitted memory available for guaranteed allocations to power on new virtual machines e Total total reserved and unreserved RAM memory Swap e Reserved system swap file space committed for existing virtual machines e Unreserved total unreserved swap file space currently available to be used by virtual machines e Total total reserved and unreserved space in system swap files Memory e Memory Available to Power On a Virtual Machine maximum memory size that can be specified when powering on the next single or dual processor virtual machine Virtual Machines Virtual Machine Summary For each running virtual machine this chart shows a breakdown of the virtual machine s memory allocation Memory e Private total memory allocated to virtual machines that is not shared e Shared total memory allocated to virtual machines and securely shared with other virtual machines 247 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide Swapped total memory forcibly reclaimed from virtual machines and stored in system swap files
161. al Disk SCSI 0 1 Persistent B DVD CD ROM IDE 1 0 Using drive dev cdrom amp Floppy Drive A Using drive dev fd0 EB Network Adapter Monitor Device S Display 256 Colors 8 bit Click Resume to resume virtual machine With the VMware Management Interface connected to the virtual machine s server click the pause button DE on the row for that virtual machine There are two ways to restore a virtual machine that you have suspended With a remote console connected to that virtual machine click Resume on the toolbar With the VMware Management Interface connected to the virtual machine s server click the pause button BE on the row for that virtual machine You can also set your virtual machine so it always resumes in the same state For details see Enabling Repeatable Resume on page 96 www vmware com CHAPTER 4 Using the VMware Remote Console Shutting Down a Virtual Machine The following steps are based on using a Windows 2000 or Windows NT guest operating system If you are using a Linux guest operating system follow the usual steps to shut down the guest operating system inside your virtual machine 1 Select Shut Down from the Start menu of the guest operating system inside the virtual machine i hat do you want the computer bo do x Ends your session and shuts down Windows 0 thet yOu Cam taely ture OFF possar ee Pe e _ j 2 Select Shut Down then click OK 187 VMwar
162. al Machine a List of Connected Users a Log of a Virtual Machine s Events ore than Six SCSI Virtual Disks to a Virtual Machine Physical Raw Disk in a Virtual Machine sk Modes ESX Server Resources Permissions for Owners of Virtual Machines ering a Virtual Machine any Virtual Machines on ESX Server ng the Memory in the Service Console Allocating CPU Resources to the Management Interface Changing Default Parameters in the config File Avoiding Management Interface Failures when Many Virtual Machines Are Reg Backing Up Virtual Machines Using Tape Drives with VMware ESX Server Backing Backing Using H Using N istered Up from within a Virtual Machine Up Virtual Machines from the Service Console ardware or Software Disk Snapshots etwork based Replication Tools f w w 69 70 70 70 71 71 72 Using the VMware Remote Console 175 Using the Remote Console 76 Starting the Remote Console on Windows 76 Starting the Remote Console on Linux 76 Running a Virtual Machine Using the Remote Console 77 78 Special Power Options for Virtual Machines VMware Tools Settings 80 Installing New Software Inside the Virtual Machine 84 Cutting Copying and Pasting 85 Suspending and Resuming Virtual Machines 85 Shutting Down a Virtual Machine
163. al disks and any redo logs to the server and create a ine configuration See Importing a GSX Server or Workstation Virtual Machine on page 65 On the VMFS partition where you store your virtual machines make sure you have enough space to in ESX Server has hold the full capacity of the source virtual disk A virtual disk created its full capacity allocated at the time the virtual disk file is created for a 2GB virtual disk the virtual disk file is 2GB in size at the time the disk is created In VMware Works ation and GSX Server the virtual disk file usually starts smaller and grows to the maximum capacity as data is added Thus you can create a 2GB virtual disk install the guest operating system and the virtual disk may be contained in a 500MB file Howe process converts partition ver when you migrate the virtual disk to ESX Server the import the disk for ESX Server and the disk occupies 2GB of space on the Caution If you created a virtual disk that is contained in a single vmdk file larger than 2GB the default for Workstation 4 virtual disks and want to migrate the virtual disk to ESX Server you must FTP or copy the disk from the Workstation host to the ESX Server machine Once the file has been copied to the service console you must use vmkf stools to import the disk into ESX Server For the syntax on how to import the disk see Example Note ESX Serve s Using vmkfstools on page 299 r version 2 5 use
164. al machine In addition the user needs read write and execute access to register or unregister the virtual machine See Registering and Unregistering Virtual Machines on page 164 Previous versions of ESX Server checked the access permissions of the virtual machine s configuration file and the access permissions of the directory in which the 162 www vmware com CHAPTER 3 Using the VMware Management Interface to Manage Your Virtual Machines configuration vmx file was located In other words the user needed execute x permissions on all the parent directories for a configuration file For example if a configuration file is home foo vms win2k win2k vmx the user needed to have execute x privileges on home home foo home foo vms home foo vms win2k and appropriate privileges on win2k vmx Note The remote console still requires that the user has execute x permission on all parent directories Creating a Flagship User You might choose to have a virtual machine owned by a flagship user instead of a real person By using a flagship user only one user account owns the virtual machines that are in production An advantage of using flagship accounts is that flagship users never leave the company or go on vacation By using a flagship user you also avoid problems in access privileges if multiple individuals in a group access the same virtual machine through the remote console That is you can give all gro
165. al processors in the virtual machine The amount of memory allocated to the virtual machine e The path to the virtual machine s configuration file on the ESX Server system Activities you can perform when viewing a virtual machine s details include e Editing a Virtual Machine s Configuration on page 105 e Configuring a Virtual Machine s CPU Usage on page 105 e Configuring a Virtual Machine s Memory Usage on page 107 e Configuring a Virtual Machine s Disk Usage on page 110 e Configuring a Virtual Machine s Networking Settings on page 111 e Configuring a Virtual Machine s Hardware on page 113 1 04 www vmware com CHAPTER 3 Using the VMware Management Interface to Manage Your Virtual Machines e Setting Standard Virtual Machine Configuration Options on page 133 e Viewing a List of Connected Users on page 140 e Viewing a Log of a Virtual Machine s Events on page 141 e Connecting to a Virtual Machine with the VMware Remote Console on page 91 e Using the Virtual Machine Menu on page 92 e Changing the Power State of a Virtual Machine on page 93 e Using Common Controls on page 101 Editing a Virtual Machine s Configuration You can edit a virtual machine s configuration from the management interface by doing one of the following e Onthe Status Monitor page click Hardware or Options The virtual machine must be powered off before you can edit most configuration options e On the Status Monitor or a details page
166. an change the following settings e The volume on which to locate the swap file 236 www vmware com CHAPTER 6 Administering ESX Server e The name of the swap file which defaults to SwapFile vswp To change the name of the swap file select Other from the File Name list then type the name of the swap file The file must have a vswp extension e The capacity of the swap file in MB A recommended value is provided e The activation policy The swap file can be active when the system boots or it can be activated manually To deactivate the swap partition set the activation policy to Activated manually then restart the server The swap file is not deactivated until you reboot Note Since you are making changes to the amount of swap space after the initial configuration you must restart the server before the changes take effect If the swap file is set to be activated manually after you reboot the swap file is not activated To activate it manually you must use vmk fstools w Changing Advanced Settings Use the Advanced Settings option to view and modify the configuration parameters of the VMkernel 3 esx244 Advanced Settings Microsoft Internet Explorer Of x Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 11152 roc sx244 eng vymwa Parameter Cpu BoundLagQuanta number of global quanta before bound lag 1 100 Cpu CellMigratePeriod milliseconds between opportunities to migrate across cells Cpu ConsoleMinCpu mi
167. an unregister it instead This is useful if you have more than 80 virtual machines on the server and do not want to delete any excess virtual machines An unregistered virtual machine no longer appears in the management interface and cannot be connected to by a remote console You must have full permissions to the virtual machine s configuration file vmx in order to register or unregister it Registering a Virtual Machine Virtual machines created on the server are automatically registered If you imported a virtual machine from another server or from another VMware product or if you previously unregistered a virtual machine you can register it by completing the following steps 1 Log into the management interface as the user with full permissions to the virtual machine s configuration file Note Only the root user can register and unregister virtual machines through the management interface However regular users can register and unregister virtual machines by using the scripting API www vmware com CHAPTER 3 Using the VMware Management Interface to Manage Your Virtual Machines 2 On the Status Monitor page click Manage Files The file manager appears 3 Browse to the directory containing the configuration file the file with the vmx extension and click the configuration file icon The Virtual Machine Registration Status window appears indicating the virtual machine is not registered testserver Add Vir
168. anced Users Only on page 137 www vmware com CHAPTER 3 Using the VMware Management Interface to Manage Your Virtual Machines To reconfigure the virtual machine so it starts with the first serial port disconnected either change the value for the serial0 startConnected option to false Note Only one operating system can be connected to the serial port at one time You cannot configure more than one virtual machine to use a particular serial port at a given time To use additional serial ports use a higher number in the lines you add to the configuration file Changing the number after serial affects the serial port that is available inside the virtual machine Changing the number after dev ttyS affects the port that is used on your physical computer For example to connect the virtual machine s second serial port COM2 to the physical computer s second serial port add the following lines to the configuration file as described in Modifying the Configuration File Directly Advanced Users Only on page 137 e Add an option called seriall present and set its value to true e Add an option called seriall fileType and set its value to device e Add an option called seriall f ileName and set its value to dev ttyS1 Using Disk Modes ESX Server can use disks in four different modes persistent nonpersistent undoable and append e Persistent Persistent disks behave exactly like conventional disk drives on a computer All writes
169. ant for security reasons for example isolating the management network from the network used by applications in the virtual machines However there may be times when you want to share resources including physical network adapters and virtual networks This technical note provides instructions on sharing in both directions making the rtual machines resources available to the service console and allowing virtual v machines to share the network adapter used by the service console This sharing is made possible by the vmxnet_console driver which is installed with the service console Caution We recommend that only advanced users make these configuration changes The steps below are easier for someone who is familiar with administering a Linux system Note If you accidentally bring down the local loopback interface while you are reconfiguring network devices the VMware Management Interface does not function properly To bring it back up use the command ifconfig lo up Allowing the Service Console to Use the Virtual Machines Devices All network adapters used by virtual machines that is assigned to the VMkernel and virtual networks can be made accessible to the service console Virtual networks identified as vmnet_ lt n gt on the Edit Configuration page of the VMware Management Interface provide high speed connections among virtual machines on the same physical server To give the service console access to
170. apcommunity public 3 Save your changes Note Ifyou use a different file than etc snmp snmpd conf make sure the file name is correctly specified on the SNMP configuration page in the management interface Configuring SNMP Management Client Software To use your SNMP management software with the ESX Server agent take the normal steps needed to accomplish the following e In your management software specify the ESX Server machine as an SNMP based managed device e Set up appropriate community names in the management software These must correspond to the values set in the master SNMP agent s configuration file for example rocommunity trapcommunity and trapsink e Load the ESX Server MIBs into the management software so you can view the symbolic names for the ESX Server variables You can find the MIB files on VMware ESX Server inthe usr lib vmware snmp mibs directory Configuring SNMP Security The ESX Server SNMP package takes the simplest approach to SNMP security in the default configuration It sets up a single community with read only access This is denoted by the rocommunity configuration parameter in the configuration file for the master snmpd daemon snmpd conf which is set up for you by running snmpsetup shdefault www vmware com CHAPTER 7 Using SNMP with ESX Server By design SNMP is not a very secure protocol and the community based security model is a retrofit to the protocol There are other enhancements t
171. are FSX Server Options artup Profile e e how y machines and Rs Se E Network Connections iles that allow your virtu n is physically available Users and Groups Advanced Settings Service Console Setting fy the ocal users and gro cons v that fi System Logs Availability Report rings and other messages for the UMikerne an Scripted Installation nate Virtual Machine Startup and Shutdown Ucensing and Serial Numbers vi the behavior of virtual machines et system stertup View the current license information for this product If you h an new serial number enter it here Third Party System Management and Backup Tools Click the link for the desired server setting 3 Make your changes Click through the links and options displayed on the screen The settings you can change and activities you can perform include Updating the Startup Profile on page 214 Changing Network Connections on page 215 Changing Users and Groups on page 219 e Configuring Security Settings on page 224 Configuring the SNMP Agent on page 226 Viewing the License and Changing Serial Numbers on page 227 212 www vmware com CHAPTER 6 Administering ESX Server Configuring Storage Area Networks on page 227 Adapter Bindings on page 232 Viewing Failover Paths Connections on page 234 Configuring a Swap File on page 236 Changing Advanced Settings on page 237 Configuring the Service Console
172. at the time the virtual machine was suspended remains in use when the virtual machine is resumed even if it has been copied or moved However the next time the virtual machine is rebooted the UUID is generated again If the virtual machine has been copied or moved the UUID is changed Comparing the Generated UUID to Configuration File Parameters When a virtual machine is powered on ESX Server generates a UUID as described above and compares it to the values for uuid location and if it exists uuid bios in the configuration file 77 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 78 If the automatically generated UUID matches the value of uuid Location ESX Server checks for uuid bios lf uuid bios exists its value is used as the virtual machine s UUID If uuid bios does not exist the automatically generated value is used If the automatically generated UUID does not match the value of uid location the newly generated value is used as the virtual machine s UUID and is saved to the configuration file replacing the previous value of uuid Location and if it exists uuid bios Note Any changes to the UUID take effect only after the virtual machine is rebooted Setting the UUID for a Virtual Machine that Is Not Being Moved To assign a specific UUID to a virtual machine that is not being moved add one line to the configuration file You may use the configuration file editor in the VMware Management Interface by completing
173. ble packet filter module defines a filter class multiple filter instances may be active for each loaded class The current release supports only one filter class nfshaper which is a transmit filter for outbound bandwidth management that can be attached to virtual machines using either a procfs interface on the service console or the VMware Management Interface Using Network Filters This section describes how to use the VMware Management Interface to attach and detach nf shaper and obtain statistics from it It also describes how to attach detach and query filter instances from the procfs interface on the service console Managing Network Bandwidth from the Management Interface You may view and change settings from the virtual machine details pages in the VMware Management Interface 1 On the server s Status Monitor page click the name of an individual virtual machine The details page for that virtual machine appears 2 Click the Network tab A testserver Microsoft Windows NT Microsoft Internet Explorer Exi Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 root testserve SC Ce ae a Network Muri crs Mmm CUCM eee tt 11 ee ele eed Loading ia P Microsoft Windows NT Powered on PID 1499 VMID 141 Performance Resources a Receive Bandwidth Traffic Shaping Edit 00 50 56 92 5a d1 0 bps Enable Traffic Shaping No Transmit Bandwidth 00 50 56 92 5a d1 0 bps www vmware com CHAPTER 12 VMware ESX Server Resource Managem
174. ble performance which closely matches the behavior of a native system under similar memory constraints It effectively increases or decreases memory pressure on the guest operating system causing the guest to invoke its own native memory management algorithms When memory is tight the guest operating system decides which particular pages to reclaim and if necessary swaps them to its own virtual disk The guest operating system must be configured with sufficient swap space Some guest operating systems have additional limitations See the notes in Managing Memory Resources from the Service Console on page 407 for details If necessary you can limit the amount of memory reclaimed using vmmemct 1 by setting the sched mem maxmemct 1 option This option specifies the maximum amount of memory that may be reclaimed from a virtual machine in megabytes MB Swapping is used to forcibly reclaim memory from a virtual machine when no vmmemct 1 driver is available This may be the case if the vmmemct 1 driver was never installed has been explicitly disabled is not running for example while the guest operating system is booting or is temporarily unable to reclaim memory 403 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 404 quickly enough to satisfy current system demands Standard demand paging techniques swap pages back in when the virtual machine needs them The vmmemct 1 approach is used whenever possible for optimum performance swapping
175. ble secure remote login SSH services C Medium Do not allow unencrypted VMware Management Interface and Remote Console sessions Enable FTP Telnet NFS file sharing and secure remote login SSH services C Low Allow unencrypted VMware Management Interface and Remote Console sessions Enable FTP Telnet NFS file sharing and secure remote login SSH services Custom Exercise full control over your security settings 7 i gt Help OK Cancel By default the server is set to High security which does not allow unencrypted VMware Management Interface and Remote Console sessions High security enables SSH access for secure remote login sessions but it also disables FTP Telnet and NFS file sharing services Choose Medium security to disallow unencrypted VMware Management Interface and Remote Console sessions Normal access enables FTP Telnet NFS file sharing and secure remote login SSH services Choose Low security to allow unencrypted VMware Management Interface and VMware Remote Console sessions FTP Telnet NFS file sharing and secure remote login SSH services www vmware com CHAPTER 6 Administering ESX Server Using Custom Security Settings By customizing your security settings you can enable or disable various settings that provide access to the server such as unencrypted Web access SSH telnet FTP and NFS file sharing To customize your security settings click Custom The Security Settin
176. bus adapters HBAs With persistent binding ESX Server assigns specific target IDs to specific Fibre Channel SCSI devices This target ID association is retained from reboot to reboot unless changed by you Persistent binding is particularly useful if you are using raw disks with ESX Server A raw disk is directly mapped to a LUN or physical disk drive on your storage area network SAN ESX Server directly accesses the data on this disk as a raw device and not as a file on a VMFS volume You can persist bindings through the VMware Management Interface or through the service console For complete information on persisting bindings through the management interface see Configuring Storage Area Networks on page 227 Determining Target IDs through the Service Console If you prefer to use the service console type cat proc scsi lt FC_SCSI_driver gt lt adapter_number gt to determine the target IDs Example Output for an Emulex HBA cat proc scsi lt FC_SCSI_driver gt lt adapter_number gt Portname 10 00 00 00 9 32 23 49 Nodename 20 00 00 00 09 32 23 49 Link Up Ready PortID 0x21900 Fabric Current speed 1G lpfcO0t00 DID 021500 WWPN 20 00 00 60 16 3c ad 13 WWNN 20 00 00 60 16 3c ad 13 where Portname 10 00 00 00 c9 32 23 49 Adapter port name Nodename 20 00 00 00 c9 32 23 49 Adapter node name lpfc0t00 0 1lpfc0 is the host bus adapter and 00 is the target WWPN 20 00 00 60 16 3c ad 13 Target world wide port na
177. can control relative CPU rates by specifying the number of shares allocated to each virtual machine Increasing the number of shares allocated to a virtual machine dilutes the effective value of all shares by increasing the total number of shares The service console receives 2000 shares and has a minimum CPU percentage of 8 percent by default In most cases this should be an appropriate allocation since the service console should not be used for CPU intensive tasks If you do find it necessary to adjust the service console s allocation of CPU shares you can use the VMware Management Interface or the procfs interface on the service console as described in this section Through the management interface you can 387 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 388 increase the minimum CPU percentage or the number of CPU shares to allocated more CPU to the service console For more information see Configuring the Service Console on page 238 Note CPU share allocations by themselves do not necessarily guarantee the rate of progress within a virtual machine For example suppose virtual machine A is allocated high shares while virtual machine B is allocated normal shares If both virtual machines are CPU bound for example both are running the same compute intensive benchmark then virtual machine A should indeed run twice as fast as virtual machine B However if virtual machine A instead runs an O bound workload that causes
178. cate securely among themselves as if connected to a common isolated physical network To create a port group there must be an existing network configured dt Log in to the VMware Management Interface as root The Status Monitor page appears Click the Options tab then click the Network Connections tab The Virtual Switches window opens To create a port group for a switch click Add next to Port Groups The Create Port Groups window opens and displays configuration options for a port group Enter a name for the port group in the Port Group Label field www vmware com CHAPTER 6 Administering ESX Server 5 In the VLAN ID field enter a number between 1 and 4095 6 Click Create Port Group This creates the new port group and closes the window Disabling vmkernel VLAN Tagging When Virtual Local Area Networks VLANs are created within your ESX Server the vmkernel by default manages the VLAN processing of Ethernet frames If you do not want the vmkernel to manage VLAN processing you can configure the vmkernel to pass all Ethernet frames between guest operating systems and the outside network To change your VLAN processing settings 1 From the Options tab select Advanced Settings The Advanced Settings page appears and displays a list of configuration parameters 2 Locate the parameter Net VlanTrunking 3 Click the value for the parameter The Modify VMkernel Parameter window opens 4 Inthe Value entry field enter
179. cedure accordingly 1 Run sysprep exe which is available on the Windows 2000 CD in the support tools deploy cab file This strips the security ID assigned to the guest operating system and resets the machine information as well as the TCP IP network configuration 2 Shut down the guest operating system and power off the virtual machine 3 At the ESX Server console on a machine other than the one where you created the first node log on as root 4 Change directories cd vmfs vms This changes the current directory to the VMFS partition where you want to create the virtual disk 5 Use the ftp command ftp lt first ESX Server Hostname gt 6 Change directories cd vmfs vms 352 www vmware com 10 CHAPTER 10 Configuration for Clustering Set the type to binary bin Type hash on Retrieve the virtual disk file get clusterl1 vmdk This transfers a copy of the virtual disk to the second ESX Server machine s VMFS partition Quit the ftp session bye Rename the virtual disk file mv cluster1l vmdk cluster9 vmdk This renames the virtual disk file to cluster9 vmdk This assumes that this ESX Server machine will host nodes 9 and up Repeat this command using a different target file name if you want to create more than one copy This concludes the cloning process Now continue with creating the second node virtual machine Repeat step 3 step 11 on each ESX Server machine that will participate in the
180. chine To create a new virtual machine from the management interface on the Status Monitor page click Add Virtual Machine The Add Virtual Machine wizard starts For information on creating a virtual machine from the management interface see Creating a New Virtual Machine on page 32 Unregistering a Virtual Machine You can unregister a virtual machine so it no longer appears on the Status Monitor page and cannot be managed or accessed For information on registering virtual machines see Registering and Unregistering Virtual Machines on page 164 Deleting a Virtual Machine To delete a virtual machine from the management interface click the arrow to the right of the terminal icon and choose Delete Virtual Machine The Confirm Deleting lt Virtual Machine gt page appears in a new window For information on deleting a virtual machine from the management interface see Deleting a Virtual Machine Using the VMware Management Interface on page 149 Configuring VMware ESX Server The Options tab lets you make changes to your VMware ESX Server configuration For more information see Configuring VMware ESX Server on page 152 and Modifying VMware ESX Server on page 212 Note Only a user with root privileges can access this tab Using Common Controls In addition the following links appear on most or all of the pages in the management interface Refresh This link refreshes or reloads the current page To avoid conflicts w
181. chine after a virtual machine starts do one or both of the following e To specify a period of time before the next virtual machine starts in the Continue Starting Virtual Machines After list choose from the number of minutes listed or whether ESX Server should not wait before starting the next virtual machine If you want to choose a number of minutes other than what is displayed in the list select Other and enter the number of minutes at the prompt It is a good idea to set a delay between starting virtual machines as this avoids placing an undue burden on the host s server s processors and memory e To specify that VMware Tools should start in a virtual machine before the next virtual machine starts check the when VMware Tools start check box If VMware Tools does not start in the virtual machine before the specified time elapses ESX Server starts the next virtual machine 5 To configure when ESX Server should stop the next virtual machine after a virtual machine stops in the Attempt to Continue Stopping Other Virtual Machines After list choose the number of minutes or whether ESX Server should not wait 252 www vmware com CHAPTER 6 Administering ESX Server before starting the next virtual machine If you want to choose a number of minutes other than what is displayed in the list select Other and enter the number of minutes at the prompt 6 Click OK to save your settings 7 Click Close Window to return to the management
182. ciently without excessive paging The maximum size can be set to a higher level to allow the virtual machine to take advantage of excess memory when available Overhead memory includes space reserved for the virtual machine frame buffer and various virtualization data structures A virtual machine configured with less than 512MB of memory requires 54MB of overhead memory for a single virtual CPU virtual machine and 64 MB for a dual virtual CPU SMP virtual machine Larger virtual machines require an additional 32MB of overhead memory per additional gigabyte of configured main memory For example a single virtual CPU virtual machine with a configured maximum memory size of 2GB requires 102MB of overhead memory Memory Sharing Many workloads present opportunities for sharing memory across virtual machines For example several virtual machines may be running instances of the same guest operating system have the same applications or components loaded or contain common data ESX Server uses a proprietary transparent page sharing technique to securely eliminate redundant copies of memory pages With memory sharing a workload consisting of multiple virtual machines often consumes less memory than it would when running on physical machines As a result the system can support higher levels of overcommitment efficiently The amount of memory saved by memory sharing is highly dependent on workload characteristics A workload consisting of many nearl
183. click Choose to see the location information 65 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 66 On a Linux host expand the SCSI Drives tree and click the name of the drive you want to migrate Click Choose to see the location information Using a Web browser log in to the ESX Server machine as root and click Manage Files Use the file manager in the VMware Management Interface to perform all the file copy steps described below For information on using the file manager see Using the VMware Management Interface File Manager on page 159 In the file manager navigate to the location of the source disk files Select the main disk vmdk or dsk file for the virtual disk you are migrating then click Copy Caution Do not cut the virtual disk file This ensures you have a backup copy of the virtual disk Navigate to the vmfs folder and open the folder for the VMFS partition where you want to store the virtual disk file Click Paste A dialog box appears with the message You are transferring one or more console virtual disks to a VMFS partition In order for virtual machines to access these disks they must be converted to the VMFS format Although you can convert console disks at any time it is recommended that you do so now This means the VMFS partition recognizes the files as a virtual disk and converts the disk to the VMFS 2 format during the import This allows the disk to be accessed by virtual machines runni
184. cluster Creating the Second Node Virtual Machine Create a new virtual machine as follows 1 2 On the management interface s Overview page click Add Virtual Machine Keep the default Guest Operating System selection of Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Change the Display Name field to describe the virtual machine for example MSCS Node 2 Kena Change the Location of the virtual machine to home lt user gt vmware cluster2 cluster2 vmx ick Next 4 G Choose the number of processors you want the guest operating system to utilize up to 2 C hange Memory to show the amount of RAM you want to allocate to this virtual machine Click Next Click Existing to attach an existing virtual disk to this virtual machine From the Virtual Disk Image drop down list choose cluster2 vmdk Choose the virtual SCSI node to which you want to attach the virtual disk 353 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 12 Click Next Network Device Configuration You need to add another network adapter that the cluster nodes will use to communicate with each other 1 On the hardware tab for this virtual machine click Add Device 2 Click Network Adapter 3 From the Device Binding drop down list choose vmnic1 Note If all nodes of the cluster will reside on the same ESX Server machine you may use vmnet_0 for the second network adapter This allows all nodes to communicate with each other on a private virtual networ
185. console Each virtual machine also requires an additional 54MB of overhead memory An additional 6 percent should be added to account for the minimum free memory level Assuming no overcommitment and no benefits from memory sharing the memory required for virtualizing the workload is 24MB 192MB 1 06 8 512MB 54MB 5016MB The total overhead for virtualization in this case is 920MB If memory sharing achieves a 10 percent savings 410MB the total memory overhead drops to only 510MB If memory sharing achieves a 25 percent savings 1GB the virtualized workload actually consumes 104MB less memory than it would on eight physical servers It may also make sense to overcommit memory For example suppose that on average two of the eight Web server virtual machines are typically idle and that each Web server virtual machine requires only 256MB to provide minimally acceptable service In this case the hardware memory size can be reduced safely by an additional 2 256MB 512MB In the worst case where all virtual machines happen to be active at the same time the system may need to swap some virtual machine memory to disk More Information For additional background information on ESX Server memory usage see Memory Resource Management on page 399 423 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 424 Managing Network Bandwidth VMware ESX Server supports network traffic shaping with the nfshaper loadable module A loada
186. controller and shared raw SCSI disks go to the Hardware tab and take the following steps VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 342 Click Add Device Click Hard disk Click System LUN Disk to give your virtual machine direct access to a SAN or shared storage volume Choose the LUN Partition you want to attach to this VM as a raw disk Note In ESX Server physical disks are identified by a vmhba number For example vmhba0 1 2 1 means physical adapter vmhba0 target 1 LUN 2 partition 1 When the final number is 0 that indicates you are specifying the entire disk rather than a particular partition Choose the virtual SCSI node to which you want to attach the raw disk Note Shared disks must be attached to a separate SCSI controller from the system disk Select SCSI 1 1 Click OK A new virtual disk and SCSI Controller 1 appear on the Hardware tab Click Edit next to SCSI Controller 1 to change the bus sharing from none to physical From the Bus Sharing drop down list choose physical then click OK Setting the bus sharing to physical makes sure that all the SCSI reserve and reset commands go through to the physical disk Repeat step 1 step 8 to create an additional shared raw disk using SCSI 1 2 You have completed the virtual machine configuration For more information adding a raw SCSI device see the VMware technical note Using Raw Device Mappings with ESX Server available at www vmware com support reso
187. cs period for the management interface do the following 1 Connect to the service console with a terminal 2 Edit the file usr lib vmware mui apache conf access conf 3 Under the line that states PerlSetEnv vmware_SESSION_LENGTH 60 do on e To e To e of the following set the period to one minute add this line PerlSetEnv vmware_STATS_PERIOD 1 set the period to 15 minutes add this line PerlSetEnv vmware_STATS_PERIOD 15 4 Save and close the file 5 Restart Apache for the change to take effect etc init d httpd vmware restart 85 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide Using Internet Explorer 6 0 to Access the VMware Management Interface If you intend to run the VMware Management Interface in Internet Explorer 6 0 on a Windows management workstation you must take certain steps to configure Internet Explorer properly The configuration steps allow you to perform the following activities e Launching the Remote Console from the Management Interface on an Encrypted Server on page 86 e Connecting to the Management Interface On a Proxy Server on page 87 Launching the Remote Console from the Management Interface on an Encrypted Server You can launch the VMware Remote Console from the VMware Management Interface automatically In order to do this in an Internet Explorer 6 0 browser on a Windows system where SSL is encrypting your ESX Server remote connections
188. cute is 7 Permissions are specified in the same order as they are shown in the directory listing owner group all other users You can also add or delete permissions by specifying them by the symbols displayed in the long directory listings discussed previously Read r Write w Execute x dentify which set of permissions you wish to modify by their symbol User u Group g Other o All a Command Example and Explanation chmod Change mode permissions for a specified file group of files or directory chmod 755 vmx Set permissions on all files in the current directory that end with vmx to be Ywxr xXr x chmod 660 nvram Set permissions on the file nvram in the current directory to be rw rw chmod g x usr local bin Change permissions on all files in usr local bin so that they can be executed by other users belonging to the group 199 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 200 Command Example and Explanation chown Change the owner of a specified file You can change the owner and the group for a file at the same time chown User2 win2000 vmx Change the owner of the file win2000 vmx to User2 hown User2 VMUsers win2000 vmx hange the owner of the file win2000 vmx to User2 and change the group to chgrp hange the group for a specified file Q hgrp VMUsers win2000 vmx Change the group for the file win2000 vmx to VMUsers oO
189. d by virtual machines on same server e Physical Disks can be shared by virtual machines on any server To enable sharing of virtual disks choose Virtual or Physical All virtual disks on the specified virtual bus will be sharable and have the specified mode If the bus sharing is Virtual only virtual machines on the same physical machine will be able to share disks This setting allows for a cluster in a box configuration in which all members of a high availability cluster are on the same physical machine This setup is useful for providing high availability when the likely failures are due to software or administrative errors If the bus sharing is Physical virtual machines on different physical machines will be able to share disks In this case the VMFS holding the virtual disks must be on a physically shared disk so all of the physical machines can access it This setup is useful for providing high availability when the likely failures also include hardware errors When a shared disk is used for high availability purposes the current machine that is running the application and using the shared data often reserves the disk using a SCSI command www vmware com CHAPTER 9 Storage and File Systems Also if the bus sharing is Physical commands that reserve reset or release a shared virtual disk are transmitted through to the physical disk so other machines sharing the disk can properly detect when a virtual disk has b
190. d clustering should have its mode set to shared Writable When virtual machines access a file on a shared VMFS the file system metadata becomes read only That is no virtual machine or user Command can create delete or change the attributes of a file If you need to create remove or change the length of a file vmk f stools X then you need to change the volume to writable First be sure that no virtual machines are accessing the VMFS volume all virtual machines are powered off or suspended then change the file system metadata to writable with the command vmkf stools config writable Once you power on or resume a virtual machine the file system metadata reverts to being read only Extends an existing logical VMFS 2 volume by spanning multiple partitions Z xtendfs lt extension SCSIDevice gt n numfiles This option adds another physical extent designated by lt extension SCSIDevice gt starting at the specified SCSI device By running this option you lose all dataon lt extension SCSIDevice gt Note A logical VMFS 2 volume can have at most 32 physical extents This operation is not supported on the VMFS 1 file system and in fact returns an error if the specified SCSI device is formatted as VMFS 1 Each time you use this option and extend a VMFS 2 volume with a physical extent the VMFS volume supports by default an additional 64 files You can change this default number of files by using th
191. d into the management interface as root Click the Options tab then click Service Console Settings www vmware com CHAPTER 6 Administering ESX Server Configuring the Service Console s Processor Usage To review and configure the service console s processor usage click the CPU tab The CPU page appears esx244 eng vmware com Service Console Microsoft Internet Explorer Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 11152 ro Refresh Help Close Last updated Thu Nov 18 19 08 19 PST 2004 Service Console a Performance Resources E CPU Utilization Not available Resource Settings Edit Minimum 8 Maximum 100 Shares 2000 The CPU page shows how much of the server processor or processors the service console is utilizing and how CPU resources are allocated to the service console The values under Resources indicate a range of percentages of a processor to which the service console is entitled where the Minimum value represents the minimum amount of processor capacity that is always available to the service console while the Maximum value represents the highest amount of processor capacity the service console can ever consume even if the processor is idle The Shares value represents a relative metric for allocating processor capacity where this value is compared to the sum of all shares of all virtual machines on the server and the service console For example a virtual machine is stored on the same drive as the
192. d the appropriate installer from the Status Monitor page of the management interface Windows Clients ie 2 3 Find the installer file VMware console 2 v v xxxx ex on the distribution CD or in the directory where you downloaded it Double click VMware console 2 v v xxxx exe to start the installation Follow the on screen instructions Linux RPM Installer 1 Find the installer file VMware console 2 v v xxxx i386 rpm on the distribution CD or in the directory where you downloaded it and change to that directory Become root su Run the RPM installer rpm Uhv VMware console 2 v v xxxx i386 rpm Linux Tar Installer 1 Find the installer file VMware console 2 v v xxxx tar gz on the distribution CD or in the directory where you downloaded it and copy it to the tmp directory or another directory of your choice Become root Su Unpack the tar archive tar zxf VMware console 2 v v xxxx tar gz Change to the directory where the archive was unpacked cd vmware console distrib Run the installer vmware install pl For information on running virtual machines from the remote console see Running a Virtual Machine Using the Remote Console on page 177 www vmware com CHAPTER 2 Creating and Configuring Virtual Machines Third Party Software Compatibility This section includes any special instructions for using a virtual machine with third part
193. d to these controllers is available in the proc vmware scsi directory once the VMkernel and the VMkernel device module s for the SCSI controller s have been loaded Each entry in the proc vmware scsi directory corresponds to a SCSI controller assigned to the VMkernel For example assume you issued a vmk load_mod command with the base name vmhba and a single SCSI controller was found To identify the controller type this command ls l proc vmware scsi The output of the 1s command is total 0 dr xr xr x 2 root root QO Jun 22 12 44 vmhba0 Each SCSI controller s subdirectory contains entries for the SCSI devices on that controller numbered by SCSI target ID and LUN logical unit number Run cat on each target ID LUN pair to get information about the device with that target ID and LUN For example type this command cat proc vmware scsi vmhba0 1 0 The following information is displayed Vendor SEAGATE Model ST39103LW Rev 0002 Type Direct Access ANSI SCSI revision 02 Size 8683 Mbytes Queue Depth 28 www vmware com CHAPTER 9 Storage and File Systems Partition Info Block size 512 Num Blocks 17783240 num Start Size Type 4 1 17526914 fb Partition 0 VM T1 Commands 2 Kbytes read 0 Kbytes written 0 Commands aborted 0 Bus resets 0 Partition 4 Commands 336 Kbytes read 857 Kbytes written 488 Commands aborted 0 Bus resets 0 This information should help you determine the S
194. default at most Verbose Options If you need to view add or modify configuration parameters directly click here 2 Click Edit The Edit Options page appears F testserver Windows 2000 Server Configuration Microsoft Internet Explorer Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 root test el Options es Modify virtual machine configuration parameters Virtual Machine Configuration Standard Options Display Name Guest Operating System Microsoft Wind Suspend File Location vmbhbad 0 Enable Logging A Run with Debugging Information if Help Cancel For fastest suspend and restore operations select the appropriate VMFS volume from the Suspend File Location list ESX Server automatically adds a suffix to the name of the suspended state file to ensure that one virtual machine does not overwrite the suspended state file of another 3 Click OK to save your changes Enabling Repeatable Resume When you suspend a virtual machine in the usual way by clicking the Suspend button on the remote console or in the management interface ESX Server writes a file 96 www vmware com CHAPTER 3 Using the VMware Management Interface to Manage Your Virtual Machines with a vmss extension This file contains the entire state of the virtual machine When the virtual machine is resumed its state is restored from the vmss file The vmss file is then modified while the virtual machine is running Th
195. devices are added by the insmod command you can add the tagName parameter to the insmod command as shown in this example insmod vmxnet_console devName vmnicl vmnet_0 tagName lt tag gt In this case the vmxnet_console module adds the names of each of the eth lt n gt devices that it created to var log messages Each message begins with the string lt tag gt To figure out the names of the devices that were added use this command grep lt tag gt var log messages Starting Shared VMkernel Network Adapters and Virtual Networks when the Service Console Boots There are two ways you can configure the service console to start VMkernel network adapters when the service console boots The simpler case involves sharing a network adapter other than eth0 Sharing eth0 is more complicated and is described later Continuing with the example from the previous section you can append the following lines to etc rce d re local insmod vmxnet_console devName vmnicl vmnet_0 ifconfig ethl up 10 2 0 4 ifconfig eth2 up 63 93 12 47 www vmware com CHAPTER 11 Networking Note You may also wish to add commands that depend on networking to the end of rc local such as mount a to mount any NFS entries in etc fstab Another method is to set up the files etc sysconfig network scripts ifcfg ethl and etc sysconfig network scripts ifcfg eth2 with the appropriate network information And be sure the ONBOOT line is ONBOOT yes The ifcfg eth1
196. dify one entry in the virtual machine s configuration file before you power on the virtual machine To modify the configuration file follow the steps at Modifying the Configuration File Directly Advanced Users Only on page 137 In the configuration file look for the option scsi0 virtualDev and change the value from vmxlsilogic to vmxbuslogic 11 Boot your virtual machine in a remote console and install VMware Tools and the network driver in the virtual machine For more information see Installing VMware Tools in the Guest Operating System on page 41 Some guest operating systems display messages about detecting hardware changes and require you to reboot the virtual machine This occurs because VMware ESX Server uses an emulation for chipsets and BIOS that is slightly different from those used by other VMware products Exporting Virtual Machines You can export a virtual machine to Workstation 4 provided it is a uniprocessor virtual machine multiprocessor SMP virtual machines cannot be exported to Workstation 4 If the virtual disks are in undoable mode you must commit the changes in the redo log before exporting the virtual machine in order for your changes to carry over However Workstation 4 does not support the LSILogic SCSI adapter To use the SCSI adapter in the virtual machine you must switch back to the BusLogic adapter ESX Server 2 5 does not support exporting virtual machines to ESX Server 1 5 or earlier VMware Wo
197. dule PAM capabilities present in the service e used This permits the use of passwords from a Windows LDAP or RADIUS server or similar central authentication store to be used with V ware ESX Server for remote access e SNMP server ucd snmpd Implements the SNMP data structures and traps an administrator ca system manageme n use to integrate an ESX Server system into an SNMP based nt tool 19 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 20 n n cl The ser addition to these VMware supplied services the service console can be used to run other system wide or hardware dependent management tools These clude hardware specific health monitors such as IBM Director HP Insight anager and others full system backup and disaster recovery software and ustering and high availability products ver and virtual machine resources and configuration attributes that are availab in the s examin e through the SNMP and HTTP interfaces are also visible through a file system ervice console The files in this proc vmware name space may be ed and modified by users logged in to the service console with sufficient permissions or may be used as a point of integration for home grown or commercial scripts and management tools www ymware com CHAPTER 1 Introduction to VMware ESX Server Using VMware ESX Server VMware ESX Server contains many features to help you manage your virtual machines resources
198. e n option Maps a Raw Disk or Partition to a File on a VMFS 2 Volume r maprawdisk lt raw SCSI device gt Once this mapping is established you can access the raw disk like a normal VMFS file The file length of the mapping is the same as the size of the raw disk or partition The mapping can be queried for the raw SCSI device name by using the P option By mapping a raw disk or partition to a file you can manipulate this raw disk or partition as any other file All VMFS 2 file locking mechanisms apply to raw disks 295 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 296 Displays Disk Geometry for a VMware Workstation or GSX Server Virtual Disk g geometry lt virtual disk gt The output is in the form Geometry information C H S is 1023 128 32 where C represents the number of cylinders H represents the number of heads and S represents the number of sectors When importing VMware Workstation or VMware GSX virtual disks to VMware ESX Server you may see a disk geometry mismatch error message A disk geometry mismatch may also be the cause if you have problems loading a guest operating system or running a newly created virtual machine View the events log through the VMware Management Interface Users and Events page for the virtual machine or through the service console the vmware Log file found by default in the lt user gt vmware lt guest_operating_system gt directory Look for C H S and compare this with
199. e See Changing Advanced Settings on page 237 for details Beacon monitoring can cause false indications of network connection failure External switches may trap beacon packets causing ESX Server to declare a switch failure for a connection that is functioning normally When the server switches to a secondary link traffic from the primary may still be transmitted because the connection has not actually failed This can result in an external switch receiving duplicate packets from both links Note ESX Server uses beacon monitoring as a secondary method to detect network failures When the server detects a physical link failure for the primary adapter it will switch to a secondary adapter without regard to whether beacon monitoring indicates a failed connection 373 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 374 Configuring External Network Switches IP Load Balancing With this load balancing mode enabled ESX Server may present duplicate MAC addresses to an external network switch The external switch should be set static 802 3ad EtherChannel mode to avoid external routing errors SwitchFailoverBeaconEtherType This option sets the Ether type of monitor beacons You may wish to change this value so that your external switches correctly handle monitor beacons Beacon Monitoring with Multiple Switches All external switches connected to a virtua switch using beacon monitoring must be within the same network broadcast
200. e ESX Server Administration Guide 188 www vmware com CHAPTER Using the VMware Service Console The following sections describe various aspects of using the VMware Service Console Characteristics of the VMware Service Console on page 190 Managing the Service Console on page 191 Authentication and Security Features on page 203 Using Devices With ESX Server on page 207 Enabling Users to View Virtual Machines Through the VMware Remote Console on page 209 189 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 190 Characteristics of the VMware Service Console The purpose of the VMware service console is to start up and administer your virtual machines It is a customized version of Linux based on the Red Hat 7 2 distribution It has been modified so it can be managed by the VMkernel The service console has been customized to disable unneeded services In particular most network services have been disabled except for auth For remote access to the service console ssh is enabled by default The root user can modify settings for ssh Telnet and FTP using the security configuration page in the management interface http lt servername gt security config The service console is scheduled by the VMkernel just as any other virtual machine is You should not attempt to run heavy workloads on the service console because it may take processor cycles away from your virtual machines Using DHCP for the Service Console Th
201. e Time Between the Guest and Service Consoles on page 47 www vmware com CHAPTER 2 Creating and Configuring Virtual Machines e Gracefully power off and reset a virtual machine See Shutting Down and Restarting a Virtual Machine on page 48 e Execute commands in the virtual machine when it is requested to halt or reboot the guest operating system See Executing Commands When ESX Server Requests the Guest Service to Halt or Reboot a Virtual Machine on page 49 e Passa string from the service console to the guest operating system See Passing a String from the Service Console to the Guest Operating System on page 49 e Senda heartbeat to VMware ESX Server so that it knows the guest operating system is running The guest service starts automatically when you boot the guest operating system In a Linux guest the guest service is called vmware guestd To display help about the guest service including a list of all options use the following command etc vmware vmware guestd help In a Windows guest the guest service program file is called VMwareService exe To display help right click the VMware Tools icon in the system tray and choose Help Synchronizing the Time Between the Guest and Service Consoles The guest service can synchronize the date and time in the guest operating system with the time in the service console once every second In the VMware Tools control panel on the Other tab Options in a Linux guest select Tim
