In vSphere 6.0 and prior, we have a Role created based on the Veeam Granular Permissions for vSphere. We apply this Role to a specific user/group at the Datacenter level without propagation, and we apply it to the specific user/group Resource Pool created for that OU.

• In vSphere 6.0 and prior this works beautifully and allows Veeam to function, plus users of the OU can create new VMs and manage existing VMs in their and only their Resource Pool.

In testing vSphere 6.5, applying the Role to the user/group at the Datacenter without propagation, and at the Resource Pool, I get a message "Cluster does not contain any hosts" when trying to create a new VM! Just to eliminate speculation about the Role itself, I get the same error when the Administrator Role is applied to the user/group at the Datacenter without propagation and at the Resource Pool!

This is serious, because it basically prevents us moving forward with plans to migrate to 6.5! All of our OUs are separated by Resource Pools that have users assigned to them (which works perfectly in 6.0) and we will not meet our own SSAE16 or ISO 27001 standards if we can not make this work!

Any Ideas?

Hi all,

Running the latest vCenter 6.5u1, installed Enhanced Authentication plugin 6.5, CIP proxy service fails to start:

[2017-12-13 11:56:42] [UNKN] VMware CIP Message Proxy Version: 6.5.0, Build # 7192315

[2017-12-13 11:56:42] [INFO] Log Level: info

[2017-12-13 11:56:42] [INFO] Command Line: C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\Plug-in Service\vmware-cip-msg-proxy.exe

[2017-12-13 11:56:42] [INFO] App Path: C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\Plug-in Service\vmware-cip-msg-proxy.exe

[2017-12-13 11:56:42] [INFO] Service Dir: C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\Plug-in Service

[2017-12-13 11:56:42] [INFO] Process [EM1C-3Iq2-U3Zv-OEx9]: Starting [async] "C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\Plug-in Service\vmware-cip-init.exe"

[2017-12-13 11:56:42] [INFO] Process [EM1C-3Iq2-U3Zv-OEx9]: Process created: "C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\Plug-in Service\vmware-cip-init.exe" --dh2048

[2017-12-13 11:56:42] [INFO] Process [EM1C-3Iq2-U3Zv-OEx9]: Waiting for process to exit...

[2017-12-13 11:56:42] [INFO] Process [EM1C-3Iq2-U3Zv-OEx9]: Thread has been terminated.

[2017-12-13 11:56:42] [INFO] Process [EM1C-3Iq2-U3Zv-OEx9]: Process has exited.

[2017-12-13 11:56:42] [INFO] Proxy server start requested...

[2017-12-13 11:56:42] [INFO] Proxy server thread started.

[2017-12-13 11:56:42] [INFO] Main Web Socket [8094]: run() called.

[2017-12-13 11:56:42] [INFO] Main Web Socket [8094]: Starting...

[2017-12-13 11:56:45] [ERRO] Main Web Socket [8094]: Start Accept Failed With Exception: resolve: No such host is known

[2017-12-13 11:56:45] [INFO] Main Web Socket [8094]: run() exited, will run on background thread.

[2017-12-13 11:56:45] [INFO] Main Web Socket [8094]: Thread Started.

[2017-12-13 11:56:45] [INFO] Main Web Socket [8094]: Thread Stopped.

[2017-12-13 11:56:45] [ERRO] SessionManager web socket crashed after 0 seconds.

[2017-12-13 11:56:45] [ERRO] SessionManager web socket crashed again, and is not recoverable, exiting.

[2017-12-13 11:56:45] [ERRO] Proxy server crashed.

Any ideas?

I have a new installation of VCM.  I have setup the email server under administration/General Settings/Collector, and specified a from and reply address.  When I go to schedule a report and select Email a copy of the SRS report, the option is Grayed out.  Also the Save copy of the SRS report is grayed out. Have I missed a setting?

Hi, all. I keep putting off this change, but I think I'm ready. I have one vCenter server, 3 esxi hosts and one Windows server running update manager. I need to move them all into a new trust vlan from the current flat vlan. I have separate dual nic'd vswitches for the flat vlan and the new vlan, plus separate vswitches for vmotion and iscsi. I'd like thoughts on this plan that I partially cribbed from another post, plus I have a couple of questions.

