Upon investigation it appears that HP have removed the libraries from their software from version 8.0.0 onwards.  Now ideally I would have installed the libraries before installing HP Insight Manager as indicated by Arnim Van Lieshout in his great HP agent upgrade script post.  In my case I had already done the install, so in order to see the HBA’s and the connected HP Storage, I had to carry out the following steps.

I downloaded the relevant Qlogic API library for ESX 3.5 U4 from the following site  
http://support.qlogic.com/support/oem_product_detail_vmware.asp

I created a temporary folder in the /tmp partition called qlogiclib

I unzipped the contents and copied it over to the new folder using WinSCP.

I logged on to the service console and ran the following commands to stop the HP agents. 

service hpsmhd stop and service hpasm stop

I then navigated to the /tmp/qlogiclib folder and ran the command ./Install.sh

I then ran the following commands in the order shown below to restart the HP agents.

service hpsmhd start and service hpasm start

To check if it worked I navigated to https://hostname:2381 and checked for the external storage connections entry under the storage section on the home page.

Finally I deleted the /tmp/qlogiclib folder as it was no longer required.

Now I have some other servers with Emulex HBA’s in them so when I work out the steps involved in that one I’ll write another blog post.

Now these hosts were built a couple of years ago by a consultant and all had their service console memory set to the default value of 272MB. I’m in the process of upgrading all hosts to ESX 3.5 U4 and changing the memory levels to the maximum 800MB,  this particular host was due to be upgraded in the next 2 weeks.  Unfortunate timing!!

VMware support were as helpful as ever and informed my colleague to up the service console memory to 800MB.  My only concern was the fact that your swap space is meant to be twice your service console memory.  If the memory was only set to 272MB you can be sure that the swap partition wasn’t going to be set to 1600MB.

My colleague was having trouble finding out what size the swap partition was so I gave him a hand. First of all he was doing a df –k at the service console,  which shows him the named linux partitions but not the swap partition we were looking for.  To get information on all disks and partitions attached to the host we need to run fdisk – l

This command showed us the swap partition created was made up of 1044225 blocks, though we weren’t sure exactly what this equated to in MB.

I took a look at one of our newly built ESX 3.5 U4 hosts and compared it’s fdisk –l results to the scripts used to build it.  I quickly found that by dividing by 1024 you could get the size of the partitions.  So in this case the swap partition on the ESX 3.0.2 host was roughly 1GB which was less than the recommended 2 x console memory sizing.

On this occasion VMware support advised us that it should be OK as it was.  That coupled with the fact we are going to rebuild the server in the coming weeks was enough for us to call the case closed.

However what if we did want to change it? I’d always been taught that changing the swap partition after the host had been built usually meant a full rebuild.  However as I’ve been working my way through Scott Lowe’s Mastering Vmware vSphere 4 book I came across the steps to do it without a rebuild.  It’s always recommended to rebuild a host as opposed to take this action, however occasionally needs must.

first create a new swap file on an existing service console partition, the command below will create a 1.6GB within the path entered /path/to/

dd if=/dev/zero of=/path/to/swap.file bs=1024 count =1640144

Use the following command to turn this into a usable swap file

mkswap /path/to/swap.file

Now enable the swap file with the following command

swapon /path/to/swap.file

If you do try this, it is entirely at your own risk. I haven’t as I am planning to rebuild in the near future.  If I wasn’t I would probably have given this a shot just to put my mind at ease.

The first meeting agenda looks good with Mike Laverick of RTFM attending to discuss vSphere 4 storage.  We also have a talk from our hosts for the day, State Street alongside EMC about the storage setup for their VMware infrastructure.

If you’re interested in becoming a Scottish VMUG member click the link and sign up

If you want to attend this particular VMUG click the register now button

His tweet was about a new project called Project Onyx, which on initial inspection is a tool that allows you to see and capture the powershell code behind actions in vSphere vCenter.  This project is at a very early stage as you will probably see in the video embedded below, however this is a very exciting development for those new to PowerCLI.

Some time back I sat my Hyper-V MCTS exam and one of the things I really liked about Microsoft’s SCVMM product was the ability to see the powershell behind the actions you were carrying out.  It was like a head start on powershell automation, giving you a chance to see what was happening, allowing you to dissect, copy it and re-use it however you wanted.