202. e Using Common Controls on page 101 Click the tabs at the top of the page to view more information about the virtual machine Configuring a Virtual Machine s Networking Settings To review and configure the virtual machine s networking settings click the Network tab The Network page appears Z testserver Microsoft Windows NT Microsoft Internet Explorer _ ox Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 root Status Monitor CPU Memory Disk Network Hardware Options Users andEvents Refresh Help Close Loading iA D gt Microsoft Windows NT Powered on PID 1499 VMID 141 Performance Resources Receive Bandwidth Traffic Shaping 00 50 56 92 Sa d1 Enable Traffic Shaping Transmit Bandwidth 00 50 56 92 5a d1 The Network page shows network performance information and resources allocated to the virtual machine s virtual network card The receive and transmit bandwidths indicate how fast data is transferred to and from the virtual machine The values under Performance are based on the past five minutes The period of time these statistics cover can be modified See Configuring the Statistics Period for the VMware Management Interface on page 85 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide The Network page also indicates whether traffic shaping is enabled This setting can be changed Activities you can perform when configuring a virtual machine s networking information include e Enabling Traffic Shaping on page 11
203. e VMware Management Interface to Manage Your Virtual Machines Using Parallel Ports in a Virtual Machine To connect the virtual machine s first parallel port LPT1 to the physical computer s first parallel port take the following steps il Reboot the physical computer and enter the BIOS setup Typically you do so by pressing F2 or Delete while the machine is booting Find the parallel port mode setting and set it to PS 2 The typical choices are AT and PS 2 If PS 2 is not available as an option set it to bidirectional Log on to the console operating system as root and enter the following commands sbin insmod parport sbin insmod parport_pc sbin insmod ppdev Type 1smod and confirm that these modules are in the listing of loaded modules To make these changes permanent add the three lines shown above to the end of the file etc rc d rce local Be sure the virtual machine is shut down and powered off then add the following options to the virtual machine s configuration file as described in Modifying the Configuration File Directly Advanced Users Only on page 137 e Add an option called parallel0 present and set its value to true e Add an option called parallel0 fileName and set its value to dev parporto e Add an option called parallel0 bidirectional and set its value to true Be sure the virtual machine is using virtual hardware version 6 Look for the following line in the configuration file
204. e appears and displays information about the current state of the paths and failover policy options Preemie Failover Paths Metric Ut il Mme ere E a elle ed ert Storage Management Failover Paths Review the current state of paths from your system to SAN LUNs SAN LUN vmhbal 2 0 4 Paths Policy mru Adapter Target LUN SAN Target aam vmhbat 2 0 50 06 01 68 10 20 4D 87 OT vmhbat 3 0 50 06 01 60 10 20 AD 87 vmhba 50 06 01 68 10 20 4D 87 vmhba2 3 0 50 06 01 60 10 20 AD 87 Failover Policy C Fixed Use preferred path when available Most Recently Used Always use the last active path B j j Help OK Cancel 2 Choose one of the following failover policies e Fixed always use the preferred path when available e Most Recently Used always use the last active path 3 If you select Fixed next choose the preferred path by selecting Preferred in the Adapter icon pulldown menu for that path 4 Click OK to save your settings and return to the Failover Paths page The name of the failover policy appears next to each SAN LUN in the failover paths list For more information on failover policies see Setting Your Multipathing Policy for a LUN on page 321 Configuring Failover Paths You can also enable or disable individual failover paths by changing their status in the Adapter icon pulldown menu 235 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide Configuring a Swap File Use
205. e both installed then continue Otherwise you must determine why the driver did not load For an existing Lin ux virtual machine with the modified configuration the guest needs to boot with the LSI Logic SCSI adapter so it tries to load that driver from the initial RAM disk initrd before the root partition is mounted Try the following 1 Edit etc modules conf andset scsi_hostadapter tomptscsih 57 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 58 Create a new initial RAM disk for the running kernel mkinitrd preload mptbase boot initrd lt kernelname gt lsi img lt kernelname gt Where lt kernelname gt is the version of the guest s kernel such as 2 4 18 3 The modules conf modification you made in the previous step allows mk initrd to provide the LSI Logic SCSI driver to the kernel when booting Edit etc lilo conf or boot grub grub conf depending on which is in use in the guest Create a new entry that uses the existing kernel but the new RAM disk file Make sure you keep the original boot entry in case you have a problem and need to boot with the BusLogic adapter Install the boot loader lilo orgrub install dev sda again Shut down and power off the virtual machine then edit the configuration file in the management interface Switch the original BusLogic adapter to the LSI Logic adapter by changing this line scsi0 virtualDev vmxbuslogic to scsi0d virtualDev vmxlsilogic Rem
206. e following differences e Inthe Virtual Disk Configuration section step 10 click Edit next to SCSI Controller 1 to change the bus sharing from none to physical instead of virtual From the Bus Sharing drop down list choose physical then click OK e Inthe Network Device Configuration section step 3 from the Device Binding drop down list choose vmnic1 instead of vmnet_0 This attaches the second Ethernet adapter to the second physical adapter designated for virtual machine use This is used to create a private network between the cluster nodes e Change the specifications of scsil 1 name and scsil 2 nameas you did when creating the first node s base virtual machine Clustering Using a Raw SCSI Disk The shared disk used for clustering can also be a complete shared SCSI disk rather than a VMFS file on a shared disk Using a raw SCSI disk as a shared disk may simplify initial setup It may be especially useful for importing an existing physical cluster that already has cluster data on a SCSI disk In addition using a raw SCSI disk as a shared disk allows a virtual machine to participate in a cluster with a physical machine For example the virtual machine can be used as the passive node for a physical machine that is the active node In order for the virtual machine to access a physical disk the instructions in the Virtual Disk Configuration section on page 335 should be replaced with the following steps To add a physical SCSI
207. e in the Location field For example the server s CD ROM drive could be dev cdrom Click OK to add the drive 129 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 130 Adding a Virtual Floppy Drive to a Virtual Machine If your server contains a floppy drive you can add a virtual floppy drive to the virtual machine You can point the floppy drive to a floppy disk image file A device can be connected to only one virtual machine on a server at a time To add a new virtual floppy drive to a virtual machine make sure the virtual machine is powered off then complete the following steps On the Hardware page click Add Device The Add Device Wizard starts NS Add Device What type of hardware do you want to install Device Type Hard Disk Create a new virtual disk use an existing virtual disk or access a VMFS volume directly Network Adapter Attach a new network adapter to a virtual network of your choosing B DVD CD ROM Drive Create a new virtual DVD or CD ROM drive to access a system drive or an ISO image 8 Floppy Drive Create a new virtual floppy drive to access a system drive or a floppy image file ie Generic SCSI Device Create a new virtual device that directly accesses a system SCSI device 2 Click Floppy Drive The Floppy Drive page appears Floppy Drive 4 virtual machine may access a system drive or a floppy image file Edit Floppy Drive Configuration Device Status Connected o Connect at
208. e indicate this listing is for the parent of the curren ordinary file The word User in the third column indicates th named User The word User in the fourth column indicates member of a group named User LI 09 163 14 EEs missions are indicated for each file following sample 15 5I 17 nvram 14 vmware log 20 win2000 vmx character is the letter d e single dot at the end of the The two dots at the end of the directory The first character in the last line is a This indicates that win2000 vmx is an e file is owned by a user the file s owner is a Permissions for the owner the specified group and all other users are indicated in the first column rwxr xr The owner s permissions are specified first rwx read write and execute Permissions for other members of the group User are r x read and execute The final cluster of three characters r indicates all other users have permission to read the file but not to write to it or execute it www vmware com CHAPTER 5 Using the VMware Service Console You can change permissions for a file using the chmod command shown in the next table One convenient way of specifying the permissions you want to set is by using a numerical shorthand Read 4 Write 2 Execute 1 Combinations of these permissions are specified by adding the numbers for the permissions you want to set For example read and execute is 5 Read write and exe
209. e management interface provides a summary of the virtual machines on ESX Server Depending on your permissions you ll be able to view and modify virtual machines See Using the Status Monitor on page 90 Clicking on a virtual machine s name opens the details page for that virtual machine where you can check its CPU memory disk network hardware options and users and events Familiarize yourself with the information contained in these pages See Configuring a Virtual Machine on page 103 Create a virtual machine The Add Virtual Machine wizard only allows you to add a small number of devices to a virtual machine This makes the initial creation process simpler You may add devices later by clicking Add Device in he Hardware page for the virtual machine f you have purchased the VMware Virtual SMP for ESX Server product then you can create dual virtual CPU SMP virtual machines Be sure to take into account the type of applications you plan to run on this virtual machine when making your choices during its creation See Creating a New Virtual Machine on page 32 Add additional disks drives network adapters and SCSI devices Click Add Device in the Hardware page for the virtual machine See Configuring a Virtual Machine s Hardware on page 113 www vmware com CHAPTER 1 Introduction to VMware ESX Server Task Description Install guest operating VMware Tools is a software package installed in t
210. e management software 69 setting MIME type in browser 155 TCP IP ports used 205 VMware Management Interface 83 Management Interface Startup Profile 389 Media changer SCSI ID 207 Memory 420 maximum size 400 minimum size 399 monitoring with SNMP 260 reclaiming unused 403 resource management 399 shares 400 size for virtual machine 34 Memory resources 399 managing from the management interface 406 managing from the service console 407 emory statistics 411 412 essage passing from console operating system to guest 49 icrosoft Cluster Service 326 configuring cluster to use 331 338 installing 336 igration older ESX Server virtual machines 61 IME type setting 155 ultipathing 318 322 ultiprocessor virtual machines 59 60 N NDIS SYS 44 etwork adapters for clustering configuration 330 bandwidth management 424 bandwidth managing from management interface 424 bandwidth managing from service console 425 driver in virtual machine 63 installing driver in virtual machine 41 locating adapter in use 361 MAC address 358 monitoring with SNMP 260 setting virtual adapter to promiscuous mode 364 shaping traffic 426 sharing adapters 365 using Gigabit Ethernet 118 virtual 365 vmnet adapter 118 vmnic adapter 118 Network driver manual speed settings 363 vlance 118 vmxnet 118 Network label 369 NFS 287 nfshaper 281 435 436 IC teaming 375 IS 203 ode in clustering configuration 326 on
211. e mirroring in software These tools provide protection and data integrity semantics similar to those of the hardware based solutions However they may be more cost effective for configurations with low to medium performance requirements These software tools can be used inside guest operating systems Note We recommend that you do not use software remote mirroring tools for service console driven replication on VMware ESX Server This is because these software tools usually require file system format awareness add significantly to the www vmware com CHAPTER 3 Using the VMware Management Interface to Manage Your Virtual Machines network I O level and the CPU requirements to service that network I O and are more common on Windows and Unix operating systems than on Linux 173 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 1 74 www vmware com CHAPTER Using the VMware Remote Console The following sections describe various aspects of using the VMware Management Interface e Starting the Remote Console on Windows on page 176 e Starting the Remote Console on Linux on page 176 e Running a Virtual Machine Using the Remote Console on page 177 e Special Power Options for Virtual Machines on page 178 e VMware Tools Settings on page 180 e Installing New Software Inside the Virtual Machine on page 184 e Cutting Copying and Pasting on page 185 e Suspending and Resuming Virtual Machines on page 185 e Shutting Down a V
212. e module modules e100 0 into the VMkernel The tag for this module is vmnic Each EEPro card that was assigned to the VMkernel is given the name vmnic lt gt where lt gt starts at 0 For example if there are two EEPro cards assigned to the VMkernel they have VMkernel names of vmnic0 and vmnicl The module parameter debug is set to the value 5 279 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 280 vmkload_mod device 0 12 modules aic7xxx o vmhba loads the module modules aic7xxx o into the VMkernel The tag for this module is vmhba The Adaptec SCSI adapter is currently being used by the service console The SCSI adapter is located on PCI bus 0 slot 12 vmkload_mod exportsym modules vmklinux linuxdrivers loads the module modules vmk1linux into the VMkernel All exported symbols from this module are available to other modules that are subsequently loaded The vmk linux module is the module that allows Linux device drivers to run in the VMkernel so it is one of the few modules for which the export sym option makes sense Here are several examples of command lines that load various modules Preparing to Load Modules vmkload_mod e usr lib vmware vmkmod vmklinux linux This command must be given before you load other device modules It loads common code that allows the VMkernel to make use of modules derived from Linux device drivers to manage its high performance devices The e option is required so that the vmk linux
213. e of Contents Introduction to VMware ESX Server VMware ESX Server System Architecture Virtualization Service Console Using VMware ESX Server Working With ESX Server Where to Find More Information Creating a New Installing V Using PXE with Virtual Machines Configuring a Vi Adding the Adapter to the Vir Configuring Guest Opera Configuring Importing Upgrading and Expor 13 14 14 18 2 Familiarizing Yourself with ESX Server 2 25 29 Creating and Configuring Virtual Machines 31 Virtual Machine 32 Installing a Guest Operating System and VMware Tools 40 Installing a Guest Operating System in a Virtual Machine 40 ware Tools in the Guest Operating System 41 About the VMware Guest Operating System Service 46 52 rtual Machine to Use the LSI Logic SCSI Adapter 54 ual Machine s Configuration File 54 the LSI Logic SCSI Adapter in a Windows ting System 56 he LSI Logic SCSI Adapter in a Linux Guest Operating System 57 ting Virtual Machines 59 Configuring a Virtual Machine to Use More than One Virtual Processor ___59 tual Machines 61 Preparing to Use the Remote Management Software Ins Linux RPM Third Party Softwa Registering You igrating Older ESX Server Vi igrating VMware Workstation and VMware GSX Server Virtual Machines _62 Exporting Virtual Machines 67 alling the Remote Console Software Windows Clien S r Virtual
214. e of unprotected disks However these full image backups do not permit you to restore individual files You must restore the entire disk image and any associated logs then power on a virtual machine with these drives connected to retrieve specific data The next section describes how to ensure data integrity when backing up virtual machines from the physical computer or the service console Providing Optimum Data Integrity In Virtual Machine Backups Without Downtime You can use the VMware Scripting API included with ESX Server 2 5 in conjunction with backup products to provide snapshots or stable disk or redo log images The appropriate functions can be called from within many backup products in order to establish a safe basis for backing up images or logs You may use this approach with any disk mode persistent undoable nonpersistent or append For information on the Scripting API see the VMware Scripting API documentation at www vmware com support developer scripting API doc Scripting_API pdf Using Hardware or Software Disk Snapshots You may choose to use the snapshot capabilities offered by your disk subsystem file system or volume manager to provide stable copies of disk images As with physical 171 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 172 servers consider using some level of application integration so you can be sure your backups have the desired level of data integrity You can combine these approaches with
215. e recommended setup is to use static IP addresses for the service console It is also possible to set up the service console to use DHCP so long as your DNS server is capable of mapping the service console s host name to the dynamically generated IP address If your DNS server cannot map the host s name to its DHCP generated IP address which may be the case you must determine the service console s numeric IP address yourself and use that numeric address when accessing the management interface s Web pages Keep in mind that the numeric IP address may change as DHCP leases run out or when the system is rebooted For this reason we do not recommend using DHCP for the service console unless your DNS server can handle the host name translation Caution Do not use dynamic DHCP addressing when sharing the network adapter assigned to the Service Console with Virtual Machines ESX Server requires a static IP address for the Service Console when sharing a network adapter www vmware com CHAPTER 5 Using the VMware Service Console Managing the Service Console The command summary in this section provides an introduction to the commands you are most likely to use at the service console Some are specific to ESX Server Most are commands that are the same as those you would use at a Linux command line Connecting to the Service Console If you have direct access to the computer where ESX Server is running you can log in to the physical
216. e synchronization between the virtual machine and the host operating system Mware Tools Properties x Options Devices Scripts Shrink About l Miscellaneous Options I Time synchronization between the virtual machine and the host operating system M Show VMware Tools in the taskbar Cancel Apply Help 47 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 48 In addition the guest service can synchronize the date and time in the guest with the service console in response to various system events for example when you resume from disk You can disable this in the configuration file by setting time synchronize resume disk FALSE Shutting Down and Restarting a Virtual Machine ESX Server can signal the guest service to shut down or restart a virtual machine After the guest service receives a request to shut down or restart it sends an acknowledgment back to ESX Server You can send these requests from the VMware Management Interface or the service console s command line Whether it is possible to shut down or restart a virtual machine depends on the state of the virtual machine Shutting Down or Restarting a Virtual Machine from the VMware Management Interface You can click i to shut down or to restart a virtual machine from the VMware Management Interface After you select one of these operations you should click to the Users and Events page for this virtual machine to respond to an
217. e to which the virtual machine is bound and the network driver it uses To choose the virtual network device select either the vmnic or vmnet adapter A vmnic adapter connects the virtual machine to the physical network adapter allowing the virtual machine to look and act as another computer on the network A vmnet adapter connects the virtual machine to an internal network of other virtual machines All the virtual machines on this computer connected to a particular vmnet are on the same network To choose the network driver for this network connection you can choose between the vlance driver which installs automatically and the vmxnet driver which provides better network performance The difference in network performance is most noticeable if the virtual machine is connected to a Gigabit Ethernet card www vmware com 118 CHAPTER 3 Using the VMware Management Interface to Manage Your Virtual Machines Note If you use vmxnet in a Windows or Linux virtual machine the virtual network device is not visible to the guest operating system until you install VMware Tools see Installing VMware Tools in a Linux Guest on page 44 After the virtual machine is created you can use this tab to assign additional network adapters to the virtual machine If you need help determining which network adapter is associated with a particular device name you can use the service console s findnic command see The VMkernel Network Card Locator on page
218. e virtual machine s configuration file vmx www vmware com CHAPTER 2 Creating and Configuring Virtual Machines 2 Doone of the following e Ifyou are adding the LSI Logic adapter to a new virtual machine that is configured for a BusLogic adapter which has a guest operating system other than Windows Server 2003 switch the original BusLogic adapter to the LSI Logic adapter by changing this line scsi lt n gt virtualDev vmxbuslogic to scsi lt n gt virtualDev vmxlsilogic e Ifyou are adding the LSI Logic adapter to an existing virtual machine that is configured for a BusLogic adapter add the LSI Logic adapter with no devices after the BusLogic device For example if you have one SCSI adapter in the virtual machine already the configuration file looks something like this Ht Ht scsi0 present TRUE SCSI devices SCSI controller scsi0 uw w scsi0 virtualDev vmxbuslogic scsi0 l present TRUE n scsi0 l name vmhba0 6 0 1 win2k vmdk scsi0 l1 mode persistent To add the LSI Logic a information scsil present scsil virtual 3 Save your changes th With the LSI Logic SCSI ada must be recognized by the operating systems differ in For new Linux virtual mach dapter type the following lines after the BusLogic device TRUE Dev vmxlsilogic en close the configuration file pter added to the virtual machine s conf
219. e vmwProductSpecific vmwESX This group contains variab es specific to VMware ESX Server vmware vmwProductSpecific vmwESX esxVMKernel This group contains variables specific toVMware ESX Server s VMkernel It contains one Name Data type Description vmkLoaded Display string Has the VMkernel been loaded yes no Note If the variable showing the state of the VMkernel says no any values reported for quantitative variables should be regarded as invalid 274 www vmware com CHAPTER 7 Using SNMP with ESX Server vmware vmwtTraps This group contains the variables defined for VMware traps and related variables for use by the trap receiver for example snmpt rapa Name Data type Description vmPoweredOn Trap This trap is sent when a virtual machine is powered on or resumed from a suspended state vmPoweredOff Trap This trap is sent when a virtual machine is powered off vmSuspended Trap This trap is sent when a virtual machine is suspended vmHBLost Trap This trap is sent when a virtual machine detects a loss in guest heartbeat vmHBDetected Trap This trap is sent when a virtual machine detects or regains the guest heartbeat vmID Integer This is the vmID of the affected virtual machine in the preceding raps If the vmID is nonexistent such as for a power off trap 1 is returned vmConfigFile Display string This is the configuration file of the
220. ect the check box next to the file copy of clusterl vmdk 9 Click Edit Properties 10 Change the filename to cluster2 vmdk 11 Click OK 12 Close the Manage Files window 351 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide This concludes the cloning process Now continue with creating the second node virtual machine Cloning the Virtual Machine an Alternate Method 1 Run sysprep exe which is available on the Windows 2000 CD in the support tools deploy cab file This strips the security ID assigned to the guest operating system and resets the machine information as well as the TCP IP network configuration 2 Shut down the guest operating system and power off the virtual machine 3 At the ESX Server console log on as root 4 Change directories cd vmfs vms This changes the current directory to the VMFS partition where you created the virtual disk 5 Create a copy of the virtual disk cp clusterl vmdk cluster2 vmdk This creates a copy of the virtual disk You may repeat this command using a different target filename if you want to create more than one copy This concludes the cloning process Now continue with creating the second node virtual machine Cloning the Virtual Machine to Another ESX Server Machine This section assumes that you are planning to run each node of an eight node cluster on a separate ESX Server machine If you are planning to run a different number of nodes on each ESX Server machine adjust the pro
221. ected O Connect at Power On O Device Connection Device System Floppy Drive z Location dev fdo i Help ox Cancel To connect this virtual machine to the floppy drive check Connected Note Only one virtual machine can connect to the floppy drive on the server at a time To connect this virtual machine to the floppy drive when the virtual machine is powered on check Connect at Power On Specify whether to connect to the server s floppy drive or to a floppy image In the Device list select System Floppy Drive or Floppy Image Enter the location of the drive or floppy image in the Location field For example the server s floppy drive could be dev d0 Click OK to save your changes and close the window 115 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 116 Configuring a Virtual Machine s DVD ROM or CD ROM Drive Each virtual machine can access a physical DVD ROM or CD ROM drive on the server or an ISO image file To configure the virtual machine s DVD CD ROM drive complete the following steps 6 In the Hardware page under DVD CD ROM Drive click Edit The DVD CD ROM Drive page appears testserver Microsoft Windows NT Configuration Microsoft Internet Explorer Of x Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 roo D D CD ROM Drive IDE 0 0 A virtual machine may access a system drive or an ISO image file Edit D D CD ROM Drive Configuration Device Status Connected v
222. ed Note The illustrations above show the toolbar from a remote console running on a Windows management workstation If you are running the remote console on a Linux 177 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide management workstation the appearance of the toolbar is somewhat different but the same functions are available minzo fy war e Pomer Seang omkes Wm Hi virtual machines on your servers When VMware Tools for Windows is running the VMware Tools icon appears in the system tray Special Power Options for Virtual Machines When VMware Tools is running you can run scripts when you change the power state of a virtual machine that is when you power on power off suspend or resume the virtual machine For more information see Executing Scripts When the Virtual Machine s Power State Changes on page 72 When you reset a virtual machine you can choose to restart the guest operating system which gracefully closes applications and restarts the guest operating system or reset the virtual machine which is the same as pressing the reset button on a physical computer Similarly when you power off the virtual machine you can choose to shut down the guest operating system which gracefully closes applications and shuts the guest operating system down or turn off the virtual machine which is the same as pressing the power button on a physical computer All the power options are available on the Power menu E
223. ed it does not change unless the virtual machine is moved to a different location for example a different path on the same server or a different ESX Serve configuration file of the virtua ESX Server keeps track of all r machine We save the MAC address in the machine AC addresses that have been assigned to network adapters of running and suspended virtual machines on a given physical machine ESX Server ensures that the vi have unique MAC addresses The MAC address of a powere tual network adapters of all of these virtual machines d off virtual machine is not checked against running or suspended virtual machines 1 Therefore it is possible but unlikely that when a virtual machine is powered on again it can get a different MAC address This is due to a conflict with a virtual machine that was powered on when this virtual machine was powered off Setting MAC Addresses Manually In order to work around both the limit of 256 virtual network adapters per physical machine and possible MAC address conflicts between virtual machines the MAC addresses can be assigned manually by system administrators VMware uses a d fferent OUI for manually generated addresses 00 50 56 The MAC address range is 00 50 56 00 00 00 00 50 56 3F FF FF You can set the addresses by adding the following line to a virtual machine s configuration file ethernet lt number gt address 00 50 56 XX YY 22 where lt numbe
224. ed Path Use the r option to specify the preferred path to a disk In this example you are setting as preferred the path from controller vmhba1 0 1 to disk vmhba0 0 1 vmkmultipath s vmhba0 0 1 r vmhbal 0 1 Note ESX Server ignores the preferred path when the multipathing policy is set to MER Saving Your Multipathing Settings Your multipathing settings are saved when shutting down ESX Server normally However we suggest you run the following command as root to ensure your settings are saved in case of an abnormal shutdown usr sbin vmkmultipath S By running this command your multipathing settings are restored automatically when you restart your system In Case of Failover When a cable is pulled I O freezes for approximately 30 60 seconds until the SAN driver determines that the link is down and failover occurs During that time the virtual machines with their virtual disks installed on a SAN may appear unresponsive and any operations on the vmfs directory may appear to hang After the failover occurs I O should resume normally Even though ESX Server s failover feature ensures high availability and prevents connection loss to SAN devices all connections to SAN devices may be lost due to disastrous events that include multiple breakages If all connections to the storage device are not working then the virtual machines will begin to encounter I O errors on their virtual SCSI disks Also operations in the
225. ed previously elapses ESX Server starts the next virtual machine Specify what happens to the virtual machine when the system shuts down In the At System Shutdown Attempt to list select whether you want to power off 135 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide the virtual machine shut down the guest operating system or suspend the virtual machine To configure when ESX Server should stop the next virtual machine after this virtual machine stops in the Continue Stopping Other Virtual Machines After list choose the number of minutes or whether ESX Server should not wait before starting the next virtual machine If you want to choose a number of minutes other than what is displayed in the list select Other and enter the number of minutes at the prompt 4 Click OK to save your settings 5 Click Close Window to return to the virtual machine s Options page 136 www vmware com CHAPTER 3 Using the VMware Management Interface to Manage Your Virtual Machines Changing Configuration Options To change any of these options 1 Power off the virtual machine and click Edit The Options Configuration page appears E testserver Windows 2000 Server Configuration Microsoft Internet Explorer Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 root E Options Modify virtual machine configuration parameters irtual Machine Configuration Standard Options Display Name Windows 2000 Server Guest Operating System
226. ee Configuring the Service Console on page 238 Depending on the number of virtual machines you plan to run concurrently we have approximate guidelines for the memory you should allocate to the service console For more information see Service Console Memory on page 420 379 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 380 Using ESX Server Resource Variables The majority of this chapter describes the different parameters you can use to optimize resources on ESX Server We include information on the various algorithms and policies ESX Server uses to determine resource allocation Note In the next section we provide a practical description of resource optimization based on the behavior of ESX Server and its virtual machines We provide some general guidelines on deciding what resource variables to optimize and other general tips to improve performance on ESX Server This chapter contains the following Improving Performance on page 382 CPU Resource Management on page 384 e Allocating CPU Resources on page 384 e Admission Control Policy on page 385 e Specifying Minimum and Maximum CPU Percentages on page 385 e Using Proportional share Scheduling by Allocating Shares on page 387 e Managing CPU Time with Percentages and Shares on page 388 Managing Virtual Machine CPU Resources on page 390 e Managing CPU Resources from the Management Interface on page 390 e Managing CPU Resources from the Service Console on page 391 Memory
227. ee simple variables and one table Name Data type Description memSize Integer Amount of physical memory present on machine KB memCOS Integer Amount of physical memory used by the service console KB memAvail Integer Amount of physical memory available free KB memTable a table of memory usage by virtual machine Name Data type Description vmID Integer ID allocated to running virtual machine by the VMkernel Index field memShares Integer Shares of memory allocated to virtual machine by VMkernel memConfigured Integer Amount of memory the virtual machine was configured with KB memuUtil Integer Amount of memory utilized by the virtual machine KB instantaneous vmware vmwRe This group conta sources vmwHBATable ins physical disk adapter and targets information in one table vmwHBATable the disk adapter and target information table Name Data type Description hbaldx nteger ndex into table for HBA corresponds to the order of the adapter on Index field he physical computer hbaName Display string String describing the disk format lt devname gt lt tgt gt lt lun gt vmID nteger D assigned to running virtual machine by the VMkernel diskShares nteger Share of disk bandwidth allocated to this virtual machine numReads Integer umber of reads to this disk since disk module was loaded kbRead ntege
228. een reserved or reset Therefore when you are sharing disks among virtual machines across physical machines for high availability purposes it is often best to put only a single VMFS with a single virtual disk on each shared disk that is have only one virtual disk per physical disk In such a con figuration each virtual disk can be reserved and released independently To change the bus sharing setting complete the following steps 1 Log into the management interface as the appropriate user and be sure the virtual machine you want to configure is powered off Point to the terminal icon for the virtual machine you want to configure and click Configure Hardware Click Edit next to the appropriate SCSI controller Choose the bus sharing setting you want from the drop down list then click OK 309 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 310 Using Storage Area Networks with ESX Server VMware ESX Server can be used effectively with storage area networks SANs ESX Server supports Qlogic and Emulex host bus adapters which allow an ESX Server computer to be connected to a SAN and to see the disk arrays on the SAN The SCSI configuration information contained in this section also applies to Fibre Channel adapters but note that FC adapters may require additional configuration as well For information on supported SAN hardware download the VMware ESX Server SAN Compatibility List from the VMware Web site at ht
229. efore making changes Adding More than Six SCSI Virtual Disks to a Virtual Machine You can add up to six virtual SCSI disks on a single SCSI controller to a virtual machine using the VMware Management Interface To do so log in to the management interface as a user with the permissions to configure the virtual machine click the link to the virtual machine s name then click Hardware next to Configuration in the virtual machine summary Click Add Device and follow the wizard to add a new Hard Disk To add more than six disks to the same controller up to eight more you must edit the virtual machine s configuration file directly Device ID 7 is used by the SCSI controller so you cannot use that ID for a virtual disk For each disk you want to add from ID 8 through ID 15 take the following steps 143 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 1 4 On the Options tab for the virtual machine click the link under Verbose Options testserver Windows 2000 Server Microsoft Internet Explorer Bk Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 root CCRC ee Ce Cre Options Micra Te eS al er Last updated Thu Nov 18 15 57 02 PST 2004 iA D gt eae 2000 Server owered on PID 1449 VMID 140 Virtual Machine Configuration Standard Options Display Name Windows 2000 Server Operating System Microsoft Windows 2000 Server pend File Location Enable Logging Run with Debugging Information System Startup Options At System Startup D
230. el Console colour VGA 80x25 13 esx244 YMware init Loading nfshaper o 8 42 esx244 xinetd 1296 xinetd Version 2 3 3 started with libwrap options compiled in 42 esx244 kernel Calibrating delay loop 4797 23 BogoMIPS 8 14 esx244 VMware init Loading bem5700 0 8 42 esx244 xinetd 1296 Started working 1 available service 44 kernel Memory 189200k 197000k available 1300k kernel code 5988k reserved 96k data zl This information is useful if you are experiencing problems with ESX Server or your virtual machines If your log contains any alerts check the VMware Knowledge Base at or contact your VMware support representative For more information see the section the VMware ESX Server Installation Guide 244 www vmware com CHAPTER 6 Administering ESX Server Viewing the Availability Report To view the server availability report click the Availability Report tab Z testserver System Logs and Availability Report Microsoft Internet Explorer Of x Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 ro ue pole ne oer tr Availability Report Refresh Help Close af System Logs and Availability Report Z If your logs contain ALERTs check the VMware Knowledge Base or contact your support representative Availability Report for testserver Jul 28 2004 Nov 18 2004 Availability 97 929 Total time 113 days 4 hours Uptime 110 days 20 hours Downtime 2 days 8 hours Note Downtime is anyt
231. els of all NUMA nodes and attempts to rebalance the nodes if one node has a higher utilization level than the other nodes ESX Server rebalances the nodes by changing a virtual machine s home NUMA node from the overutilized node to an underutilized node When the NUMA nodes are balanced ESX Server again attempts to maximize use of local memory For additional information on this process refer to the numa man page You may also set affinity manually as described in the next section If you do so then ESX Server won t automatically rebalance the nodes and you must balance the NUMA nodes to avoid overloading any single node Manual NUMA Optimizations If you have applications that use a lot of memory or have a small number of virtual machines then you may want to optimize performance by setting your NUMA optimizations manually However for most users ESX Server s automatic NUMA optimizations as described in the previous section should provide you with good performance There are two NUMA options you may set manually e CPU affinity See the following section e Memory affinity See Associating Future Virtual Machine Memory Allocations with a NUMA Node on page 418 www vmware com CHAPTER 12 VMware ESX Server Resource Management Typically to bind a virtual machine to a NUMA node you should set the virtual machine s CPU affinity to use only the CPUs on the desired node and set the NUMA memory affinity t
232. en restarting the virtual machine When you have made these changes click OK In addition to these minor changes you need to change the access rights of the VMFS partition where you store the shared virtual disks By default VMFS partitions are configured for public access In order to support clustering the VMFS partition needs to be configured for shared access Take the following steps to change the access settings for the VMFS partition 339 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 340 4 5 From the management interface click the Options tab Click Storage Configuration Identify the disk volume that contains the VMFS partition where the shared virtual disks are stored Click Edit for the disk volume From the VMFS Access drop down list choose Shared Click OK You have created the first cluster node virtual machine Installing the Guest Operating System Follow the procedure in Installing the Guest Operating System on page 333 Cloning the Virtual Machine Now that you have a virtual machine with Windows 2000 Advanced Server installed you can save time by cloning this virtual machine as follows 1 Run sysprep exe which is available on the Windows 2000 CD in the support tools deploy cab file This strips the Security ID assigned to the guest operating system and resets the machine information as well as the TCP IP network configuration Shut down the guest operating system and power off the virtual
233. end Directory When a virtual machine is suspended its state is written to a file with a vmss extension By default the vmss file is written to a VMFS volume Similarly when a virtual machine is being resumed ESX Server looks for the vmss file in the same VMFS volume When you change the directory where the suspended state file for a virtual machine is stored the virtual machine must be powered off Then follow these steps 1 Log into the VMware Management Interface then click the arrow to the right of the terminal icon for the virtual machine you want to change and choose Configure Options 95 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide The Options page for this virtual machine appears in a new browser window F testserver Windows 2000 Server Microsoft Internet Explorer Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 r CMC Me a TE a le Options MIESE EST Meee G EG Last updated Thu Nov 18 15 57 02 PST 2004 ia ion diab 2000 Server owered on PID 1449 VMID 140 Virtual Machine Configuration Standard Options Display Name Windows 2000 Server Guest Operating System Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Suspend File Location Enable Logging Run with Debugging Information System Startup Options At System Startup Do not start virtual machine Continue Starting Other Virtual Machines After System Shutdown Options At System Shutdown Power off virtual machine Continue Stopping Other Virtual Machines After 3 minutes system
234. ent 3 Click Edit The Network Resource Settings page appears 3 testserver Microsoft Windows NT Configuration Microsoft Internet Explorer Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 roo Network Resource Settings g5 Adjust the network resources allocated to your virtual machine Edit Network Resources Traffic Shaping Enable Traffic Shaping O Average Bandwidth mbps Peak Bandwidth M Burst Size L M s B i Help OK Cancel 4 Enter the desired settings then click OK For information on these settings see Configuring a Virtual Machine s Networking Settings on page 111 You must log in as root in order to change resource management settings using either the management interface or procfs Managing Network Bandwidth from the Service Console You must log in as root in order to change resource management settings using the procfs interface on the service console proc vmware filters status This file contains network filtering status information including a list of all available filter classes and for each virtual machine with attached filters its list of attached filter instances Read the file with cat to see a quick report on network filtering status proc vmware filters xmitpush Command file used to add a new transmit filter instance to a virtual machine Writing lt id gt lt class gt lt args gt to this file attaches a new instance of filter lt class gt instantiated with lt args gt to the
235. entries supersede the vmware device map file entries Finding Disk Controllers You can use the vmkpcidivy command to list physical disk controllers recognized by ESX Server and the device names linked to them in the Service Console Physical disk controllers may be SCSI or block devices such as disk array controllers 207 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 208 The query option of vmkpcidivy reports various ESX Server configuration details For example you can display all disk controllers and their associated device names with the vmhba_devs query vmkpcidivy q vmhba_devs vmhba0 0 0 dev ida c0d0 vmhbal 0 0 dev sda vmhbal 0 1 dev sdb You can also find the device name linked to a specific controller with the singular vmhba_dev query vmkpcidivy q vmhba_dev vmhba0 0 0 dev ida c0do The vmhba_dev query accepts one or more controller names as arguments When You Change Storage Adapters Whenever you change storage adapters on an ESX Server system follow these steps 1 After installing the new hardware boot the ESX Server system to Linux mode 2 Runvmkpcidivy vmkpcidivy i This makes sure that kernel modules load properly 3 Reboot the ESX Server system www vmware com CHAPTER 5 Using the VMware Service Console Enabling Users to View Virtual Machines Through the VMware Remote Console The default security setting for ESX Server is that users must have read r and execute x access permissi
236. er YMware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 r ee ee a N Ta ET CETE Users and Events SLOGAN LON ESCES Last updated Thu Nov 18 17 46 32 PST 2004 iA E Microsoft Windows NT Powered off Remote Console Connections Permissions No users are connected to this virtual machine Current User root View virtual machine status Allow Modify virtual machine configuration Allow Control virtual machine Allow 15 Most Recent Thursday 11 18 2004 Power off 33 58 PM Thursday 11 18 2004 Question answered OK by local gui 5 59 38 PM Thursday 11 18 2004 No bootable CD floppy or hard disk was detected To install an operating system insert 05 59 38 PM a bootable CD or floppy and restart the virtual machine by clicking the Reset button Thursday 11 18 2004 Power on os 3 The Events list displays a log of the most recent actions or events recorded in the virtual machine such as the questions VMware ESX Server asks errors and other events like the powering on or off of the virtual machine The events appear in reverse chronological order The event log draws its data from the log file for the virtual machine s configuration file stored by default in the virtual machine s directory lt homedir gt vmware lt guestOS gt 141 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 142 When you perform an action within the management interface that prompts the virtual machine to generate a message needing your response before it can proceed a waiting
237. er Of x Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 root testse irtual Machine Startup and Shutdown Virtual machines are managed at system startup and shutdown as follows System Configuration Properties Edit Start Up and Shut Down Virtual Machines Enabled Continue Starti irtual Machines After 3 minutes or when VMware Tools starts Attempt to Continue Stopping Virtual Machines After 3 minutes at most Startup Sequence Specified Order Edit None Any Order Edit None E Help Close Window 251 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 2 Under System Configuration click Edit The System Startup and Shutdown Defaults page appears ze testserver Virtual Machine Startup and Shutdown Microsoft Internet Explorer of x Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 ro irtual Machine Startup and Shutdown es J Virtual machines are managed at system startup and shutdown as follows System Configuration Properties Edit Start Up and Shut Down Virtual Machines Enabled Continue Starting Virtual Mach After 3 minutes or when VMware Tools starts Attempt to Continue Stopping Virtual Machines After 3 minutes at most Startup Sequence Specified Order None Any Order None Help Close Window 3 To enable system wide startup and shutdown policies check the Start Up and Shut Down Virtual Machines check box 4 To configure when ESX Server should start the next virtual ma
238. er 2 5 0 build 10771 root ai CPU Resource Settings es Adjust the processor resources allocated to your virtual machine Edit CPU Resources Resource Settings Minimum Maximum Shares Isolate Virtual Machine from Hyper Threading Scheduling Affinity Run on Processor s Do not Run on Processor s Help 390 www vmware com CHAPTER 12 VMware ESX Server Resource Management 4 Enter the desired settings then click OK You must log in as root in order to change resource management settings using either the management interface or procfs Managing CPU Resources from the Service Console You can also manage CPU resources by editing the virtual machine configuration vmx file or using procfs Editing the Virtual Machine Configuration File The following configuration options enable you to manage CPU resources sched cpu shares lt n gt This configuration file option specifies the initial share allocation for a virtual machine to lt n gt shares The valid range of numerical values for lt n gt is 1 to 100000 You may also use the special values low normal and high These values are automatically converted into numbers through the configuration options CpuSharesPerVcpuLow CpuSharesPerVcpuNormal and CpuSharesPerVcpuHigh described in the next section Using procfs on page 392 If the number of CPU shares is not specified the default allocation is normal that by default is set to 1000 sha
239. er uses the device named vmnic1 You should connect the private network adapter to a separate network from that used by the public network adapter Creating the First Node s Base Virtual Machine Follow the procedure in Creating the First Node s Base Virtual Machine on page 331 with the following changes In the Virtual Disk Configuration section in step 10 click Edit next to SCSI Controller 1 to change the bus sharing from none to physical instead of virtual From the Bus Sharing drop down list select physical then click OK In the Network Device Configuration section in step 3 use vmnicl instead of vmnet_0 as the device used by Ethernet Adapter 1 Access the virtual machine menu by clicking the arrow to the right of the virtual machine icon Choose Configure Options Under Verbose Options click the click here link Change the specifications of scsil 1 name and scsil 2 nametousethe strict vmhba name for example vmhba0 1 0 1 shared1 vmdk for the VMFS partition rather than the VMFS name for example sharedfs shared1 vmdk The reason for this change is that if one ESX Server machine reboots while a virtual machine on the other physical machine is reserving the shared SCSI disk ESX Server cannot read the VMFS name on the shared disk when it is loaded and initialized If the shared virtual disk is not specified using the full vmhba name ESX Server cannot determine the disk specified by the VMFS name and gives an error wh
240. erver Network Connections Microsoft Internet Explorer oy x nel Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 ro Virtual Switches T Refresh Help Close Network Connections Virtual Switches The following virtual ethernet switches are configured for your system Overview Outbound Adapters 0 Assigned 1 Total Virtual Switches 1 Add Virtual Switch NetworkO Properties No outbound adapters Traffic will be routed locally Port Groups Creating a New Virtual Switch 1 Log in to the VMware Management Interface as root The Status Monitor page appears Click the Options tab then click the Network Connections tab The Create Virtual Switch window opens and displays configuration options for the new switch Enter a name for the virtual switch in the Network Label field The Network Labels feature allows you to specify a network label for switches and port groups that are used by virtual machines Bind Outbound Adapters lists all available adapters Select an adapter to assign it to the new switch Other Outbound Adapters lists the adapters currently assigned to other switches Select an adapter to reassign it to the new switch When you are finished selecting physical adapters click Create Switch This creates the new virtual switch and closes the window 215 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 216 Editing an Existing Virtual Switch ile To edit an existing virtual switch and its adapters c
241. ervice console as soon as the storage adapter drivers are loaded and appear in the vmfs directory The vmk stools command provides additional functions that are useful when you need to create files of a particular size and when you need to import files from and export files to the service consoles file system In addition vmk stools is designed to work with large files overcoming the 2GB limit of some standard file utilities www vmware com CHAPTER 9 Storage and File Systems Viewing and Manipulating Files in the vmfs Directory You can view and manipulate files under vmfs in these mounted VMFS volumes with ordinary file commands such as 1s and cp Although mounted VMFS volumes may appear similar to any other file system such as ext3 VMFS is primarily intended to store large files such as disk images Unfortunately the service console which is based on a Linux 2 4 kernel does not support files greater than 2GB nfs is known to run into this limitation while ftp scp and cp are not affected by it Thus you should use ftp scp and cp for copying files to and from a VMFS volume as long as the host file system supports these large files Note Ifyou use the 1s command inside a ftp session the file size may be different from the output of the 1s 1 command or vmk stools 1 command This is because ftp uses 32 bit values for file sizes and the maximum file size it can display is 4GB However you can safely transfer any
242. es Once this mapping is established you access the raw disk or partition like a normal file For more information on this mapping see Using vmkfstools on page 290 in particular the vmkfstools r option Note See also the VMware technical note Using Raw Device Mappings with ESX Server at www vmware com support resources esx_resources html Using a Physical Disk in a Virtual Machine In order for the virtual machine to access a physical disk or LUN you must add the disk to the virtual machine This example assumes that the virtual machine s first disk is a virtual disk and you are adding the physical disk as the second disk If you want the virtual machine s first disk to be a physical disk see Creating a New Virtual Machine on page 32 and select System LUN Disk for your virtual disk 1 Log into the VMware Management Interface as the user who owns the virtual machine or as the root user The Status Monitor page appears 2 Click the arrow to the right of the terminal icon for the virtual machine you want to change and choose Configure Hardware www vmware com CHAPTER 9 Storage and File Systems The Hardware page for this virtual machine appears in a new browser window F testserver Windows 2000 Server Microsoft Internet Explorer Bik YMware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 rc Status Monitor CPU Memory Disk Network Hardware Options Users and Events Refresh Help Close Last updated Thu Noy 18 16 00 50 PST 2004