1. On each host, add a vmkernel to the vswitch for the trust vlan (no vmkernel currently); assign IP from trust vlan
2. Disconnect the hosts from vCenter
3. When the hosts are disconnected, remove them from the old vCenter (this should remove the vCenter configs on the hosts and cleanup any certificates tied to the old vCenter)
4. Change the vCenter IP and edit VM to use trust network (vcenter is a VM, so log into that host directly with client)
5. On each host, set the new vmkernel in trust to be the management network
6. Add the hosts to the new vCenter

Post migration

Add proxy information for Update Manager

Questions:

The new vmkernel on the hosts will be vmk5. Is that OK for the management network, or does the mgmt network have to be on vmk0?

I understand that in vSphere 6.0, I'll lose the performance history. That's fine, but will I lose anything else that will make this change more complicated?

Thanks.

Hello,

Our environment contains VCenter 5.5 with external SSO for each VCenter, we have a plan for migrating the VCenter to  External PSC HA for VCSA (6.5)

Let me know the steps are KB releases from VMware.

with SDRS enabled on a storage cluster, I keep getting this message when trying to svmotion or do a template clone to the cluster.

any idea?

when i disable sdfrs everything is good

Dear Folk,

Could you let me know how get to know vCenter is virtual or physical.

I'm accessing vCenter via remote location.

trying to setuo an alarm for any down vmnic

I used

esx.problem.net.vmnic.linkstate.down

for vcente ralarm trigger on a host monitor but did not see any alarms on my host which has 2 nics down

any idea?

Hello,

Was wondering if anyone could help, i'm trying to setup a Host Profile from a reference host and apply that same profile to 7 other hosts.

I created a vanilla host never used but fully configured, I applied the host profile to another vanilla host that only was added to vcenter and accessible by vcenter.

When I apply the host profile the host stops communicating to vCenter, and all PING packets start getting dropped.

When I connect via console to the host, i've noticed the Management Services show a 0.0.0.0 I am no longer able to configure Management Networks and am forced to reset the management network.

When I finally get the host back accessible in vcenter, I look at the configuration set so far, and all vDS Networks are configured, but the Management VMKernel is still on vSwitch0 and no physical NICs are applied to any of the vDS Uplinks.

Does anyone have any logs I can look at, when I look at hostd.log I'm not seeing anything worthwhile, but I could be missing something, any help would be great, thanks!

Is there a way to setup an Alert or a way to find out when a Permission is added\modified in  vCenter.   Currently we have a custom alert setup that will send an email to our team mailbox when a Permission is added\modified\deleted,  but that alert only gives us the details of the folder and what acct was added.   It will not tell us who made the changes.    Need to find a way to find out who is making permissions modifications in our VCenter.   what account inititated that task. 

Unless there is a way to pull this data directly from the database ?  Below is an example of the email notification we get today from the custom alert.

[VMware vCenter - Alarm Permission Change] Permission created for domain\xxxxxDatacenters, role is Administrator, propagation is Enabled

Is it possible to mount hosts' local storage to other hosts sort of like vSAN. I've been trying to do so for the last couple of days and I can't make it work. :/ I have no problems mounting a host's networked (NFS, iSCSI) storage to other hosts but I can't find the way to do it with its own storage. I about to complete the 350-page PDF on vSphere Storage and they mention it but it's unclear regarding to local storage. [the process of] Creating a storage cluster does make mention of adding storage that's accesible from all hosts (networked) but doesn't explain how to get there, the help button on the latest version of vCenter no longer links to a related help article but to the help portal itself and the HTML5 version doesn't even have all the settings the latter has. ☹️

Thanks for any advice you could offer, even if it is to give up.

I am starting a project where i want to move away from VSS to VDS.  However I have a few questions.

On a host that has (2) dual 10GB NIC in each host.

Currently I have in the VSS setup 2 uplinks for Data and 2 uplinks for everything else.  With using vDS is it best to keep those separate or can it handle that traffic with vlan tagging?

If I keep them together I would use the 4 NIC and LACP them together, but if they need to be separate then I would have to design it another way.  Just looking for input.  Thanks in advance.