I’m hoping that VMware are planning something similar here,  perhaps a plug-in for vCenter! I personally struggle sometimes with the PowerCLI and the syntax, etc.  If I could see the code behind an action I was trying to automate a good part of the work would be done already.

This project is currently in the early stages of development.  In order to get this project up and running VMware are looking for people to help them Beta test project Onyx.  They have put the call out for a handful of “dedicated people with a burning need for automation”

Get yourself over to VMworld session VM2241 with your business card and put yourself forward to help this promising looking project gain some traction.

I managed to download the latest version for EMC Flare release 28 without issue.  I was however asked for my EMC PowerLink credentials when I first opened the simulator so perhaps that’s how it’s authenticated against the training purchased. It’s a really good learning aid and I’ve been able to find out how to do things on it that I wouldn’t have dared to attempt on our actual CLARiiON implementation. Hope this link helps someone who’s searching for this,  took me ages to find it.

Branch Repeater is the rebranding of the old WANScaler product, which, in its simplest form was a WAN acceleration product. The new branch repeater is still a WAN accelerator at heart;  however Citrix have added some clever branch office features as well as some new features for XenApp customers. From a topology perspective, you basically place a larger repeater appliance in your data centre and additional smaller repeater appliances in your branch office.  I was actually surprised to learn that this is not the only option available; there is also a repeater software plug-in for use by remote users.  The diagram below shows the basic topology overview.

If you haven’t been to GestalIT I would highly recommend heading over and checking it out,  especially if storage, cloud computing or virtualisation is your thing.

The story behind this site is brilliant,  as I heard it a developer based in Edinburgh, Scotland came up with the idea at some ungodly hour last Wednesday had it live by Thursday and they had over 100,000 hits in the first 30 hours alone.  Great idea,  developed quickly and has great potential for the likes of charity support or product support.

His latest powershell creation has recieved a lot of attention in the last couple of days and with good reason. The Daily Report is a configurable script where you can set thresholds and variables such as snapshot age, datastore space free thresholds or number of days to look at for vCenter warnings and errors.  The script when run goes off and examines your Virtual  Infrastructure based on these variables and then proceeds to email you a nice html report on the following items.

·         VMs created in the  x number of days and who created them.

·         VMs deleted in the  x number of days and who deleted them.

·         Datastores which have less than x% of free space remaining.

·         VMs that have CD-Rom or Floppy drives connected.

·         VMs with no VMware Tools installed.

·         Snapshots that are older than x number of days.

·         Current state of vCenter Services.

·         vCenter events that have been logged in x number of days.

·         Windows events  on the vCenter server that relate to VMware.

·         Hosts in maintenance mode or a disconnected state.

Get yourself over  to Alan’s site and download a copy of the script and give it a try,  I did today and the results were enough for me to go ahead and implement this as a scheduled task.  If you’d like to see more features in Alan’s Daily Report script then give him some feedback,  there are a few good suggestions on the blog post already and I’m sure the next version isn’t far away.  Great work Alan, keep it up!

Now some of you may be familiar with the Tripwire Config Check tool which allows you to scan your ESX servers security configuration, which in itself is a very handy tool.  This new tool from EMC appears to be a little more comprehensive in that it checks your ESX servers against both the VMware VI3 Security Hardening Guidelines  and the Centre for Internet Security VMware ESX Server 3.x benchmark.  Test results against both are backed with an extensive knowledge base of what the check is and the actions required to rectify the issue.

Included below are some screenshots of the Main interface, the reports returned and the knowledgebase articles you recieve when you click on any item in the report.

I must admit that these compliance checkers are handy because my Linux experience only began with ESX and sometimes the areas of security being checked are ones I wouldn’t have a clue about.  This is where the knowledgebase is great because it explains a little about what the check actually is as well as the actions required to rectify the issue.  Very handy because it would appear that a standard build of ESX 3.5 U4 is only 73% compliant as far as this piece of software is concerned.

To get your free copy of Compliance Checker for VMware ESX, click the link,  you’ll need to register but it’s a small price to pay for this handy tool.