243. es and report through the management interface e VMkernel warnings and serious system alerts the data for which is gathered from var log vmkwarning in the service console For more information see Viewing VMkernel Warnings on page 242 VMkernel messages the data for which is gathered from var log vmkernel1 in the service console For more information see Viewing VMkernel Messages on page 243 241 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 242 e Service Console messages the data for which is gathered from var 1log messages in the service console For more information see Viewing Service Console Logs on page 244 e The availability report which contains information and statistics about server uptime and downtime For more information see Viewing the Availability Report on page 245 You should periodically check the VMkernel warning and alert messages for out of memory errors hardware failures and so on To view these log files and the availability report complete the following steps 1 Make sure you are logged into the management interface as the root user 2 Click Options then click System Logs 3 Click the appropriate tab for the log file you want to view Viewing VMkernel Warnings To view VMkernel warnings and serious system alerts click the VMkernel Warnings tab Z esx244 System Logs and Availability Report Microsoft Internet Explorer iol x Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 11152 rc sXx244 e
244. es you configure your virtual machine with a blank unformatted SCSI virtual disk You can install an operating system on this virtual disk just as you would on anew physical machine using a standard installation CD ROM and formatting the virtual disk at the appropriate place in the installation process You may also install from image files ISO image files of installation CD ROMs and floppy image files of any floppy disks needed for the installation Use the VMware Management Interface to connect the virtual machine s drives to the appropriate image files before you begin the installation Another approach is to start with a virtual disk created with VMware Workstation 3 2 or higher or with VMware GSX Server 2 5 or higher then configure the guest operating system to work with VMware ESX Server Once your guest operating system is installed be sure to follow the directions below for installing VMware Tools and the network driver Installing a Guest Operating System in a Virtual Machine To install a guest operating system and other software use the VMware Remote Console on a different system than the one on which you ve installed ESX Server For details on installing the remote console see Installing the Remote Console Software on page 70 Follow the directions in that section for starting a remote console on your Windows or Linux workstation and connecting to a virtual machine nsert the installation CD ROM for your guest operating
245. es each This provides protection from both hardware and software failures Physical Physical machine machine Four two node clusters moved from eight physical machines to two 329 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide Cost effective Standby Host Provide a standby host for multiple physical machines on one standby box with multiple virtual machines Cluster software Cluster software Cluster software Cluster software Cluster software A standby host using three virtual machines on a single physical machine all are running clustering software Cluster software Physical machine Configuring Virtual Machine Clusters with Shared Disks To create a set of clustered virtual machines you need to configure each of them with the following e A primary virtual SCSI host adapter with one SCSI virtual disk e Atleast two virtual network adapters e A public network adapter connected to vmnicx that is to vmnic0O or higher A vmnic is a virtual machine device that uses a network adapter dedicated to the virtual machines e A private network adapter connected to vmnicx that is to vmnic0O or higher or to vmnet_x that is to vmnet_0 or higher This device selection must match in all virtual machines in a cluster set This is the network adapter that the clustering service will use to monitor the heartbeat between nodes e The remaining default virtual machine devices such as the CD R
246. es in the order in which they are configured to start the order in which the virtual machines stop is the reverse of the order in which they start so the last virtual machine to start on system startup is the first to stop when the system shuts down To specify the startup order select machines and use the arrows to move them up or down within the list e Any Order lists the virtual machines that are configured to start and stop in any order Move virtual machines to this category if you want them to start and stop with the system but you do not want to set the order for those virtual machines The virtual machines in this category do not start or stop until all the virtual machines listed in the Specified Order list have started or stopped 255 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide Rebooting or Shutting Down the Server To reboot or shut down the computer where ESX Server is running 1 Log in to the management interface as root The URL to connect to the server ishttp lt hostname gt On the Status Monitor page be sure all virtual machines are shut down or suspended Then click the Options tab SPtestseiver VMware Management Intertace Mictosolt Intemet Explores HBk gt gt QL A Aeh Foe Beet J D SS TAAS DB Ageri E taps Amtscever vemeanr len Refresh Manage Fies Help Log Out VMware ESX Server Options amp startup Profile storage Management
247. ese configuration settings are discussed in Configuring a Virtual Machine on page 103 Caution Only one user at a time should modify the configuration for a particular virtual machine You can modify other settings in the configuration These settings include Recommended Configuration Options on page 75 Modifying the SMBIOS UUID on page 76 Enabling the Physical Hardware s OEM ID to Be Seen by the Virtual Machine on page 80 To modify these settings in the configuration manually edit the configuration file by doing one of the following Use the configuration file editor in the VMware Management Interface Point to the terminal icon for the virtual machine then click the arrow to the right of the terminal icon and select Configure Options Then under Verbose Options click the link For more information see Modifying the Configuration File Directly Advanced Users Only on page 137 Log into the service console and use a text editor there For purposes of illustration we assume that you are working with the file newvm vmx ina directory named virtual machines vml 74 www vmware com CHAPTER 2 Creating and Configuring Virtual Machines Recommended Configuration Options This section details options that can influence the performance of your virtual machines These settings are not required to run VMware ESX Server correctly SleepWhenldle The configuration file option monitor SleepWhenIdle determines whether the V
248. et vmhba0 1 0 0 If this fails you try the following command vmkfstools L reset vmhba0 1 0 0 Using LUN Masking to Avoid Locking Issues Locking issues are especially likely to happen on a SAN where multiple users may be accessing some of the same disks or may mistakenly access a disk assigned to another user It is often helpful to use LUN masking or zoning to limit what disks are visible to each server in the system and therefore reduce the ways in which one user can affect another user In particular the use of LUN masking or zoning can help prevent problems such as those described above in which one server unexpectedly locks or reserves the wrong SCSI disk www vmware com CHAPTER 10 Configuration for Clustering Network Load Balancing What Is Network Load Balancing Network Load Balancing is a Windows 2000 Advanced Server feature By using Network Load Balancing to build a server cluster you can enhance the availability of Internet server programs such as those used on Web proxy domain name service DNS FTP virtual private network VPN and streaming media servers Network Load Balancing can help you scale your server s performance NLB can be used in unicast or multicast modes If the is cluster operating in unicast mode the default ordinary network communication among cluster hosts is not possible unless each cluster host has at least two network adapters Note Set the vmkernel configuration o
249. evice is set to vmxbus logic your Virtual Machine receives the error message DEVICE_NOT_THERE e If you chose the LSI Logic adapter i e if Virtual Device is set to vmxlsilogic your Virtual Machine receives the error message BTSTAT_SELTIMEO You may need to set returnBusyOnNoConnect Status to FALSE when disk management software operating in a virtual machine needs to detect access failures For example some types of disk mirroring software will not select a duplicate disk 75 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 76 unless they detect a discrete failure to access a primary disk Reporting that a targeted disk is busy rather than unavailable may cause mirroring programs to repeat the connection attempt instead of selecting a duplicate disk ESX Server does not automatically include an explicit returnBusyOnNoConnect Status option definition for each SCSI disk in a virtual machine If the option is not defined for a disk in the virtual machine configuration file ESX Server defaults to a value of TRUE You need to both create an option definition for each disk and set it to FALSE if you wish to override the default value of TRUE See Modifying the Configuration File Directly Advanced Users Only on page 137 for instructions Modifying the SMBIOS UUID Each ESX Server virtual machine is automatically assigned a universally unique identifier UUID which is stored in the SMBIOS system i
250. figure the SAN and format the VMFS 2 volumes After you have finished the configuration be sure that all partitions on the physically shared SAN disk are set for public or shared access for access by multiple ESX Server systems see VMFS Accessibility on page 288 For information on configuring SANs scanning for LUNs and setting persistent bindings through the VMware Management Interface see Configuring Storage Area etworks on page 227 Scanning for Devices and LUNs ESX Server scans for devices and LUNs on these devices whenever a Fibre Channel driver is loaded You can manually initiate a scan through the VMware Management nterface or by using the cos rescan sh command We recommend using cos rescan sh because it is easier to use with certain Fibre Channel adapters than vmkf stools To use cos rescan sh simply enter the command at a shell prompt You may want to rescan devices or LUNs whenever you add a new disk array to the SAN or create new LUNs on a disk array You may also want to rescan LUNs when you change the LUN masking on a disk array Note Ifyou are using multipathing with multiple FC HBAs then you should run this command on all of the FC HBAs If after your rescan you see new LUNs and they have VMFS volumes then you will see the appropriate subdirectories when you view the contents of the vmfs directory Changing VMkernel Configuration Options for SANs In order to use all storage devices on your SAN
251. for all the files at once Any changes you make using the drop down lists in the file manager apply to all the files you have selected e A letter corresponding to the letter at the top of the column read write or execute indicates that the setting is the same for all files and it does grant the permission indicated by the letter e Ahyphen indicates that the setting is the same for all files and it does not grant permission e Ablank space indicates that the setting is not the same for all files VMware File Manager for root testserver ymware com Microsoft Internet Explorer vmfts vmhbad 6 0 1 Current Directory Ferre l B File Name Linux dsk r User M Group M Others M a a a a a a a a a a a a OK Cancel fA vmhba0 6 0 3 gA vmhba0 6 0 6 e vex Selected File s Select All Use the top pane of the file manager to navigate the directory structure and create new directories To create a new directory click New enter the name for the directory then click OK Setting Permissions for Owners of Virtual Machines The VMware Management Interface uses the permissions of the virtual machine s configuration vmx file to determine the privileges a user has on a particular virtual machine The user needs read r access to view the virtual machine write w access to modify the virtual machine s configuration parameters and execute x access to perform power operations on the virtu
252. formation is provided for virtual machines if their configuration files are stored locally on the ESX Server computer If the configuration files are stored on an NFS mounted drive information for the virtual machines does not appear in the SNMP tables SNMP Traps Four SNMP traps notify you of critical events in particular virtual machines The affected virtual machine is identified by ID number and configuration file path The traps notify you When a virtual machine is powered on or resumed from a suspended state When a virtual machine is powered off When the virtual machine detects a loss of heartbeat in the quest operating system When a virtual machine is suspended When the virtual machine detects that the guest operating system s heartbeat has started or resumed Note VMware Tools must be installed in the guest operating system to support the traps that detect loss and resumption of the guest s heartbeat 261 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 262 Note Traps are not generated immediately when virtual machines are registered using the VMware Management Interface To enable trap generation you must restart vmware serverd You may restart vmware serverd by rebooting the server or by logging in to the service console as root and issuing the command killall HUP vmware serverd www ymware com CHAPTER 7 Using SNMP with ESX Server Overview of Setting Up ESX Server SNMP ESX Server 2 5 includes two daemons a
253. ft Internet Explorer Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 roc Virtual Disk Ga Add a hard disk to your virtual machine Which type of virtual disk would you like to add Blank Create a new virtual disk Existing Attach an existing virtual disk to your virtual machine System LUN Disk Give your virtual machine direct access to a SAN LUN 5 Click System LUN Disk to allow the virtual machine to access a physical disk stored on a LUN Then specify the following E esx244 Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Configuration Microsoft Internet Explorer iof x YMware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 11152 root esx244 eng vmware com irtual Disk G Add a hard disk to your virtual machine Edit irtual Disk Configuration System LUN Disk Target LUN Disk vmhbaQ 1 1 20 0 G Partitions 0 Disk Metadata Use Metadata M Metadata File Location vmfs vmhba0 1 0 2 11 1 G free Metadata File Name Untitled vmdk Virtual Device Virtual SCSI Node Compatibility Physical Allow the guest operating system to access the underlying hardware directly Virtual Allow the virtual machine to take advantage of disk modes and other features of virtual disks f Help Par Cancel Select Use Metadata to enable access to the disks metadata file information Choose the Metadata File Location Enter a name in the Metadata File Name field o NA Select the appropriate SCSI ID in the Virtual SCSI Node list ww
254. g system to guest 49 Commit 294 Communication from console operating system to guest 49 Configuration clustering with virtual machines 325 virtual machine 33 74 157 Configuration options for SANs 311 313 Configuring a Virtual Machine s Startup and Shutdown Options 135 Console operating system 190 Copy in file manager 160 text 185 cp 287 CPU affinity set 386 maximum percentage 384 minimum percentage 384 monitoring with SNMP 260 scheduling virtual machine use of 384 shares 385 CPU resources 384 managing from the management interface 390 managing from the service console 391 CPU statistics 396 398 Cut in file manager 160 text 185 433 434 D Debug monitor 134 Devices 207 devices notes on adding and removing adapters 208 DHCP 190 Directories managing remotely 159 Directory creating 162 Disk bandwidth managing from the management interface 429 managing from the service console 430 Disk bandwidth management 428 Disk mode 36 37 120 147 append 36 37 120 121 nonpersistent 36 37 120 persistent 36 37 120 undoable 36 37 120 121 Disks monitoring with SNMP 260 SCSI target IDs 306 shared in clustering configuration 330 using vmkfstools to manipulate files on 290 Display name for virtual machine 33 E Edit configuration open from file manager 160 ESX Server configuring 152 Export virtual machine 67 183 292 F Failover 322 Failover switches 371 File manager 159 cut cop
255. g Device number name dev fdO etc NULL if not present fdConnected Display string Is the floppy drive connected mounted cdromTable a table of CD ROM drives seen by this virtual machine Name Data type Description vmidx Integer This number corresponds to the index of the virtual Index field machine in vmTable cdromldx Integer Index into CD ROM table Order of the CD ROM device on Index field his virtual machine cdromName Display string Device number name dev CDROM etc NULL if not present cdromConnected Display string s the CD ROM drive connected mounted vmware vmwResources This group contains statistics on the physical machine s resources categorized into several subgroups vmware vmwResources vmwCPU This group contains CPU related information in one simple variable and one table Name Data type Description numCPUs Integer Number of physical CPUs on the system cpuTable CPU usage by virtual machine Name Data type Description vmID Integer ID allocated to running virtual machine by the VMkernel Index field cpuShares Integer Share of CPU allocated to virtual machine by VMkernel cpuUtil Integer Amount of time the virtual machine has been running on the CPU seconds www ymware com CHAPTER 7 Using SNMP with ESX Server vmware vmwResources vmwMemory This group contains RAM information in thr
256. g Memory Across Virtual Machines Managing Virtual Machine Memory anaging Memory Resources from the Management Interface anaging Memory Resources from the Service Console Using Your NUMA System UMA Configuration Information 402 403 404 406 406 407 Automatic NUMA Optimizations anual NUMA Optimizations Sizing Memory on the Server 416 416 420 Server Memory Service Console Memory Virtual Machine Memory Pool Virtual Machine Memory 420 420 420 www ymware com 10 Cc sing Net anaging anaging Traffic Sha Managing D Allocation anaging anaging emory Sharing emory Overcommitment Example Web Server Consolidation ore Information Managing Network Bandwidth Configuration File Options 421 422 423 423 work Filters etwork Bandwidth from the Management Interface etwork Bandwidth from the Service Console ping with nfshaper 425 426 sk Bandwidth Policy Disk Bandwidth from the Management Interface Disk Bandwidth from the Service Console 428 428 429 429 430 11 12 www vmware com CHAPTER Introduction to VMware ESX Server This VMware ESX Server Administration Guide provides information on how to use VMware ESX Server once it has been installed For information on installing ESX Server refer to the VMware ESX Server Installation Guide This
257. ge 399 and Using Your NUMA System on page 414 Enhance disk bandwidth utilization on virtual machines You can set disk bandwidth for a virtual machine A virtual machine with more shares has more bandwidth See Configuring a Virtual Machine s Disk Usage on page 110 and Managing Disk Bandwidth on page 428 Enhance networking performance on virtual machines You can manage networking performance by enabling traffic shaping and specifying network parameters See Configuring a Virtual Machine s Networking Settings on page 111 and Managing Network Bandwidth on page 424 Remove any unnecessary programs or services from your virtual machines Remove any unnecessary programs or services such as CPU intensive screensavers from your virtual machines Run Linux virtual machines without the X Window system if possible Be sure that the service console has enough CPU and RAM If you are running a lot of virtual machines on ESX server and you notice a degradation in system performance then you should increase the CPU minimum for the service console Configuring the Service Console on page 238 www vmware com CHAPTER 1 Introduction to VMware ESX Server Task Description Be sure there is sufficient swap space for your guest Operating system For resource management purposes ESX Server may increase the memory utilization within a guest operating system Therefore it is importa
258. gether with the subagent vmware snmpd daemon However the subagent daemon cannot run alone Starting the SNMP Agents Manually If you need to start the SNMP agents manually log in as root in the service console and run the following commands etc rce d init d snmpd start etc re d init d vmware snmpd start The first command starts the master SNMP daemon either the default SNMP daemon The second command starts the subagent vmware snmpd daemon By default the agents start and run as background processes Note As described previously the master snmpd daemon can run by itself or together with the subagent vmware snmpd daemon However the subagent daemon cannot run alone shipped with ESX Server or your third party management application SNMP daemon 267 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 268 Configuring SNMP Configuring SNMP Trap Destinations Currently you cannot configure trap destinations through the VMware Management Interface To configure traps log into the service console as the root user and modify the etc snmp snmpd conf file as follows 1 Using a text editor add the following line replacing mercury solar com with the name of the host on your network that will receive traps You may repeat this line to specify more than one destination trapsink mercury solar com 2 Add the following line replacing public with a community name of your choice There can only be one instance of this line tr
259. gin sharing the network adapter without rebooting the system you can manually issue the same commands you added to etc rce d re local insmod vmxnet_console devName vmnic0 ifup eth0 www vmware com CHAPTER 11 Networking Using Virtual Switches ESX Server allows you to create abstracted network devices called virtual ethernet switches Each virtual switch is a network hub that can be used by virtual machines A virtual switch can route traffic internally between virtual machines or link to external networks Virtual switches can be used to combine the bandwidth of multiple network adapters and balance communications traffic among them They can also be configured to maintain persistent network connections despite link failures for individual adapters A virtual switch models a physical ethernet switch A virtual switch contains 32 logical ports You can connect one network adapter of a virtual machine to each port Each virtual switch can also have one or more port groups assigned to it For more information on port groups see Creating Port Groups on page 216 Choosing a Network Label ESX Server uses network labels to represent network connections to virtual machines The network label is intended to be a functional descriptor for the network connection ESX Server represents both virtual switches and port groups to virtual machines by assigning them a network label You can only change the network label for a switch when
260. gs dialog box changes to allow you to choose specific security settings zs testserver Security Settings Microsoft Internet Explorer Of x Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 root Security Settings Control how your YMware ESX Server is accessed Current Security Settings Customize your security settings Management Interface Allow unencrypted Management Interface sessions Remote Console Allow unencrypted Remote Console sessions Enable secure remote login services Enable FTP services Telnet Enable Telnet services NFS Enable NFS file sharing services E Help l OK Cancel Check the appropriate boxes for items you want to enable then click OK 225 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide Configuring the SNMP Agent Use the SNMP Configuration option to configure the ESX Server SNMP agent and sub agent allowing you to monitor the health of the server and of virtual machines running on the server E testserver SNMP Configuration Microsoft Internet Explorer YMware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 root SNMP Configuration Enable disable and configure your system monitoring agents Current SNMP Status and Configuration Master SNMP Agent Status Stopped Startup Type Manual Startup Script fete init d snmpd Configuration File fete snmp snmpd conf Mware SNMP SubAgent Status Disabled VMware Traps Disabled 5 x Start Automatic Change Change Enable Enable
261. h the computer in 5 minutes shutdown r now Shut down and restart r the computer immediately 197 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 198 Command Example and Explanation umount Unmount a specified device umount mount floppy Unmount the device currently mounted at mount floppy useradd Add a new user to the system useradd newuser Add a new user with a user name of newuser to the system whoami Show what user name you are curren who Show the user names of all users logged in to the system ly using on the system Setting File Permissions and Ownership Files and directories on the service console ca n have read write and execute permissions Those permissions can be on or off for the owner of the file generally the user who created it the specified group generally a group to which the creator belongs and all other users on the system Pe when you display a long directory listing as seen in the User vmwareserver win2000 ls la total 104 drwxr xr x 2 User drwxr xr x 5 User e pyaasieSs 1 User a ioia S Aaa 1 User rwxr xr 1 User User User User User User 4096 4096 8664 77763 1307 Jul Jul Jul Jul Jul No YN NN Notice that in the top two lines of the directory listing the firs That indicates the listing on the line is for a directory Th first line indicates this listing is for the current directory 1 second lin
262. hba lt x y z gt 430 www vmware com CHAPTER 12 VMware ESX Server Resource Management Reading from this file reports the number of disk bandwidth shares allocated to the virtual machine identified by lt id gt for the disk identified by vmhba lt x y z gt It also reports disk usage statistics Writing a number lt n gt to this file changes the number of disk bandwidth shares allocated to the virtual machine identified by lt id gt to lt n gt The valid range of values for lt n gt is 0 to 100000 Or you may use the special values low normal and high These values are automatically converted into numbers through the configuration options DiskSharesLow DiskSharesNormal and DiskSharesHigh described in this section proc vmware config Disk SchedNumReqOut standing This option specifies the number of outstanding commands allowed to a disk when there are multiple virtual machines competing for bandwidth The default value is 1 6 the valid range of numeric values is from 1 to 256 Note that selecting a number larger than 16 may affect the ability of ESX Server to provide fair allocation of disk bandwidth proc vmware config Disk SchedQuantum This option specifies the number of sequential requests that a virtual machines may issue to a disk without being preempted by another virtual machine The default value is 8 the valid range of numeric values is from 1 to 64 proc vmware config Disk SharesLow This option specif
263. hbal 3 0 1 This example illustrates extending the new logical file system by adding the 4th partition of target 1 and LUN 2 of vmhba adapter 0 The extended file system 299 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 300 supports a maximum of 64 2 X 32 files and spans two partitions vmhbal 3 0 1andvmhba0 1 2 4 You can address the file system by using the name of its head partition for example vmhbal 3 0 1 Names a VMFS volume vmkfstools S mydisk vmhbal 3 0 1 This example illustrates assigning the name of mydisk to the new file system Creates a new VMFS virtual disk file vmkfstools c 2000m mydisk rh6 2 vmdk This example illustrates creating a 2GB VMFS file with the name of rh6 2 vmdk on the VMFS volume named mydisk The rh6 2 vmdk file represents an empty disk that may be accessed by a virtual machine Imports the contents of a virtual disk to the specified file on a SCSI device vmkfstools i vms nt4 vmdk vmhba0 2 0 0 nt4 vmdk The example illustrates importing the contents of a virtual disk that contains Windows NT 4 0 from the service console s file system to a file named nt 4 vmdk on target 2 of SCSI adapter 0 You can configure a virtual machine to use this virtual disk by adding the following lines to its configuration file scsi0 virtualDev vmxbuslogic scsi0 0 present TRUE scsi0 0 name vmhba0 2 0 0 nt4 vmdk Migrate virtual machines to VMware GSX Server or VMware Workstation then
264. he virtual machine s files essentially the same performance you would get if the virtual machine were installed on a raw SCSI partition 229 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 230 Note Keep in mind that only four primary partitions can exist on a drive If you have an extended partition to contain logical partitions that counts as one of your four primary partitions Click Yes to create the core dump partition ESX Server also creates the VMFS partition After you create the partition you can add a volume label determine access mode and the maximum file size and span the disk with any public extents For more information about access modes see VMFS Accessibility on page 288 Editing a Disk Partition Select a partition to edit and click Edit F esx244 Storage Management Microsoft Internet Explorer Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 11152 Disks and LUNs MZUOTI A ume Ce cm T eg eer Tee a GA Be ed Storage Management Disk and LUN Configuration Create and modify YMFS volumes suitable for storing virtual disk files Disk ymhbaO 1 1 E olume vmhba0 1 1 1 Remove volume Label File System VMFS 2 11 Access Mode Public z Maximum File Size 456 00 G E Capacity 19 99 G Extent Candidates Warning Exercise caution when selecting extent candidates to span Any data that extent candidates may contain will be irreversibly destroyed when they are spanned vymhba0 1 0 2 VMFS 2 11 15 95 G m Span
265. he Apache server type etc init d httpd vmware start To stop the Apache server type etc init d httpd vmware stop To restart the Apache server type etc init d httpd vmware restart www vmware com CHAPTER 3 Using the VMware Management Interface to Manage Your Virtual Machines Setting a MIME Type to Launch the VMware Remote Console From a browser you can connect to a virtual machine from a remote console by clicking the terminal icon for that virtual machine Before doing so Netscape and Mozilla users need to define a MIME type of x vmware console and associate it with the remote console program file Internet Explorer is automatically configured when you install the console Setting the MIME Type in Netscape 7 0 and Mozilla 1 x If you are using Netscape 7 0 or Mozilla 1 x and want to launch the VMware Remote Console from the VMware Management Interface you must first set a MIME type for the remote console program The procedure is similar for Windows and Linux hosts Both involve writing a short script that provides the command to launch the remote console In Netscape or Mozilla follow these steps to set the MIME type 1 Open a text editor and do one of the following On a Windows host write a short batch file called vmwareConsole helper bat The batch file must contain the following line lt path_to_vmwareConsole gt o 1 where the default lt path_to_vmwareConsole gt
266. he Options page appears Note Only a user with administrator privileges root user can access this tab Viiware ESX Server Options Startup Profile SB Security settings Enable and Virtual Machine Startup and Shutdown Y the behavior of virtual machines at systern startup nd installers On this page are options that allow you to configure ESX Server For detailed information on each of these links see Modifying VMware ESX Server on page 212 Click the Status Monitor tab to return to the Status Monitor page 152 www vmware com CHAPTER 3 Using the VMware Management Interface to Manage Your Virtual Machines Logging Out of the VMware Management Interface When you are ready to log out of the VMware Management Interface click Logout on the Status Monitor or Options page You are prompted to confirm that you want to log out Logging out does not affect the virtual machines on the host or any remote consoles you opened from the management interface VMware Management Interface sessions expire automatically after 60 minutes of inactivity or idle time 153 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 154 Using the Apache Web Server with the Management Interface On VMware ESX Server an Apache server is installed with the VMware Management Interface These are the commands to start stop or restart the Apache server In order to use these commands you must first log in as root su To start t
267. he guest operating system and VMware Tools system that gives you device drivers specific to VMware virtual devices where necessary and it also includes several communication channels between the virtual machine and the ESX Server virtualization layer See Installing a Guest Operating System and VMware Tools on page 40 For more information about VMware Tools and the services it provides see VMware Tools Settings on page 180 Working With ESX Server This section includes information on maintenance tasks performance enhancements and general troubleshooting tips The following table includes ESX Server maintenance tasks for an Administrator root user Back up your virtual You can do backups for each virtual machine or from the service console machines Backups from the service console are best for system images because they result in a backup bootable virtual disk and are suitable for rapid redeployment See Backing Up from within a Virtual Machine on page 170 Backups from within the virtual machine using a backup agent are best for application data because no system shutdown is required See Backing Up Virtual Machines from the Service Console on page 171 Use scripts to For more information on VMware Scripting APIs see schedule frequent tasks View system logs and As needed view the ESX Server log files for warnings serious system alerts reports through the and messages through t
268. he management interface management interface See Viewing System Logs and Reports on page 241 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide The following table includes ESX Server performance related tasks for an Administrator root user Task Description Enhance performance on virtual machines based on its application s ESX Server applies a proportional share mechanism to CPU memory allocation and disk bandwidth Typically the more shares a virtual machine has the more CPU memory or disk bandwidth it has For example virtual machines running a CPU intensive application should have a greater minimum CPU and memory share than a virtual machine running a non CPU intensive application For additional information on resource management see VMware ESX Server Resource Management on page 377 Enhance CPU performance on virtual machines You can set minimum and maximum percentages as well as memory shares for each virtual machine You can also select the processors on which the virtual machine runs See Configuring a Virtual Machine s CPU Usage on page 105 and CPU Resource Management on page 384 Enhance memory utilization on virtual machines You can set memory shares for a virtual machine If you have a NUMA machine you can also select the NUMA affinity nodes for the virtual machine See Configuring a Virtual Machine s Memory Usage on page 107 Memory Resource Management on pa
269. he management interface use this URL http lt hostname gt File Edit View Favorites Tools Help EBak gt A A ASearch Favorites Meda 9 Mware Management Interface Username Password 1 On the management interface login page enter your user name and password then click Login The Status Monitor page appears 32 www vmware com CHAPTER 2 Creating and Configuring Virtual Machines 2 Click Add Virtual Machine The Add Virtual Machine wizard starts F testserver Add Virtual Machine Microsoft Internet Explorer Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 root testse gf Add Yirtual Machine Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition Virtual Machine Configuration Standard Options Guest Operating System Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition E Display Name Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition Location root vmware winNetEnterprise winNetEnterprise vmx B 7 j Help Next Cancel 3 Choose the guest operating system for your virtual machine Corresponding default entries appear for the name of the virtual machine and the name of its configuration file You can change these settings The name you enter in the Display Name field is the name that is listed in the VMware Management Interface Be sure to enter a name that allows you to distinguish this virtual machine from others you have created or plan to c
270. hen multiple virtual machines are contending for the same resource Network bandwidth is controlled with network traffic shaping CPU and memory resource each offer an additional dimension of control For CPU management you can specify a minimum and maximum percentage of a single physical CPU s processing power for each virtual machine You may also specify CPU shares and restrict a virtual machine to run on a certain set of physical CPUs CPU scheduling affinity For more information see Admission Control Policy on page 385 Similarly you may specify minimum and maximum memory sizes as well as memory shares for each virtual machine Your level of control is greatly impaired however if you fail to install VMware Tools in each virtual machine or if you fail to set up the VMkernel swap space For more information see Allocating Memory Resources on page 399 Note You should not have to adjust resources for every virtual machine you create We suggest that you determine which virtual machines are performance sensitive and adjust these accordingly Service Console Resource Management The service console receives 2000 CPU shares and has a minimum CPU percentage of 8 percent by default In most cases this should be an appropriate allocation since the service console should not be used for CPU intensive tasks If you do find it necessary to adjust the service console s allocation of CPU shares you can use the VMware Management Interface S
271. hese sections e Managing CPU Resources from the Service Console on page 391 e Managing Memory Resources from the Service Console on page 407 e Manual NUMA Optimizations on page 416 e Managing Disk Bandwidth from the Management Interface on page 429 e Managing Disk Bandwidth from the Service Console on page 430 Note The contents and format of the proc vmware directory may change between releases of ESX Server proc vmware Entry Description chipset State of interrupt controllers config Advanced ESX Server parameters available through the VMware Management Interface debug Debugging information filters Network traffic shaping See Traffic Shaping with nfshaper on page 426 interrupts Used together with chipset to determine the state of interrupt controllers log VMkernel log output loglevels Amount of debug logging mem Memory parameters See Memory Resource Management on page 399 migration Reserved for future use net Configuration and statistics for virtual NICs and bond devices See Binding Physical Adapters on page 369 pci State of PCI adapters in the system what they are and how they re partitioned procstats Statistics for the proc vmware directory pshare Page sharing statistics for memory resource management See Sharing emory Across Virtual Machines on page 404 and Memory Sharing on page 421 rpcstats Statistics on remote
272. hreshold will the server identify a link as disconnected and switch to another adapter By default the beacon failure threshold is set to zero for each virtual switch You can enable beacon monitoring by setting the failure threshold to two or greater ESX Server also allows you to determine the frequency with which it issues beacons The rate at which the server broadcasts beacons in conjunction with the failure threshold determines the total monitoring interval before the server identifies a link as isolated Beacon Interval in seconds X Beacon Failure Threshold Total Beacon Failure Interval You set the failure threshold for an individual switch with the switch_failover_threshold option This example describes how to set the failure threshold for bond1 to 2 beacons 1 Log into the Service Console as root 2 Edit etc vmware hwconfig 3 Set the beacon failure threshold for bond1 nicteam bondl switch_failover_threshold 2 4 Save the file and close it ESX server broadcasts beacons with the same frequency for all switches The SwitchFailoverBeaconInterval option sets this value The server also defines an overall failure threshold for all switches with the SwitchFailoverThreshold option but switch_failover_threshold overrides this value for each individual switch You can set the values of the SwitchFailoverBeaconInterval and SwitchFailoverThreshold options in the Advanced Settings panel of the Management Interfac
273. iate choices next to the NUMA nodes Click OK See Managing Memory Resources from the Management Interface on page 406 for additional information e Virtual machine configuration file Add the following sched mem affinity lt NUMA_node gt where lt NUMA_node gt is the number of a single NUMA node e procfs interface on the service console proc vmware vm lt id gt mem affinity Write the number of the NUMA node www vmware com CHAPTER 12 VMware ESX Server Resource Management Example of Binding a Virtual Machine to a Single NUMA Node on an 8 way Server The following example illustrates manually binding four CPUs to a single NUMA node for a virtual machine In the example we want this virtual machine to run only on node 1 An example output of cat proc vmware NUMA hardware is NUMA Nodes 2 Total memory 14336 MB Node ID MachineMem ManagedMem CPUs 0 00 4096 MB 1210 MB 012 3 01 10240 MB 6143 MB 4567 The CPUs for example 4 5 6 and 7 are the physical CPU numbers 1 Complete one of the following to bind a two way virtual machine to use only the last four physical CPUs of an eight processor machine e Add the following in the virtual machine s configuration file sched cpu affinity 4 5 6 7 e Inthe VMware Management Interface associate a virtual machine to a single NUMA node by checking the appropriate boxes next to Run on Processor s in the CPU tab of the virtual machine details page 2
274. ic SCSI Adapter on page 54 e Importing Upgrading and Exporting Virtual Machines on page 59 e Preparing to Use the Remote Management Software on page 69 e Installing the Remote Console Software on page 70 e Third Party Software Compatibility on page 71 e Executing Scripts When the Virtual Machine s Power State Changes on page 72 e Configuring Virtual Machines on page 74 31 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide Creating a New Virtual Machine You can create new virtual machines from wi The process sets up a new configuration for e hin the VMware Management Interface ach virtual machine you create this way Note You can only use ASCII characters in the entry fields when creating a virtual machine with the management interface Thus the virtual machine s display name and path cannot contain non ASCII character for virtual machines should be not created wi s In addition filenames and directories th space characters The Add Virtual Machine wizard guides you through the basic steps needed to create a virtual machine on your server Any user who has an account on the server s service console may log in to the wizard and create a virtual machine If you are logged in as root you may wish to log out at this point then log in again as a user authorized to manage the new virtual machine Note Check for any VMkernel ALERT messages in the warning log files before creating a new virtual machine To log in to t
275. ice console Determine if the guest operating system is doing a lot of paging swapping e In a Linux guest operating system run the vmstat command For more information see the vmstat 8 man page e In a Windows guest operating system open the Control Panel Double click Administrative Tools then double click Performance Check the value for pages second If a virtual machine is paging a lot then increase the minimum memory so that excessive paging is eliminated If you re close to the maximum memory size then also increase that resource setting Optimizing Performance on the Service Console If the problem is with CPU resources then increase the CPU minimum of the service console and see if that solves the problem You can also improve performance by not connecting unnecessarily through the remote console For example unless you are performing an action in a virtual machine close the remote console Having a remote console window open without any activity still uses CPU resources in the service console To optimize performance you can use other third party software such as Virtual Network Computing VNC viewer or Microsoft Terminal Services to connect to your virtual machine without consuming CPU resources in the service console 383 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 384 CPU Resource Management VMware ESX Server provides dynamic control over both the execution rate and the processor assignment of each
276. identifier UUID for the virtual machine or keep the old one Create Keep C Always Create C Always Keep Cancel f you moved this virtual machine you can choose to keep the UUID Select Keep then click OK to continue powering on the virtual machine f you copied this virtual machine to a new location you should create a new UUID since the copy of the virtual machine is using the same UUID as the original virtual machine Select Create then click OK to continue powering on the virtual machine f the original virtual machine is being used as a template for more virtual machines you can choose to create a new UUID the first time you power on each copy After you configure the virtual machine and are ready to make it a template move it to a new ocation and power it on When the message appears after you power on select Always Create then click OK to continue powering on the virtual machine The virtual machine is set up to create a new UUID every time it is moved Power off the virtual machine and begin using it as a template by copying the virtual machine files to other locations If you intend to move the virtual machine numerous times and want to keep the same UUID each time the virtual machine moves then select Always Keep and click OK to continue powering on the virtual machine If you suspend and resume a virtual machine this does not trigger the process that generates a UUID Thus the UUID in use
277. ies the a numerical value for the low shares value By default this number is 500 proc vmware config Disk SharesNormal This option specifies the a numerical value for the normal shares value By default this number is 1000 proc vmware config Disk SharesHigh This option specifies the a numerical value for the high shares value By default this number is 2000 431 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 432 www vmware com Index Symbols 208 A Access to configuration file 203 Accessibility of virtual disks 308 Affinity set 386 Apache server and the VMware Management Interface 154 API VmPerl 49 171 Append disk mode 121 ASCII characters 32 83 Authentication 202 availability report 245 B Backup 170 creating stable disk images for 171 Beacon monitoring 372 binding adapters 369 Bootup loading VMkernel device modules 282 Build number 184 bus sharing 308 309 C CD ROM attaching to image file 128 Clone virtual machine 334 340 351 352 Clustering and shared disks 330 basic configuration types 328 configuration to use Microsoft Cluster Service 331 338 consolidating to ESX Server machine 329 description 326 network adapters needed for 330 ona single ESX Server machine 328 on multiple ESX Server machines 328 setup with virtual machines 325 sharing virtual disks 308 using an ESX Server machine as a standby host 330 Color depth 122 Command Linux 193 200 202 passing from console operatin
278. if it were on a physical machine To do so you can run either a direct backup tool or the client component of a client server backup tool within the virtual machine and configure it for direct access to the network or tape drive www vmware com CHAPTER 3 Using the VMware Management Interface to Manage Your Virtual Machines Note You can also use a virtual machine to run the server component of a client server backup product provided you give it access to one or more tape drives Backing up from within a virtual machine has the benefit of allowing fine grained recovery of your data e You can restore file data by the individual file e You can restore database data via the normal database specific method However if there is a disaster and you need to restore the virtual machine from a backup made from within the virtual machine you need to recreate the virtual machine and load recovery software into it before restoring data from the backups To configure a virtual machine so you can use a tape drive from within it see Adding a Tape Drive to a Virtual Machine on page 132 Backing Up Virtual Machines from the Service Console You may also choose to back up your virtual machines by copying to tape the entire virtual disk files and any redo logs along with the backups of the service console This approach has the benefit of making it easy to restore your virtual machines in the event of a full system loss or data loss due to failur
279. iguration now it guest operating system Windows and Linux guest how you can proceed Follow the appropriate steps below ines using the appropriate kernel you can now install the guest operating system which will be configured for using the LSI Logic adapter automatically No other steps are necessary For an existing Linux virtual machine complete the steps under Configuring the LSI Logic SCSI Adapter in a Linux Guest Operating System on page ai 55 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide Configuring the LSI Logic SCSI Adapter in a Windows Guest Operating System Before you begin configuring your Windows guest download the LSI Logic driver from the LSI Logic Web site as mentioned above For a new virtual machine unzip the driver files to a floppy disk This floppy disk is needed while installing the guest operating system For an existing virtual machine unzip the driver files into a directory in the guest operating system then shut down the guest and power off the virtual machine 1 Power on the virtual machine 2 Doone of the following e Ifyou are installing a new guest operating system press F6 at the beginning of the installation to have Windows prompt for a driver disk When you are asked to load additional drivers insert the floppy disk containing the driver files and let Windows copy the driver files and continue the installation Do not remove the floppy disk from the floppy drive until the installe
280. igured as a public or shared file system This locking is done in order to ensure that there is no corruption caused by multiple accesses to the file system by different hosts If a VMFS 1 volume is configured in public mode only one server can ever access that VMFS at a time If one server is accessing the VMFS 1 volume through a virtual machine or a file system command then a file system operation by another host fails For example a vmk stools command fails with a message that says vmkfstools file system is locked by another server Use vmkfstools recover to unlock file system if no other server is accessing Typically you should not run vmkfstools recover at this point since another host is actually using the file system The error message simply indicates that this server cannot access the VMFS until the other server has finished accessing it However if a server fails while accessing the file system the file system may stay in the locked state and you may need to run vmkfstools recover www vmware com CHAPTER 10 Configuration for Clustering In a public VMFS 2 volume locking is at a per file level resulting in fewer locking issues However you may still encounter the preceding message and may need to use vmkfstools recover if a server fails If a VMFS is used to store a virtual disk that is accessed by multiple virtual machines on multiple physical servers for the purposes of failover clustering the VMFS
281. ime the system isn t capable of running Virtual Machines This includes reboots crashes configuration and running linux Downtime Analysis 2 1 2 days 8 hours downtime caused by 2 7 1 5 hours scheduled downtime 97 3 2 days 6 hours unscheduled downtime Reasons for scheduled downtime 74 0 ymkernel unloaded 2 instances 14 8 server rebooting 1 instance 9 6 server booting 7 instances 1 6 reboot for Startup profile changes 1 instance Reasons for unscheduled downtime 100 0 unknown powerfail reset 3 instances The availability report contains useful information about server uptime and downtime This includes detailed statistics regarding uptime history and an analysis of downtime 245 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide Seeing How Memory Is Utilized The Memory Utilization page shows how much memory is being used by the ESX Server and how memory resources are allocated to virtual machines For more information about memory utilization refer to Memory Resource Management on page 399 ih Ea ye Fme Jak heo D D Aseh rma Gaede G D SSAA EA O arowa Ei Egoe 9 System Summary T sinute Average Physical Memory Ran mm E virtual Machines Shared Common Virtualization Service Console Free Total o 40K mon inon 220 250 Reserved Memory OO S _ _ _ _ _ _ Reserve d Unreserved To
282. ims memory However in most cases changes shouldn t be necessary For complete information on using these options see Service Console Commands on page 408 ESX Server estimates the working set for a virtual machine automatically by monitoring memory activity over successive periods of virtual machine virtual time Estimates are smoothed over several time periods using techniques that respond rapidly to increases in working set size and more slowly to decreases in working set size This approach ensures that a virtual machine from which idle memory has been reclaimed is be able to ramp up quickly to its full share based allocation once it starts using its memory more actively You can modify the default monitoring period of 60 seconds by adjusting the MemSamplePeriod configuration option Reclaiming Memory from Virtual Machines ESX Server employs two distinct techniques for dynamically expanding or contracting the amount of memory allocated to virtual machines a VMware supplied vmmemct 1 module that is loaded into the guest operating system running in a virtual machine and swapping pages from a virtual machine to a server swap file without any involvement by the guest operating system The preferred mechanism is the vmmemct 1 driver which cooperates with the server to reclaim those pages that are considered least valuable by the guest operating system The vmmemct 1 driver uses a proprietary ballooning technique that provides predicta
283. indicates a BSD guest operating system EJ indicates other guest operating systems Using the Virtual Machine Menu Click the arrow to the right of the terminal icon to display a menu of options for the virtual machine The menu includes the following commands most of which can be performed using the buttons and other visual elements of the managemen interface Depending on your permissions and the state of the virtual machine some options may not be available Attach Remote Console launches the VMware Remote Console which connects to this virtual machine This is the same as clicking You need to log in to the host For more information see Using the Remote Console on page 176 Note Netscape and Mozilla users must define a MIME type for the console first Internet Explorer is automatically configured when the remote console is installed For information see Setting a MIME Type to Launch the VMware Remote Console on page 155 Properties opens the Status Monitor page for this virtual machine in a new browser window This is the same as clicking the display name link in the Display Name column Configure Hardware opens the Hardware page where you can edit a virtual machine s hardware configuration You can edit most configuration options only when the virtual machine is powered off When the virtual machine is powered on you can edit removable devices and the virtual network adapter For more inf
284. ine Configuring VMware ESX Server Using Common Controls Configuri Editing a Virtual Machine s Configuration Configuring a Virtual Machine s CPU Usage Configuring a Virtual Machine s Memory Usage Configuring a Virtual Machine s Disk Usage ng a Virtual Machine Configuring a Virtual Machine s Networking Settings 72 73 74 75 76 80 81 83 85 86 86 87 88 90 90 91 91 92 93 94 00 01 01 01 01 01 01 03 05 05 07 10 11 www ymware com Configu ring a Virtual Machine s Hardware Setting Standard Virtual Machine Configuration Options Setting Startup and Shutdown Options for a Virtual Machine Viewing Viewing Modifying Virtual Machine Peripherals Adding Using a Using Parallel Ports in a Virtual Machine Using Serial Ports in a Virtual Machine Using Di Deleting a Virtual Machine Using the VMware Management Interface anaging Setting Unregis Running Increasi Configuring VMware ESX Server Logging Out of the VMware Management Interface Using the Apache Web Server with the Management Interface Setting a MIME Type to Launch the VMware Remote Console Setting the MIME Type in Netscape 7 0 and Mozilla 1 x Editing a Virtual Machine s Configuration File Directly Changing Your Virtual SCSI Adapter Using the VMware Management Interface File Manager Registering and Unregistering Virtual Machines Registering a Virtu
285. ines Unlimited Number of Host Proces Number of Processors per Virtual Machine i Help Note Ifyou enter a new serial number for a license that changes the maximum number of processors allowed on the server you are prompted to reboot the server for the new license to take effect Configuring Storage Area Networks Use the Storage Management option to manage your storage area network and attached storage devices for your ESX Server system and its virtual machines Because the disks on the SANs can potentially be accessed by multiple ESX Server computers there are some configuration issues that are unique to SANS For more information about SANs see Using Storage Area Networks with ESX Server on page 310 227 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 228 Note Be sure that only one ESX Server system has access to the SAN while you are using the VMware Management Interface to configure it by formatting the VMFS 2 volumes After you have finished the configuration be sure that all partitions on the shared disk are set for public or shared access for access by multiple ESX Servers see VMFS Accessibility on page 288 Configuring Storage Disk Partitions and File Systems The Disks and LUNS window allows you to view and modify the partitions and file systems on your disks Create disk partitions that use the VMFS file system suitable for storing disks for virtual machines You can also edit label and remove existing partit
286. information are available to other users as well Command Example and Explanation apropos Find commands with descriptions that include a specified word Displays the name of the command and the first line of the description apropos file Find commands with descriptions that include the word file apropos file less Find commands with descriptions that include the word file and use less to display the results so you can scroll up or down through them du Display usage in kilobytes for contents of the current directory or for a specified file or directory du bin Show how much disk space is used by the bin directory du h HOME Display how much disk space is used by the user s home directory using familiar file size terms vdf vdf is an ESX Server customized version of the df command Use vdf in place of the df command vd works with all the standard df options Displays free space for all mounted file systems The listing also shows the total space amount of space used and percentage of space used for each file system vdf Display the free space in familiar file size terms fdformat Doa floppy disk format fdformat dev fd0 Format a floppy disk in the first floppy disk drive groupadd Add a new group groupadd newgroup Add a group named newgroup to the system hostname Display the system s host name www vmware com CHAPTER 5 Using the VMware Service Console Command Example
287. ing a vmkf stools command such as vmkfstools S mydisk vmhba0 3 0 1 You can then refer to the nt 4 vmdk file as mydisk nt4 vmdk instead of vmhba0 3 0 1 nt4 vmdk ina virtual machine configuration file and in other vmk stools commands For more information on vmkf stools see vmkfstools Options on page 291 If there is no persistent binding then labelling VMFS volumes is especially useful if you may be adding SCSI adapters or disks to your system The actual disk and target numbers specifying a particular VMFS may change but the label stays the same Also other ESX Servers see the same label which is useful for LUN ID between servers For more information see Using Persistent Bindings on page 315 VMFS Accessibility There are two modes for accessing VMFS volumes public and shared e public This is the default mode for ESX Server With a public VMFS version 1 VMFS 1 volume multiple ESX Server computers have the ability to access the VMware ESX Server file system as long as the VMFS volume is on a shared storage system for example a VMFS on a storage area network However only one ESX Server can access the VMFS volume at a time With a public VMFS version 2 VMFS 2 volumes multiple ESX Server computers can access the VMware ESX Server file system concurrently VMware ESX Server file systems with a public mode have automatic locking to ensure file system consistency e shared Used for a VMFS volume that i
288. ing steps 117 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 1 Inthe Hardware page under Processors and Memory click Edit The Processors and Memory page appears 3 testserver Microsoft Windows NT Configuration Microsoft Internet Explorer ioj x YMware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 roo Processors and Memory Determine processor and memory allocation for your virtual machine Edit Processor Configuration Virtual Machine Virtual machines running Microsoft Windows NT may only be configured with a single proc r Edit Memory Configuration Virtual Machine Suggested 256 M Guest Min 64M Runnable Max 792 M 1P 780 M 2P Memory in multiples of 4 256 M X Help OK Cancel 2 Depending upon the guest operating system and the number of processors with which it is configured a message appears under Edit Processor Configuration Provided the guest operating system is multi processor capable and if you want to change the number the number of processors click the click here link then choose the number of virtual processors in the Processors list 3 Inthe Memory field enter the amount of memory to allocate to the virtual machine The amount must be a multiple of 4 4 Click OK to save your change and close the window Configuring a Virtual Machine s Virtual Network Adapters You can configure the settings for the virtual machine s virtual network adapter These settings include the virtual network devic
289. interface s Options page 253 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide Disabling the System s Configuration Settings To disable the system wide configuration settings complete the following steps 1 Under System Configuration click Edit The System Startup and Shutdown Defaults page appears E testserver Virtual Machine Startup and Shutdown Microsoft Internet Explorer ioj x Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 root irtual Machine Startup and Shutdown Virtual machines are managed at system startup and shutdown as follows System Configuration Properties Edit Start Up and Shut Down Virtual Machines Enabled Continue Starting Virtual Machines After 3 minutes or when VMware Tools starts Attempt to Continue Stopping Virtual Machines After 3 minutes at most Startup Sequence Specified Order None Any Order None Close Window 2 Clear the Start Up and Shut Down Virtual Machines check box then click OK 3 Click Close Window to return to the management interface s Options page Specifying the Order in which Virtual Machines Start Once you set whether or not virtual machines should start and stop with the system you can set the order in which the virtual machines start and stop allowing you to specify the position of a virtual machine in the system wide startup and shutdown sequence If set virtual machines are listed under one of the following categories e Specified Order list
290. into the VMkernel hbaNum Display string Device number format scsi hbaVirtDev Display string Virtual device name for this adapter hbaTgtTable a table of SCSI targets seen by this virtual machine Name Data type Description vmidx Integer This number corresponds to the index of the virtual machine in Index field vmtTable hbatgtldx Index Integer This is a dummy target index field hbaTgtNum Display string Target description format scsi lt hba gt lt tgt gt netTable a table of network adapters seen by this virtual machine Name Data type Description vmidx nteger This number corresponds to the index of the virtual machine in Index field vmtTable netidx nteger Index for this table Index field netNum Display string Device number format ethernet netName Display string Device name of VMkernel device that this virtual network adapter is mapped to format vmnic or vmnet netConnType Display string Connection type user or virtual machine monitor device 271 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 272 floppyTable a table of floppy drives seen by this virtual machine Name Data type Description vmidx Integer This number corresponds to the index of the virtual machine in Index field vmTable fdidx Integer Index into floppy table Order of the floppy device on this Index field virtual machine fdName Display strin
291. ion Disk must be in persistent mode DeviceType must be scsi nonpassthru rdm or scsi passthru rdm Non clustered Use raw device mapping instead if ESX Server 2 5 and higher raw device disk 343 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide Single host Clustering Multi host Clustering Area Component Clustered Clustered virtual disks disks vmdk Must use VMFS label notation Virtual adapter must be in shared mode virtual The LUN must host only one VMFS file system The VMFS volume must be dedicated to the cluster Must reside on public VMFS volume Must have been created with vmkfstools z Must use the vmhba lt H gt lt T gt lt L gt lt P gt notation not the VMFS label notation Virtual adapter must be set to shared mode physical Must reside on its own physical LU he LUN must host only one VMFS file system he LUN must have a single path he shared virtual disk must be he only file on this VMFS volume The VMFS volume must be in shared mode The VMFS volume must have only one physical extent Clustered non pass through raw device mapping Revision must be ESX 2 5 or higher Must reside on a public VMFS volume Must use VMFS label notation Disk must be in persistent mode DeviceType must be scsi nonpassthru rdm Virtual adapter must be set to shared mode virtual Revision must be ESX 2 5 or higher Must reside on a shared VMFS volume Must
292. ion makes virtual machines at once more robust and more transportable There is no need to worry about the variety of potentially destabilizing drivers that may need to be installed on guest operating systems and the file that encapsulates a virtual disk is identical no matter what underlying controller or disk drive is used VMware ESX Server can be used effectively with storage area networks SANs ESX Server supports QLogic and Emulex host bus adapters which allow an ESX Server computer to be connected to a SAN and to see the disk arrays on the SAN Network Virtualization You may define up to four virtual network cards within each virtual machine Each virtual network card has its own MAC address and may have its own IP address or multiple addresses as well Virtual network interfaces from multiple virtual machines may be connected to a virtual switch Each virtual switch may be configured as a purely virtual network with no connection to a physical LAN or may be bridged to a physical LAN via one or more of the physical NICs on the host machine Private Virtual Ethernet Networks VMnets VMnet connections may be used for high speed networking between virtual machines allowing private cost effective connections between virtual machines The isolation inherent in their design makes them especially useful for supporting network topologies that normally depend on the use of additional hardware to provide security and isolation V
293. ions When you edit a VMFS partition you can change the volume label maximum file size access mode and whether you want to span the partition Z esx244 Storage Management Microsoft Internet Explorer _ O x Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 11152 Disks and LUNs WZC E ree ey emt a eer a G E Storage Management Disk and LUN Configuration Ee Create and modify VMFS volumes suitable for storing virtual disk files Disk vmhba0 1 0 0 of 19 99 G Available 1 Linux native Yolume Remove Format as VMFS 2 Capacity 2 vmfs MFS 2 11 olume Capacity 15 95 G Maximum File Size 456 00 G Access Mode Public 3 Linux native Yolume Remove Format as VMFS 2 Capacity 4 Extended Partition Remove 5 Logical Linux swap Yolume Remove Format as YMFS 2 Capacity 6 Logical Mware Core Dump Remove Capacity 101 00 M Disk ymhba0 1 1 100 of 19 99 G Available Free Space Create Volume Capacity www vmware com CHAPTER 6 Administering ESX Server Creating a Disk Partition You can use any existing free space on your VMFS volumes to create new disk partitions For background on how SCSI devices are identified see Determining SCSI Target IDs on page 306 Note You cannot change any partitions set up when you installed ESX Server These include any volumes with a Linux file system or that are used for Linux swap space If a core dump file does not exist on the disk you are offered to c
294. ions lt VMFS_volume fileName gt Fora VMFS_volume_name the listed attributes include the VMFS version number VMFS 1 or VMFS 2 the number of physical extents partitions comprising the specified VMFS volume the volume label if any the UUID if any and a listing of the SCSI device names of all the physical extents comprising the VMFS volume Fora VMFS_volume fileName the listed attributes include the vmhba name of the raw disk or partition corresponding to the mapping referenced by fileName and any identification information for the raw disk Creates a file with the specified size on the file system of the specified SCSI device co createfile gGmMkK The size is specified in bytes by default but you can specify the size in kilobytes megabytes or gigabytes by adding a suffix of k kilobytes m megabytes g gigabytes respectively Exports the contents of the specified file on the specified SCSI device to a virtual disk on the file system of the service console e exportfile lt dstFile gt After the export you may transfer the virtual disk to another server machine and import it to a SCSI device on the remote machine If your virtual disk has redo logs you have the following options e Ifyou use the export file option on the base virtual disk only the base virtual disk is exported Any uncommitted redo logs are not exported but can be copied out separately e Ifyou use the export file option on a ESX Ser
295. irtual machine 1 Firewall Physical NIC i vmnicO Virtual machine 2 External Web server vmnet_O pee Virtual Virtual sales i machine4 machine 3 vmnet_1 Oninternal Firewall network www vmware com CHAPTER 1 Introduction to VMware ESX Server For example an effective firewall can be constructed by configuring one virtual machine on an ESX Server system with two virtual Ethernet adapters one bound to a VMnic giving it a connection to a physical network and the other bound to a VMnet Other virtual machines would be connected only to the VMnet By running filtering software in the dual homed virtual machine a user can construct an effective firewall without the need for additional hardware and with high performance virtual networking between the virtual machines A similar approach can be used with multitier applications with the Web or application servers reachable from other systems but with the database server connected only to the other tiers Virtualization at a Glance ESX Server virtualizes the resources of the physical system for use by the virtual machines Virtual machine 1 Virtual machine 2 CPU Memory Disk NIC NIC CPU Memory Disk NIC N IC CPU1 Mem1__Disk1 NICla_ NIC1b era pa ne NIC2b CAE cruz coe E CPU Memory i NIC Physical resources nici Tet Virtual network In the preceding example each virtual machine is configured with one CPU an allocation of
296. irtual Machine on page 187 175 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 176 Using the Remote Console The remote console gives you a direct window into an individual virtual machine running under VMware ESX Server Remote console software is available for Windows XP Windows 2000 Windows NT and Linux management workstations For instructions on installing the software see Installing the Remote Console Software on page 70 You can connect up to three remote consoles to a virtual machine at a time and up to 80 remote consoles can be connected to the server at a time Starting the Remote Console on Windows 1 Start the remote console program Start gt Programs gt VMware gt VMware Remote Console 2 A dialog box asks for the information needed to connect you to the virtual machine Fill in the blanks with e The host name or IP address e Your user name e Your password Click Connect 3 When the connection is made a dialog box displays the paths to the configuration files of virtual machines registered on the server Select the virtual machine you want to connect to then click OK Note If you launch the remote console from the management interface from Internet Explorer 6 0 on a system where SSL is encrypting your ESX Server remote connections you need to configure Internet Explorer See Launching the Remote Console from the Management Interface on an Encrypted Server on page 86 Starting the Remote Console on Lin
297. irtual device for use by virtual machines If an existing device or LUN is no longer used and appears to be gone then it is removed from use by virtual machines Note Only use this s option for Fibre Channel adapters You can see the results of the scan by using 1s vmfs or looking at the contents of proc vmware scsi Create or Resize a Swap File in a VMFS Volume of the specified SCSI device k createswapfile gGmMkkK The size is specified in bytes by default but you can specify the size in kilobytes megabytes or gigabytes by adding a suffix of k kilobytes m megabytes or g gigabytes respectively 297 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 298 Note You must be logged in to the Service Console with root user permissions to create a swap file You can resize an existing swap file by specifying the new file size as an argument to the k option 1 Deactivate the swap file if it is active with vmktools y 2 Resize the swap file with the k option 3 Activate the swap file with vmktools w filename If you try to resize an active swap file ESX Server returns an error message ESX Server does not automatically activate a swap file after it is created Use vmkf stools with the w option to activate a swap file You can set a swap file to be activated automatically after a system reboot with the Activation Policy option of the Swap Management section in the Options tab of the Management Interface Act
298. irtual floppy drive to access a system drive or a floppy image file ie Generic SCSI Device Create a new virtual device that directly accesses a system SCSI device 2 Click Generic SCSI Device The SCSI Device page appears Z esx244 Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Configuration Microsoft Internet Explorer i E3 Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 11152 roo 244 eng v mware com passthru Configure your virtual machine s direct access to a system SCSI device Edit Generic SCSI Device Configuration Device Status Connected ii Connect at Power On Vv Device Connection Device vmhbao 40 0 0 Virtual SCSI Node ort Help Par Cancel 3 To connect this virtual machine to the server s SCSI device when the virtual machine is powered on check Connect at Power On 131 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 6 In the Device drop down list choose the appropriate device such as dev sga Specify the virtual device node Select the appropriate SCSI ID in the Virtual SCSI Node list Click OK to add the device Adding a Tape Drive to a Virtual Machine To add a new tape drive to a virtual machine make sure the virtual machine is powered off then complete the following steps 1 On the Hardware page click Add Device The Add Device Wizard starts 3 testserver Microsoft Windows NT Configuration Microsoft Internet Explorer ioj x a Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 roo
299. irtual machine that is allocated 2000 shares is entitled to consume twice as many CPU cycles as a virtual machine with 1000 shares Similarly a virtual machine that is allocated 200 shares is entitled to consume twice as many CPU cycles as a virtual machine with 100 shares The number of shares may vary but the first virtual machine has twice as many shares as the second virtual machine By default the setting for high is twice that of normal or four times that of low For example a virtual machine with high shares can consume twice as many CPU cycles as a virtual machine with normal shares or four times as many CPU cycles as a virtual machine with low shares If you want to change these defaults see Using procfs on page 392 You can use proportional share scheduling by itself or in combination with CPU percentages See Managing CPU Time with Percentages and Shares on page 388 For example if you are running three virtual machines each starts with a default allocation of normal shares If you want to give one virtual machine half the CPU time and give each of the other two virtual machines one quarter of the CPU time you can assign high shares to the first virtual machine and leave the other two at their default allocations Since these share allocations are relative the same effect may be achieved by giving 500 shares to the first virtual machine and 250 to each of the other two virtual machines Controlling Relative CPU Rates You
300. irtual machines running certain guest operating systems such as Windows NT can be configured with a single processor only Review the list of supported guest operating systems in the VMware ESX Server Installation Guide to see which guests are multiprocessor or SMP capable e Virtual machines can be configured with multiple processors only if the server has more than one processor A virtual machine cannot have more virtual processors than the server has physical processors e Multiprocessor capable guest operating systems configured with a single processor may require additional tuning if you increase the number of virtual processors At most a virtual machine can have two virtual processors For more information see Configuring a Virtual Machine to Use More than One Virtual Processor on page 59 e Multiprocessor capable guest operating systems configured and tuned with more than one virtual processor may not boot and will probably degrade the performance of other virtual machines if you change the configuration to a single processor VMware recommends you do not downgrade a multiprocessor virtual machine to uniprocessor Note You can configure dual virtual processor virtual machines only if you have purchased the VMware Virtual SMP for ESX Server product For more information on this product contact VMware Inc or your authorized sales representative To configure the virtual machine s virtual processors and memory complete the follow
301. is C Program Files VMware VMware Remot Console vmwareConsole ex e Ona Linux host write a short shell script called vmware console helper sh The shell script must contain the following two lines bin sh lt path_to_vmware console gt o 1 gt dev null 2 gt amp 1 where the default lt path_to_vmware console gt is usr bin vmware console 2 Save the file in a location of your choice Note On a Linux host change to the directory where you saved the file and give yourself permission to execute the file 155 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide chmod x vmware console helper sh 3 Use the browser to connect to the server you want to manage 4 Click the terminal icon for the virtual machine you want to view in a remote console 5 A dialog box asks what you want to do with the file Click Advanced 6 Inthe New Type dialog box in the Description of type field type VMware Remote Console 7 Inthe File extension field type xvm 8 Inthe MIME type field type application x vmware console 9 Inthe Application to use field type the path to vmwareConsole helper bat or vmware console helper sh 10 Click OK twice Your browser is now set to launch the remote console when you click the terminal icon in the future www vmware com 156 CHAPTER 3 Using the VMware Management Interface to Manage Your Virtual Machines Editing a Virtual Machine s Configuration File Di
302. is moved from a VMFS disk or array to the service console s file system Note The file manager in the management interface may display incorrect information or no information at all for files larger than 2GB This means that you cannot use the file manager to import certain virtual disk files created under VMware Workstation 4 For background on vmkf stools see Using vmk e A bin A boot A de A ete root CO current Directory New Home Up Change rc vmware x w x directory Fri Jan 9 16 52 22 2004 direct al anaconda ks cfg r w 1MB Wed Jan 7 03 41 36 2004 file own 1 of 1 jwn 1 of 1 available space 443 36MB Selected File s Select All After selecting a file or folder and clicking Edit Properties you can change its name and permissions When you are finished click OK to apply the changes 4 VMware File Manages fos root testre PEHI 82000000003 H Lernhb 2001016 emhbaor6i001 emhaor61012 wmhbaor61013 emhbaor610 5 CA wmnbacre i016 G ever Miciosolt Internet Explores Nata vahba0 0 0 6 E Current Directory File Name Evapriie vsvp r User K R F fo Group F r r feo Others r r Ok Cancel Selected File s Select At fstools on page 290 161 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide If you select more than one file or folder you can change permissions
303. is a reliable mechanism of last resort that the system uses to reclaim memory only when necessary Swap Space and Guest Operating Systems If you choose to overcommit memory with ESX Server then you need to be sure your guest operating systems have sufficient swap space This swap space must be greater than or equal to the difference between the virtual machine s maximum and minimum sizes Caution If memory is overcommitted and the guest operating system is configured with insufficient swap space the guest operating system in the virtual machine may fail To prevent virtual machine failure increase the swap size in your virtual machines e Windows guest operating systems Windows operating systems refer to their swap space as paging files Some Windows operating systems automatically try to increase the size of paging files provided there is sufficient free disk space For more information refer to your Windows documentation or search the Windows help files for paging files Follow the instructions for changing the size of the virtual memory paging file e Linux guest operating system Linux operating systems refer to their swap space as swap files For information on increasing swap files refer to the mk swap sets up a Linux swap area and swapon enables devices and files for paging and swapping man pages found in your Linux guest operating system Guest operating systems with large memory and smal
304. is example vmhba0 0 0 vmkmultipath s vmhba0 0 0 p fixed e mru ESX Server uses the most recent path to the disk until this path becomes unavailable That is ESX Server does not automatically revert back to the preferred path Most recent path mru is the default policy for active passive storage devices Note Use the MRU path policy for disks on active passive storage devices Enter the following command to select the mru policy for a disk in this example vmhba0 0 0 vmkmultipath s vmhba0 0 0 p mru You can select a different policy for each disk Note Use the MRU policy for disks on active passive storage devices Using the fixed policy may cause path thrashing and significantly reduced performance Specifying Paths You can use the vmkmult ipath command to disable and enable paths set the active path and set the preferred path as illustrated in the following examples You configure paths by setting path modes with the s option Enabling a Path Use the e option to enable paths with vmkmultipath In this example you are enabling the path from controller vmhbal 0 1 to disk vmhba0 0 1 vmkmultipath s vmhba0 0 1 e vmhbal 0 1 Disabling a Path Use the d option to disable paths with vmkmultipath In this example you are disabling the path from controller vmhbal 0 1 to disk vmhba0 0 1 vmkmultipath s vmhba0 0 1 d vmhbal 0 1 321 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 322 Setting the Preferr
305. is means that in normal operation the vmss file cannot be used to resume a virtual machine again from the original suspended state If you do want to be able to resume a virtual machine in the same state repeatedly for example to have a hot standby virtual machine in a particular state so it is ready to take over for a failed server take the following steps 1 Shut down and power off the virtual machine In the management interface open the virtual machine menu Click the arrow next to the terminal icon and select Configure Hardware F testserver Windows 2000 Server Microsoft Internet Explorer YMware ESX Server 2 5 0 bu Status Monitor CPU Memory Disk Network Hardware Options Users andEvents Refresh Help Close Last updated Thu Nov 18 16 00 50 PST 2004 ia Ka plete 2000 Server owered on PID 1449 YMID 140 Removable Devices Other Hardware G amp Floppy Drive Remove Edit J Processors and Memory Connected No Processors 1 Connect at Power On No Memory Device System Floppy Drive a Display Location dev fdo Edit Colors Thousands of Colors 16 bit DYD CD ROM Drive IDE 0 0 Remove Edit Connected Yes Connect at Power On Yes Device System DVD CD ROM Drive Location dev edrom W Network Adapter Remove Edit Connected Yes Connect at Power On Yes Network Connection Networko Virtual Device vlance Add Device 97 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 98 2
306. isk containing the specified VMFS volume After the reservation other servers will get a SCSI reservation error if they attempt to access that disk but the server that did the reservation will be able to access the disk normally The L release command releases the reservation on the specified disk or disk containing the specified VMFS volume Any other server can access the disk again he L reset command does a SCSI reset to the specified disk Any reservation held by another server is released Recovers a VMFS R recover This command enables you to recover a VMFS accessible by multiple ESX servers when other vmk stools commands indicate that the file system is locked by another ESX Server machine but in fact no other server is currently accessing this file system This situation may occur if the VMFS was being accessed by a server for example running a virtual machine and that server crashed Note You should only use this command if you are certain that no other ESX Server is still accessing the file system Scans the specified vmhba adapter for devices and LUNs s scan lt FC_SCSI_adapter gt Note We recommend that you use the cos rescan sh command rather than this option to vmkfstools This option is useful for adapters connected to storage area networks particularly if you are reconfiguring your SAN If a new device or LUN becomes accessible through the adapter then ESX Server registers this new v
307. it to stop as it waits for other resources it does not run twice as fast as virtual machine B even though it is allowed to use twice as much CPU time Managing CPU Time with Percentages and Shares You can also use both CPU percentages and shares to manage CPU resources for your virtual machines CPU percentages specify absolutes an absolute minimum or maximum usage by a virtual machine Shares on the other hand represent relative importance or priority You set shares to specify which virtual machines will get preferential treatment when ESX Server is constrained For example virtual machine A has a minimum CPU percentage of 20 and a maximum CPU percentage of 50 while virtual machine B has a minimum percentage of 30 and no specified maximum percentage You then decide to give virtual machine A high CPU shares and virtual machine B low CPU shares ESX Server interprets this allocation so that virtual machine A will never have less than 20 of a single physical CPU while virtual machine B will never have less than 30 of a single physical CPU in any situation However if one or more virtual machines are idling then ESX Server redistributes this extra CPU time proportionally based on the virtual machines CPU shares Active virtual machines benefit when extra resources are available In this example virtual machine A gets four times as much CPU time as virtual machine B subject to the specified CPU percentages By default the set
308. ith other users click this button before you perform an operation in the management 101 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 102 interface like shutting down suspending resuming or powering on a virtual machine or after you perform such an operation in a remote console Manage Files This link opens the management interface s file manager The file manager lets you can manage the file system of your VMware ESX Server machine remotely See Using the VMware Management Interface File Manager on page 159 Help This link connects you to the VMware ESX Server online documentation for the current page in the management interface Logout This link logs you out of the management interface You can only log out from the Status Monitor and Options pages Click Logout to return to the Login page See Logging Out of the VMware Management Interface on page 153 Close Closes the current management interface window You can only close windows that were opened while using the management interface www vmware com CHAPTER 3 Using the VMware Management Interface to Manage Your Virtual Machines Configuring a Virtual Machine To see more information about a particular virtual machine and to modify its configuration click the link to the virtual machine in the Display Name column on the Status Monitor page The Status Monitor page appears in a new browser window F testserver Microsoft Windows NT Microsoft Internet
309. ity Features This section contains the following e Authenticating Users on page 203 e Default Permissions on page 205 e TCP IP Ports for Management Access on page 205 There are three key aspects to security with VMware ESX Server e VMware ESX Server authenticates all remote users who connect to a server using the VMware Management Interface or the VMware Remote Console e Security for network traffic to and from the server depends on the security settings in the server configuration e Three or more TCP IP ports are used for access depending on the security settings in your ESX Server configuration Depending on your remote access requirements you may need to configure your firewall to allow access on one or more of these ports For details on which ports are used see TCP IP Ports for Management Access on page 205 Authenticating Users VMware ESX Server uses Pluggable Authentication Modules PAM for user authentication in the remote console and the VMware Management Interface The default installation of ESX Server uses et c passwd authentication just as Linux does but it can easily be configured to use LDAP NIS Kerberos or another distributed authentication mechanism The PAM configuration is in etc pam d vmware authd Every time a connection is made to the server running ESX Server the inetd process runs an instance of the VMware authentication daemon vmware authd The vmware authd process requests a user name and
310. ivate a Swap File w activateswapfile This command activates the specified swap file Note You must be logged in to the Service Console with root user permissions to activate a swap file Deactivate a Swap File y deactivateswapfile lt fileID gt ESX Server assigns a fileID tag to a swap file when it is activated You must identify a swap file by its fileID tag when specifying which swap file to deactivate with the y option Note You must be logged in to the Service Console with root user permissions to activate a swap file You can find the ileID tag assigned to a swap file in the swap status file proc vmware swap stats Note You must shutdown all virtual machines before deactivating a swap file Entering a vmkfstools y command returns an error message if any virtual machines are powered on Migrate a VMFS from VMFS 1 to VMFS 2 T tovmfs2 This command converts the VMFS volume on the specified partitions from VMFS 1 to VMFS 2 while preserving all files in the volume ESX Server s locking mechanism www vmware com CHAPTER 9 Storage and File Systems attempts to ensure that no remote ESX Server or local process is accessing the VMFS volume that is being converted Note If you have an active swap partition you must deactivate it before running this command Deactivate swap through the VMware Management Interface and reboot your server Once this vmk fst ools T command completes you can reactivate your
311. ive Create a new virtual floppy drive to access a system drive or a floppy image file G Generic SCSI Device Create a new virtual device that directly accesses a system SCSI device Network Adapter Configure your virtual machine s network adapter Edit Network Adapter Configuration Device Status Connected E Connect at Power On M Device Connection Network Connection Networko z Virtual Device vlance z B Help Par Cancel 3 To connect this virtual machine to the network when the virtual machine is powered on check Connect at Power On 4 Inthe Network Connection list select the virtual network device which you want the virtual machine to use 5 Inthe Virtual Device list select the network driver you want the virtual machine to use Choose either the vlance or vmxnet driver 6 Click OK to add the network adapter 127 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 128 Adding a Virtual DVD CD ROM Drive to a Virtual Machine If your server contains a DVD CD ROM drive you can add a DVD CD ROM drive to the virtual machine You can point the CD ROM drive to an ISO disk image file A device can be connected to only one virtual machine on a server at a time To add a new virtual DVD CD ROM drive to a virtual machine make sure the virtual machine is powered off then complete the following steps On the Hardware page click Add Device The Add Device Wizard starts 3 tes
312. k The Virtual Disk Type page appears E testserver Microsoft Windows NT Configuration Microsoft Internet Explorer of x Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 roc Virtual Disk Add a hard disk to your virtual machine Which type of virtual disk would you like to add Blank Create a new virtual disk Existing Attach an existing virtual disk to your virtual machine System LUN Disk Give your virtual machine direct access to a SAN LUN 3 Create one of the following virtual disks www vmware com 124 CHAPTER 3 Using the VMware Management Interface to Manage Your Virtual Machines e Click Blank to create a new virtual disk Then specify the following E testserver Microsoft Windows NT Configuration Microsoft Internet Explorer ioj x YMware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 root Virtual Disk Ga Add a hard disk to your virtual machine Edit irtual Disk Configuration Disk Image Image File Location vmhbao 0 0 6 8 0 G free Image File Name Untitled vmdk Capacity 4000 M irtual Device Virtual SCSI Node Disk Mode Persistent Changes are immediately and permanently written to the virtual disk Nonpersistent Changes are discarded when the virtual machine powers off Undoable Changes are saved discarded or appended at your discretion C Append Changes are appended to a redo log when the virtual machine powers off H Help Mo Cancel i a Choose the locati
313. k the one on the GSX Server host contains 261 cylinders 255 heads and 63 sectors you would add the following option to the configuration file scsi0 0 biosGeomet ry 261 255 63 And you would assign the following value to the new option 261 255 63 Otherwise if you do not add the new geometry information to the configuration file when you power on the virtual machine a message appears stating Error loading operating system To power on the virtual machine you must add the new option to the configuration file as discussed above www vmware com CHAPTER 2 Creating and Configuring Virtual Machines Path Name Failures When Importing GSX Server Virtual Machines Plain disks used with virtual machines created in GSX Server may contain disk file names that ESX Server cannot translate Versions 2 5 and earlier of GSX Server used absolute path names to identify disk files when creating plain disks Not all plain disks created with earlier versions of GSX Server contain path names preventing ESX Server from importing them If you attempt to import a plain disk with vymkf stools and ESX Server displays DiskLib_Open failed No such file or directory 131591 you should check the path name in the plain disk Note This problem applies only to plain disks Virtual and raw disks created in GSX Server should import correctly using vmkf stools Open the plain disk descri the path name refers outs ptor p1n file and l
314. k connected to the vmnet_0 virtual switch 4 Click OK You have finished creating and configuring the new node s virtual machine Go to the management interface s Overview page Both virtual machines should be listed and shown as powered off You may repeat this procedure at each ESX Server machine on which you created copies of the virtual disk Configuring the Network Load Balancing Cluster You can cluster up to 32 nodes using Network Load Balancing To configure the cluster follow this procedure for each node that will join the cluster 1 Using the management interface connected to the first ESX Server machine launch the remote console for the first node 2 Power on the virtual machine w Follow the Windows 2000 Server mini setup prompts to enter the Windows 2000 Advanced Server serial number and the host name and IP addresses At the end of the process Windows automatically reboots Log on to the Windows 2000 Advanced Server virtual machine as Administrator Open Network and Dial up Connections PO a Right click the local area connection on which you will install Network Load Balancing and choose Properties The Local Area Connection Properties dialog box appears 8 Under Components checked are used by this connection select the Network Load Balancing check box 9 Click Properties 354 www ymware com CHAPTER 10 Configuration for Clustering 10 On the Cluster Parameters tab configure cluste
315. l Machines 2 The version of VMware Tools must be updated to the current version If you are using a virtual machine created with an older version of VMware ESX Server or another older VMware product update VMware Tools to the version included in this release 3 Depending upon the operation the script performs the virtual machine must have a virtual network adapter connected otherwise the power operation fails Issues to Consider When you reinstall VMware Tools after you upgrade the VMware ESX Server software any changes you made to the default scripts are overwritten Any scripts you created on your own remain untouched but do not benefit from any underlying changes that enhance the default scripts 73 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide Configuring Virtual Machines Key configuration settings for an existing virtual machine can be changed from the VMware Management Interface The virtual machine must be powered off when you change the configuration 1 4 5 Log in to the server from the management interface http lt hostname gt as a user who has rights to change the configuration file Click the name of the virtual machine you want to reconfigure On the Status Monitor page for that virtual machine click Hardware or Options in the Configuration section Select a device or option to configure then click Edit Make any changes you wish to the configuration then click OK Details about changing th
316. l the media changer directly you must be sure that the SCSI ID in the target raw device s configuration file matches with the SCSI ID that ESX Server sees for that device You can check the SCSI ID seen by ESX Server by viewing the output of the various files proc vmware scsi vmhba lt x gt lt y gt lt z gt where lt x gt is the HBA ID assigned by ESX Server lt y gt is the SCSI target ID and lt z gt is the SCSI LUN ID For more information on adding a tape device to a virtual machine see Adding a Tape Drive to a Virtual Machine on page 132 Editing the vmware device map local File The etc vmware vmware device map file contains a list of devices supported by ESX Server This release includes support for a local version of this file etc vmware vmware device map local Modify the vmware device map local to select different device drivers This file is not modified during an ESX Server upgrade preserving your customizations The vmware device map local is read when the VMkernel is loaded e Any changes to the vmware device map local file require a reboot or at least an unload reload of the VMkernel to take effect e Entries inthe vmware device map local files are used in addition to the entries in the vmware device map file The vmware device map local file does not need to mirror the vmware device map file e Any vmware device map local file entries that correspond to the vmware device map file
317. l virtual disks for example a virtual machine with 3 6GB RAM and a 2 GB virtual disk are more susceptible to this problem Sharing Memory Across Virtual Machines Many ESX Server workloads present opportunities for sharing memory across virtual machines For example several virtual machines may be running instances of the same guest operating system have the same applications or components loaded or contain common data In such cases ESX Server uses a proprietary transparent page sharing technique to securely eliminate redundant copies of memory pages With memory sharing a workload running in virtual machines often consumes less www vmware com CHAPTER 12 VMware ESX Server Resource Management memory than it would when running on physical machines As a result higher levels of overcommitment can be supported efficiently The ESX Server approach does not require any cooperation from the guest operating system You may use the MemShareScanVM and MemShareScanTotal configuration options to control the rate at which the system scans memory to identify opportunities for sharing memory For more information on these options see Service Console Commands on page 408 405 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 406 Managing Virtual Machine Memory You can manage virtual machine memory from the VMware Management Interface or from the service console Managing Memory Resources from the Management Interface You may also view a
318. large files between ESX Server machines with a ftp session The entire file is correctly copied over VMFS Volumes In ESX Server 2 5 a VMFS 2 volume can span multiple partitions across the same or multiple up to 32 LUNs or physical disks A VMFS 2 volume is a logical grouping of physical extents Each physical extent is part of a disk for example a physical disk partition That is a physical extent is a disk partition that is part of a VMFS 2 volume By contrast VMFS 1 volumes are limited to a single physical extent You can view the VMFS volumes on your ESX Server at any time by changing directories to the vmfs directory then listing its contents You can use vmk fstools P lt VMFS_volume_label1 gt to obtain more details about your VMFS volume cd vmfs 1s vmhba0 0 0 2 vmhba0 0 0 6 The entries in the vmfs directory are updated dynamically Any changes you make to VMFS 2 volumes through the VMware Management Interface are immediately reflected in this directory For more details on vmk stools see Using vmkfstools on page 290 287 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 288 Labelling VMFS Volumes If you create a VMFS volume on a SCSI disk or partition you can give a label to that volume and use that label when specifying VMFS files on that volume For instance suppose you have a VMFS volume on the SCSI partition vmhba0 3 0 1 and have created a VMFS file nt 4 vmdk You can label that volume by us
319. lick Edit The Edit Virtual Switch window opens and displays existing configuration and adapter settings for the switch Edit the network label of the switch in the Network Label field The Network Labels feature allows you to specify a network label for switches and port groups that are used by virtual machines Caution If virtual machines are configured to use the switch and you change the name of the label the virtual machines will not power on Bind Outbound Adapters lists all available adapters Select an adapter to assign it to the switch To route network traffic locally deselect all of the adapters and click OK An internal adapter is created for the virtual switch If you chose this configuration a notification message appears and displays No outbound adapters Traffic routed locally Under Other Outbound Adapters Bind Unassigned Adapters lists any unassigned adapters Select an adapter to assign it to the switch You can transfer any listed adapters from other switches to the virtual switch you are configuring When you are finished selecting physical adapters click OK to save the new switch configuration and close the window To remove the switch click Remove Switch This removes the virtual switch and does not save any configuration changes made to the edit page Creating Port Groups Port groups are extensions of networks using Virtual Local Area Networks VLANs VLANs allow configured networks to communi
320. list 6 Click OK to add the device Removing Hardware from a Virtual Machine To remove hardware from a virtual machine access the Hardware page Next to the item you want to remove click Remove You are asked for confirmation before the device is removed Note You cannot remove some items from a virtual machine such as the processor SCSI controller or the virtual display Setting Standard Virtual Machine Configuration Options To review and modify basic information about a virtual machine or to access the configuration file directly click the Options tab The Options page appears F testserver Windows 2000 Server Microsoft Internet Explorer Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 root ESATE AT eT Ce a Ce ace Options Mr ie Cm to a E Last updated Thu Nov 18 15 57 02 PST 2004 ba gt Windows 2000 Server Powered on PID 1449 VMID 140 Virtual Machine Configuration Standard Options Display Name Windows 2000 Server Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Run with Debugging Information System Startup Options At System Startup Do not start virtual machine Continue Starting Other Virtual Machines After System Shutdown Options At System Shutdown Power off virtual machine Continue Stopping Other Virtual Machines After 3 minutes system default at most erbose Options If you need to view add or modify configuration parameters directly click here The Options page shows standard virtual machine information e Dis
321. ls 91 102 creating a new virtual machine 32 39 deleting a virtual machine 149 150 editing a configuration 105 event log 141 host status monitor 90 launching remote console 86 176 logging in 88 logging out 153 permissions 83 proxy servers 87 refresh rate 84 session lengths 84 setting remote console MIME type 155 timeout 153 virtual machine CPU 105 virtual machine details 103 virtual machine hardware 107 110 111 113 virtual machine menu 92 VMware Remote Console attaching from VMware Management Interface 91 enabling users to view virtual machines 209 launching from management interface 86 176 setting a MIME type 155 special power options 178 VMware Scripting API 49 171 VMware Tools and SNMP 261 build number 184 choosing scripts 182 installing 40 41 running scripts during power state changes 72 settings 180 starting automatically in Linux guest 46 VMware guest operating system service 46 www vmware com VMware Virtual SMP 34 117 VMware Workstation migrating virtual machines 62 vmware authd 203 TCP IP port 205 vmware device map local file 207 vmxnet network driver 118 vmxnet sys 44 Ww Web browser and the VMware Management Interface 88 Windows 2000 installing VMware Tools in 43 Windows NT installing VMware Tools in 43 Windows Server 2003 installing VMware Tools in 42 Windows XP installing VMware Tools in 42 439 www vmware com 440
322. ls with a message that says vmkfstools shared SCSI disk is reserved by another server Use vmkfstools L release reset to end reservation if no other server is using the SCSI reservation Similarly a virtual machine fails to start if its virtual boot disk is stored on a physical disk that is reserved by another host Most applications do not ever reserve a SCSI disk However failover clustering software reserves SCSI disks in order to ensure that only the active node is able to access the shared SCSI disk Therefore you should expect that the shared disk in a physical clustering setup is reserved when the cluster is active Similarly for a virtual 347 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 348 machine cluster that is running across physical machines reservations by the clustering software are transmitted through to the physical shared disk If you encounter a disk that is reserved unexpectedly you should try to determine if some clustering software has explicitly reserved the disk If not you can release the reservation on the server that has the reservation by running a command in this format vmkfstools L release vmhba0 1 0 0 Substitute the name of the appropriate disk or VMFS in place of vmhba0 1 0 0 If you cannot determine which server holds the reservation you may be able to eliminate the reservation by issuing a SCSI bus reset on any server machine using a command in this format vmkfstools L lunres
323. master snmpd and a subagent vmwa re snmpd as illustrated in the following diagram The master snmpd daemon is either the default snmpd daemon shipped with ESX Server or a third party SNMP application daemon The subagent vmware snmpd exports ESX Server MIB information to the master that communicates directly with the SNMP client application Third party Subagent snmpd Client or snmpd lt p gt wre Default snmpd ESX Server service console Installing the ESX Server SNMP Agents The default master snmpd daemon and the VMware specific vmware snmpd daemon are automatically installed when you install ESX Server If you want to see ESX Server MIB items you must configure the ESX Server SNMP subagent vmware snmpq If you aren t interested in ESX Server specific SNMP items do not configure that particular subagent Configure the ESX Server SNMP subagent after you have installed and configured ESX Server through the VMware Management Interface You can configure the ESX Server SNMP subagent by using a script or through the VMware Management Interface Depending on your preference complete one of the following e Configuring the ESX Server Agent through the VMware Management Interface on page 264 e Configuring the ESX Server Agent from the Service Console on page 266 Then configure your SNMP trap destinations See Configuring SNMP Trap Destinations on page 268 263 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide
324. mber of virtual CPUs in the virtual machine 100 percent for uniprocessor virtual machines and 200 percent for dual virtual CPU virtual machines Note A virtual machine will never use more CPU time than the specified maximum percentage sched cpu affinity lt set gt This configuration file option specifies the initial processor affinity set for a virtual machine lf lt set gt is all or default then the affinity set contains all available processors The specified set may also be a comma separated list of CPU numbers such as 0 2 3 Note For SMP virtual machines the affinity set applies to all virtual CPUs on the virtual machine cpu htsharing lt mode gt Setting the ht Sharing option configures the Hyper Threading operation mode for the virtual machine identified by lt id gt Valid modes are e any Each CPU of the virtual machine can share the server s logical CPUs with all other virtual machines This is the default value for ht Sharing e none Each CPU of the virtual machine requires an entire physical CPU two logical CPUs of the server to operate This prevents the virtual machine from operating with the shared system resources provided by Hyper Threading and can reduce performance e internal Each CPU of the virtual machine can share logical CPUs with the second CPU in the same virtual machine but not with CPUs from other virtual machines This mode switches to none for virtual machines with one CPU
325. me WWPN WWNN 20 00 00 60 16 3c ad 13 Target world wide node name WWNN 315 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 316 Example Output for a QLogic HBA cat proc scsi lt FC_SCSI_driver gt lt adapter_number gt SCSI Device Information scsi qla0 adapter node 200100e08b229b53 scsi qla0 adapter port 210100e08b229b53 scsi qla0 target 0 20000060163cad13 where 200100e 08b229b53 210100e 08b229b53 qlao target 0 20000060163cad13 pbind pl Script The pbind pl script is loca Adapter world wide port name adapter port Adapter world wide node name adapt er node 0 is the host bus adapter 0 is the target World wide port name ed inthe usr sbin directory As root type pbind pl to see the list of options for this command pbind pl Option pbind pl A Description Persists bindings for all adapters bind pl D Deletes bindings for all adapters Adds bindings for all adapters speci ied in lt path gt p pbind pl a lt path gt pbind pl d lt path gt Deletes bindings for all adapters specified in lt path gt pbind pl r Shows you the result without actually making any change pbind pl s Displays supported adapters and their paths pbind pl q Quiet mode suppresses normal status output www vmware com CHAPTER 9 Storage and File Systems Examples Using the pbind pl Script This example adds bindings for all Q
326. ments on the command line are ignored www vmware com CHAPTER 8 Using VMkernel Device Modules u lt module binary gt unload lt module binary gt Unload the module named lt module binary gt V verbose Be verbose during the module loading d lt scsi device name gt device lt scsi device name gt The module being loaded is for a SCSI adapter that is currently being used by the service console After the module is loaded the SCSI adapter is controlled by the VMkernel but the service console continues to be able to access all SCSI devices The format of lt scsi device name gt is lt PCI Bus gt lt PCI slot gt e exportsym Export all global exported symbols from this module This allows other modules to use exported functions and variables from the loaded module This option should not be used for normal device driver and shaper modules since there may be symbol conflicts s showparam List all available module parameters that can be specified in the lt parameter gt section of the command line Parameters Modules can specify parameters that can be set on the command line A list of these parameters is shown via the showparam option In order to set one of these parameters you must specify a name value pair at the end of the command line The syntax is of the form lt name gt lt value gt Any number of parameters can be specified Examples vmkload_mod modules e100 0 vmnic debug 5 loads th
327. ministration Guide 286 File System Management on SCSI Disks and RAID VMFS VMware ESX Server File System is a simple high performance file system on physical SCSI disks and partitions used for storing large files such as the virtual disk images for ESX Server virtual machines and by default the memory images of suspended virtual machines The VMFS also stores the redo log files for virtual machines in nonpersistent undoable or append disk modes For more information on disk modes see Creating a New Virtual Machine on page 32 ESX Server 2 5 supports two types of file systems VMFS version 1 VMFS 1 or VMFS version 2 VMFS 2 VMFS 1 is the same VMFS shipped with 1 x versions of ESX Server The VMFS 2 file system contains the following features that are not available with VMFS 1 e Ability to span multiple VMFS 2 partitions on the same or different SCSI disks e Ability for multiple ESX Servers and the virtual machines on these servers to access files on a VMFS 2 volume concurrently non clustering setup VMware ESX Server 2 5 includes an automatic per file locking mechanism that allows these concurrent accesses without file system corruption e Larger file system volumes and larger files on the VMFS volumes e Raw disks can be mapped as VMFS files Note Unlike VMFS 1 VMFS 2 is not backwardly compatible with previously released 1 x versions of ESX Server A server s VMFS volumes are mounted automatically by the s
328. n page 268 Using SNMP with Guest Operating Systems on page 269 VMware ESX Server SNMP Variables on page 270 259 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide Using SNMP to Monitor the Computer Running ESX Server ESX Server ships with an SNMP agent that allows you to monitor the health of the physical machine where ESX Server is running and of virtual machines running on it This agent is based on Net SNMP with enhancements to support data specific to ESX Server Background information on Net SNMP is available at net snmp sourceforge net The ESX Server SNMP agent can be used with any management software that can load and compile a management information base MIB in SMlv1 format and can understand SNMPv1 trap messages The location of the VMware subtree in the SNMP hierarchy is iso org dod internet private enterprises vmware e123 651 4 461 68 76 You can choose to use SNMP with or without any specific ESX Server MIB items Information about the Physical Computer SNMP get variables allow you to monitor a wide variety of items about the physical computer and how virtual machines are using its resources Some of the key types of information available are e The number of CPUs on the physical computer e CPU resources on the physical computer being used by particular virtual machines e The amount of RAM installed on the physical computer e Physical memory used by the service console e Physical memory used by particular
329. n percentage of CPU 0 to dedicate to console 0 100 Cpu ConsoleOSWarpPeriod period in milliseconds 0 100 Cpu CreditAgePeriod period in milliseconds 500 10000 Cpu IdlePackageRebalancePeriod usec between chances to rebalance idle packages 0 to disable 100000 max Cpu MachineClearThreshold machine clears per million cycles to trigger quarantine Cpu MigratePenalty penalty in milliseconds 0 2000 Cpu MigratePeriod milliseconds between opportunities to migrate across cpus Cpu PreemptPenalty penalty in milliseconds 0 2000 Cpu Quantum quantum in milliseconds 1 1000 Cpu RunnerMovePeriod milliseconds between opportunities to move currently running vcpu Cpu SharesPer cpuHigh shares per vcpu for high cpu priority 100 10000 Cpu SharesPer cpuLow shares per vcpu for low cpu priority 100 10000 Cpu SharesPer cpuNormal shares per vcpu for normal default cpu priority 100 10000 Cpu SkewSampleThreshold number of skew samnles allowed hefore en deschedile N ta disahle skew Help Close Window 237 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 238 When you configure the VMware ESX Server computer see the VMware ESX Server Installation Guide various system parameters are assigned predetermined values These parameters control settings for memory the processor and networking for example and affect the running of virtual machines You can view these settings from the management interface If you are logged in a
330. nd resume a virtual machine from a remote console See Suspending and Resuming Virtual Machines on page 185 Suspending a virtual machine then later resuming its operation can speed provisioning tasks for example deployment of standby servers VMware ESX Server supports two configurations for resuming a suspended virtual machine e Youcan suspend a running virtual machine at any time then resume operation suspend at a later time then resume with the machine in the second state and so on 94 www vmware com CHAPTER 3 Using the VMware Management Interface to Manage Your Virtual Machines You can suspend a virtual machine at any desired point in its operation then lock in the suspended state at that chosen point Any time you restart the virtual machine it resumes in the same state the state it was in when you first suspended it Note You should not change a configuration file after you suspend a virtual machine since the virtual machine does not resume properly if the configuration file is inconsistent with the suspended virtual machine Also you should not move any physical disks or change the name of any VMFS file systems that the virtual machine uses If you do the virtual machine will not be able to access its virtual disks when it resumes You can also set the configuration of each virtual machine so the file that stores information on the suspended state is saved in a location of your choice Setting the Susp
331. nd change settings from the virtual machine details pages in the VMware Management Interface 1 On the server s Status Monitor page click the name of an individual virtual machine The details page for that virtual machine appears 2 Click the Memory tab testserver Microsoft Windows NT Microsoft Internet Explorer _ oy xi Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 ro Status Monitor cpu Memory M Network Hardware Options Users and Events Refresh Help Close Last updated Thu Nov 18 16 22 31 PST 2004 ta D gt Microsoft Windows NT Powered on PID 1499 YMID 141 Performance Resources a Used Memory Resource Settings Edit Total Allocated 5 0M Minimum 128 M Recently Used o Maximum 256 M Shared 3 6M Shares 2560 Reclaimed Memory Written to Swap File 0 Reclaimed by VMMemCtl Module 0 Virtualization Overhead Total Overhead 16 1 M f Memory Resource Settings gs Adjust the memory resources allocated to your virtual machine Edit Memory Resources Resource Settings Minimum o MB Shares normal B Help OK Cancel 4 Enter the desired settings then click OK You must log in as root in order to change resource management settings using either the management interface or procfs www vmware com CHAPTER 12 VMware ESX Server Resource Management Managing Memory Resources from the Service Console You can also manage memory resources by editing the following settings in the vi
332. ndwidth is being used when the virtual machine is writing to the physical disk on the server Understanding Resources Values The values under Resources indicate a range of system memory to which the virtual machine is entitled Shares a value which represents the relative metric for controlling disk bandwidth to all virtual machines The values low normal and high are compared to the sum of all shares of all virtual machines on the server and the service console Share allocation symbolic values can be used to configure their conversion into numeric values For more information on share values refer to the resource management man pages cpu diskbw and mem www vmware com 110 CHAPTER 3 Using the VMware Management Interface to Manage Your Virtual Machines e Memory Affinity if displayed represent the NUMA nodes on the ESX Server system to which the virtual machine can be bound when the ESX Server system a NUMA system For information about NUMA systems see Using Your NUMA System on page 414 Modifying Disk Values To modify disk values click Edit For information on changing disk settings see Managing Disk Bandwidth on page 428 Other activities you can perform when configuring a virtual machine s disk information include e Connecting to a Virtual Machine with the VMware Remote Console on page 91 e Using the Virtual Machine Menu on page 92 e Changing the Power State of a Virtual Machine on page 93
333. necessary CPU resources to the management interface by increasing the priority for the vmware serverd and httpd processes 1 Log in as the root user on the service console 2 Type ps auxw and find the process IDs of the httpd and vmware serverd processes If there are multiple httpd processes then type top Click Shift p P to sort the output by CPU usage Remember the process ID for the httpd process using the most CPU 3 Raise the vmware serverd process priority to 15 so that it can connect to all running virtual machines renice 15 p lt vmware serverd_process_ID gt 4 Raise the httpd process priority to 15 166 www vmware com CHAPTER 3 Using the VMware Management Interface to Manage Your Virtual Machines renice 15 p lt httpd_process_ID gt 5 Verify that you can log into the VMware Management Interface and view correct information about the virtual machines Once this occurs then continue with the next step 6 Change the vmware serverd process priority back to the default of zero 0 renice 0 p lt vmware serverd_process_ID gt 7 Change the httpd process priority back to the default of zero 0 renice 0 p lt httpd_process_ID gt Changing Default Parameters in the config File Add the following configuration parameters in the etc vmware config file Note Ifyou decrease the number of registered or running virtual machines to less than 60 then you should comment out the new lines you added or
334. nect the parallel port Note Only one operating system can be connected to the parallel port at one time You cannot configure more than one virtual machine to use a particular parallel port at a given time Using Serial Ports in a Virtual Machine To connect the virtual machine s first serial port COM1 to the physical computer s first serial port edit the virtual machine s configuration directly using the VMware Management Interface Be sure the virtual machine is shut down and powered off then add the following lines to the configuration file as described in Modifying the Configuration File Directly Advanced Users Only on page 137 e Add an option called serial0 present and set its value to t rue e Add an option called serial0 fileType and set its value to device e Add an option called serial0 fileName and set its value to dev ttySO When you power on the virtual machine you can configure the serial port in the guest operating system When the virtual machine is running you can use the Devices menu on the remote console to connect and disconnect its serial port You may also control whether the virtual machine starts with its serial port connected to the physical computer s serial port To set the first serial port so it is connected when the virtual machine starts add an option to the configuration file called serial0 startConnected and set its value to true as described in Modifying the Configuration File Directly Adv
335. nfiguration Microsoft Internet Explorer of x Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 root t SCSI Controller 0 Configure your virtual machine s SCSI controller Edit SCSI Controller Configuration Device Attributes Virtual Device vmxbuslogic z Bus Sharing none z B Help OK Cancel In the Virtual Device list select the SCSI controller driver which you want the virtual machine to use Choose vmxbus logic orvmxlsilogic Caution Before you select a different driver make sure you installed the driver in the guest operating system first otherwise the guest cannot boot To switch to the vmx1silogic driver see Configuring a Virtual Machine to Use the LSI Logic SCSI Adapter on page 54 In the Bus Sharing list select how you want the virtual machine to share its bus Choose one of the following e Physical to share disks with virtual machines on any server e Virtual to share disks with virtual machines on the same server e None to prevent sharing of disks with other virtual machines Click OK to save your changes and close the window Configuring a Virtual Machine s Virtual Disks When you configure an existing virtual disk you can change its disk mode You can also change the virtual disk a virtual machine uses or create a new virtual disk for the virtual machine ESX Server can use disks in four different modes Persistent Disks in persistent mode behave exactly like conventional disk drives
336. nformation descriptor It can be accessed by standard SMBIOS scanning software and used for systems management in the same ways you use the UUID of a physical computer The UUID is a 128 bit integer The 16 bytes of this value are separated by spaces except for a dash between the eighth and ninth hexadecimal pairs So a sample UUID might look like this 00 11 22 33 44 55 66 77 88 99 aa bb cc dd ee ff Generating the UUID Automatically The automatically generated UUID is based on the physical computer s identifier and the path to the virtual machine s configuration file This UUID is generated when you power on or reset the virtual machine The UUID that is generated remains the same so long as the virtual machine is not moved or copied The automatically generated UUID is also written to the virtual machine s configuration file as the value of uuid location If you move or copy the virtual machine you have the choice of creating a new UUID the first time you power on the virtual machine This new UUID is based on the physical computer s identifier and path to the virtual machine s configuration file in its new location www vmware com CHAPTER 2 Creating and Configuring Virtual Machines When you power on a virtual machine that was moved or copied to a new location a message appears FreeBSD 4 7 xi The virtual machine s configuration file has changed its location since its last poweron Do you want to create a new unique
337. ng system and powers off the virtual machine VMware ESX Server closes any open applications and shuts down the guest operating system before powering off the virtual machine VMware Tools executes the script associated with this power state change if any When this icon is red the virtual machine is powered off oo Suspends a running virtual machine or resumes a suspended virtual machine VMware Tools executes the script associated with this power state change if any When this icon is amber the virtual machine is suspended gt Powers on a stopped virtual machine or resumes a suspended virtual machine VMware Tools executes the script associated with this power state change if any When this icon is green the virtual machine is running A Restarts a guest operating system VMware ESX Server closes any open applications and shuts down the guest operating system before restarting the guest operating system Changing the power state executes any script associated with the power state change For more information about running scripts see Choosing Scripts for VMware Tools to Run During Power State Changes on page 182 Suspending and Resuming Virtual Machines This section contains the following e Setting the Suspend Directory on page 95 e Enabling Repeatable Resume on page 96 You can suspend and resume a virtual machine with the management interface See Changing the Power State of a Virtual Machine on page 93 You can also suspend a
338. ng under ESX Server 2 5 The file you are pasting is selected Click OK The virtual disk is imported to the VMFS partition and converted to the new format Note If you do not see the message about transferring disks there is a problem with the import Be sure you are pasting to the correct vmfs folder Select the newly imported disk file dsk or vmdk then click Edit Properties Change the user and group names in the right hand column so the file s owner and group match those of the user who will run the virtual machine Click OK Log out then log back in as the user who will run the new virtual machine Create a new virtual machine as described in Creating a New Virtual Machine on page 32 When you set the file name for the new virtual machine s disk be sure to use the virtual disk file you just copied to the VMFS partition www vmware com CHAPTER 2 Creating and Configuring Virtual Machines 9 If you imported the virtual machine from ESX Server 1 5 2 GSX Server 2 5 1 or Workstation 3 2 or earlier upgrade the virtual hardware ake sure the virtual machine is powered off On the Status Monitor page click he arrow to the right of the terminal icon and choose Configure Hardware On the Hardware tab click Upgrade Virtual Hardware then click OK o upgrade the hardware 10 If you imported a Windows Server 2003 or Windows XP virtual disk from Workstation 4 0 or GSX Server 3 1 you need to mo
339. ng vmware com Mkernel Warnings Wix aaa T ee ee ee Oe eat as Refresh Help Close System Logs and Availability Report If your logs contain ALERTs check the VMware Knowledge Base or contact your support representative Nov 18 15 48 31 esx244 vmkernel TSC 191829000 cpu0 WARNING Chipset 414 ignoring duplicate int for bus 2 busIRQ 9 Nov 18 15 48 31 esx244 yvmkernel 0 00 00 25 124 cpu2 WARNING SCSI 5331 vmhba0 1 1 0 status 2 0 0x6 0x29 0x0 This information is useful if you are experiencing problems with ESX Server or your virtual machines If your log contains any alerts check the VMware Knowledge Base at or contact your VMware support representative For more information see the section the VMware ESX Server Installation Guide www ymware com CHAPTER 6 Administering ESX Server Viewing VMkernel Messages To view the VMkernel message log click the VMkernel Log tab Zj esx244 System Logs and Availability Report Microsoft Internet Explorer Refresh Help C System Logs and Availability Report If your logs contain ALERTs check the VMware Knowledge Base or contact your support representative Nov 18 15 48 40 esx244 vmkernel 0 00 00 36 578 cpuO Host 3753 irq 12 vector 0x41 host 0x61 Nov 18 15 48 40 esx244 vmkernel 0 00 00 36 578 cpu0 IDT 1035 0x41 for host Nov 18 15 48 41 esx244 vmkernel 0 00 00 36 578 cpuO IOAPIC 1012 0x41 retriggerred Nov 18 15 48 31 esx244 vmkernel TSC 0 cpuO Init 1
340. ngs on page 122 e Adding a Virtual Disk to a Virtual Machine on page 124 e Adding a Virtual Network Adapter to a Virtual Machine on page 126 e Adding a Virtual DVD CD ROM Drive to a Virtual Machine on page 128 e Adding a Virtual Floppy Drive to a Virtual Machine on page 130 e Adding a Generic SCSI Device to a Virtual Machine on page 131 e Adding a Tape Drive to a Virtual Machine on page 132 e Removing Hardware from a Virtual Machine on page 133 1 1 4 www vmware com CHAPTER 3 Using the VMware Management Interface to Manage Your Virtual Machines Connecting to a Virtual Machine with the VMware Remote Console on page 91 Using the Virtual Machine Menu on page 92 Changing the Power State of a Virtual Machine on page 93 Using Common Controls on page 101 Click the tabs at the top of the page to view more information about the virtual machine Configuring a Virtual Machine s Floppy Drive Each virtual machine can access a physical floppy drive on the server or a floppy image file To configure the virtual machine s floppy drive complete the following steps 1 gt In the Hardware page under Floppy Drive click Edit The Floppy Drive page appears Z testserver Microsoft Windows NT Configuration Microsoft Internet Explorer ioj x YMware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 rc Floppy Drive A virtual machine may access a system drive or a floppy image file Edit Floppy Drive Configuration Device Status onn
341. nsole For example to view the statistics for the virtual machine with ID 137 use this command cat proc vmware vm 137 cpu status The results are displayed in the following format vcpu vm name uptime status costatus usedsec syssec 137 137 vmm0 Win2kAS 357 866 RUN RUN 265 143 3 105 wait waitsec cpu affinity min max shares emin extrasec NONE 51 783 0 0 1 0 200 2000 72 124 758 396 www vmware com CHAPTER 12 VMware ESX Server Resource Management The output above is shown with additional line breaks in order to avoid wrapping long lines All times are reported in seconds with millisecond resolution Min and max percentages are reported as a percentage of a single processor The columns indicate vepu Virtual CPU identifier vm Virtual machine identifier name Display name associated with the virtual machine uptime Elapsed time since the virtual machine was powered on status Current VCPU run state running RUN ready to run READY waiting on an event WAIT or WAITB terminating ZOMBIE There are additional states for SMP virtual machines ready with pending co schedule CORUN ready but co descheduled COSTOP costatus Current SMP virtual machine co scheduling state uniprocessor virtual machine NONE ready to run READY co scheduled RUN co descheduled STOP usedsec Cumulative processor time consumed by the VCPU syssec Cumulative system time consumed by the VCPU wait Current VCPU wait event type not wai
342. nt VMware ESX Server allows you to optimize the performance of your virtual machines by managing a virtual machine s resource allocations You can control a virtual machine s access to e CPU time e Memory space e Network bandwidth e Disk bandwidth Note You must be the root user to manage virtual machine resources You can manage virtual machine resource allocations through the VMware Management Interface from the proc fs interface on the service console and the VMware Scripting API The first two methods are covered in this chapter while the Scripting API is described in the VMware Scripting API User s Manual at www vmware com support developer 377 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 378 This chapter contains the following sections Virtual Machine Resource Management on page 379 Usin Imp CPU Man g ESX Server Resource Variables on page 380 roving Performance on page 382 Resource Management on page 384 aging Virtual Machine CPU Resources on page 390 Memory Resource Management on page 399 Man Usin aging Virtual Machine Memory on page 406 g Your NUMA System on page 414 Sizing Memory on the Server on page 420 Man aging Disk Bandwidth on page 428 Man aging Network Bandwidth on page 424 www ymware com CHAPTER 12 VMware ESX Server Resource Management Virtual Machine Resource Management ESX Server uses a proportional share mechanism to allocate CPU memory and disk resources w
343. nt to ensure that the guest operating system has sufficient swap space Add additional swap space in the guest operating system equal to the difference between the virtual machine s maximum and minimum memory sizes See Admission Control Policy on page 401 Remove any unnecessary programs or services from your service console Do not run the X Window system in your service console Use SNMP to watch memory resource usage and workloads on ESX Server and its virtual machines See Using SNMP with ESX Server on page 259 The following table includes some general troubleshooting information Problem Suggestions Can t start a virtual machine Check permissions on the virtual machine configuration file and on the virtual disk See Setting Permissions for Owners of Virtual Machines on page 162 Check that there is enough memory to power on this virtual machine See Sizing Memory on the Server on page 420 Check that there is enough unreserved swap space For more information see Swap Space and Guest Operating Systems on page 404 Check that the virtual disks are in a VMFS volume If the virtual disk file is from VMware Workstation or VMware GSX Server be sure the virtual disk has been properly imported through the management interface into ESX Server See Migrating VMware Workstation and VMware GSX Server Virtual Machines on page 62 Can t connect to the VMware Management Interface
344. nt to verify the disk mode Click Next You have successfully created the virtual machine The hardware tab for this virtual machine appears From that tab you now need to add additional hardware devices Virtual Disk Configuration You need a shared SCSI controller and shared SCSI disks for shared access to clustered services and data To add a shared SCSI controller and shared SCSI disks click the Hardware tab then take the following steps Ii Click Hard disk Click Add Device Click Blank to create a new virtual disk 2 3 4 5 6 Choose the VMFS volume on which you want to store the virtual disk Give the virtual disk image a unique name for example quorum vmdk Enter the appropriate value in the Capacity field www vmware com CHAPTER 10 Configuration for Clustering Choose the virtual SCSI node to which you want to attach the virtual disk Note Shared disks must be attached to a separate virtual SCSI controller Select SCSI 1 1 By default the disk mode is set to persistent Click Persistent to verify the disk mode Click OK Note A new virtual disk and SCSI Controller 1 are now visible on the hardware tab Click Edit next to SCSI Controller 1 and change the bus sharing from none to virtual From the Bus Sharing drop down list select virtual then Click OK Repeat step 1 step 9 to create an additional shared virtual disk using SCSI 1 2 with the filename shared2 vmdk
345. o the processor and memory capacities required to simultaneously start or stop multiple guest operating systems e Determine the global order in which virtual machines start and stop Once these settings are enabled for the system you can customize the settings for each virtual machine To enable these settings for a virtual machine see Setting Startup and Shutdown Options for a Virtual Machine on page 134 System Configuration Settings The system wide virtual machine startup and shutdown options include e Start Up and Shutdown Virtual Machines whether or not virtual machines should be started and stopped with the system If enabled default startup and shutdown policies are applied to all virtual machines on your system where no virtual machines are powered on when the host system starts and all virtual machines are shut down when the host system shuts down you can customize each virtual machine s startup and shutdown policies If disabled you cannot set startup and shutdown policies for any virtual machines on your system e Continue Starting Virtual Machines After sets the type of delay between starting up virtual machines You can set this to e Don t Wait start the next virtual machine immediately e lt n gt Minutes wait lt n gt number of minutes to start the next virtual machine e Other specify a longer interval to wait before starting the next virtual machine e when VMWare Tools star
346. o not start virtual machine Continue Starting Other Virtual Machines After System Shutdown Options At System Shutdown Power off virtual machine Continue Stopping Other Virtual Machines After 3 minutes system default at most erbose Options If you need to view add or modify configuration parameters directly click here Q ick Add Create an option called scsi0 8 present and set its value to true Q ick Add Create an option called scsi0 8 name and set its value to lt vmfsname gt lt diskfilename gt vmdk n these entries sesi0 refers to the first SCSI controller and 8 is the device ID Click OK to save your changes and close the configuration file By default the virtual disk is created in persistent mode To change the disk mode click the Hardware tab Edit the disk as described in Configuring a Virtual Machine s Virtual Disks on page 120 Using a Physical Raw Disk in a Virtual Machine In some configurations you may want to give a virtual machine direct access to a physical disk partition stored on a LUN rather than using a virtual disk stored as a file on a VMFS This can be useful for example if the virtual machine needs shared access to data stored on a physical disk In order for the virtual machine to access a physical disk add a new virtual disk as described in Adding a Virtual Disk to a Virtual Machine on page 124 and be sure to click System LUN Disk 144 www vmware com CHAPTER 3 Using th
347. o operating system error when you power on the virtual machine This occurs because the boot order specified in the virtual machine s BIOS defaults to the floppy disk hard disk and then the CD ROM drive Instead of booting from the installation CD ROM the virtual machine tries booting from the hard disk To work around this issue do one of the following e Change the boot order in BIOS so the virtual machine boots from the CD ROM drive before trying the hard disk When the virtual machine boots enter the BIOS and change the boot order on the Boot menu e Zero out the first 64KB of the raw disk using dd or a similar utility For example using dd dd if dev zero of dev lt device gt count 64 bs 1024 In the command above device is the device name of the physical disk Installing VMware Tools in the Guest Operating System This section describes how to install VMware Tools and the network driver in the guest operating system e Installing VMware Tools in a Windows Server 2003 Guest on page 42 e Installing VMware Tools in a Windows XP Guest on page 42 e Installing VMware Tools in a Windows 2000 Guest on page 43 e Installing VMware Tools and the Network Driver in a Windows NT 4 0 Guest on page 43 e Installing VMware Tools in a Linux Guest on page 44 e Installing VMware Tools in a NetWare 6 0 SP3 6 5 or 5 1 SP6 Guest on page 45 41 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 42 Note the
348. o the SNMP security mechanism that allow an administrator to set up a more elaborate permissions scheme See the snmpd conf 5 man page for details Using SNMP with Guest Operating Systems To use SNMP to monitor guest operating systems or applications running in virtual machines install the SNMP agents you would normally use for that purpose in the guest operating systems No special configuration is required on ESX Server Keep in mind that the virtual machine uses its own virtual hardware devices You should not install in the virtual machine agents intended to monitor hardware on the physical computer 269 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 270 VMware ESX Server SNMP Variables The VMware enterprise tree is at iso dod org internet private enterprises vmware 1 3 6 1 4 1 6876 The tree consists of several groups the variables in each of the groups are shown in the tables below Note All variables are read only The data type field refers to the SNMP type described by the structure of management information SMI vmware vmwSystem This group consists of three simple variables providing basic information about the system Name Data type Description vmwProdName Display string Product name vmwProdVersion Display string Product version vmwProdOlD ObjectID A unique identifier for this product in the VMware MIB This ID is unique with respect to versions of the same product also vmwProdBuild
349. o the same node Note Ifyou set these optimizations manually then ESX Server does not automatically rebalance the nodes if one node becomes overloaded You must balance the NUMA nodes to avoid overloading any single NUMA node Associating Virtual Machines to a Single NUMA Node You can improve the performance of the applications on a virtual machine by associating it to the CPU numbers on a single NUMA nade manual CPU affinity See NUMA Configuration Information on page 414 for information on obtaining these CPU numbers e VMware Management Interface Associate a virtual machine to a single NUMA node Click Edit in the Scheduling Affinity section of the CPU page for the virtual machine Then click the appropriate choices next to Run on Processor s and Do not Run on Processor s Click OK See Managing CPU Resources from the Management Interface on page 390 for additional information e Virtual machine configuration file Add the following sched cpu affinity lt set gt where lt set gt comprises CPU numbers on a single NUMA node This entry binds all virtual CPUs in this virtual machine to the NUMA node For example typing sched cpu affinity 4 5 6 7 binds this virtual machine to the NUMA node that has physical CPUs 4 through 7 See Editing the Virtual Machine Configuration File on page 391 for additional information on this entry e procfs interface on the service console proc vmware vm lt id gt cpu affini
350. o this file changes the affinity of all virtual CPUs in the virtual machine to the specified affinity set 393 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide proc vmware vm lt id gt cpu hyperthreading Reading from this file reports the Hyper Threading state of the virtual machine identified by lt id gt Setting the ht Sharing option configures the Hyper Threading operation mode for the virtual machine identified by lt id gt Valid modes are e any Each CPU of the virtual machine can share the server s logical CPUs with all other virtual machines This is the default value for ht Sharing e none Each CPU of the virtual machine requires an entire physical CPU two logical CPUs of the server to operate This prevents the virtual machine from operating with the shared system resources provided by Hyper Threading and can reduce performance e internal Each CPU of the virtual machine can share logical CPUs with the second CPU in the same virtual machine but not with CPUs from other virtual machines This mode switches to none for virtual machines with one CPU Note Only SMP virtual machines can use multiple virtual CPUs proc vmware vm lt vcpuid gt cpu status Reading from this file reports current status information for the virtual CPU identified by lt vcpuid gt including the specified shares and affinity parameters as well as the virtual machine name state running ready waiting current CPU assignment and
351. ocate the path name to the disk file If ide the directory containing the descriptor file you must change it For example if the path name is C user vmware VMs W2KServSP3 Win2KSvl dat ESX Server cannot transla dat file You can repair the plain d descriptor file and changing example edit the descrip Win2KSv1 dat et oO r he GSX Server path name to locate the plain disk data isk by locating the data file in the same directory as the he path name to refer to the data file directly In this file to remove the absolute path from the file name and save the file Now if you import the plain file vmkfstools i Win2KSvl pln vmhba0 0 2 Win2KSv1 vmdk the command locates Win2 specified ESX Server virtual disk file KSvi1 dat in the same directory and imports it into the Importing a GSX Server or Workstation Virtual Machine Follow these steps to import a virtual machine to VMware ESX Server 1 Be sure you have access to the files in the directory that holds the source virtual machine You may be able to mount the source location or you may prefer to FTP or copy the files to a temporary folder on the service console If you are not sure where the source files are open the virtual machine in the VMware product you used to create it open the Configuration Editor Settings gt Configuration Editor On a Windows host click the name of the drive you want to migrate In the Disk file section
352. ocessor HAL To change the HAL you should follow the instructions in Microsoft s Knowledge Base Go to support microsoft com default aspx scid kb EN US 237556 Linux Guest Operating Systems In order to create a virtual machine with more than one virtual processor you must create a new virtual machine with two virtual processors then install the guest operating system in this new virtual machine The Linux distribution must support SMP Supported Linux guest operating systems that can be configured with more than one virtual processor include Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2 1 and 3 0 Red Hat Linux 9 0 SUSE Linux 8 2 and SuSE Linux Enterprise Server SLES 8 and 9 0 For the list of supported Linux guest operating systems refer to the ESX Server Installation Guide at www vmware com support pubs Downgrading to One Virtual Processor VMware ESX Server does not support downgrading a multiprocessor virtual machine to a uniprocessor virtual machine www vmware com CHAPTER 2 Creating and Configuring Virtual Machines Migrating Older ESX Server Virtual Machines You can use virtual machines created with versions of ESX Server older than 2 5 Virtual machines created in ESX Server 1 5 can work as is however to take advantage of the new features of the current release there are steps you need to take to upgrade your virtual machines If you created the virtual machine under ESX Server 1 5 and do not want to upgrade the virtual machine
353. ommand may fail when attempting to import plain disks created with version 2 5 or earlier of GSX Server If vmk stools returns an error when importing a plain disk see Path Name Failures When Importing GSX Server Virtual Machines on page 65 Lists the files on the file system on the specified device L list h human readabl M verbosemappings The output includes permissions sizes and the last modification time for redo logs virtual disk files and swap files You can use the h option to print the sizes in an easier to read format for example 5KB 12 1MB and so on The M option lists the vmhba name that corresponds to each raw disk mapping 293 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 294 Sets the name of the VMFS on the specified SCSI device S setfsname lt fsName gt You can see the VMFS name by running the vmkfstools command with the 1 option vmkfstools l Advanced vmkfstools Options Advanced options are tasks that you may perform infrequently These tasks are not available through the management interface or are available in a limited form and are suggested for advanced users only Commits the redo log of the specified file making the associated changes permanent m commit If a virtual machine is in undoable or append mode then the redo log is created automatically The name of the redo log is derived by appending REDO to the name of the file that contains the base disk image Y
354. ommitted You can also use memory shares to specify the relative importance of different virtual machines In any case you should configure an appropriate minimum size for each virtual machine to ensure that each virtual machine can function effectively without excessive paging even when all virtual machines are active concurrently When memory is scarce ESX Server dynamically reclaims space from some virtual machines based on importance and current working sets For optimal performance the server attempts to reclaim memory from a virtual machine via a VMware supplied vmmemct 1 module running in the guest This allows the guest operating system to invoke its own native memory management policies causing it to swap to its own virtual disk only when necessary ESX Server also has its own swap file and may also swap memory from a virtual machine to the ESX Server swap file directly without any involvement by the guest operating system 422 www vmware com CHAPTER 12 VMware ESX Server Resource Management Example Web Server Consolidation Suppose that you are using ESX Server to consolidate eight nearly identical Web servers running IIS on Windows 2000 Each Windows 2000 machine is configured with 512MB of memory The native memory requirement with eight physical servers is 8 512MB 4GB To consolidate these servers as virtual machines 24MB is needed for the server virtualization layer and 192MB is recommended for the service
355. on a computer All writes to a disk in persistent mode are written out permanently to the disk as soon as the guest operating system writes the data Nonpersistent All changes to a disk in nonpersistent mode are discarded when a virtual machine session is powered off www vmware com CHAPTER 3 Using the VMware Management Interface to Manage Your Virtual Machines Undoable When you use undoable mode you have the option later of keeping or discarding changes you have made during a working session when you power off the virtual machine Until you decide the changes are saved in a redo log file Append Append mode also stores changes in a redo log It continually adds changes to the redo log until you remove the redo log file or commit the changes using the commit command in vmkf stools see Using vmkfstools on page 290 To configure the virtual machine s virtual disk complete the following steps l In the Hardware page under Virtual Disk click Edit The Virtual Disk page appears 3 testserver Windows 2000 Server Configuration Microsoft Internet Explorer ioj x Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 root Virtual Disk SCSI 0 0 m Configure your virtual machine s hard disk Edit irtual Disk Configuration Disk Image Image Location vmhba0 0 0 6 6 0 Gfree El Image File Name Untitled vmdk E Capacity 4000 M Virtual Device You are configuring the boot device The first device on SC
356. on for the new virtual disk In the Image File Location list choose the volume on which to locate the virtual disk The amount of free space is listed next to the volume name so you know how large you can make the virtual disk b Give the virtual disk a name In the Image File Name field enter a disk name making sure the file has a vmdk extension c Specify the size of the virtual disk In the Capacity field specify the size of the virtual disk in MB The default entry indicates the amount of free space available on the volume d Specify the virtual device node Select the appropriate SCSI ID in the Virtual SCSI Node list e Choose the disk mode Under Disk Mode click Persistent Nonpersistent Undoable or Append 125 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide a Click Existing to add an existing virtual disk to the virtual machine Then specify the following 3 testserver Microsoft Windows NT Configuration Microsoft Internet Explorer Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 roc Virtual Disk m Add a hard disk to your virtual machine Edit irtual Disk Configuration Disk Image Image File Location vmhba0 0 0 6 6 0 G free E Image File Name Untitled vmdk E Capacity 4000 M Virtual Device Virtual SCSI Node Disk Mode Persistent Changes are immediately and permanently written to the virtual disk Nonpersistent Changes are discarded when the virtual machine powers off Undo
357. on memory management by VMware ESX Server see the mem 8 man page You may also view the abstract of a technical paper describing memory resource management at www vmware com landing academic htmll If you have a server with NUMA architecture be sure to see Using Your NUMA System on page 414 Refer to the VMware ESX Server2 NUMA Support White Paper available at www vmware com pdf esx2_NUMA pdf for information on supported NUMA platforms Allocating Memory Resources Three basic parameters control the allocation of memory resources to each virtual machine e Its minimum size min The minimum size is a guaranteed lower bound on the amount of memory that is allocated to the virtual machine even when memory is overcommitted The system uses an admission control policy to enforce this guarantee You cannot power on a new virtual machine if there isn t sufficient memory to reserve its minimum size Set a virtual machine s minimum for the minimal acceptable performance and above the threshold where the guest operating system begins swapping heavily Use the performance monitoring tool of the guest operating system to see if you are swapping For more information on improving guest operating 399 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 400 system performance see Improving Slow Performance on Virtual Machines on page 383 e Its maximum size max The maximum size i operating system ru specified in the con machines opera
358. on page 238 Refer to the VMware ESX Server Installation Guide for additional information about server configuration during installation 213 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 214 Updating the Startup Profile Use the Startup Profiles option to create and modify ESX Server boot configurations For each configuration you can specify how you wish to allocate your devices to the virtual machines to the service console or shared between them testserver Startup Profile Microsoft Internet Explorer Mware ESX Server 2 1 0 build 7368 root Startup Profile Configure the Service Console and allocate devices Changes made here may affect one or more virtual machines the next time that your system is restarted System Startup System Wide Enable Hyper Threading Vv Service Console Reserved Memory 1023 1 M Available 272 M up to 16 virtual machines z Kernel boot vmlinuz 2 4 9 vmnix2 Hardware Profile SCSI storage controller group aic 7xxx 0 Dedicated To Virtual Machines z Driver aic7xxx 0 M Shared with Service Console Ethernet controller 3Com Corporation 3c905C TX Fast Etherlink rev 78 The Service Console is configured to use this network adapter You cannot dedicate this device to your virtual machines without forfeiting the Console s network connection If you must reassign this device click here Driver 3c90x 0 PCI Bus Device Function 4 11 0 Ethernet controller Intel Corp
359. on the service console when the VMkernel is loaded as the computer boots Loading VMkernel Device Modules The program vmk load_mod is used to load device driver and network shaper modules into the VMkernel vmk load_mod can also be used to unload a module list the loaded modules and list the available parameters for each module The format for the command is vmkload_mod lt options gt lt module binary gt lt module tag gt lt parameters gt www vmware com CHAPTER 5 Using the VMware Service Console For more information see VMkernel Module Loader on page 278 Common Linux Commands Used on the Service Console The service console runs a modified version of Linux and many of the commands available on Linux or Unix are also available on the service console This section summarizes the most commonly used commands For more detailed information see Getting Help for Service Console Commands on page 202 or consult a Linux reference book Manipulating Files To navigate through the directory structure and manipulate files and directories you must have proper permissions In some areas of the file system your abilities may be restricted when you are logged in as an ordinary user You may need to log in as root also known as the super user su to perform some tasks Command Example and Explanation cd Change directories cd home user Change to the directory home user the home directory for a user with the u
360. on through the VMware Management Interface Advanced Settings in the Options page or by viewing this setting through proc vmware config Disk e LUN masking With LUN masking each LUN is exclusively assigned and accessed by a specific list of connections Be sure that LUN masking is implemented properly and that the LUNs are visible to the HBAs on ESX Server e Zoning Zoning limits access to specific storage devices and increases security and decreases traffic over the network If you use zoning be sure that zoning on the SAN switch is set up properly and that all vmhba and the controllers of the disk array are in the same zone 313 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide e Storage controller If a disk array has more than one storage controller then make sure that the SAN switch has a connection to the controller that owns the LUNs you wish to access On some disk arrays only one controller is active and the other controller is passive until there is a failure If you are connected to the wrong controller then you may not see the expected LUNs or you may see the LUNs but may get errors when trying to access them For more information on using SANs with ESX Server be sure to check the Knowledge Base on the VMware Web site at www vmware com support 31 4 www vmware com CHAPTER 9 Storage and File Systems Using Persistent Bindings You can specify persistent bindings for your Fibre Channel host
361. onfig Mem BalancePeriod This ESX Server option specifies the periodic time interval in seconds for automatic memory reallocations Reallocations are also triggered by significant changes in the amount of free memory The default is 15 seconds proc vmware config Mem SamplePeriod This ESX Server option specifies the periodic time interval measured in seconds of virtual machine virtual time over which memory activity is monitored in order to estimate working set sizes The default is 30 seconds proc vmware config Mem IdleTax This ESX Server option specifies the idle memory tax rate as a percentage A tax rate of x percent means that up to x percent of a virtual machine s idle memory may be reclaimed Virtual machines are charged more for idle memory than for memory that they are actively using A tax rate of 0 percent defines an allocation policy that ignores working sets and allocates memory strictly based on shares A high tax rate results in an allocation policy that allows idle memory to be reallocated away from virtual machines that are unproductively hoarding it regardless of shares The default is 75 percent 409 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 410 proc vmware config Mem ShareScanVM This ESX Server option specifies the maximum per virtual machine rate at which memory should be scanned for transparent page sharing opportunities The rate is specified as the number of pages to scan second per virtual machine
362. onfigurations www vmware com CHAPTER 11 Networking Choosing a Load Balancing Mode You can choose one of three modes for determining how ESX Server distributes traffic among the network adapters assigned to a virtual switch e MAC address balancing e IP address balancing Standby You select the load balancing mode by setting the load_balance_mode option for a virtual switch All options for virtual switches are defined in etc vmware hwconfig which you can modify through the Service Console MAC address load balancing distributes networking traffic based on the MAC hardware addresses of the source network adapters Select MAC address balancing by setting load_balance_mode to out mac Note MAC address balancing is the default load balancing mode in ESX Server IP address load balancing distributes networking traffic based on IP addresses ESX Server distributes network traffic not using the IP protocol on a fixed volume sequential cycle Select IP address balancing by setting load_balance_mode to out ip Standby mode designates a specific adapter to use as the primary connection Use Standby mode for redundant connection switches as described in the next section This example describes how to set the load balancing mode for bond1 to IP address load balancing 1 Log into the Service Console as root 2 Edit etc vmware hwconfig 3 Define the load balancing mode for bond1 nicteam bond1 load_ balance_mode out ip
363. ons to connect a remote console to a virtual machine However if you want to allow access to users with only read permissions you can do so with the following global configuration setting authd policy allowRCForRead TRUE Add the preceding line to the etc vmware config file This setting allows users with only read permissions to connect to a virtual machine through the remote console Note This configuration setting affects all virtual machines on an ESX Server machine You cannot change this setting for individual virtual machines 209 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 210 www vmware com CHAPTER Administering ESX Server ESX Server configuration can be viewed and modified through the VMware Management Interface This section provides an overview of the configuration modification options e Modifying VMware ESX Server on page 212 Seeing How Memory Is Utilized on page 246 e Configuring Startup and Shutdown Options for Virtual Machines on page 250 e Rebooting or Shutting Down the Server on page 256 211 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide Modifying VMware ESX Server To modify the ESX Server configuration 1 Log in to the VMware Management Interface as root The Status Monitor page appears 2 Click the Options tab The Options page appears Bock DLA BH Ash Groe Goede Gi S8 AAS HB Address E Hipi estserver vmenare er sechwa O raae E eop A VMw
364. onsole during the installation process Then load the VMkernel SCSI module using the following syntax vmkload_mod d bus slot usr lib vmware vmkmod aic7xxx o vmhba Note This command should be entered on a single line Do not type the backslash To obtain the bus and slot also known as device or cardnum information examine proc pci output from the scanpci command or both Note The device must be correctly assigned to the service console Devices assigned exclusively to the VMkernel during the installation process no longer appear in proc pci After you load a VMkernel device module an entry appears in proc vmware net or proc vmware scsi For example when e100 o is loaded as described above the entry proc vmware net vmnic0 appears indicating there is one EEPro card controlled by the VMkernel and available as vmnic0O to the virtual machines See Creating and Configuring Virtual Machines on page 31 for information on how to configure virtual machines to use VMkernel devices Other Information about VMkernel Modules The only non device VMkernel module available in this release of VMware ESX Server is the nfshaper module which provides support for network filtering as described in Managing Network Bandwidth on page 424 Load nf shaper using the following syntax vmkload_mod usr lib vmware vmkmod nfshaper o nfshaper VMkernel modules must be reloaded each time the VMkernel is loaded as described in Loading VMkernel
365. or each virtual machine The system automatically assigns each virtual machine to processors in the specified affinity set in order to achieve the CPU allocations specified by the minimum maximum and shares settings associated with each virtual machine If the affinity set for a uniprocessor virtual machine contains only a single processor then the virtual machine is placed there As mentioned previously the scheduler performs automatic load balancing of CPU time To optimize this automatic load balancing you should avoid manually specifying affinity for a virtual machine Instead we suggest setting a CPU minimum to guarantee the minimal acceptable performance for a virtual machine Note By specifying a minimum instead of specifying affinity ESX Server has the maximum flexibility for automatic optimizations For more information see Managing CPU Resources from the Management Interface on page 390 www vmware com CHAPTER 12 VMware ESX Server Resource Management You can modify CPU shares and affinity sets dynamically at any time by using the procfs interface on the service console or using the VMware Management Interface Initial values for a virtual machine may also be specified in its configuration file Using Proportional share Scheduling by Allocating Shares With proportional share processor scheduling you can allocate a number of shares to each scheduled virtual machine CPU shares are relative For example a v
366. oration 82557 Ethernet Pro 100 rev Oc Dedicated To Virtual Machines z Driver e100 0 PCI Bus Device Function 4 14 0 B Help ok Cancel If you add new hardware to your ESX Server system such as extra SCSI controllers or network adapters you can specify here whether to allocate the new hardware to the vmkernel and virtual machines or allocate it to the service console You also enable Hyper Threading for your server with the startup profile Hyper Threading allows ESX Server to operate with two logical CPUs for each physical CPU you have installed in your system Select the Enable Hyper Threading option to enable this feature For more information on Hyper Threading see Using Hyper Threading on page 389 www vmware com CHAPTER 6 Administering ESX Server For more information on the changes an administrator can expect to see when running ESX Server on a HT system and details on the advanced algorithms and configuration options used to maximize performance of ESX Server on a Hyper Threaded system refer to HyperThreading Support in VMware ESX Server 2 1 at www vmware com support resources esx_resources html If you make any changes to the startup profile you must reboot the server in order for your changes to take effect Changing Network Connections Use the Network Connections option to configure the network connections This option allows you to create new virtual switches or edit existing switches Z tests
367. ormation see Configuring a Virtual Machine s Hardware on page 113 Configure Options opens the Options page where you can edit a virtual machine s standard information such as guest operating system display name www vmware com CHAPTER 3 Using the VMware Management Interface to Manage Your Virtual Machines and the location of the suspended state file With the exception of the display name you can edit these options only when the virtual machine is powered off For more information see Setting Standard Virtual Machine Configuration Options on page 133 Shut Down Guest shuts down the guest operating system powers off the virtual machine then runs the script associated with this power state change This is the same as clicking fin the power state popup Suspend after Running Script runs the associated script then suspends a running virtual machine This is the same as clicking B in the power state popup Power On Resume and Run Script powers on a stopped virtual machine or resumes a suspended virtual machine then runs the script associated with this power state change This is the same as clicking amp in the power state popup Restart Guest restarts the guest operating system and the virtual machine This is the same as clicking amp in the power state popup Power Off powers off the virtual machine immediately without running a script This is the same as turning off the power to a physical computer
368. ormation on the current use of CPU by the physical computer and the virtual machines running on it View the Status Monitor page in the management interface ET ver VMware Management Interface Microsoft Internet Explorer ol x l cools Help Heak gt O A A QSeach Favorites GPMeda 4O ARALHB Address E hitps testserver vmware en Z PG Links Google v Searchweb g2 Gh723blocked Eiu Options 2 YMware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 Status Monitor ODT TST Refresh Manage Files Help Log Out Last updated Wed Nov 3 13 44 43 PST 2004 System Summary 5 Minute Average Physical Processors 2 Memory 1017 M Virtual Machines 0 Virtual Machines System Services 2 Ul System Services System Total 2 M System Total 274 9 m DODD Virtual Machines 4 HB Display Name Up No CPU RAM P Ld a meena a Server 1P a a Windows ap TA m E pered on 1P a E Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition 1P Powered off Download VMware Remote Console Windows exe Linux rpm Linux tar gz add virtual Machine 601 patents pending t In E Active OEA E Local intranet Z The System Summary section at the top shows systemwide information The Virtual Machines section below it shows information for particular virtual machines You can also read the current CPU statistics for a virtual machine from its status file on the service co
369. ot System32 drivers vmxnet sys device driver could not locate the entry point NdisGetFirstBufferFromPacket in driver NDIS SYS However even if you get this message the driver should work if you subsequently install the correct service pack When installation is complete and before you reboot choose Settings gt Cancel Tools Install to disconnect the ISO image file and return the virtual machine s CD ROM drive to its original configuration 6 Reboot the virtual machine Installing VMware Tools in a Linux Guest 1 Choose Settings gt VMware Tools Install then click Install This step connects the virtual machine s CD ROM drive to an ISO image file on the ESX Server machine In your Linux guest become root mount the VMware Tools virtual CD ROM copy the installer file from the virtual CD ROM to tmp then unmount the CD ROM www vmware com CHAPTER 2 Creating and Configuring Virtual Machines su mount t iso9660 dev cdrom mnt cp mnt vmware linux tools tar gz tmp umount dev cdrom Untar the VMware Tools tar file in tmp and install it cd tmp tar zxf vmware linux tools tar gz cd vmware tools distrib vmware install pl Note When installing VMware Tools in some versions of Linux the installer will need to recompile VMware Tools For this to work you need to have a C compiler installed in the guest In some cases you may get compiler warning messages during the VMware Tools installation However the
370. ou can commit the changes to the disk that are stored in the redo log by using the commit option or eliminate the changes by using the rm command to delete the redo log file Sets the VMFS on the specified SCSI device to the specified mode F config public shared writable Note In ESX Server 2 and later private VMFS volumes are deprecated If you have existing VMFS version 1 VMFS 1 or VMFS version 2 VMFS 2 private volumes then change the access to public Public With public VMFS 2 volumes multiple ESX Server computers can access the same VMware ESX Server VMFS volume concurrently VMware ESX Server file systems with a public access mode use an automatic per file locking to ensure file system consistency With a public VMFS 1 volume multiple ESX Server computers have the ability to access the VMware ESX Server VMFS volume as long as the VMFS volume is on a shared storage system for example a VMFS on a storage area network However only one ESX Server can access the VMFS 1 volume at a time Note ESX Server creates VMFS volumes as public by default Shared The shared access mode allows virtual machines on multiple servers to access the same virtual disk on a VMFS 2 volume simultaneously In public mode virtual machines can only access the same VMFS volume never the same virtual disk at the same time www vmware com CHAPTER 9 Storage and File Systems Note A VMFS volume that is used for failover base
371. our Multipathing Settings 322 In Case of Failover 322 www vmware com Configuration for Clustering What Is Clustering 325 326 Applications that Can Use Clustering 326 Clustering Software 326 Clustering Hardware 327 Clustering Virtual Machines 328 Clustering Software in Virtual Machines 328 Configuring Virtual Machine Clusters with Shared Disks Two Node Cluster with Microsoft Cluster Service on a Single ESX Server Machine 330 331 wo Nodes with Microsoft Cluster Service on Separate ESX Server Machines 338 34 VMFS Locking and SCSI Reservation Network Load Balancing 34 What Is Network Load Balancing 34 Creating Multinode Network Load Balancing Clusters on ESX Server Networking 34 Setting the MAC Address Manually for a Virtual Machine ooo an 357 358 How VMware ESX Server Generates MAC Addresses 358 Setting MAC Addresses Manually 359 Using MAC Addresses 360 The VMkernel Network Card Locator 361 findnic Command 361 Forcing the Network Driver to Use a Specific Speed 363 Enabling a Virtual Adapter to Use Promiscuous Mode 364 Sharing Network Adapters and Virtual Networks 365 Allowing the Service Console to Use the Virtual Machines Devices Starting Shared VMkernel Network Adapters and Virtual Networks when the Service Console Boots 3
372. ove the LSI Logic adapter you added previously by removing these lines scsil present TRUE scsil virtualDev vmxlsilogic Save your changes to the configuration file and boot the virtual machine again The virtual machine should boot If it does not boot switch the configuration back to BusLogic and boot with the original configuration and troubleshoot the following issues e The RAM disk may not have been created correctly it must preload mptbase and load mpt scsih as the main SCSI driver which you specified in step 1 Verify that both of these activities occurred e The boot loader may not have been installed or was not installed correctly which results in the loader loading the old ram disk image Check the boot loader configuration and install the boot loader again e The kernel does not support the LSI Logic adapter Check that you can manually modprobe mptscsi without errors and that it appears in the output of 1 smod If not upgrade the kernel and start over again Note You may see different results on different distributions www vmware com CHAPTER 2 Creating and Configuring Virtual Machines Importing Upgrading and Exporting Virtual Machines Importing upgrading and exporting virtual machines involves the following activities e Configuring a Virtual Machine to Use More than One Virtual Processor e Migrating Older ESX Server Virtual Machines on page 61 e Migrating VMware Workstation and VMware GS
373. ow is a typical report displayed for a configuration of ESX Server managing a SAN Disk and multipath information follows Disk vmhba0 0 1 34 326 MB has 6 paths Policy is fixed vmhba0 0 1 on active preferred vmhba0 1 1 on vmhba0 2 1 on vmhbal 0 1 on vmhbal 1 1 on vmhbal 2 1 on Disk vmhba0 0 2 100 319 MB has 6 paths Policy is fixed vmhba0 0 2 on active preferred vmhba0 1 2 on vmhba0 2 2 on vmhbal 0 2 on vmhbal 1 2 on vmhbal 2 2 on Disk vmhba0 0 4 0 MB has 6 paths Policy is fixed vmhba0 0 4 on active preferred vmhba0 1 4 on 319 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 320 vmhba0 2 4 on vmhbal 0 4 on vmhbal 1 4 on vmhbal 2 4 on Disk vmhba0 0 6 0 MB has 6 paths Policy is fixed vmhba0 0 6 on active preferred vmhba0 1 6 on vmhba0 2 6 on vmhbal 0 6 on vmhbal 1 6 on vmhbal 2 6 on Disk vmhba0 3 3 0 MB has 2 paths Policy is mru vmhba0 3 3 on active preferred vmhbal 3 3 on In this system configuration the disk vmhba0 0 2 has a fixed policy There are six paths to the disk recognized by ESX Server The list of paths indicates the different physical routes by which the disk can be accessed The status of each path to the disk is indicated in the second column The report lists each path as on of f or dead e on indicates that the path is functional and that data is being transferred successfully e off indicates that this path has been deliberately turned off
374. ownload Center at the LSI Logic Web site Go to wwwlsilogic com and look for the LSI20320 SCSI adapter driver for your guest operating system The files are in a WinZip archive Note Linux distributions with kernels in the 2 4 18 series or later include a driver that supports the LSI Logic adapter If your guest has an older kernel and you want to use the LSI adapter instead of the BusLogic adapter VMware recommends you upgrade the kernel packages to the latest version available for the distribution You do not need to download the driver from LSI Logic Adding the Adapter to the Virtual Machine s Configuration File For both Windows and Linux virtual machines you need to modify the virtual machine s configuration file to use the LSI Logic SCSI adapter For a new virtual machine complete the following steps before you install the guest operating system For an existing virtual machine with which you want to use the LSI Logic adapter shut down the guest operating system and power off the virtual machine before following these steps Caution Even though SuSE Linux 8 1 includes the correct driver for LSI Logic due to an error in a SuSE Linux process the guest operating system must first be installed with the BusLogic driver Once the SuSE Linux 8 1 guest operating system has been installed and boots shut down the virtual machine and complete the steps below 1 Connect to the service console and using a text editor there open th
375. p Back gt A A Qsearch Favorites GPMeda A Gy 9D ASALHR Address htips testserver vmuware en Go Links Googe z Search Web g Eh723bbocked Aui Options 9 YMware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 Status Monitor ETT Refresh Manage Files Help Log Out Last updated Wed Nov 3 13 44 43 PST 2004 System Summary S Minute Average Physical Processors 2 Memory 1017 M Virtual Machines 0 Virtual Machines System Services 2 1 System Services System Total 2 1 System Total Virtual Machines 4 HB Display Name Up No CPU RAM pou Windows 2000 Server Powered o Windows 2000 Advanced Server Wa tered on aa m Download VMware Remote Console Windows exe Linux rpm Linux tar gz l ga Add Virtual Machine Windows NT of 1P 1P All righ 11 patents pending Inc L T B E Loca intranet A The System Summary section at the top shows systemwide information The Virtual Machines section below it shows information for particular virtual machines You can also read the current memory statistics for a virtual machine from its status file on the service console For example to view the statistics for the virtual machine with ID 103 use this command cat proc vmware vm 103 mem status The results are displayed in the following format vm mctl shares min max size sizetgt 103 yes 2560 131072 262144 217300 217300 memctl mctltgt swapped s
376. p QLA2200 rev 05 21 00 00 E0 8B 09 7B 54 Bindings SCSI Target ID 0 50 06 01 61 40 08 71 43 SCSI Target ID 1 50 06 01 69 40 08 71 43 SCSI Target ID 2 50 06 01 68 10 20 4D 87 SCSI Target ID 3 50 06 01 60 10 20 4D 87 vmhba2 QLogic Corp QLA2200 rev 05 21 00 00 E0 8B 02 C0 27 Bindings SCSI Target ID 0 50 06 01 61 40 08 71 43 SCSI Target ID1 50 06 01 69 40 08 71 43 SCSI Target ID 2 50 06 01 68 10 20 4D 87 SCSI Target ID 3 50 06 01 60 10 20 4D 87 Persistent bindings are particularly useful if you are using raw disks with ESX Server A raw disk is directly mapped to a physical disk drive on your storage area network SAN ESX Server directly accesses the data on this disk as a raw device and not as a file on a VMFS volume 233 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 234 Viewing Failover Paths Connections The Failover Paths page allows you to review the current state of paths between your system and SAN LUNs Multipathing support allows your system to maintain a constant connection between the server machine and the storage device in case of the failure of a host bus adapter HBA switch storage controller or a Fibre Channel cable AFTELLEN Failover Paths Mecr ici T Mime re eter a allo ed eet Storage Management Failover Paths Review the current state of paths from your system to SAN LUNs SAN LUN vmhbal 2 0 4 Paths Policy mru Adapter Target LUN SAN Target vmhba1 2 0 50 06 01 68 10 20 4D 87
377. per second The default is 50 pages per proc vmware config Mem ShareScanTotal This ESX Server option specifies the total systemwide rate at which memory should be scanned for transparent page sharing opportunities The rate is specified as the number of pages to scan per second The default is 200 pages per second proc vmware config Mem Ctl axPercent This ESX Server option limits the maximum amount of memory that may be reclaimed from any virtual machine using vmmemc t 1 based on a percentage of its maximum size Specifying 0 effectively disables reclamation via vmmemct 1 for all virtual machines Defaults to 50 proc vmware config Mem Ctl ax OSType These ESX Server options restrict the maximum amount of memory that may be reclaimed from a virtual machine using vmmemct 1 based on the limitations of guest operating system type The value is specified in megabytes Defaults to 128 for OSType NT4 Windows NT 4 0 2048 for OSType NT5 Windows 2000 or Windows Server 2003 and 768 for OSType Linux www vmware com CHAPTER 12 VMware ESX Server Resource Management Monitoring Memory Statistics The VMware Management Interface provides information on the current use of RAM by the physical computer and the virtual machines running on it View the Status Monitor page in the management interface Z testserver VMware Management Interface Microsoft Internet Explorer File Edt View Favorites Tools Hel
378. persistent disk mode 120 UMA node 414 419 automatic optimization 416 manual optimization 416 418 P PAM 203 Paste in file manager 160 text 185 pbind pl script 316 Permissions 205 changing in file manager 161 VMware Management Interface 83 Persistent disk mode 120 Persistent bindings 315 portmap TCP IP port 206 Primary adapter 371 proc interface 201 202 Processor affinity set 386 scheduling virtual machine use of 384 SMP virtual machines 60 virtual 60 Promiscuous mode 364 PXE boot 52 R RAID file system management 286 Raw disks 302 305 Register virtual machines 69 Remote console 92 color depth setting 122 enabling users to view virtual machines 209 installing 70 starting 176 using 175 Remote management 69 Rename using the file manager 161 Repeatable resume 137 Restart using guest operating system service 48 Resume 94 185 repeatable 96 S SANs 310 314 configuration options 311 313 persistent bindings 315 troubleshooting 313 314 scp 287 Scripts running during power state changes 72 VMware Tools and 182 SCSI 308 bus sharing 308 309 file system management 286 target IDs 306 Security 203 SNMP 268 Server shutting down 256 service console 286 DHCP 190 managing CPU resources 391 managing disk bandwidth 430 managing memory resources 407 managing network bandwidth 425 memory 420 service console messages 244 session lengths VMware Management Interface 84 Set up clustering with vi
379. play Name identifies the virtual machine in a more descriptive way 133 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide Guest Operating System the guest operating system installed on the virtual disk Suspend File Location the location of the suspended state file a VMFS volume this file is created when you suspend a virtual machine and contains the information about the virtual machine s state at the time at which it was suspended ESX Server automatically adds a suffix to the name of the suspended state file to ensure that one virtual machine does not overwrite the suspended state file of another Note Unlike earlier versions of ESX Server the suspended state file can only reside on a VMFS volume it cannot be located in the directory with the virtual machine s configuration file in the service console Enable Logging whether logging is enabled Run with Debugging Information whether the virtual machine is running with debugging information which is useful to have enabled when you are experiencing problems with this virtual machine as you can provide this information to VMware support to help troubleshoot any problems you are experiencing System Startup Options the startup options for this virtual machine when the server starts System Shutdown Options the shutdown options for this virtual machine when the server shuts down To change the startup and shutdown options see Setting Startup and Shutdo
380. plemented in the service console These include the HTTP SNMP and API interfaces described above as well as other support functions such as authentication and low performance device access The service console is also installed as a first Component and is used to bootstrap the ESX Server installation and configuration as well as to boot the system and initiate execution of the virtualization layer and resource manager In ESX Server the service console is implemented using a modified Linux distribution www vmware com 18 CHAPTER 1 Introduction to VMware ESX Server Service Console Processes and Files The service console provides a control API that allows the virtual machines and resource allocations to be managed The administrator may also access these controls via pages accessed through the Web server running in the service console In addition to the Web server the following processes and services involved in the management of an ESX Server system run in the service console e Server daemon vmserverd Performs actions in the service console on behalf of the VMware Remote Console and the Web based VMware Management Inter e Authentication dae management inter database Any othe Pluggable Authent console may also b domain controller face mon vmauthd Authenticates remote users of the face and remote consoles using the username password r authentication store that can be accessed using the ication Mo
381. presents the amount of data that is written to or read from the server s physical disks The values under Performance indicate how much bandwidth is being used when the service console is reading from or writing to the physical disk on the server The Shares value represents a relative metric for controlling disk bandwidth where this value is compared to the sum of all shares of all virtual machines on the same disk as the service console and the service console itself For example the service console and 2 VMFS partitions VMFS A and VMFS B are located on the same hard disk on the ESX Server system If the service console has 2000 shares and VMFS A and VMFS B each have 1000 shares then the service console has twice the disk bandwidth of both VMFS A and VMFS B The number of shares can be modified Click Edit E esx244 Service Console Configuration Microsoft Internet Explorer iz Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 11152 root esx244 eng vmware com Resource Settings gs Adjust the disk resources allocated to your virtual machine Edit Disk Resources Number of Shares vmhba0 1 0 1000 vmhba 1 1 1000 v Help OK Cancel Change the number of shares then click OK to save it and close the window Click the CPU tab to view information about service console processor usage Viewing System Logs and Reports Use the System Logs and Availability Report options to view the following log fil
382. ption NetNotifySwitch to 0 when using unicast mode We recommend that you use multicast mode since unicast mode forces the physical switches on the LAN to broadcast all NLB cluster traffic to every machine on the LAN Creating Multinode Network Load Balancing Clusters on ESX Server This section covers procedures for creating a Network Load Balancing cluster using nodes running in virtual machines These virtual machines can be located on one or more ESX Server machines Creating the First Node s Base Virtual Machine 1 Access the VMware Management Interface at https lt hostname gt and log on as the user who will own the virtual machine Click Add Virtual Machine Keep the default Guest Operating System selection of Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Note This example uses Microsoft Windows 2000 Server as the guest operating system You may substitute another Windows operating system that supports Microsoft Cluster Service Change the Display Name field to describe the virtual machine for example MSCS Node 1 Portsaid Change the Location of the virtual machine configuration file to home lt user gt vmware clusterl clusterl vmx 349 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 6 Click Next Choose the number of processors you want the guest operating system to use up to 2 Change Memory to show the amount of RAM you want to allocate to this virtual machine Click Next Click Blank to c
383. r B read from this disk since disk module was loaded numWrites Integer umber of writes to this disk since disk module was loaded kbWritten nteger B written to this disk since disk module was loaded vmware vmwResources vmwNetTable This group contains network statistics organized by network adapter and virtual machine in one table 273 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide vmwNetTable network adapter statistics Name Data type Description netldx nteger ndex into table for Net corresponds to the order of the adapter on Index field he physical computer netName Display string String describing the network adapter format vmnic or vmnet vmID nteger D assigned to running virtual machine by the VMkernel ifAddr Display string AC address of virtual machine s virtual network adapter netShares nteger Share of net bandwidth allocated to this virtual machine reserved or future use pktsTx nteger umber of packets transmitted on this network adapter since network module was loaded bTx nteger B sent from this network adapter since network module was oaded pktsRx nteger umber of packets received on this network adapter since network module was loaded bRx nteger B received on this network adapter since system start vmware vmwProductSpecific es categorized into product specific subgroups This group contains variab simple variable vmwar
384. r Resources on page 151 Configuring VMware ESX Server on page 152 81 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide e Logging Out of the VMware Management Interface on page 153 e Setting a MIME Type to Launch the VMware Remote Console on page 155 e Editing a Virtual Machine s Configuration File Directly on page 157 e Using the VMware Management Interface File Manager on page 159 e Registering and Unregistering Virtual Machines on page 164 e Running Many Virtual Machines on ESX Server on page 166 e Backing Up Virtual Machines on page 170 82 www vmware com CHAPTER 3 Using the VMware Management Interface to Manage Your Virtual Machines Running the VMware Management Interface VMware ESX Server provides the VMware Management Interface a Web based management tool that allows you to e Monitor the state of virtual machines and the VMware ESX Server machine on which they are running e Control power on suspend resume reset and power off the virtual machines on the server Connect the VMware Remote Console to a given virtual machine for hands on management of the guest operating system e Modify virtual machine configurations e Manage users and groups e Configure SANs e Create and delete virtual machines e Answer questions and acknowledge messages posed by the virtual machine e Configure ESX Server root users only You should use the VMware Management Interface from a management workstation not from the se
385. r SAN Compatibility List from the VMware Web site at www vmware com support esx2 www vmware com CHAPTER 9 Storage and File Systems Choosing Path Management Tools ESX Server allows you to configure and manage multipath access to storage devices through both the Management Interface and the Service Console The sections below describe how to manage multipathing in the Service Console with the vmkmultipath command For instructions on configuring multipathing with the Management Interface seeViewing Failover Paths Connections on page 234 Viewing the Current Multipathing State You can view your current multipathing configuration with the vmkmultipath q command The q option displays the state of all or selected paths recognized by ESX Server The report displayed by vmkmultipath shows the current multipathing policy for a disk and the connection state and mode for each path to the disk The report identifies disks by their canonical name The canonical name for a disk is the first path ESX Server finds to the disk Since ESX Server begins its scans at the first controller and the lowest device number the first path and thus the canonical name of the disk is the path with the lowest number controller and device number For example if the paths to a disk are vmhba0 0 2 vmhba1 0 2 vmhba0 1 2 and vmhbal 1 2 then the canonical name of the disk is vmhba0 0 2 To see a report for all disks enter vmkmultipath q Bel
386. r State of a Virtual Machine on page 93 Using Common Controls on page 101 Click the tabs at the top of the page to view more information about the virtual machine 109 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide Configuring a Virtual Machine s Disk Usage To review and configure the virtual machine s disk settings click the Disk tab The Disk page appears F testserver Microsoft Windows NT Microsoft Internet Explorer Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 ro Status Monitor CPU Memory Disk Network Hardware Options Users andEvents Refresh Help Close Last updated Thu Nov 18 16 23 49 PST 2004 a D gt Microsoft Windows NT Powered on PID 1499 VMID 141 Performance Resources Read Bandwidth Number of Shares Edit normal Write Bandwidth The Disk page shows virtual disk performance information and resources allocated to the virtual disk Disk bandwidth represents the amount of data that is written to or read from the server s physical disks Understanding Performance Values The values under Performance are based on the past five minutes The period of time these statistics cover can be modified See Configuring the Statistics Period for the VMware Management Interface on page 85 Performance information displayed includes e Read Bandwidth indicates how much bandwidth is being used when the virtual machine is reading from the physical disk on the server e Write Bandwidth indicates how much ba
387. r Virtual Machines on page 61 If you are migrating a virtual machine from VMware Workstation or VMware GSX Server see Migrating VMware Workstation and VMware GSX Server Virtual Machines on page 62 Be sure to read these instructions carefully before attempting to migrate your virtual machine Create golden master template virtual disks To manage ESX Server more efficiently you can create a small number of golden master template virtual disks for easier deployment These are virtual disks that have complete guest operating systems installed applications complete management agent installs virus detection software complete VMware Tools installs and so on You can import the disks into a VMFS volume whenever you want to create a new virtual machine Be sure that the golden master has the tools necessary to reset system attributes hostname and IP address NetBIOS hostname domain and SID Windows operating systems for the virtual machines you clone Also be sure that the user that will be running the newly created virtual machine has the appropriate user and group permissions Use the File Manager in the VMware Management Interface to import the golden master virtual disks See Using the VMware Management Interface to Manage Your Virtual Machines on page 81 www vmware com CHAPTER 1 Introduction to VMware ESX Server Task Description Set user and group permissions for the owne
388. r gt refers to the number of the Ethernet adapter XX is a valid hex number between 00 and 3F a FF The value for XX must not nd YY and ZZ are valid hex numbers between 00 and be greater than 3F in order to avoid conflict with MAC addresses that are generated by the VMware Workstation and VMware GSX Server products Thus the maximum value for a manually generated MAC address is ethernet lt number gt address 00 50 56 3F FF FF You must also set the option i n a virtual machine s configuration file ethernet lt number gt addressType Sstatic VMware ESX Server virtual ma chines do not support arbitrary MAC addresses hence the above format must be used So long as you choose XX YY ZZ uniquely among your hard coded addresses conflicts between the automatically assigned MAC addresses and the manually assigned ones should never occur 359 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide Using MAC Addresses The easiest way to familiarize yourself with MAC addresses is to set the MAC address statically then remove the virtual machine configuration file options thernet lt number gt address ethernet lt number gt addressType and thernet lt number gt generatedAddressOffset Check to see that the virtual machine gets a generated MAC address We cannot guarantee that a host stays within a specific MAC address range However we guarantee that the MAC address never conflicts with any physical host by using our
389. r identifying the new logical grouping of physical adapters You will need to know the bond number in order to configure the bond options described below Check etc vmware netmap conf to determine the bond number assigned to a virtual switch You may also need to know the device name ESX Server assigns to a physical adapter Certain options use the device name to designate a specific adapter ESX Server defines device names with the string vmnic lt n gt for which lt n gt is the same adapter number displayed for an adapter in the Management Interface For example the physical adapter identified as Outbound Adapter 1 would have the device name vmnicl You can also determine the device name by searching etc vmware devnames conf forthe name definition Note the PCI bus address of the adapter in the Management Interface and search for the corresponding name definition For example to find the device name for the adapter at PCI 2 4 0 1 Log into the Service Console 2 Search etc vmware devnames conf grep 2 04 0 etc vmware devnames conf 002 04 0 nic vmnicO The device name is vmnic0O Creating a Virtual Switch You can find basic instructions for creating and modifying virtual switches in Changing Network Connections on page 215 Note The configuration options described below are used for optimizing virtual switches for complex operating conditions You can create and use a virtual switch without changing these options for most c
390. r memory The virtual machine is configured to use between 128MB and 256MB and has been allocated 2560 memory shares It is currently allocated about 212MB Approximately 44MB has been reclaimed for use by other virtual machines 38MB via vmmemct 1 and nearly 6MB via swapping to the ESX server swap file Of the 212MB allocated to the virtual machine more than 37MB is shared for example with other virtual machines The current working set estimate for the virtual machine is approximately 187MB About 14MB of overhead memory is currently being used for virtualization out of a maximum of 54MB Cautions VMware supplies vmmemct 1 drivers for Windows Server 2003 Windows XP Windows 2000 Windows NT 4 0 and Linux The appropriate vmmemct 1 driver is installed automatically when you install VMware Tools in the guest operating system The 412 www vmware com CHAPTER 12 VMware ESX Server Resource Management system uses swapping to reclaim memory from virtual machines running other guest operating systems and from virtual machines that do not have VMware Tools installed The maximum amount of memory that the system may attempt to reclaim using vmmemct 1 is restricted automatically based on known limitations of the type of guest operating system Alternatively you may specify the configuration file option sched mem maxmemct 1 manually See the description of the ESX Server options MemCt 1Max OSType for appropriate limits 413
391. r of a virtual machine Log into the management interface and click Manage Files Navigate to the configuration file vmx of the virtual machine Click the check box next to the virtual machine s configuration file and click Edit Properties Choose read write and execute properties for the owner of the virtual machine and choose read and execute privileges for the owner s group then click OK Similarly set read and write permissions for the owner on the virtual machine s virtual disk vmdk file Note that read permissions for a virtual disk file are sufficient if the virtual disk is nonpersistent See Setting Permissions for Owners of Virtual Machines on page 162 and Using Disk Modes on page 147 Be sure that the same user owns both the virtual machine s configuration and virtual disk file and this user has full access privileges for both files Set user and group permissions to view a virtual machine in the Status Monitor page of the management interface For a user to see a virtual machine in the management interface the user or a group to which the user belongs must have read access to hat virtual machine See Setting Permissions for Owners of Virtual Machines on page 162 Set user permissions to connect to a virtual machine through the remote console For a user to connect to and power on a virtual machine in the remote console the user or a group to which the user belongs must have read and execute
392. r operations using these parameters e Primary IP Address This is the address for the cluster as a whole This is the address that the clients will use to access the cluster e Subnet Mask This is the subnet mask of the network to which the above address belongs e Multicast Check this box This enables multicast mode Note All members of the cluster must use the same setting for this option Also be aware that when you enable multicast mode you may need to change the configuration of your physical LAN switches consult your LAN hardware documentation for information e Refer to Network Load Balancing Help for the remaining options 1 After you have finished click OK You return to the Local Area Connection Properties dialog box 2 Click OK again to return to the Local Area Connection Status dialog box 3 Right click the local area connection on which Network Load Balancing is to be installed and click Properties 4 Select Internet Protocol TCP IP then click Properties 5 Set up TCP IP for Network Load Balancing For more information and links to procedures for setting up TCP IP for Network Load Balancing on single and multiple network adapters see Related Topics in the Network Load Balancing Help Note You must add Cluster s Primary IP Address to the list of IP Addresses bound to the adapter Repeat these steps on each host to be used in your Network Load Balancing cluster 355 VMware ESX Server
393. r reboots the guest e Ifyou are changing from the BusLogic to the LSI Logic adapter in an existing virtual machine the guest operating system recognizes the presence of the LSI Logic adapter and the Add New Hardware wizard starts after you log in Browse to the directory where you unzipped the driver files and let Windows copy them to the correct place 3 After you install the LSI Logic driver make sure the virtual machine boots completely Check the guest operating system s Device Manager to ensure the LSI Logic adapter appears and is working If you are installing the LSI adapter in a new guest operating system you are finished If you are switching from a BusLogic adapter in an existing virtual machine continue with the remaining steps 4 Shut down and power off the virtual machine then edit the configuration file Switch the original BusLogic adapter to the LSI Logic adapter by changing this line scsi0 virtualDev vmxbuslogic to scsi0d virtualDev vmxlsilogic 56 www vmware com 5 Remove the LSI Logic adapter scsil present TRUI w scsil virtualDev Save your changes to the con After the virtual machine boo using the LSI Logic driver only CHAPTER 2 Creating and Configuring Virtual Machines you added previously by removing these lines pro E vmxlsilogic guration file and boot the virtual machine again s verify in the Device Manager that the guest is Note
394. r trysoft specifies the behavior of the power operation lt powerop_mode gt If lt powerop_mode gt is not specified the default behavior is soft For more information see the VMware Scripting API User s Manual Executing Commands When ESX Server Requests the Guest Service to Halt or Reboot a Virtual Machine In a Linux guest you can have the guest service execute specific commands when ESX Server asks it to halt or reboot the virtual machine s guest operating system If you use nonstandard utilities or want to do additional things before shutting down or rebooting the guest operating system you can override the default commands the guest service executes by modifying the etc vmware dualconf vmstartup script in the guest to start the guest service with the following command line options etc vmware vmware guestd halt command lt command gt where lt command gt is the command to execute when ESX Server asks the gues service to halt the guest operating system etc vmware vmware guestd reboot command lt command gt where lt command gt is the command to execute when ESX Server asks the guest service to reboot the guest operating system Passing a String from the Service Console to the Guest Operating System With ESX Server and knowledge of a scripting language like Perl or NetShell in a Windows 2000 guest operating system you can pass a string from your virtual machine s configuration file to the guest operating system
395. rating system resume vm default bat Shut down the guest operating system poweroff vm default bat Power on the guest operating system poweron vm default bat For each power state you can use the default script or you can substitute a script you created In addition you can test a script or disable the running of a script Complete the following steps 1 Inthe Script Event list select the power operation with which to associate the script 2 Do one of the following e To select a different script click Custom Script then click Browse and select the new script e To edit a script click Edit The script opens in your default editor Make your changes there e To test the script click Run Now 182 www vmware com CHAPTER 4 Using the VMware Remote Console e To disable the running of a script uncheck the Use Script check box 3 Click Apply to save your settings Shrinking Virtual Disks with VMware Tools The Shrink tab lets you prepare to export a virtual disk to VMware GSX Server using the smallest possible disk files This step is an optional part of the export process Virtual disks on ESX Server take up the full amount of disk space indicated by the virtual disk s size In other words the vmdk file for a 4GB virtual disk occupies 4GB of disk space GSX Server works differently Under GSX Server virtual disk files start small only as big as needed to hold the data stored on the virtual disk
396. re available In this example because virtual machine A has high shares it can get twice as much memory as virtual machine B low shares subject to the specified memory minimum or maximum For detailed information on how ESX Server dynamically redistributes memory see Allocating Memory Dynamically on page 402 Admission Control Policy VMware ESX Server uses an admission control policy to ensure that sufficient unreserved memory and swap space are available before powering on a virtual machine Memory must be reserved for the virtual machine s guaranteed minimum size additional overhead memory is required for virtualization Thus the total required for each virtual machine is the specified minimum plus overhead The overhead memory size is determined automatically it is typically 54MB for a single virtual CPU virtual machine and 64MB for a dual virtual CPU SMP virtual machine Additional overhead memory is reserved for virtual machines larger than 512MB Note To create SMP virtual machines with ESX Server you must also have purchased the VMware Virtual SMP for ESX Server product For more information on the VMware Virtual SMP for ESX Server product contact VMware Inc or your authorized sales representative Swap space must be reserved on disk for the remaining virtual machine memory that is the difference between the maximum and minimum settings This swap reservation is required to ensure the system is able to preserve virt
397. re information on share values refer to the resource management man pages cpu 8 diskbw 8 and mem 8 For more information on Hyper Threading see the hyperthreading 8 manpage e Scheduling Affinity represents on which ESX Server processors the virtual machine can run when the ESX Server system is a multiprocessor system Modifying CPU Values These values can be modified Click Edit For information on changing CPU settings see Allocating CPU Resources on page 384 www vmware com CHAPTER 3 Using the VMware Management Interface to Manage Your Virtual Machines Other activities you can perform when configuring a virtual machine s CPU information include e Connecting to a Virtual Machine with the VMware Remote Console on page 91 e Using the Virtual Machine Menu on page 92 e Changing the Power State of a Virtual Machine on page 93 e Using Common Controls on page 101 Click the tabs at the top of the page to view more information about the virtual machine Configuring a Virtual Machine s Memory Usage To review and configure the virtual machine s memory usage click the Memory tab The Memory page appears E testserver Microsoft Windows NT Microsoft Internet Explorer YMware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 ro Status Monitor Memory Disk Network Hardware Options ETT TT Refresh Help Close Last updated Thu Nov 18 16 22 31 PST 2004 ta wn 3 Microsoft Windows NT Powered on PID 1499 YMID 141 Performance
398. reate Be sure that the entry in the Location field is unique The default path and filename are based on the guest operating system you have chosen If other virtual machines have been created on this server you must change the path to create a new unique directory for the new virtual machine The Location field contains the name of the configuration file this file has a vmx extension this directory also contains other virtual machine files Each virtual machine must have its own directory All associated files such as the configuration file and the disk files are placed in this directory Note Configuration files for virtual machines created with VMware ESX Server 2 0 and later use the vmx extension Earlier versions of ESX Server used the cfg extension Virtual machine configuration files with a cfg extension can be accessed by ESX Server 2 5 normally 33 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 34 4 When you are ready to proceed click Next B testserver Add Virtual Machine Microsoft Internet Explorer Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 root Add irtual Machine Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Virtual Machine Configuration Processors Processors id z Memory Suggested 384 M Guest Min 128 M Runnable Max 1640 M 1P 1632 M 2P Memory in multiples of 4 384 M Workloads Citrix Terminal Services O B j Help lt Back l Next Cancel L L In the Processor
399. reate a new virtual disk Choose the VMFS volume on which you want to store the virtual disk Give the virtual disk file a unique name for example cluster1 vmdk If you need a primary SCSI disk larger than 4GB enter the appropriate value in the Capacity field Choose the virtual SCSI node to which you want to attach the virtual disk By default the disk mode is set to persistent Click Persistent to verify the disk mode Click Next You have created the virtual machine The hardware tab for this virtual machine appears Use it to add hardware devices Network Device Configuration You must add another virtual network adapter the cluster nodes will use to communicate with each other k pA 3 4 On the hardware tab for this virtual machine click Add Device Click Network Adapter From the Device Binding drop down list choose vmnic1 Note If all nodes of the cluster will reside on the same ESX Server machine you may use vmnet_0 for the second network adapter This allows all nodes to communicate with each other on a private virtual network connected to the vmnet_0 virtual switch Click OK You have finished creating and configuring the first node virtual machine Installing the Guest Operating System Now you need to install Windows 2000 Advanced Server in the virtual machine 1 Insert the Windows 2000 Advanced Server CD in the ESX Server machine s CD ROM drive 350 www vmware com
400. reate one Creating a new volume consumes all the free space remaining on a disk ESX Server determines the optimum setting for the maximum file size based on the volume s file system Caution Do not place your core dump partition on a SAN disk If the SAN cable is removed ESX Server becomes unstable To create a new partition complete the following steps 1 In the Disks and LUNs window click Create Volume You are asked how you prefer to configure the disk F esx244 Storage Management Microsoft Internet Explorer Oo x Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 11152 Disks and LUNs MZOE Clim T me eee Ye Storage Management Disk and LUN Configuration Create and modify YMFS volumes suitable for storing virtual disk files Yolume Creation Method Which volume creation method do you want to use Typical Choose this option to partition your disk with the most common configuration Custom Choose this option if you need to create one or more partitions with specific properties B Next Cancel 2 Click Typical If it does not exist you are asked if you want to create a core dump partition The core dump partition stores information generated if the VMkernel crashes The core dump information is important in debugging any problems with the VMkernel The rest of the disk or array is used as a VMFS partition where you store virtual machine disk files The VMFS partition provides high performance access to t
401. rectly There are two ways in which you can edit specific configuration options for a virtual machine e Onthe Options tab for a specific virtual machine you can add and change configuration options For more information see Modifying the Configuration File Directly Advanced Users Only on page 137 e You can also edit a virtual machine s configuration file vmx by using a text editor in the service console This lets you add change and remove elements of a virtual machine s configuration Caution Modifying a configuration file by using a text editor is recommended for advanced users only The virtual machine must be powered off You should back up your virtual machine s configuration file before modifying it with a text editor Changing Your Virtual SCSI Adapter By default ESX Server assigns the BusLogic virtual SCSI adapter to Linux Windows NT 4 0 Windows 2000 or Windows XP Professional guest operating systems Similarly ESX Server assigns the LSI Logic SCSI virtual adapter to Windows 2003 Server guest operating systems You can change these default settings by editing the virtual machine s configuration file through the management interface as described in Modifying the Configuration File Directly Advanced Users Only on page 137 1 Look for lines similar to the following in the virtual machine s configuration file mr scsi0 present TRUE scsi0 virtualDev vmxbuslogic scsi0 sharedBus none 2
402. res The number of shares is displayed 1000 This indicates that virtual machine 103 is currently allocated 1 000 shares To change the number of shares allocated to virtual machine 103 simply write to the file Note that you need root privileges in order to change share allocations echo 2000 gt proc vmware vm 103 cpu shares You can also write to the file by specifying low normal or high ESX Server writes the numerical value for these special values echo high gt proc vmware vm 103 cpu shares The change can be confirmed by reading the file again cat proc vmware vm 103 cpu shares The number of shares is displayed 2000 To query the affinity set for virtual machine 103 simply read the file cat proc vmware vm 103 cpu affinity The identifying numbers of the processors in the affinity set are displayed 0 1 This indicates that virtual machine 103 is allowed to run on CPUs 0 and 1 To restrict virtual machine 103 to run only on CPU 1 simply write to the file Note that you need root privileges in order to change affinity sets echo 1 gt proc vmware vm 103 cpu affinity The change can be confirmed by reading the file again Note The affinity set must contain at least as many CPUs as virtual CPUs that is 1 CPU for a uniprocessor UP virtual machine and 2 CPU for a SMP virtual machine 395 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide Monitoring CPU Statistics The VMware Management Interface provides inf
403. res per virtual CPU The default allocation for a uniprocessor virtual machine is 1000 shares or 2000 shares for a dual virtual CPU SMP virtual machine sched cpu min lt minPercent gt This configuration file option specifies a minimum CPU reservation lt min gt as a percentage for a virtual machine The valid range of values for lt minPercent gt is 0 the default minimum to the number representing the total physical CPU resources Note that the minimum may be greater than 100 for SMP virtual machines that are guaranteed more than one full physical CPU Note If ESX Server is unable to guarantee a virtual machine s specified minimum percentage s you cannot power on that virtual machine For example if you have two uniprocessor UP virtual machines each has a CPU minimum of 80 and both are bound to the same processor then ESX Server does not allow you to power on both virtual machines The total CPU percentage is 160 greater than a single processor sched cpu max lt maxPercent gt This configuration file option specifies a maximum CPU percentage lt maxPercent gt for a virtual machine The valid range of values for lt maxPercent gt is 0 to the 391 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 392 number representing the total physical CPU resources Note that the maximum may be greater than 100 for SMP virtual machines that are guaranteed more than one full physical CPU The default maximum is 100 times the nu
404. rkstation 3 2 earlier or VMware GSX Server 2 5 or earlier You should uninstall VMware Tools from a virtual machine before exporting it for use in Workstation or GSX Server Use the vmktools command in the Service Console to export virtual disks associated with a virtual machine For details see the section on using the export file option of vmkfstools in Basic vmkfstools Options on page 291 67 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide You can find an example of how to use the export file option in Examples Using vmkfstools on page 299 68 www vmware com CHAPTER 2 Creating and Configuring Virtual Machines Preparing to Use the Remote Management Software You can manage VMware ESX Server from a remote workstation using the VMware Remote Console and the VMware Management Interface Remote console software is available for Windows and Linux workstations The remote console lets you attach directly to a virtual machine You can start and stop programs change the configuration of the guest operating system and do other tasks as if you were working at a physical computer Note If you need secure communications between your management workstations and the server be sure to choose the appropriate security level when you configure ESX Server See Configuring Security Settings on page 224 for more information Registering Your Virtual Machines If you create your virtual machines using the Virtual Machine Configuration Wizard
405. rs Make sure the I O timeout is 60 seconds or more HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE System CurrentControlSet Services Disk TimeOutValue Cluster Service must restart automatically on failure for first second and subsequent times 345 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 346 Running Microsoft Cluster Service Microsoft Cluster Service should operate normally in the virtual machines once it is installed Note Some disk errors are recorded in the Windows event log in normal operation These error messages have a format similar to The driver detected a controller error on Device Scsi BusLogic3 They should be reported periodically only on the passive node of the cluster and should also be reported when the passive node is taking over during a failover The errors are reported because the active node of the cluster has reserved the shared virtual disk The passive node periodically probes the shared disk and receives a SCSI reservation conflict error VMFS Locking and SCSI Reservation For a shared SCSI disk that can be accessed by multiple ESX Server machines two kinds of locking may be in use These two kinds of locking are somewhat independent and can cause confusion The shared SCSI disk may be on shared SCSI bus or more likely on a storage area network SAN VMFS File System Locking The first kind of locking is VMFS file system locking ESX Server locks VMFS file systems ona server level when a VMFS file system is conf
406. rtual allows you to choose a disk mode for the guest operating system 38 www ymware com CHAPTER 2 Creating and Configuring Virtual Machines 8 When you are finished configuring the virtual disk click Next The Hardware tab for this virtual machine appears Last updated Thu Nov 18 16 00 50 PST 2004 a p Windows 2000 Server Powered on PIO 144 VMID 140 Removable Devices Other Hardware a d Floppy Drive Remove Edt Processors and Memory tdi acted No Processors 1 aaact st Power On No Mom 3an Der System Floppy Drive E nispay edn cation v senne olors Thousands of Colors 16 bit Q OVD CO ROM Orive IDE 0 0 Remove Edt ected Yes renct at Power On Yes Orice System OVO CO ROM Orive ocation Iderfedrom E Network Adapter Remove Edt 4 You can change any of the default settings ESX Server assigned to the virtual machine such as the disk mode network card color depth and any removable devices or configuration items you specified as you create the virtual machine To change any hardware see Configuring a Virtual Machine s Hardware on page 113 39 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide Installing a Guest Operating System and VMware Tools This section describes the following e Installing a Guest Operating System in a Virtual Machine on page 40 e Installing VMware Tools in the Guest Operating System on page 41 e About the VMware Guest Operating System Service on page 46 In most cas
407. rtual machine s configuration file To edit the configuration file use the configuration file editor in the management interface See Editing a Virtual Machine s Configuration File Directly on page 157 for details memsize lt size gt This configuration file option specifies the maximum virtual machine size to be lt size gt MB sched mem minsize lt size gt This configuration file option specifies the guaranteed minimum virtual machine size to be lt size gt MB The maximum valid value for lt size gt is 100 percent of the specified maximum virtual machine size The minimum valid value for lt size gt depends on the amount of available swap space The default minimum size is 50 percent of the specified maximum virtual machine size sched mem shares lt n gt This configuration file option specifies the initial memory share allocation for a virtual machine to be lt n gt shares The valid range of numerical values for lt n gt is 0 to 100000 You may also use the special values low normal and high These values are automatically converted into numbers through the configuration options MemSharesPerMBLow MemSharesPerMBNormal and MemSharesPerMBHigh described in the next section If the number of shares for a virtual machine is not specified the assigned allocation is normal with a default value equal to 10 times the virtual machine s maximum memory in MB For example if you created a virtual machine with
408. rtual machines 325 Microsoft Cluster Service 336 Setting Startup and Shutdown Options for a Virtual Machine 134 Shaping network traffic 426 www ymware com Shares CPU 385 memory 400 of CPU time 387 Sharing disks in clustering configuration 330 virtual disks 308 sharing the SCSI bus 308 Shut down server 256 using guest operating system service 48 virtual machine 187 Sizing memory 420 sizing for the server 420 SleepWhenldle 75 SMBIOS modifying the UUID 76 SMP virtual machines 59 Snapshots of virtual disks for backup 171 SNMP 259 and guest operating systems 269 and VMware Tools 261 configuring management software 268 installing the agent 263 266 location of the VMware sub tree 260 security 268 traps 261 variables 270 275 SNMP agent starting 267 snmpd daemon 263 Software installing in a virtual machine 184 Speed setting for network driver 363 SSH TCP IP port 205 Startup Profile Hyper Threading 389 String passing from console operating system to guest 49 Suspend 94 185 location of suspended state file 134 Switches virtual 369 system logs 241 T Tape drive 207 adding to virtual machine 132 assigning to virtual machines or service console 170 SCSI ID 207 TCP IP ports used for management access 205 Telnet TCP IP port 205 Time synchronizing between guest and console operating systems 47 Troubleshooting virtual switches 375 troubleshooting SANs 313 314 U Undoable disk mode
409. rtual machines that are in production An advantage of using flagship accounts is that flagship users never leave the company or go on vacation See Creating a Flagship User on page 163 and Changing Users and Groups on page 219 for more information Add additional disks and partitions as needed When creating your VMFS volumes you should keep the default access type public unless you plan to use your virtual machines for clustering If you are running clustering software select shared as your VMFS volume access type See Configuring Storage Disk Partitions and File Systems on page 228 and Configuration for Clustering on page 325 for more information 21 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 22 Task Description Decide how to organize your virtual machine configuration files The default location for these files is the home directory of the user that created the virtual machine However in production environments most virtual machines belong to teams rather than to individuals Setting up some kind of central directory structure is a good idea Upgrade any existing virtual machines from a previous version of ESX Server or another VMware product The migration procedure is heavily dependent on the version of the VMware product used to create the original virtual machine If you are migrating a virtual machine from a previous version of ESX Server then see Migrating Older ESX Serve
410. rver 2 5 Use of clustering services in virtual machines provides high availability with less hardware such as machines and network adapters Clustering Scenarios Several scenarios are possible for clustering in virtual machines Cluster in a Box This provides simple clustering to deal with software crashes or administrative errors The cluster consists of multiple virtual machines on a single physical machine It supports shared disks without any shared SCSI hardware It supports heartbeat network without any extra network adapters Cluster JPR a Cluster software a software Requests Physical machine A two node cluster on a single physical machine each node is running clustering software Cluster across Boxes This type of cluster consists of virtual machines on multiple physical machines The virtual disks are stored on shared physical disks so all 328 www vmware com CHAPTER 10 Configuration for Clustering virtual machines can access them Using this type of cluster you can deal with the crash of a physical machine Cluster Cluster 3 software software Requests Physical machine Physical machine A two node cluster using two physical machines each node is running clustering software Consolidating Clusters This type of cluster combines features of the previous two types For example you can consolidate four clusters of two machines each to two physical machines with four virtual machin
411. rver machine where ESX Server is installed Running the X Windows System on your server s service console is not recommended To use the management interface make sure you set read permissions for all users for each virtual machine you want to manage from a browser when you register each virtual machine Note Ifyou are connecting to the management interface with Internet Explorer 6 0 you must configure the browser See Using Internet Explorer 6 0 to Access the VMware Management Interface on page 86 Note You can only use ASCII characters when viewing the management interface Once your user name and password are authorized by the management interface the Status Monitor page appears The Status Monitor page contains high level details about all the virtual machines on the server to which you are connected The Status Monitor page links to a detailed set of pages specific to each virtual machine where you find information about virtual devices configuration options and a summary of VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 84 recent events In addition you can create and delete virtual machines from your browser These pages refresh or reload automatically refreshing every 90 seconds You may want to refresh or reload these pages manually before you perform an operation like suspending resuming or powering on or off a virtual machine from the management interface or after you perform a power operation in a remote
412. s This is the same as choosing Start gt Shut Down gt Shut Down in a Windows operating system or issuing a shutdown command in a Linux operating system Options for Suspending a Virtual Machine You can choose from the following options when suspending a virtual machine Run Script Then Suspend executes the associated script then suspends the virtual machine This is the same as clicking Suspend on the toolbar unless a script is not associated with suspending a virtual machine Suspend Virtual Machine suspends the virtual machine Option for Resuming a Virtual Machine You can choose the following option when resuming a virtual machine Resume Then Run Script resumes the suspended virtual machine then executes the associated script This is the same as clicking Resume on the toolbar unless a script is not associated with resuming a virtual machine Resume Virtual Machine resumes the suspended virtual machine Options for Resetting a Virtual Machine You can choose from the following options when resetting a virtual machine Reset Virtual Machine resets the virtual machine This is similar to resetting a physical computer by pressing its reset button so any programs running in the 179 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 180 virtual machine may be adversely affected Clicking the Reset button on the toolbar resets the virtual machine Restart Guest Operating System gracefully restarts
413. s explicitly Modules supported in this release are located in usr lib vmware vmkmod The command vmk load_mod 1 loads VMkernel modules VMkernel Module Loader The program vmk 1oad_mod is used to load device driver and network shaper modules into the VMkernel vmk load_mod can also be used to unload a module list the loaded modules and list the available parameters for each module The format for the command is vmkload_mod lt options gt lt module binary gt lt module tag gt lt parameters gt where lt module binary gt is the name of the module binary that is being loaded lt module tag gt is the name that the VMkernel associates with the loaded module The tag can be any string of letters and numbers If the module is a device driver the VMkernel names the module with the lt module tag gt plus a number starting from zero If there are multiple device instances created by loading the module or multiple device driver modules loaded with the same tag each device gets a unique number based on the order in which device instances are created The lt module binary gt and lt module tag gt parts of the command line are required when a module is loaded and are ignored when the unload list and showparam options are used The lt parameters gt part of the command line is optional and is used only when a module is being loaded Options list List out the current modules loaded If the 1 option is given other argu
414. s gt VMware Tools Install This step connects the virtual machine s CD ROM drive to an ISO image file on the ESX Server machine If autorun is enabled in your guest operating system the default setting for Windows operating systems a dialog box appears after a few seconds It asks if you want to install VMware Tools Click Install to launch the installation wizard If autorun is not enabled the dialog box does not appear automatically If it doesn t appear run VMwareTools exe from the CD ROM drive Start gt Run gt D VMwareTools exe where D is the first CD ROM drive in your virtual machine to install VMware Tools When installation is complete choose Settings gt Cancel Tools Install to disconnect the ISO image file and return the virtual machine s CD ROM drive to its original configuration Installing VMware Tools and the Network Driver in a Windows NT 4 0 Guest I Choose Settings gt VMware Tools Install This step connects the virtual machine s CD ROM drive to an ISO image file on the ESX Server machine If autorun is enabled in your guest operating system the default setting for Windows operating systems a dialog box appears after a few seconds It asks if you want to install VMware Tools Click Install to launch the installation wizard If autorun is not enabled the dialog box does not appear automatically If it doesn t appear run VMwareTools exe from the CD ROM drive choose Start gt Run gt D VMwareTool
415. s a default file name extension of vmdk for virtual disks Virtual machines created under ESX Server 2 1 and earlier creates disk files with a dsk extension If the virtual disk has a redo log GSX Server 2 5 or Workstation 3 2 or earlier virtual machines or a sn choose to do eith apshot Workstation 4 virtual machines associated with it you can er of the following e Ifyou want the most current representation of the virtual disk before you import it commit the changes in the redo log or take a snapshot just before importing e Ifyou want to use the base disk discard the changes in the redo log or migrate the virtual machine without the snapshot vms s file When you install VMware Tools in the VMware ESX Server virtual machine you may set up a new network driver Virtual machines migrated from Workstation and GSX Server cannot be configured to use more than on e virtual processor 63 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 64 Disk Geometry Failures When Importing GSX Server Virtual Machines If you used vmk stools to import a virtual machine created under GSX Server to ESX Server after you import the virtual machine you may see the following message Disk geometry mismatch To power on the virtual machine you should specify scsi lt xadapter id gt lt target id gt biosGeometry lt cylinders gt lt heads gt lt sectors gt in the configuration file A similar problem may occur if you
416. s exe where D is the first CD ROM drive in your virtual machine to install VMware Tools 2 Doone of the following 43 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 44 e If you configured this virtual machine to use the vlance network driver go to step 5 e If you configured this virtual machine to use the vmxnet network driver choose Start gt Control Panel gt Network gt Adapters and click Add Click Have Disk and enter D Program files VMware VMware Tools Drivers vmxnet winnt in the Insert Disk dialog where D is the first CD ROM drive in your virtual machine Click OK when VMware Virtual Ethernet Adapter is displayed in the Select OEM Option dialog The VMware network driver is installed Click Close in the Adapters dialog box to complete the installation Windows lets you configure the Internet address for the card If you are installing on a virtual machine that was created with VMware Workstation and used networking you must use an address different from the one the original network configuration used since that address is still assigned to the now nonexistent virtual AMD card Or you can change the address assigned to the AMD card at this point Note The VMware Virtual Ethernet Adapter driver runs correctly only if you have Service Pack 3 or later installed If you do not have the proper service pack installed yet you may get an error message such as System Process Driver Entry Point Not Found The SystemRo
417. s fairness and tries to maximize throughput You may specify initial disk bandwidth allocation values for a virtual machine in its configuration file You may also modify disk bandwidth allocation parameters dynamically using the VMware Management Interface the procfs interface on the service console or the VMware Scripting API Reasonable defaults are used automatically when you do not specify parameters explicitly However if you plan to run a virtual machine that will have disk intensive workloads such as a database or file server then you may want to increase its disk shares Information about current disk bandwidth allocations and other status is available via the management interface the procfs interface on the service console and the VMware Scripting API Allocation Policy ESX Server uses a modified proportional share allocation policy for controlling disk bandwidth per virtual machine This policy attempts to control the disk bandwidth used by a virtual machine to access a disk while also trying to maximize throughput to he disk Disk bandwidth shares entitle a virtual machine to a fraction of the bandwidth to a disk or LUN For example a virtual machine that has twice as many shares as another for a particular disk is entitled to consume twice as much bandwidth to the disk provided that they are both actively issuing commands to the disk Bandwidth consumed by a virtual machine is represented in consumption units Every S
418. s list choose the number of virtual CPUs in your virtual machine You may choose 1 or 2 virtual CPUs but they must be less than or equal to the number of physical CPUs on your server Note Some guest operating systems such as Windows NT can be configured with a single processor only If you are configuring such a virtual machine a note indicates this and you cannot select more than one virtual CPU Note You can create dual virtual CPU virtual machines only if you have purchased the VMware Virtual SMP for ESX Server product For more information on this product contact VMware Inc or your authorized sales representative The default setting in the Memory entry field depends on the guest operating system you have selected You may need to change it to meet the demands of applications you plan to run in the virtual machine You may change this setting later on the virtual machine s Memory tab in the management interface See Managing Memory Resources from the Management Interface on page 406 For background on allocating memory to virtual machines see Sizing Memory on the Server on page 420 In the Workloads list select Citrix Terminal Services if you plan to run Citrix MetaFrame on the virtual machine This option allows ESX Server to reserve and allocate more memory to virtual machines running Citrix MetaFrame in order to achieve the best performance possible Note Do not select this option if you do not plan to run Citrix Met
419. s the root user you can change the values for these parameters Changing these values can help fine tune the running of virtual machines Caution You should not make any changes to these settings unless you are working with VMware s support team or otherwise have thorough information about what values you should provide for them Note Some configuration settings shown on this page are described in the ESX Server manual and may be changed as described in the manual In most cases however you should not modify these settings unless a VMware technical support engineer suggests that you do so To change the setting for a VMkernel configuration parameter click the link for the value The Update VMkernel Parameter Update window opens on top of the VMware Management Interface window YMkernel Parameter Update Microsoft Interne M Ea Ey Modify Mkernel Parameter Enter a new value for the selected parameter Cpu SharesPer cpuNormal Default 1000 Value 1o00 O O e OK Cancel In the New Value entry field type the value for the parameter and click OK The window closes and the updated parameter appears on the Advanced Settings page Configuring the Service Console You can configure the server processor and disk resources for the service console These resources are divided among the service console and all virtual disks on any VMFS partitions located on the same disk on the ESX Server system You must be logge
420. s the virtual machines in the order in which they are configured to start and stop e Any Order lists the virtual machines specified to start and stop in any order 254 www vmware com CHAPTER 6 Administering ESX Server Editing the Startup Sequence for Virtual Machines To edit the startup sequence for virtual machines click Edit under Startup Sequence The Virtual Machine Startup Sequence configuration page appears and displays the virtual machines on your system testserver Virtual Machine Startup and Shutdown Microsoft Internet Explorer oO x nel Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 ro Virtual Machine Startup Sequence Virtual machines will start in the specified order they will stop in the reverse order Registered Virtual Machines Specified Order Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition Novell NetWare 5 I 2 MS Windows clone task M 1 Microsoft Windows NT Novell NetWare 6 Any Order o Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition zl Cancel To specify the startup order for virtual machines select the check box next to one or more machines Once selected navigation arrows highlight allowing you to move machines between the three lists Virtual machines can be set to one of the following options e Other this list contains virtual machines that are not configured to start and stop with the system e Specified Order lists the virtual machin
421. s used for failover based clustering among virtual machines on the same or different ESX Servers For more information on clustering with ESX Server see Configuration for Clustering on page 325 Note In ESX Server 2 and later private VMFS volumes are deprecated If you have existing VMFS version 1 VMFS 1 or VMFS version 2 VMFS 2 private volumes then you can continue to use them but we recommend you change the access mode to public There is no performance penalty in making this change www vmware com CHAPTER 9 Storage and File Systems VMFS Accessibility on a SAN Any VMFS volume on a disk that is on a SAN should have VMFS accessibility set to public or shared Public the default and recommended accessibility mode makes the VMFS volume available to multiple physical servers and to the virtual machines on those servers With VMFS 2 volumes public access is concurrent to multiple physical servers whereas for VMFS 1 volumes public access is limited to a single server at a time For more information on configuring ESX Server with a SAN see Using Storage Area Networks with ESX Server on page 310 Changing Storage Configuration Options To create or modify disk partitions through the VMware Management Interface complete the following steps 1 Log in to the VMware Management Interface as root The Status Monitor page appears 2 Click the Options tab 3 Click Storage Configuration 4 Make the appropriate
422. scheduled virtual machine The ESX Server scheduler performs automatic load balancing on multiprocessor systems You can manage the CPU resources on a server from the VMware Management nterface from the procfs interface on the service console and the VMware Scripting API For each virtual machine you can define a minimum and maximum amount of CPU that a virtual machine can use guaranteeing a percentage of the CPU resource whether or not there is contention You also allocate CPU shares to specify the relative importance of virtual machines f you have also purchased the VMware Virtual SMP for ESX Server product and your guest operating system is SMP capable then you can also control whether the virtual machine runs on one or two CPUs and restrict a virtual machine to run only on certain physical CPUs For more information on the VMware Virtual SMP for ESX Server product contact VMware Inc or your authorized sales representative For additional information on CPU management by VMware ESX Server see the cpu 8 man page Allocating CPU Resources Three basic parameters control the allocation of CPU resources to each virtual machine e Its minimum rate min The minimum CPU percentage represents an absolute fixed lower limit of a single physical CPU s processing power The virtual machine will always be able to use this minimum percentage of a CPU s resources regardless of what else is happening on the server The system uses an
423. select virtual then click OK Repeat step 1 step 6 to add an additional shared virtual disk using SCSI 1 2 with the filename shared2 vmdk Network Device Configuration You need an additional virtual network adapter to be used by Microsoft Cluster Service to maintain the cluster heartbeat To add this adapter click the Hardware tab for this virtual machine then take the following steps ale 2 3 4 Click Add Device Click Network Adapter From the Device Binding drop down list choose vmnet_0 This attaches the second Ethernet adapter to a private network between the cluster nodes Click OK You have created the second cluster node virtual machine Go to the management interface s Overview page The management interface should list both virtual machines and show them powered off Installing Microsoft Cluster Service I 2 Start the node 1 virtual machine Follow the Windows 2000 Advanced Server mini setup prompts to enter Advanced Server s serial number the host name Portsaid and the IP addresses Note that you need to enter the addresses for both public and private network adapters For the public network adapter enter an IP address that belongs to the physical network For the private IP address you may use an address like 192 168 x x with a class C subnet mask 255 255 255 0 s At the end of the process Windows automatically reboots Start the Disk Administrator and change both shared di
424. ser name user cd Go up one level from the current directory cp Copy a file cp oldfile newfile Make a copy of the file oldfile in the current directory The copy is named newfile cp oldfile home user Make a copy of the file ol dfile in the current directory The copy also has the name oldfileandis in the directory home user in Create a link from one file or directory to another file or directory ln s bin program prolink Create a soft link shortcut from the existing file bin program to prolink The link prolink is created in the current working directory If you enter the command prolink you run the program bin program 193 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide Command Example and Explanation ls List the files in the current directory ls al List all a the files in the current directory in long 1 format ls html List files in the current directory that end with html The is a wild card character that represents any number of characters The is a wild card character that represents a single character ls home user List the files in the directory home user mkdir Make a new directory mkdir newdir Make a new directory called newdir beneath the current directory mkdir home newdir Make a new directory called newdir beneath the home directory mv Move a file to a new directory or rename the file mv myfile home user Move
425. service Applications that Can Use Clustering To take advantage of clustering services applications need to be clustering aware Such applications can be e Stateless as Web servers and VPN servers are e With built in recovery features like those in database servers mail servers file servers or print servers Clustering Software Available clustering software include e Microsoft Clustering Service MSCS Provides fail over support for applications such as databases file servers and mail servers e Microsoft Network Load Balancing NLB Load balances incoming IP traffic across a cluster of nodes for applications such as Web servers and terminal services e Veritas Clustering Service VCS www vmware com CHAPTER 10 Configuration for Clustering Clustering Hardware A typical clustering setup includes e Disks that are shared between nodes These are needed if the application uses dynamic data as mail servers or database servers do The shared disks may be shared SCSI disks or a storage area network using Fibre Channel e Extra network connectivity between nodes for monitoring heartbeat status Amethod for redirecting incoming requests 327 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide Clustering Virtual Machines Clustering Software in Virtual Machines Network Load Balancing Microsoft Clustering Service and Veritas Clustering Service run without modification in virtual machines on ESX Se
426. sharing in virtual machines See Sharing Memory Across Virtual Machines on page 404 Improving Slow Performance If performance seems slow first determine whether this slow performance applies to all virtual machines on an ESX Server or to just one virtual machine Improving Slow Performance on ESX Server If you notice slow performance on all your virtual machines then examine CPU usage Check and see how much idle time each processor has Also check overall system CPU utilization through the VMware Management Interface If the processors are not taxed and total system CPU utilization is under 80 then the problem is probably not CPU usage If CPU resources are not the problem then check if the VMkernel is swapping out memory Check the output of proc vmware sched mem from the procfs interface in the service console For more information see Service Console Commands on page 408 www vmware com CHAPTER 12 VMware ESX Server Resource Management If the problem is VMkernel swapping then check and make sure VMware Tools is installed Place the swap file in a different physical drive than the virtual disks You may also consider adding more physical memory to the server or possibly migrating some virtual machines onto another ESX Server Improving Slow Performance on Virtual Machines If slow performance is isolated on just a few virtual machines then you should first check their resource utilization before examining the serv
427. should be configured as a shared file system Then the locking protocol is slightly relaxed to allow multiple virtual machines on different servers to access the same VMFS file at the same time However file system commands do the same locking as with public file systems that is per VMFS in VMFS 1 volumes and per file in VMFS 2 volumes Additionally when multiple virtual machines access the VMFS the VMFS file system enters a read only mode in which it is impossible to create delete or change the size of files However the contents of the individual files can still be modified If you later want to create or remove VMFS files you must stop all virtual machines using the VMFS and re enter writable mode by using this command vmkfstools config writable vmhba0 1 0 0 Substitute the name of the appropriate disk or VMFS in place of vmhba0 1 0 0 Locking at SCSI Disk Level The second kind of locking is locking at the SCSI disk level which is called SCSI disk reservation Any server connected to a SCSI disk can issue a SCSI command to reserve the disk If no other server is already reserving the disk the current server obtains a reservation on the disk As long as that reservation exists no other server can access the disk All SCSI commands to that disk by other servers fail with an appropriate error code Ifa vmk stools command is attempted on a VMFS on a disk that is reserved by another server the vmk stools command fai
428. sk mode Under Disk Mode click Persistent Nonpersistent Undoable or Append For a discussion of disk modes see Using Disk Modes on page 147 37 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 7 Click System LUN Disk to allow the virtual machine to access a physical disk stored on a LUN Then specify the following Z esx244 Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional Configuration Microsoft Internet Ex l E3 Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 11152 root 244 eng vmware com Virtual Disk S33 Add a hard disk to your virtual machine Edit Virtual Disk Configuration System LUN Disk Target LUN Disk vmhbaO 1 1 20 0 G Partitions 0 Disk Metadata Use Metadata Mv Metadata File Location vmfs vmhba0 1 0 2 7 2 G free Metadata File Name Untitled vmdk Virtual Device Virtual SCSI Node Compatibility Physical Allow the guest operating system to access the underlying hardware directly Virtual Allow the virtual machine to take advantage of disk modes and other features of virtual disks f Back Next gt Cancer a Select Use Metadata to enable access to the disks metadata file information b Choose the Metadata File Location c Enter a name in the Metadata File Name field d Select the appropriate SCSI ID in the Virtual SCSI Node list e Choose the Compatibility of the guest operating system Physical or Virtual Physical gives the guest operating system direct disk access Vi
429. sks to basic disks Format both shared virtual disks with NTFS if they are not already formatted www vmware com 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 O 0 NS O UT RO CHAPTER 10 Configuration for Clustering Assign the first shared disk to Q quorum and the second disk to R If you have joined this virtual machine to an existing Active Directory domain skip to step 11 Run dcpromo exe from the command prompt This starts the Active Directory Wizard Set up the current machine as a domain controller For the domain name use something like vmcluster domain comwhere domain com is your DNS domain and vmcluster is your Active Directory domain This node may be setup as anew domain tree and also a new domain forest or it may join existing ones Make sure the DNS server is installed Set the domain permissions as mixed mode unless you plan otherwise To add a cluster services account in the domain go to Programs gt Administrative Tools gt Active Directory Users and Computers Add an account named cluster check User cannot change password and Password never expires Insert the Windows 2000 Advanced Server CD in the server s CD ROM drive Go to Control Panel gt Add Remove Programs Select Add Remove Windows Components Check the Cluster Service component Click Next Follow the prompts to install the service As you configure Cluster Service choose Form a New Cluster Specify the cluster name Arish
430. so configure ht sharing in the Service Console either by editing the virtual machine configuration file or by using the procfs command see Editing the Virtual Machine Configuration File on page 391 or Using procfs on page 392 389 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide Managing Virtual Machine CPU Resources You can manage CPU resources from the VMware Management Interface or from the service console Managing CPU Resources from the Management Interface You may also view and change settings from the virtual machine details pages in the VMware Management Interface 1 On the server s Status Monitor page click the name of an individual virtual machine The details page for that virtual machine appears 2 Click the CPU tab F testserver Microsoft Windows NT Microsoft Internet Explorer Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 root Status Monitor CPU Memory Disk Network Hardware Options Users and Events Refresh Help Close Last updated Thu Nov 18 16 20 33 PST 2004 ia g j Microsoft Windows NT Powered on PID 1499 VMID 141 Performance Resources C Z Ji CPU Utilization 0 1 Resource Settings Edit Minimum 0 Maximum 100 Shares 1000 Isolated from Hyper Threading No Scheduling Affinity Edit Run on Processor s 0 1 3 Click Edit The CPU Resource Settings page appears Z testserver Windows 2000 Server Configuration Microsoft Internet Explorer Mware ESX Serv
431. soft Internet Explorer nel Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 11152 root esx2 CPU Resource Settings gs Adjust the processor resources allocated to your virtual machine Edit CPU Resources Resource Settings Minimum Maximum Shares Help Cancel Change the settings and click OK to save them and close the window If you are running a large number of virtual machines on the same disk as the service console consider increasing the minimum processor percentage Otherwise you may notice performance problems with the service console even if the virtual machines are idle Click the Disk tab to view information about the service console processor usage Configuring the Service Console s Disk Usage To review and configure the service console s disk usage click the Disk tab The Disk page appears esx244_eng vmware com Service Console Microsoft Internet Explorer nel Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 11152 ri Refresh Help Close Last updated Thu Nov 18 19 09 29 PST 2004 Service Console a Performance Resources E Read Bandwidth Number of Shares Edit vmhba0 1 0 Not available vmhba0 1 0 1000 vmhba 1 1 Not available vmhba 1 1 1000 Write Bandwidth vmhba0 1 0 Not available vmhba 1 1 Not available B www vmware com CHAPTER 6 Administering ESX Server The Disk page shows hard disk performance information and resources allocated to the service console Disk bandwidth re
432. st operating system when prompted When the installation completes ESX Server disconnects the ISO image file and returns the virtual machine s CD ROM drive to its original configuration Installing VMware Tools in a Windows XP Guest 1 Choose Settings gt VMware Tools Install This step connects the virtual machine s CD ROM drive to an ISO image file on the ESX Server machine If autorun is enabled in your guest operating system the default setting for Windows operating systems a dialog box appears after a few seconds It asks if you want to install VMware Tools Click Install to launch the installation wizard If autorun is not enabled the dialog box does not appear automatically If it doesn t appear run VMwareTools exe from the CD ROM drive choose Start www vmware com CHAPTER 2 Creating and Configuring Virtual Machines gt Run gt D VMwareTools exe where D is the first CD ROM drive in your virtual machine to install VMware Tools During the installation two Hardware Installation messages appear stating that the VMware SVGA and VMware Pointing Device drivers have not passed Windows Logo testing Accept these messages and continue 3 Reboot the guest operating system when prompted When the installation completes ESX Server disconnects the ISO image file and returns the virtual machine s CD ROM drive to its original configuration Installing VMware Tools in a Windows 2000 Guest 1 Choose Setting
433. st operating systems in the VMware ESX Server Installation Guideto see which guests are multiprocessor or SMP capable e The virtual machine cannot have more virtual processors than the ESX Server system has physical processors Thus to create a virtual machine with two virtual processors the ESX Server system must have at least two physical processors 59 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 60 First you must configure the virtual machine to use more than one virtual processor Use the management interface For instructions see Configuring a Virtual Machine s Memory and Virtual Processors on page 116 Then follow the steps appropriate to the guest operating system below Windows Server 2003 Guest Operating Systems Windows Server 2003 upgrades the HAL automatically All you need to do is use the management interface to configure the virtual machine to use more than one virtual processor When you power on the virtual machine the guest operating system detects the new processor and updates the HAL accordingly Windows 2000 Guest Operating Systems For Windows 2000 guest operating systems to use more than one virtual processor you need to configure the virtual machine to use more than one virtual processor Then you need to upgrade the guest operating system s HAL Virtual machines created with one processor in ESX Server 2 5 use the ACPI Uniprocessor HAL To be able to use two virtual processors you need to use the ACPI Multipr
434. starts VMware ESX Server as owner of this configuration file Registered virtual machines those listed in etc vmware vm list also appear in the VMware Management Interface The virtual machines you see on the Status Monitor page must be listed in vm 1List and you must have read access to their configuration files The vmware authd process exits as soon as a connection to a vmware process is established Each vmware process shuts down automatically after the last user disconnects Using Your Own Security Certificates when Securing Your Remote Sessions The username password and network packets sent to ESX Server over a network connection when using the VMware Remote Console or the VMware Management Interface are encrypted in ESX Server by default when you choose Medium or High security settings for the server With SSL enabled security certificates are created by ESX Server and stored on the server However the certificates used to secure your management interface sessions are not signed by a trusted certificate authority therefore they do not provide authentication If you intend to use encrypted remote connections externally you should consider purchasing a certificate from a trusted certificate authority If you prefer you can use your own security certificate for your SSL connections The VMware Management Interface certificate must be placed in etc vmware mui ssl The management interface certificate consists of 2 files
435. system in the server s CD ROM drive Click Power On on the remote console toolbar to begin setting up your guest operating system See and the ESX Server 2 5 release notes for details on installing specific guest operating systems f you prefer to install over a network you need ISO image files of installation CD ROMs and floppy image files of any floppy disks needed for the installation The installation instructions in this section assume you are installing from physical media f you are using image files you should connect the virtual machine s CD ROM or 40 www vmware com CHAPTER 2 Creating and Configuring Virtual Machines floppy drives to the appropriate image files before you begin installing the guest operating system Note When you are installing a guest operating system on a new virtual disk you may see a message warning you that the disk is corrupted and asking if you want to place a partition table on the disk This does not mean there is any problem with your physical hard disk It simply means some data needs to be written to the file that holds your virtual hard disk All you need to do is respond Yes You also need to partition and format the virtual disk as you would with a new blank hard drive Installing a Guest Operating System on a Previously Formatted Raw Disk f you try to install a guest operating system on a raw or physical disk that was formatted previously with a file system you might see a N
436. t vmware cluster2 cluster2 vmx Click Next Select the number of processors you want the guest operating system to use up to 2 Change Memory to show the amount of RAM you want to allocate to this virtual machine Click Next Click Existing to attach an existing virtual disk to this virtual machine From the Virtual Disk Image drop down list choose cluster2 vmdk Choose the virtual SCSI node to which you want to attach the virtual disk 12 Click Next Virtual Disk Configuration You need a shared SCSI controller and shared SCSI disks for shared access to clustered services and data To add a shared SCSI controller and shared SCSI disks click the Hardware tab for this virtual machine then take the following steps 1 2 3 Click Add Device Click Hard Disk Add the pre exiting quorum disk quorum vmdk that you created in the section Virtual Disk Configuration on page 332 Choose the virtual SCSI node to which you want to attach the virtual disk Note Shared disks must be attached to a separate SCSI controller Select SCSI Tel By default the disk mode is set to persistent Click Persistent to verify the disk mode 335 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 336 8 Click OK Note A new virtual disk and SCSI Controller 1 are now visible on the hardware tab Click Edit next to SCSI Controller 1 to change the bus sharing from none to virtual From the Bus Sharing drop down list
437. tal m Reserved m Unreserve s Total 130 0 M aG J 9900 N 20H Virtual Machines 1 Virtual Hachines Summary Memory m private MShared swapped 2 Malloon Driver unused Total 9 0 9 o 9 Display Name a a Active Swap 1 0 Bh Merer0t windows 2000 Server leae Be C System Summary Physical Memory This chart shows the current allocation of physical memory on the server e Virtual Machines memory currently allocated to virtual machines e Shared Common memory required for the single copy of memory shared between virtual machines e Virtualization total virtualization overhead for all virtual machines and the vmkernel Service Console memory allocated to the Service Console Free memory currently available to be used by the system or virtual machines e Total total physical memory on the server Memory e Memory Savings Due to Sharing amount of memory saved by sharing memory between virtual machines 246 www vmware com CHAPTER 6 Administering ESX Server Many VMware ESX Server workloads present opportunities for sharing memory across virtual machines For example several VMs may be running instances of the same guest operating system have the same applications or components loaded or contain common data In such cases VMware ESX Server uses a proprietary transparent page sharing technique to securely eliminate redundant copies of memory pages With memory sharing a workload running as virtu
438. tatus Monitor page only e Creating a New Virtual Machine on page 101 Status Monitor page only e Unregistering a Virtual Machine on page 101 e Deleting a Virtual Machine on page 101 e Configuring VMware ESX Server on page 101 Options page only e Using Common Controls on page 101 Connecting to a Virtual Machine with the VMware Remote Console f you need to view a particular virtual machine s desktop you can attach the VMware Remote Console and connect to the virtual machine Click the terminal icon to aunch the remote console For more information on connecting the remote console see Using the Remote Console on page 176 etscape and Mozilla users must define a MIME type for the console first Internet Explorer is automatically configured when the remote console is installed For more information see Setting a MIME Type to Launch the VMware Remote Console on page 155 91 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 92 The terminal icon appears slightly differently depending upon the guest operating system installed in the virtual machine This visual cue helps to identify the virtual machine for example when the display name does not indicate the guest operating system Below are the different ways the terminal icon appears in the management interface a indicates a Windows guest operating system EA indicates a Linux guest operating system ont indicates a NetWare guest operating system E
439. te a overcommitted s the amount of memory configured for use by the guest nning in the virtual machine This maximum size must be figuration file for the virtual machine By default virtual t their maximum allocation unless memory is Note You must specify a maximum memory size for a guest operating system or it will not boot A memory size when ts share allocation emory shares enti minimum and maxi so you can only change a virtual machine s maximum t is powered off le a virtual machine to a fraction of physical memory For example a virtual machine that has twice as many shares as another is generally entitled to consume twice as much memory subject to their respective mum constraints provided they are both actively using the memory they have been allocated You may specify shares by specifying a numerical value or specifying high normal or low By default the setting for normal shares is twice that of low Similarly high shares are twice that of normal or four times that of low The system automatically allocates an amount of memory to each virtual machine somewhere between its minimum and maximum sizes based on its shares and an estimate of its recent working set size Setting Memory Minimum Maximum and Shares You can set amemory minimum memory maximum and shares to manage memory resources for your virtual absolutes an absolute m machines Memory minimums and maximums specify inimum
440. tes 4 Inthe Add this Web site to the zone entry field type https domain com 5 Click Add 6 Click OK until you return to the browser window When you use Internet Explorer 6 0 to connect to the management interface be sure to use fully qualified domain names Windows Systems Other than Windows Server 2003 Follow these steps for Windows 2000 Windows XP and Windows NT operating systems 1 Launch Internet Explorer 6 0 2 Choose Tools gt Internet Options 3 Click the Connections tab then click LAN Settings 4 Make sure that Bypass proxy server for local addresses is checked 5 Click OK until you return to the browser window When you use Internet Explorer 6 0 to connect to the management interface do not use fully qualified domain names Connecting to the Management Interface when there Is No Proxy Server If you are on a Windows system and your network does not use a proxy server you must use fully qualified domain names when connecting to the management interface with Internet Explorer 6 0 87 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 88 Logging Into the VMware Management Interface To use the VMware Management Interface you should be running e Internet Explorer 5 5 Internet Explorer 6 0 or higher is strongly recommended e Netscape Navigator 7 0 or higher e Mozilla 1 x or higher You need to know the server name or IP address of the server you want to manage You must have a valid user name and pass
441. the Options tab of the VMware Management Interface Then add a line with the format device vmnix 6 14 0 options lpfc_delay_rsp_err 0 to the end of etc vmware hwconfig Here the numbers 6 14 0 specify the bus slot and function where the Emulex card is located If you have more than one Emulex card you should have only a line referencing the first card www vmware com Customizing Bootup You can complet CHAPTER 8 Using VMkernel Device Modules Loading of VMkernel Device Driver Modules on ely customize the loading of modules at bootup time by editing the etc vmware vmkmodule conf file By adding or removing entries from this file you can add or prevent a device driver module from loading Also by rearranging the order of the device driver modules in this file you can specify the order in which these modules are loaded during bootup You can also supply extra parameters to a driver when it is oaded on bootup Note If you use this file to customize the loading of device driver modules then you must manually u recommend usin you need to add he previous sec he keyword MA automatically fro Each non blank pdate this file whenever you add new hardware Consequently we g the VMware Management Interface to manage your hardware or if extra parameters then editing the hwconfig file as described in ion The vmkmodule conf file takes effect only if it contains a comment line containing UAL C
442. the VMkernel for the NUMA nodes is listed in the Totals row This amount may be smaller than the total amount of physical memory on the server machine Determining the Amount of Memory for a Virtual Machine on a NUMA Node Type the following cat proc vmware vm lt id gt mem numa An example output is Node Pages MB 0 13250 51 1 0 0 415 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 416 The preceding output indicates that the virtual machine with the specified ID occupies 51MB of memory on node 0 and no memory on node 1 Note In this preceding example the memory affinity is set so that only pages associated with node 0 are allocated for this virtual machine sched mem affinity 0 Ifmemory affinity had not been set then typically the output would have shown a more even distribution of memory between nodes 0 and 1 For more information see Associating Future Virtual Machine Memory Allocations with a NUMA Node on page 418 Automatic NUMA Optimizations By default ESX Server balances virtual machines and their related data between the available NUMA nodes ESX Server attempts to maximize use of local memory that lies on the same NUMA node as the virtual machine that is running ESX Server automatically assigns each virtual machine to a temporary home NUMA node The virtual machine only runs on CPUs in the home node with access to its local memory Periodically ESX Server compares the utilization lev
443. the arrow to the right of the terminal icon The virtual machine menu appears 3 Click Unregister Virtual Machine The virtual machine no longer appears on the Status Monitor page and cannot be remotely managed 165 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide Running Many Virtual Machines on ESX Server If you plan to run or register more than 60 virtual machines you must change a few settings in the service console By changing these settings you provide additional CPU and memory resources to the service console allowing ESX Server to operate more efficiently under this higher load Note If you decrease the number of registered or running virtual machines to less than 60 then you should revert the settings back to their defaults through the management interface or through the service console Increasing the Memory in the Service Console 1 Log into the VMware Management Interface as root 2 Click the Options tab then click Startup Profile 3 Increase the Reserved Memory to at least 512MB and up to 800MB the maximum recommended setting 4 Click OK then reboot ESX Server For more information see Service Console Memory on page 420 Allocating CPU Resources to the Management Interface If after changing these settings you are still unable to open the VMware Management Interface to your server then the number of outstanding processes that are waiting to be executed is too high You need to allocate the
444. the average amount of memory used by virtual machines other processes on the server and the total being used by the whole system for the previous five minutes Note The period of time these statistics cover can be modified See Configuring the Statistics Period for the VMware Management Interface on page 85 90 www ymware com CHAPTER 3 Using the VMware Management Interface to Manage Your Virtual Machines Viewing Summary Information about Virtual Machines on VMware ESX Server Under Virtual Machines you can view a list of all registered virtual machines on the host When a virtual machine is running the Status Monitor page displays its ID number after the power status of the virtual machine Note Virtual machines may not appear in the list if their configuration files are stored on an NFS mounted drive When a virtual machine s configuration file is on an NFS mounted drive the root user is often unable to access the file since root privileges are not allowed Also you cannot see the virtual machines if the NFS directory is not mounted Activities you can perform include e Connecting to a Virtual Machine with the VMware Remote Console on page 91 e Using the Virtual Machine Menu on page 92 e Changing the Power State of a Virtual Machine on page 93 e Suspending and Resuming Virtual Machines on page 94 e Viewing Information about a Virtual Machine on page 100 e Downloading Remote Management Packages on page 101 S
445. the certificate www vmware com CHAPTER 5 Using the VMware Service Console itself mui crt and the private key file mui key The private key file should be readable only by the root user When you upgrade the management interface the certificate remains in place and in case you removed the management interface the directory is not removed from the service console Default Permissions When you create a virtual machine with VMware ESX Server its configuration file is registered with the following default permissions based on the user accessing it e Read execute and write for the user who created the configuration file the owner e Read and execute for the owner s group e Read for users other than the owner or a member of the owner s group TCP IP Ports for Management Access The TCP IP ports available for management access to your ESX Server machine vary depending on the security settings you choose for the server If you need to manage ESX Server machines from outside a firewall you may need to reconfigure the firewall to allow access on the appropriate ports The lists below show which ports are available when you use each of the standard security settings The key ports for use of the VMware Management Interface and the VMware Remote Console are the HTTP or HTTPS port and the port used by vmware authd Use of other ports is optional Note For compatibility with GSX Server TCP ports 8222 and 8333
446. the file my file from the current directory to the directory home user mv myfile yourfile Rename the file my f ile The new filename is yourfile pwd rm Show the path to the present working directory Remove a file rm deadfile Remove the file dead ile from the current directory rmdir Remove a directory rmdir gone Remove the directory gone which exists beneath the current directory 194 www vmware com CHAPTER 5 Using the VMware Service Console Finding and Viewing Files Command Example and Explanation cat Concatenate the contents of files and display the content on the screen cat proc vmware mem Display the contents of the file proc vmware mem find Find files under a specified directory that match conditions you specify find name myfil Find files in the root directory and all directories under it that have file names beginning with my fi1 The is a wild card character that represents any number of characters The is a wild card character that represents a single character find name vmx print exec chown User2 Find all files in this directory and all subdirectories that end with vmx display the names of all files that are found on the screen and for each file indicated by the curly braces change its owner to User2 The print option is not necessary but it is handy to track the progress of the find command If
447. ther to tape or to another system over the network You will probably find that a combination of approaches provides the best data protection for your virtual machines The next section Using Tape Drives with VMware ESX Server describes how to make tape drives available to both your virtual machine and your service console e Backing Up from within a Virtual Machine on page 170 e Backing Up Virtual Machines from the Service Console on page 171 e Using Hardware or Software Disk Snapshots on page 171 e Using Network based Replication Tools on page 172 Using Tape Drives with VMware ESX Server The management interface allows you to allocate a SCSI controller to the service console to one or more virtual machines or for use by both environments To make a SCSI tape drive available in a virtual machine you must allocate the SCSI controller to which it is attached for use only by virtual machines You can check the allocation settings for the server s SCSI controllers in the management interface On the Status Monitor page click the Options tab then click Startup Profiles Caution Do not reassign a server s only SCSI controller if the service console is running from a drive attached to that controller If your system is configured this way you must add a second SCSI controller to control the tape drive Backing Up from within a Virtual Machine One approach to backing up your data is to back up a particular virtual machine s data just as
448. tics cover can be modified See Configuring the Statistics Period for the VMware Management Interface on page 85 e How long the virtual machine has been running e VMware Tools status whether VMware Tools is installed and running e The average percentage of heartbeats received by a virtual machine during the previous minute The heartbeats are sent by the VMware guest operating system service to the virtual machine from its guest operating system the percentage is relative to the number of heartbeats the virtual machine expects to receive for the minute before the page was last updated Heavily loaded guest operating systems may not send 100 of the expected heartbeats even though the system is otherwise operating normally Note If VMware Tools is not installed or is not running the guest operating system does not send any heartbeats to its virtual machine and Not Available appears here e The IP address of the virtual machine e inks to edit the virtual machine s hardware and standard configuration options Click Hardware to edit the virtual machine s hardware The Hardware page appears Click Options to edit the virtual machine s standard configuration options The Options page appears You can make changes to the virtual achine s configuration in these places To change most options the virtual achine must be powered off m m e The guest operating system installed in the virtual machine e The number of virtu
449. ting NONE idle IDLE file system FS swap SWPA SWP S remote procedure call RPC waiting for request RQ and so on waitsec Cumulative VCPU wait time cpu Current VCPU processor assignment affinity Processor affinity for VCPU min Minimum processor percentage reservation for the virtual machine max Maximum processor percentage allowed for the virtual machine shares CPU shares allocation for the virtual machine emin Effective minimum percentage allocation for the virtual machine extrasec Cumulative processor consumption above emin by the virtual machine In this example ID 137 is an SMP virtual machine with two virtual CPUs The output shows statistics associated with its first virtual cou vmm0 identified as vcpu 137 with a configured display name that begins with Win2kAS The virtual CPU is currently running on processor 0 and is currently co scheduled with the second VCPU associated with this virtual machine The VCPU has been up for about 358 seconds during which time it has consumed about 265 seconds of processor time including about 3 seconds of ESX Server system time such as processing interrupts on behalf of the virtual machine The virtual CPU is not currently waiting but has waited for a total of about 52 seconds since it has powered on Together both of the virtual machine s virtual CPUs are 397 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 398 allowed to use between 0 and 2 physical processors
450. ting for high shares is four times that for low shares That is virtual machine A has four times as much CPU time as machine B as long as the virtual machine A s CPU percentage is between 20 and 50 In actuality virtual machine A may only get twice the CPU time of virtual machine B because four times the CPU time exceeds 50 or the maximum CPU percentage of virtual machine A www vmware com CHAPTER 12 VMware ESX Server Resource Management Using Hyper Threading Enabling Hyper Threading in ESX Server You should enable Hyper Threading with the Enable Hyper Threading option for your system startup profile You can set this option with Options gt Startup Profile in the Management Interface See Updating the Startup Profile on page 214 You can also enable Hyper Threading in the Service Console Edit the system profile etc vmware hwconfig to set the hyperthreading option 1 Log into the Service Console as root 2 Edit etc vmware hwconfig 3 Define the hyperthreading option hyperthreading true If you previously defined this option just change the current value to true 4 Save the file and close it Configuring Hyper Threading Options for Virtual Machines You can configure the ht sharing option with the Verbose Options configuration panel Use the complete name of the option cpu ht sharing See Modifying the Configuration File Directly Advanced Users Only on page 137 for detailed instructions You can al
451. tion These error messages have a format similar to The driver detected a controller error on Device Scsi BusLogic3 They should be reported periodically only on the passive node of the cluster and should also be reported when the passive node is taking over during a failover The errors are reported because the active node of the cluster has reserved the shared virtual disk s The passive node periodically probes the shared disk and receives a SCSI reservation conflict error This is normal operation Two Nodes with Microsoft Cluster Service on Separate ESX Server Machines This procedure creates a two node cluster in virtual machines that will run on two separate ESX Server machines It uses the same naming conventions as in the previous procedure In addition the physical shared storage is either Shared SCSI e A storage area network SAN For this exercise the VMFS partition for the internal storage on each ESX Server computer is labeled vms The VMFS partition for the shared storage is labeled sharedfs www vmware com CHAPTER 10 Configuration for Clustering The VMFS partition for the internal storage on each ESX Server machine is labeled vms The VMFS partition for the shared storage is labeled sharedfs Each ESX Server machine must have an additional physical network adapter assigned to the virtual machines to use for the private network that monitors the heartbeat The procedure assumes this network adapt
452. to be charged ESX Server in its default configuration may interpret these status codes to mean that a LUN exists but is not accessible You avoid this problem by using a special ESX Server configuration option Log in to the management interface as the root user click Advanced Settings then click VMkernel Configuration Find the option DiskRetryUnitAttention and be sure that it is enabled the default With this option enabled ESX Server automatically retries SCSI commands when these vendor specific status codes are received Using IBM FAStT disk arrays with ESX Server requires additional configuration options that are described in more detail in the VMware Knowledge Base See www vmware com support kb and search for FAStT Troubleshooting SAN Issues with ESX Server You can view LUNs through the VMware Management Interface or viewing the outputof ls proc vmware scsi lt FC_SCSI_adapter gt If the output differs from what you expect then check the following e DiskMaxLUN the maximum number of LUNs per vmhba that are scanned by ESX Server You can view and set this option through the VMware Management Interface Advanced Settings in the Options page or by viewing this setting through proc vmware config Disk e DiskSupportSparseLUN if this option is on then ESX Server scans past any missing LUNs If this option is off ESX Server stops scanning for LUNs if any LUN is missing You can view and set this opti
453. to a persistent disk are written out permanently to the disk as soon as the guest operating system writes the data e Nonpersistent All changes to a nonpersistent mode disk are discarded after the virtual machine is powered off e Undoable When you use undoable mode you have the option later of keeping or discarding changes you have made during a working session Until you decide the changes are saved in a redo log file When you power off the virtual machine you are prompted to commit the changes keep the log by continuing to save changes to the redo log or discard the changes e Append VMware ESX Server supports an additional append mode for virtua disks stored as VMFS files Like undoable mode append mode maintains a redo log However in this mode no dialog appears when the virtual machine is powered off to ask whether you want to commit changes All changes are continually appended to the redo log At any point the changes can be undone by removing the redo log You should shut down the guest operating system and power off the virtual machine before deleting that virtual machine s redo 147 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide log You can also commit the changes to the main virtual disk file using the commit option in vmkfstools See Using vmkfstools on page 290 for details To change the disk mode for a virtual disk see Configuring a Virtual Machine s Virtual Disks on page 120 www vmware com 148 CHAPTER 3
454. tp www vmware com support resources esx_resources html Understanding Storage Arrays Large storage systems also known as disk arrays combine numerous disks into arrays for availability and performance Typically a collection of disks is grouped into a Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks RAID array to protect the data by eliminating disk drives as a potential single point of failure Disk arrays carve the storage RAID set into logical units LUNs that are presented to the server in a manner similar to an independent single disk Typically LUNs are few in number relatively large and fixed in size You can create LUNs with the storage management application of your disk array Installing ESX Server with Attached SANs With ESX Server 2 5 you can install the system on a SAN and boot from the SAN This is described in the VMware SAN Configuration Guide available at www vmware com support pubs esx_pubs html If you are not installing ESX Server so that it can be booted from a SAN we recommend that all Fibre Channel adapters are dedicated exclusively for the virtual machines Even though these FC adapters are dedicated to virtual machines the LUNs on the SANs are visible to system management agents on the service console www vmware com CHAPTER 9 Storage and File Systems Configuring VMFS Volumes on SANs Be sure that only one ESX Server system has access to the SAN while you are using the VMware Management Interface to con
455. ts wait until VMWare Tools is operating in the current virtual machine before starting up the next virtual machine www vmware com CHAPTER 6 Administering ESX Server Note The when VMWare Tools starts option applies an additional condition for starting up the next virtual machine It does not override the delay period set in the pulldown menu Attempt to Continue Stopping Virtual Machines After sets the delay limit between initiating shutdowns of virtual machines The server will stop the next virtual machine as soon as the current virtual machine shuts down If the current virtual machine does not shut down within the delay limit the server attempts to stop the next virtual machine You can set this to e Don t Wait stop the next virtual machine immediately e lt n gt Minutes at most wait lt n gt number of minutes for the current virtual machine to shutdown before stopping the next virtual machine e Other specify a longer interval to wait for the current virtual machine to shutdown before stopping the next virtual machine Enabling the System s Configuration Settings To enable the system wide configuration settings for virtual machines complete the following steps 1 From the Options tab select Virtual Machine Startup and Shutdown The System Configuration page appears and displays a list of configuration parameters Z testserver Virtual Machine Startup and Shutdown Microsoft Internet Explor
456. tserver Microsoft Windows NT Configuration Microsoft Internet Explorer YMware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 root NS add Device What type of hardware do you want to install Device Type Hard Disk Create a new virtual disk use an existing virtual disk or access a VMFS volume directly network Adapter Attach a new network adapter to a virtual network of your choosing B DVD CD ROM Drive Create a new virtual DYD or CD ROM drive to access a system drive or an ISO image 8 Floppy Drive Create a new virtual floppy drive to access a system drive or a floppy image file Generic SCSI Device Create a new virtual device that directly accesses a system SCSI device 2 Click DVD CD ROM The cdrom page appears cdrom A virtual machine may access a system drive or an ISO image file Edit D D CD ROM Drive Configuration Device Status Connected ii Connect at Power On O Device Connection Device System DVD CD ROM Drive z Location dev cdrom B l Help Por i Cancel 3 To connect this virtual machine to the server s DVD CD ROM drive when the virtual machine is powered on check Connect at Power On www vmware com CHAPTER 3 Using the VMware Management Interface to Manage Your Virtual Machines Specify whether to connect to the server s DVD CD ROM drive or to an ISO image In the Device list select System DVD CD ROM Drive or ISO Image Enter the location of the drive or ISO imag
457. tserver VMware Management Interface Microsoft Internet Explorer File Edit View Favorites Tools Help Back gt OA A Qseach Favorites GPmMeda G Dr GSO SAL DS Addiess E https testserver vmware en Google BPSearchweb g Fa723blocked E uicril alOptions 9 YMware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 r Status Monitor O uc eu Refresh Manage Files Help Log Out Last updated Wed Nov 3 13 44 43 PST 2004 System Summary 5 Minute Average Physical Processors 2 Virtual Machines System Services System Total Memory 1017 M Virtual Machines o System Services 274 9 m BODIO System Total 274 9 m BODIO Virtual Machines 4 HB Display Name Windows 2000 Server Powered off Up No CPU RAM Windows 2000 Advanced Server Powered off Microsoft Windows NT ered off Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition wered off Download VMware Remote Console Wind exe Linux rpm Linux tar gz Add Virtual Machine ights res N 11 672 6 725 289 and 6 735 601 patent dir are trademarks of are Inc LiB E Localintranet Viewing Summary Information about VMware ESX Server Under System Summary you can view The number of processors on ESX Server including the average percentage of CPU usage used by virtual machines and the service console and the total being used by the whole system for the previous five minutes The amount of memory on ESX Server including
458. tual Machine Microsoft Internet Explorer ioj x Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 root froot vmware winNetEnterprise winNetEnterprise vmx View and modify your virtual machine s registration status irtual Machine Registration Status Not Registered Your virtual machine is not registered and cannot be managed or otherwise accessed remotely To manage your virtual machine remotely you must register it Help Close Window 4 Click the register link in the window The window indicates the virtual machine is registered F testserver Add Virtual Machine Microsoft Internet Explorer ioj x Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 10771 root p froot vmware winNetEnterprise winNetEnterprise vmx es View and modify your virtual machine s registration status irtual Machine Registration Status Not Registered Your virtual machine is not registered and cannot be managed or otherwise accessed remotely To manage your virtual machine remotely you must register it B Help Close Window 5 Click Close Window The virtual machine appears on the Status Monitor page and you can connect to it with a remote console Unregistering a Virtual Machine To unregister a virtual machine complete the following steps 1 Log into the management interface as the user with full permissions to the virtual machine s configuration file 2 On the Status Monitor page on the row for the virtual machine click
459. tus Monitor or Options page of the management interface ET VMware File Manager for root testserver ymware com Microsoft Internet Explorer ioj x root B bin 4 current Directory New Home tup Change etc mi yvmware home x w x directory Fri Jan 9 16 52 22 2004 r anaconda ks cfg r w 1MB Wed Jan 7 03 41 36 2004 root fil BBBOBB BBBERBBBERRB Selected File s Select All e I In the left pane of the file manager click a folder to display its contents Note The tree view may fail to load or may only partially load when viewed with Mozilla To restore the proper view right click in the left pane then choose Reload Frame or Refresh from the context menu 159 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 160 Some file and folder icons have special meanings Item Description 3 This icon identifies a virtual machine configuration file If you click the filename or icon for a configuration file the Edit Configuration page for the corresponding virtual machine opens in a browser window This icon identifies a virtual disk file on a VMFS file system p a This icon identifies a set of files on the service console that hold a virtual disk in the format used by VMware Workstation and VMware GSX Server This icon identifies a VMFS volume 3 VMware File Manager for root testserver ymware com Microsoft Internet Explorer ioj x root
460. ty Write a comma separated list of the CPU numbers on a single NUMA node See Using procfs on page 392 for additional information on this entry Note If you manually set CPU affinity by one of the preceding options then ESX Server automatically sets the virtual machine s memory to be allocated on the same NUMA node If you want to disable this feature you need to change the NUMAAut oMemAf finity configuration option to 0 zero For more information on changing this advanced option see Changing Advanced Settings on page 237 417 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 418 Associating Future Virtual Machine Memory Allocations with a NUMA Node You can also improve performance by specifying that all future memory allocations on a virtual machine use pages associated with a single NUMA node manual memory affinity When the virtual machine uses local memory the performance improves on this virtual machine See Obtaining NUMA Statistics on page 414 to determine the NUMA node number Note You should specify nodes to be used for future memory allocations only if you have also specified CPU affinity If you make manual changes only to the memory affinity settings automatic NUMA rebalancing will not work properly Do one of the following e VMware Management Interface Associate a virtual machine to a single NUMA node Click Edit in the Memory Affinity section of the Memory page for the virtual machine Then click the appropr
461. u plan to change the accessibility mode for a VMFS volume you must deactivate the swap file if it exists To deactivate the swap file see Configuring a Swap File on page 236 Changing the Maximum Size of a File Allowed by VMFS If you plan to create virtual machines with virtual disks larger than the default maximum size of 144GB change the value in the Max File Size field Spanning a VMFS volume You can only span VMFS 2 volumes Spanning a volume allows the volume to comprise multiple VMFS disk partitions Each disk or partition to which this volume is spanned is called an extent In effect this creates a single volume that is larger than would be possible from one partition Also in the spanned volume or extent you cannot change the maximum size of files Once you span a volume you cannot remove the volume if it is spanned or if it spans other volumes To span to another volume check the box next to that volume label Caution Any data on the extent is lost when the VMFS volume spans to it so it is a good idea to span to newly created partitions Converting a Partition to VMFS 2 To convert the partition to VMFS 2 click the Convert to VMFS 2 link In order to convert the file system you must deactivate the swap file if it exists To deactivate the swap file see Configuring a Swap File on page 236 231 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 232 Caution Metadata on VMFS 2 volumes utilize more space than metadata on
462. ual Machines menu see Using the Virtual Machine Menu on page 92 then click the link under Verbose Options e Log into the service console and using a text editor there open the virtual machine s configuration file vmx If the virtual machine s UUID has been set to a specific value the configuration file has a line that begins with uuid bios Note the 128 bit hexadecimal value that follows This is the value you should use in the new location If there is no line beginning with uuid bios look for the line that begins with uuid location and note the 128 bit hexadecimal value that follows it Move the virtual machine s disk dsk or vmdk file to the new location Use the management interface to create a new virtual machine configuration and set it to use the virtual disk file you moved in the previous step Edit the virtual machine s configuration file to add a uuid bios line as described in Setting the UUID for a Virtual Machine that Is Not Being Moved on page 78 Set the value of uuid bios to the value you recorded in step 1 Also remove the uuid location line in the virtual machine s configuration file Start the virtual machine It should now have the same UUID as it did before the move 79 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 80 Enabling the Physical Hardware s OEM ID to Be Seen by the Virtual Machine Each virtual machine is automatically assigned an Original Equipment Manufacturer ID OEMI
463. ual machine memory under any circumstances In practice only a small fraction of the swap space may actually be used 401 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 402 Similarly while memory reservations are used for admission control actual memory allocations vary dynamically and unused reservations are not wasted The amount of swap space configured for the system limits the maximum level of overcommitment A default swap file size equal to the physical memory size of the computer is recommended in order to support a reasonable 2x level of memory overcommitment You may configure larger or smaller swap files or add additional swap files If you do not configure a swap file memory may not be overcommitted You may configure the swap file using the VMware Management Interface Swap Configuration in the Options page or from the service console using the vmkf stools command You can create additional swap files using the vmkfstools command You should consider adding additional swap files if you want to run additional virtual machines but you re unable to do so because of the lack of swap space See Using vmkfstools on page 290 Allocating Memory Dynamically Virtual machines are allocated their maximum memory size unless memory is overcommitted When memory is overcommitted each virtual machine is allocated an amount of memory somewhere between its minimum and maximum sizes The amount of memory granted to a virtual machine
464. ular very low bandwidth it is likely that the NIC did not autonegotiate properly and you should configure the speed and duplex settings manually To resolve the problem either change the settings on your switch or change the settings for the VMkernel network device using the VMware Management Interface 1 5 Log in to the management interface as root 2 Click on the Options tab 3 4 Locate the device you want to reconfigure and choose the appropriate setting Click Network Connections from the drop down list for Configured Speed Duplex Click OK Note Changing the network speed settings only takes effect after a reboot 363 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide Enabling a Virtual Adapter to Use Promiscuous Mode For security reasons guest operating systems are not normally allowed to set their virtual Ethernet adapters to use promiscuous mode In some circumstances you may need to use the virtual Ethernet adapters in promiscuous mode To enable this use you must set the PromiscuousAllowed configuration variable to yes To do so follow these steps 1 Check the Edit Configuration page of the VMware Management Interface to determine what network the virtual Ethernet adapter is using For this example assume that the Networking section of the page shows the adapter is using vmnicod 2 Log in to the server s service console and enter the following command echo PromiscuousAllowed yes gt
465. un when using the power buttons in the VMware Management Interface For more information see Running the VMware Management Interface on page 83 Scripts can be executed only when the VMware guest operating system service is running The guest service starts by default when you start the guest operating system For more information about the guest service see About the VMware Guest Operating System Service on page 46 Default scripts are included in VMware Tools The default script executed when suspending a virtual machine stops networking for the virtual machine while the default script executed when resuming a virtual machine starts networking for the virtual machine n addition you can create your own scripts The scripts you can run must be batch files for Windows hosts but can be any executable format such as shell or Perl scripts for Linux hosts You should have a thorough familiarity with these types of scripts before you modify the default scripts or create your own f you create your own scripts you must associate each script with its particular power operation For more information see Choosing Scripts for VMware Tools to Run During Power State Changes on page 182 n order for scripts and their associated power operations to work the following conditions must be met 1 The VMware guest operating system service must be running in the virtual machine www vmware com CHAPTER 2 Creating and Configuring Virtua
466. up members execute privileges to the flagship user s directories that contain the virtual machines Without these execute privileges on parent directories other group members won t be able to use the remote console 163 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 164 Registering and Unregistering Virtual Machines ESX Server requires that each virtual machine s configuration file be registered before it can be accessed by VMware Remote Consoles and the VMware Management Interface When you create a new configuration file with the management interface whether for a new or an existing virtual machine the configuration file is registered automatically with ESX Server You can have up to 80 registered virtual machines on a server at one time If you intend to run more than 60 you must modify some service console settings See Running Many Virtual Machines on ESX Server on page 166 When you register a virtual machine it appears in the management interface and the Connect to VMware Virtual Machine dialog box that appears when you connect to the virtual machine with the remote console If you are using a virtual machine that you migrated from another server or VMware product you must register the configuration file as described below For more information about migrating virtual disks and virtual machines see Importing Upgrading and Exporting Virtual Machines on page 59 If you do not have a current need for a virtual machine you c
467. update the guestOS configuration parameter 1 Log into the VMware Management Interface as the owner of the virtual machine or as the root user 2 Click the arrow to the right of the terminal icon for the Windows Server 2003 virtual machine and choose Configure Options 3 Click the Options tab then under Verbose Options click the link 4 Change the value of the guestOs configuration parameter to one of the following 61 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 62 e winNetWeb Windows Server 2003 Web Edition e winNetStandard Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition e winNetEnterprise Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition 5 Click OK to save your changes Running ESX Server 1 5 Virtual Machines in Legacy Mode You can choose to not upgrade an ESX Server 1 5 virtual machine and run it in legacy mode This allows you to use the virtual disk as is Changes can be written to the virtual disk file You can add any virtual hardware to a legacy virtual machine including upgrading VMware Tools However any virtual machines created before ESX Server 2 5 can only have a single virtual processor Multiprocessor virtual machines must be created under ESX Server 2 0 Using the LSILogic SCSI Adapter Prior to ESX Server 2 5 virtual machines only used BusLogic SCSI adapters Now you can choose to use either the BusLogic SCSI adapter or the LSI Logic SCSI adapter for your virtual machines If you are upgrading an older ESX Server
468. urces esx_resources html Installing Microsoft Cluster Service Follow the procedure in Installing Microsoft Cluster Service on page 336 Additional Notes for Clustering Across Physical Machines Supply an extra parameter to the Emulex driver when it is loaded You do this by editing the file et c vmware hwconfig First identify the bus slot and function holding the first or only Emulex card You can find this information by looking at the Startup Profile page Then add a line with the format device vmnix 6 14 0 options lpfc_delay_rsp_err 0 www vmware com CHAPTER 10 Configuration for Clustering to the end of etc vmware hwconfig Here the numbers 6 14 0 specify the bus slot and function where the Emulex card is located If you have more than one Emulex card you should have only a line referencing the first card The following table summarizes additional important points for using Microsoft Clustering Software with ESX Server Area Component Single host Clustering Multi host Clustering Non Virtual machine Must be on local storage not on a SAN Clustered and swap Must be a non clustered disk disks paging file Non clustered Must reside on a public VMFS volume virtual disks Must use VMFS label notation ne Virtual adapter must be set to shared mode none Non clustered Revision must be ESX 2 5 or higher raw devige disk Must reside on a public VMFS volume SERES Must use VMFS label notat
469. use VMFS label notation Disk must be in persistent mode DeviceType must be scsi nonpassthru rdm Virtual adapter must be set to shared mode physical 344 www vmware com CHAPTER 10 Configuration for Clustering Area Component Single host Clustering Multi host Clustering Clustered Clustered pass Not supported Revision must be ESX 2 5 or disks through raw device higher Continued mapping Must reside on a shared VMFS volume ESX Server Configuration Must use VMFS label notation Disk must be in persistent mode DeviceType must be scsi passthru rdm Virtual adapter must be set to shared mode physical Clustered raw disk Not supported Use raw device mapping instead if ESX Server 2 5 or higher Virtual adapter must be used only for clustered disks raw or vmdk proc vmware config Disk UseLunReset must be set to 1 proc vmware config Disk UseDeviceReset must be set to 0 Swap partitions must be local not on a SAN Qlogic Driver revision should be 6 07 on ESX Server and 6 04 on earlier revisions BIOS settings Enable Target Reset Yes Full LIP Login Yes Full LIP Reset No Emulex Driver revision is 2 01g on ESX Server and 4 20q on earlier revisions Microsoft Operating system must be Windows 2000 or Windows 2003 Windows Each cluster is limited to two nodes Use the VMware Buslogic driver rather than the native Windows driver if you are using Buslogic virtual adapte
470. use the partition label on which these virtual disks reside Creating the First Node s Base Virtual Machine 1 Access the VMware Management Interface at https lt hostname gt and log on as the user who will own the virtual machine Click Add Virtual Machine Keep the default Guest Operating System selection of Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Note This example uses Microsoft Windows 2000 Server as the guest operating system You may substitute another Windows operating system that supports Microsoft Cluster Service 331 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 332 6 Change the Display Name field to describe the virtual machine for example MSCS Node 1 Portsaid Change the Location of the virtual machine configuration file to home lt user gt vmware clusterl clusterl vmx Click Next Select the number of processors you want the guest operating system to use up to 2 Change Memory to show the amount of RAM you want to allocate to this virtual machine Click Next Click Blank to create a new virtual disk Choose the VMFS volume on which you want to store the virtual disk Give the virtual disk image a unique name for example cluster1 vmdk f you need a primary SCSI disk larger than 4GB enter the appropriate value in the Capacity field Choose the virtual SCSI node to which you want to attach the virtual disk By default the disk mode is set to persistent Click Persiste
471. used the management interface file manager to import the virtual machine though no message appears If you have problems powering on a virtual machine with the imported disk then you may have a mismatch with the virtual disk s geometry Virtual disks created under GSX Server use a different disk geometry than virtual disks created under ESX Server To determine the correct disk geometry run the following vmk stools command on the source virtual disk the copy of the virtual disk on the GSX Server host not the disk in a VMFS partition vmkfstools g path to lt sourceVirtualDisk gt vmdk Once you determine the disk geometry you can add the correct geometry information to the configuration file To modify the configuration file follow the steps under Modifying the Configuration File Directly Advanced Users Only on page 137 Create an option called scsi lt xadapter id gt lt target id gt biosGeometry and set the value of the option to lt cylinders gt lt heads gt lt sectors gt where lt adapter id gt lt target id gt is the SCSI ID of the virtual disk on the ESX Server system and lt cylinders gt lt heads gt lt sectors gt is the number of cylinders heads and sectors on the virtual disk returned by the vmkf stools command For example if the virtual disk is located on the SCSI 0 0 node in the virtual machine on the ESX Server system and you determine that the disk geometry of the original virtual dis
472. ux 1 Start the remote console program vmware console 2 A dialog box asks for the information needed to connect you to the virtual machine Fill in the blanks with e The host name or IP address e Your user name e Your password Click Connect www vmware com CHAPTER 4 Using the VMware Remote Console 3 When the connection is made a dialog box displays the paths to the configuration files of virtual machines registered on the server Select the virtual machine you want to connect to then click OK Running a Virtual Machine Using the Remote Console When you view your virtual machine through a remote console it behaves much like a separate computer that runs in a window on your computer s desktop Instead of using physical buttons to turn this computer on and off you use buttons at the top of the VMware console window You can also reset the virtual machine suspend a virtual machine and resume a suspended virtual machine win2000 cfg Mware Remote Console File Power Settings Devices View Help Power Off gt Poweron J Suspend K Reset This virtual machine is powered off win2000 cfg YMware Remote Console File Power Settings Devices View Help E Power off D Poweron l Suspend Reset This virtual machine is powered on My Windows 2000 M Mware Remote Console File Power Settings Devices Yiew Help O Power Off gt Resume Ol Suspend A Reset This virtual machine is suspend
473. ver redo log the exported virtual disk contains the redo log any previously created redo logs and the base virtual disk That is the newly created exported virtual disk appears as if the redo log s was committed to its base virtual disk www vmware com CHAPTER 9 Storage and File Systems Note However your original source redo log s and base virtual disk remain unchanged e Ifyou want to export your redo logs and base virtual disk separately then use the export file option to export the base virtual disk and the cp command to export each redo log separately Use the combination of export file and import file together to copy VMFS files to remote machines The virtual disk should take less space than the full size of the VMFS file since the virtual disk does not include zeroed sectors of the VMFS file Imports the contents of a VMware virtual plain or raw disk on the service console to the specified file on the specified SCSI device i importfile lt srcFile gt This command is often used to import the contents of a VMware Workstation or VMware GSX Server virtual disk onto a SCSI device You may also run this command to import a virtual disk that was created by exporting the contents of a disk from another SCSI device Note The destination device must have space for the entire size of the virtual disk even if it is mostly free space as the complete contents of the source disk are copied Caution The vmk stools c
474. virtual machine identified by lt id gt proc vmware filters xmitpop Command file used to detach a transmit filter from a virtual machine Writing lt id gt to this file detaches the last filter attached to the virtual machine identified by lt id gt proc vmware filters xmit This directory contains a file for each active filter instance Each file named lt class n gt corresponds to the lt n gt th instance of filter class lt class gt 425 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 426 Reading from a file reports status information for the filter instance in a class defined format Writing to a file issues a command to the filter instance using a class defined syntax Note The current release allows only a single network packet filter to be attached to each virtual machine Receive filters are not implemented in this release Traffic Shaping with nfshaper As described in the preceding sections you can manage network bandwidth allocation on a server from the VMware Management Interface or from the procfs interface on the service console The shaper implements a two bucket composite traffic shaping algorithm A first token bucket controls sustained average bandwidth and burstness A second token bucket controls peak bandwidth during bursts Each nf shaper instance can accept parameters to control average bps peak bps and burst size The procfs interface described in Using Network Filters on page 424 is used to attach an
475. virtual machines e Physical memory that is not being used e Usage data for disks on the physical computer including number of reads and writes and amount of data read and written e Usage data on the physical computer s network adapters including packets sent and received and kilobytes sent and received e State of the VMkernel loaded or not loaded Note Ifthe variable showing whether the VMkernel is loaded says no any values reported for any other variable should be regarded as invalid www vmware com 260 CHAPTER 7 Using SNMP with ESX Server Information about the Virtual Machines SNMP get variables allow you to monitor a number of items about particular virtual machines running on the computer Some of the key types of information available are The path to the virtual machine s configuration file The guest operating system running on the virtual machine The amount of memory the virtual machine is configured to use The state of the virtual machine s power switch on or off The state of the guest operating system on or off running or not running What disk adapters are seen by the virtual machine What network adapters are seen by the virtual machine What floppy disk drives are seen by the virtual machine The state of the floppy drive connected or disconnected What CD ROM drives are seen by the virtual machine The state of the CD ROM drive connected or disconnected Note SNMP in
476. vmhbe 0 50 06 01 60 10 20 4D 87 vmbhbe 0 50 06 01 68 10 20 4D 87 vmhba2 3 0 50 06 01 60 10 20 4D 87 SAN LUN vmhba1 2 1 4 Paths Policy mru Adapter Target LUN SAN Target vmhba1 2 1 50 06 01 68 10 20 4D 87 vmhbe 0 06 01 60 10 20 4D 87 50 06 01 68 10 20 4D 87 50 06 01 60 10 20 4D 87 ymbhbe For each SAN Logical Unit Number LUN this page displays the available paths and the preferred path By default ESX Server selects the last path used to access a LUN The failover paths show the adapter target LUN and the SAN target for the LUN Each SAN target is identified by its World Wide Port Name The status of each path is indicated by a symbol that corresponds to its current status This indicates that the path is active and data is being transferred successfully A This indicates that the path is set to disabled and is available for activation This indicates that the path should be active but the software cannot connect to the LUN through this path If you have configured a LUN to use a preferred path that path will be identified with the label Preferred after the SAN Target listing www vmware com CHAPTER 6 Administering ESX Server Configuring Failover Policies The failover paths edit feature allows you to configure the policy for transferring LUN access from one path to another To edit the failover policy for a LUN 1 From the Failover Paths page click Edit The configuration pag
477. w service console messages click the Service Console Log tab esx244 System Logs and Availability Report Microsoft Internet Explorer Mware ESX Server 2 5 0 build 11152 r Se ae ee Service Console Log Metrur isa iss Refresh Help C System Logs and Availability Report If your logs contain ALERTs check the VMware Knowledge Base or contact your support representative Nov 18 15 47 49 esx244 network Bringing up interface lo succeeded 4 Noy 18 15 48 40 esx244 xinetd 1296 echo disabled removing 8 40 esx244 kernel I O APIC 12 Version 17 at OxFECO2000 7 51 esx244 network Bringing up interface ethO succeeded 41 esx244 xinetd 1296 echo disabled removing 8 41 esx244 kernel Processors 2 152 esx244 insmod Using lib modules 2 4 9 vmnix2 mise vmnixmod o 141 esx244 xinetd 1296 telnet disabled removing crond startup succeeded Kernel command line auto BOOT_IMAGE esx ro root 803 mem 192M 3 152 esx244 VMware init Loaded VMnix module 8 41 esx244 xinetd 1296 time disabled removing 41 esx244 kernel Initializing CPU O Nov 18 15 48 09 esx244 YMware init Loaded ymkernel Nov 18 15 48 41 esx244 httpd vmware Starting httpd vmware Nov 18 15 48 41 esx244 xinetd 1296 time disabled removing 41 esx244 kernel Detected 2400 003 MHz processor Nov 18 15 48 12 esx244 VMware init Loading vmklinux Nov 18 15 48 42 esx244 xinetd 1296 ftp disabled removing Nov 18 15 48 42 esx244 kern
478. w vmware com 304 CHAPTER 9 Storage and File Systems Choose the Compatibility of the guest operating system Physical or Virtual Physical gives the guest operating system direct disk access Virtual allows you to choose a disk mode for the guest operating system Specify the virtual device node Select the appropriate SCSI ID in the Virtual SCSI Node list Click OK to add the disk 305 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 306 Determining SCSI Target IDs In order to assign SCSI disks to a virtual machine you need to know which controller the drive is on and what the SCSI target ID of the controller is This section helps you determine these values without opening your computer and physically looking at the SCSI target ID settings on the drives SCSI disks may be accessed by local SCSI adapters or on a SAN by Fibre Channel adapters Therefore whenever we describe SCSI adapters in this section these descriptions also apply to Fibre Channel adapters even though they are not explicitly mentioned On a standard Linux system or for a VMware service console that has SCSI or Fibre Channel FC controllers assigned to the service console rather than the VMkernel information on attached SCSI devices including SCSI target IDs is available in the boot log usually var log messages or from examining proc scsi scsi Information about the SCSI controllers assigned to the VMkernel and about the devices attache
479. waptgt swapin swapout 39168 39168 5672 5672 13289 18961 cptread cpt tgt shared active overhd ovhdmax ovhdpeak affinity 0 0 38164 191756 14508 55296 14508 0 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide The preceding output is shown with additional line breaks in order to avoid wrapping long lines All memory sizes are reported in kilobytes 1 megabyte 1024KB The columns indicate vm mctl shares min max size sizetgt memct 1 mctltgt swapped swaptgt swapin swapout cptread cpt tgt shared active overhd ovhdmax ovhdpeak affinity Virtual machine identifier vmmemct 1 driver active Memory shares associated with the virtual machine Minimum size Maximum size Current size Target size Currently reclaimed using vmmemct 1 Target to reclaim using vmmemct 1 Currently swapped to VMFS swap file Target to swap to VMFS swap file Total number of pages swapped in from VMFS swap file Total number of pages swapped out to VMFS swap file Resumed virtual machines only Number of pages read from suspend file Resumed virtual machines only Number of pages to read from suspend file Memory shared via transparent page sharing Current working set estimate Current overhead memory size Maximum overhead memory size Maximum overhead memory used NUMA machines only Memory affinity for the virtual machine In this example the virtual machine with ID 103 is running the vmmemct 1 driver and is not currently blocked waiting fo
480. when you use the configuration file to launch a virtual machine This string is known as machine id The content of the string you pass to the guest operating system is up to you For additional details and sample scripts including information on passing messages both ways between the service console and a guest see the VMware Scripting API documentation at http www vmware com support developer You should use this feature only if you have a good understanding of a scripting language and know how to modify system startup scripts 49 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide Example of Passing a String from the Service Console to the Guest If you use multiple configuration files that point to the same virtual disk each configuration file can contain its own unique machine id line lt config_file_1 gt vmx contains scsi0 1l present TRUE scsi0 l name my_common_virtual_hard_drive vmdk scsi0 1 mode persistent machine id the_id_for_my_first_vm lt config_file_2 gt vmx contains scsi0 1l present TRUE scsi0 l name my_common_virtual_hard_drive vmdk scsi0 l1 mode persistent machine id the_id_for_my_second_vm Using machine id you may pass such strings as the Windows system ID SID a machine name or an IP address In the guest operating system startup script you may then have the guest service retrieve this string which can then be used by your script to set
481. wn Options for a Virtual Machine on page 134 To change any other options see Setting Standard Virtual Machine Configuration Options on page 133 Under Verbose Options you can enter and modify configuration file entries by hand See Modifying the Configuration File Directly Advanced Users Only on page 137 Setting Startup and Shutdown Options for a Virtual Machine You can configure what a virtual machine does when the system starts and how it shuts down when the system shuts down You can enable these settings only if the startup and shutdown options are enabled for the server overall See Configuring Startup and Shutdown Options for Virtual Machines on page 250 Startup Options The virtual machine startup options include 134 www vmware com CHAPTER 3 Using the VMware Management Interface to Manage Your Virtual Machines At System Startup whether or not this virtual machine should start when the server starts By default virtual machines do not start automatically when the system starts up Continue Starting Other Virtual Machines After the amount of time to wait after starting the virtual machine before starting another virtual machine Settings for starting virtual machines include the system default do not wait to start wait for a certain number of minutes to start or start when VMware Tools starts Shutdown Options The virtual machine startup options include At System Shutdown Attempt to sets the shutdo
482. wn action for the virtual machine when the server is shut down At system shutdown settings for shutting down virtual machines include power off the virtual machine shut down the guest operating system or suspend the virtual machine By default all virtual machines are powered off when the system shuts down Continue Stopping Other Virtual Machines After the amount of time to wait after stopping the virtual machine before stopping another virtual machine Settings for stopping virtual machines include the system default no wait or wait for a certain number of minutes Configuring a Virtual Machine s Startup and Shutdown Options Complete the following steps 1 Power off the virtual machine and click Edit under System Startup Options or System Shutdown Options The Options page appears To allow the virtual machine to start up when the system starts up check the Start Virtual Machine check box Specify the period of time before the next virtual machine starts in the Continue Starting Virtual Machines After list choose the number of minutes or whether ESX Server should not wait before starting the next virtual machine If you select Other specify the number of minutes to wait in the prompt that appears To specify that VMware Tools should start in a virtual machine before the next virtual machine starts check the when VMware Tools starts check box If VMware Tools does not start in the virtual machine before the time specifi
483. word on that server You can connect to the server with up to eight management interface sessions at a time The URL to connect to the server is http lt hostname gt If you are using Netscape Navigator or Mozilla check the advanced preferences Edit gt Preferences gt Advanced to be sure JavaScript and style sheets are both enabled You need to know the host name or IP address of the server you want to monitor You should also ensure that style sheets are enabled in your browser regardless of which browser and version you are using The Login page appears 3 testserver YMware Management Interface Microsoft Internet Ex P E3 Ele Edt View Favorites Tools Help Back gt A Seach Favorites Media S e Mware Management Interface Username Password The Login page contains fields for your user name and password www ymware com CHAPTER 3 Using the VMware Management Interface to Manage Your Virtual Machines On the Login page enter your user name and password for the host machine then click Login The Status Monitor page appears For information about the Status Monitor page see Using the Status Monitor on page 90 89 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide Using the Status Monitor The Status Monitor page contains a high level view of VMware ESX Server including a server system summary and list of all registered virtual machines Z tes
484. www vmware com CHAPTER 3 Using the VMware Management Interface to Manage Your Virtual Machines Avoiding Management Interface Failures when Many Virtual Machines Are Registered If you have a very large number of virtual machines registered on a single ESX Server machine the VMware Management Interface may shut down andaPanic out of memory message may be recorded in usr lib vmware mui apache logs error_1l og By default the Apache Web server uses 24MB of memory to store information about the virtual machi nes on the server The errors described above can happen when this memory is not adequate for the number of virtual machines To work around the problem open the file etc vmware config ina text editor and find the line quotation marks hat begins with mui vmdb shmSize Increase the number in which is specified in bytes of memory Then restart the Apache server with the following command etc rc d init d httpd vmware restart 169 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 170 Backing Up Virtual Machines Your backup strategy depends on how you want to protect your data and recover from problems There are two main goals e Recover individual files on the virtual machine for example if a user accidentally removes a file e Recover from catastrophic failures in which your entire virtual machine is damaged VMware ESX Server provides several possible approaches for backing up your data whe
485. y and paste 160 renaming files and folders 161 setting permissions 161 Files managing remotely 159 Filters network 424 findnic 191 361 Floppy disk image file 130 Folder creating 162 FTP 287 TCP IP port 206 G Gigabit Ethernet 118 Guest operating system and SNMP 269 installing 40 setting in configuration 33 Guest operating system service 46 Linux reboot commands 49 shutting down and restarting a virtual machine 48 H eartbeat 328 monitoring with SNMP 261 htSharing option 389 HTTP TCP IP port 206 HTTPS TCP IP port 205 yper Threading 106 394 enabling 389 htSharing option 389 Startup Profile 214 using 389 virtual machines 389 ID virtual machine 91 Import virtual machine 293 Installation of guest operating system 40 of Microsoft Cluster Service 336 of software in a virtual machine 184 of the SNMP agent 263 266 Internet Explorer 6 0 and management interface 86 176 www vmware com ISO disc image file 128 K Kerberos 203 L LDAP 203 Legacy mode virtual machines 62 Linux installing VMware Tools in 44 Load balancing 371 logs 241 availability report 245 service console messages 244 VMkernel messages 243 VMkernel warnings 242 LUNs detecting 312 setting multipathing policy for 321 M MAC address setting manually 358 machine id 49 Management CPU resources 384 disk bandwidth 428 memory resources 399 network bandwidth 424 registering virtual machines 69 remot
486. y identical virtual machines may free up more than 30 percent of memory while a more diverse workload may result in savings of less than 5 percent of memory 421 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide To determine the effectiveness of memory sharing for a given workload try running the workload and observe the actual savings by looking at the output of the proc vmware men file ESX Server memory sharing runs as a background activity that scans for sharing opportunities over time The amount of memory saved may vary over time for a fairly constant workload the amount generally increases slowly until all sharing opportunities are exploited Memory Overcommitment n many consolidated workloads it is rare for all virtual machines to be actively using all of their memory simultaneously Typically some virtual machines are lightly loaded while others are more heavily loaded and relative activity levels generally vary over ime In such cases it may be reasonable to overcommit memory to reduce hardware memory requirements ESX Server automatically transfers memory from idle virtual machines to virtual machines that actively need more memory in order to improve memory utilization You may also specify configuration parameters to preferentially devote space to important virtual machines The minimum size for a virtual machine defines a guaranteed lower bound on the amount of memory that it is allocated even when memory is overc
487. y messages that require a response Shutting down is the equivalent of using the guest operating system s shut down command then turning off power to the virtual machine Restarting is the equivalent of using the guest operating system s restart command If you receive an event log message saying You will need to power off or reset the virtual machine at this point you must connect to the virtual machine with a remote console and click Power Off or Reset to complete the operation The power off and reset commands are not available while these operations are in progress You can also force power off or force reset from the menu These commands bypass the guest service and perform the virtual equivalent of shutting off the power to a physical machine or pressing a physical reset button For more information see Changing the Power State of a Virtual Machine on page 93 Shutting Down or Restarting a Virtual Machine from the Command Line You can shut down and restart a virtual machine from the service console command line using the vmware cmd utility www vmware com CHAPTER 2 Creating and Configuring Virtual Machines The following commands return you to the command prompt immediately before they finish executing although the shut down or restart process may take some time to complete vmware cmd lt vm cfg path gt stop lt powerop_mode gt vmware cmd lt vm cfg path gt reset lt powerop_mode gt where hard soft o
488. y middleware and management software Configuring a Virtual Machine for Use with Citrix MetaFrame XP If you are using a Windows 2000 virtual machine as a MetaFrame XP server be sure you are using FR1 or FR2 then complete the following steps to configure the virtual machine If you are running MetaFrame XP in a Windows NT virtual machine no special steps are needed 1 Apply Citrix hotfix XE102W014 For a download link and instructions on applying the hotfix go to the Citrix Web site http www citrix com navigate to the support section and search for XE102W014 2 Click Save Changes to save the configuration file For additional information on performance tuning see article 869 in the VMware Knowledge Base 71 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 72 Executing Scripts When the Virtual Machine s Power State Changes You can run scripts in the guest operating system when you change the power state of a virtual machine that is when you power on power off suspend or resume the virtual machine Scripts can help automate guest operating system operations when you change the virtual machine s power state Note There are no scripts for FreeBSD guest operating systems You perform these power operations from the toolbar buttons and menus in the consoles For more information on changing the power state of a virtual machine in a console see Special Power Options for Virtual Machines on page 178 Scripts can r
489. you can run it in legacy mode See Running ESX Server 1 5 Virtual Machines in Legacy Mode below Note Virtual machines created under ESX Server 1 0 or ESX Server 1 1 must be upgraded to ESX Server 1 5 before they can be migrated to ESX Server 2 5 Once these virtual machines run under ESX Server 1 5 you can migrate them to ESX Server 2 5 See the upgrade instructions in the ESX Server Installation Guide at www vmware com support pubs First you need to upgrade the virtual machine s hardware This must be done for any virtual machine created under ESX Server 1 0 1 1 or 1 5 To upgrade the virtual machine s hardware make sure the virtual machine is powered off On the Status Monitor page in the management interface click the arrow to the right of the terminal icon and choose Configure Hardware On the Hardware tab click Upgrade Virtual Hardware then click OK to upgrade the hardware Then assign disk bandwidth shares to the virtual machine For more information see See Managing Disk Bandwidth from the Management Interface on page 429 Upgrading Windows Server 2003 Guest Operating Systems Created by ESX Server 1 5 2 If you used ESX Server 1 5 2 to create a virtual machine with a Windows Server 2003 guest operating system then you must update the guestoOs configuration parameter in the virtual machine s configuration file Otherwise this virtual machine will not run properly with ESX Server 2 5 Complete the following steps to
490. you do not use print the find command is silent except for error messages from find or from chown find name vmx exec grep il SOMETHING Find all files in this directory and all subdirectories that end with vmx and look for the pattern SOMETHING in each of the files The i option to grep makes the search case insensitive The 1 option to grep causes grep to display the names of the files that have SOMETHING in them When a file is found that contains SOMETHING this command displays the full path to the file from the current directory for example virtualmachines Linux RedHat71Test redhat71 vmx grep Search for a specified text pattern in a specified directory or list of files and display the lines in which the pattern is found grep log file Search all the files in the current directory for the text string log file less Display the contents of a specified file one screen at a time Use the arrow keys to move up and down through the file less myfile Display the contents of the file my file grep log file less Search all the files in the current directory for the text string log file anduse less to display the results so you can scroll up and down through them 195 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 196 Managing the Computer and Its Users The root user or super user su can run all of these commands Some of the commands generally those that simply provide
491. you may need to change some VMkernel configuration options as described below To make these changes complete the following steps 1 Log in to the VMware Management Interface as root The Status Monitor page appears 2 Click the Options tab 3 Click Advanced Settings 4 To change an option click the current value then enter the new value in the dialog box and click OK 311 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 312 For more information on changing these settings see Changing Advanced Settings on page 237 Detecting All LUNs By default the VMkernel scans for only LUN 0 to LUN 7 for every target If you are using LUN numbers larger than 7 you must change the setting for the DiskMaxLUN field from the default of 8 to the value that you need For example if you now have LUN numbers 0 to 15 active set this option to 16 Currently an ESX Server machine can see a maximum of 128 LUNs over all disk arrays on a SAN By default the VMkernel is configured to support sparse LUNs that is a case where some LUNS in the range 0 to N lare not present but LUN N is present If you do not need to use such a configuration you can change the DiskSupportSparseLUN field to 0 This change decreases the time needed to scan for LUNs The DiskMaskLUNs configuration option allows the masking of specific LUNs on specific HBAs Masked LUNs are not touched or accessible by the VMkernel even during initial scanning The DiskMaskLU
492. your virtual machine In a Windows guest operating system you see a VMware Tools icon in the system tray when VMware Tools is running When VMware Tools is running you can copy and paste text between applications in the virtual machine and on your management workstation or between two virtual machines Use the normal hot keys or menu choices to cut copy and paste Suspending and Resuming Virtual Machines You can save the current state of your virtual machine Then the resume feature lets you quickly pick up work right where you stopped with all running applications in the same state they were at the time you suspended the virtual machine There are two ways to suspend a virtual machine 185 VMware ESX Server Administration Guide 186 With a remote console connected to that virtual machine click Suspend on the toolbar My Windows 2000 YM ymwareserver Mware ESX Server Mware Remote Console OP x Fie Power Settings Devices View Help OPower off gt Resume 0 Suspend Reset fap Full Screen My Windows 2000 VM vmware Remote Console 0 Status Suspended This virtual machine is suspended You can start it quickly and begin working with all applications and documents in the same state they were in when you suspended the virtual machine To start this virtual machine click the Resume button Device Summary Suspended screenshot is not available Memory 128 MB Virtu

Using VMware ESX Server

Contents

Download Pdf Manuals

Related Search

Related Contents