Hi all,

I have just been handed a VMWare migration project with the below details. I have limited VMWare experience and I still got this project but anyway..

Current setup:

• There is vSphere A, in which it has 5 ESXi hosts running 5.5 and roughly 50 VMs.
• This environment has multiple networks with vSwitches.
• It also has 7 datastores attached to it.
• Some VMs have volumes assigned to different datastores. For example, OS drive is assigned to datastore A and storage drive is assigned to datastore B.
• The vCenter and ESXi hosts have 192.168.xxx.xxx addresses.

New setup:

• Then there is vSphere B, to which 20 VMs from vSphere A needs to migrate. There are 3 ESXi hosts running 5.5.
• This environment is vanilla, no network or VMs configured on it.
• It has 2 datastores attached to it, 1 x RAID10 to run the VMs and 1 x RAID 6 for backup and storage repository.
• The new environment will have 10.20.xxx.xxx addressing.

Both environments are physically sitting in the same building.

The requirements:

• Migrated VMs must be accessible from 192.168.xxx.xxx addresses.
• The migration needs to have as little downtime as possible since the VMs are production VMs.
• There is only one license for VCenter. When the migration is completed, a new vCenter needs to be setup in in the new environment and license from the old vCenter will be used on this one. The old vCenter will be decommissioned.

I am planning to add the new ESXi hosts and datastores to the current vCenter. Then migrate the VMs the new ESXi hosts and datastores via the current vCenter. Change the addressing of those migrated and do a trial run.

So what is the best way to tackle this? Best practice? How would I migrate VMs that have different volumes assigned to different datastores?

Thanks.

Hello All,

Just wanted to share an issue I had and get feedback if anyone has experienced this... new bug?

My vCenter 6.5 server was running on a host which experienced a failure... I manually recovered the failed VM's onto another host, once all VM's were back online the vCenter started to crash as soon as I tried to view the properties of a specific VM (via the Webclient) which was also on that original failed host.

The second the properties loaded in the webgui, vCenter would shutdown with the following error:

"An unrecoverable problem has occurred, stopping the VMware VirtualCenter service. Error: Error[VdbODBCError] (-1) “ODBC error: (23505) – ERROR: duplicate key value violates unique constraint “pk_vpx_vm_virtual_device"

I asked DR google and couldn't really find anything specific to “pk_vpx_vm_virtual_device”... has anyone experienced this one before on other versions?

After some investigation I linked this back to the “Host USB Device” and I managed to solve my problem. As I couldn't find anything relevant to this issue I thought I would do a simple write up about it for anyone is interested / experiences the problem.

Cheers

vMan

UPDATE 11/03/2017: This issue has been patched with vCenter 6.5b, just search for "pk_vpx_vm_virtual_device". and you will find the details. If you face this issue in PROD and are not willing to try the fix below just contact VMware Support for help.

They suggest the work around...

Workaround from VMware: Unregister the problematic virtual machine from the host inventory and restart the vCenter Server. You might need to repeat this process if the failure happens again. (vMAN: which is fine if you know which VM is causing the issue but this is not obvious from the logs / errors without going into the DB - IMO)

I install a VCSA 6.5 on a ESXI 6.5 server. When the install finish, I login to the web client the first time. I was asked to configure vCenter before use it. I filled the blanks and click "Next", but I always get "internal error" . I don't know what is the Internal Error. Could anyone help me?

Hi Team,

I need PS script to take snapshot about 42 VMs with memory. 25vms are located in one VC, and others are located in different VCs with respect to data center location.

While executing below PS i am getting error. Can anybody please help me on this.

$vc = Read-Host "vCenter Server Name"

$crediantial = Get-Credential

Connect-VIServer $vc -Credential $crediantial

$vmlist = Get-Content <VM Path>

    foreach ($vm in $vmlist)

{

New-Snapshot -VM $vm -Name <Snapshot name> -Description '<Descri+'%%date'>' -Quiesce -Memory

}

Disconnect-VIServer -Server $vc

Regards

Ganesh Shastri.

I have just finished a successful migration from 6.0 to 6.5 (with NSX 6.3), ran into a couple interesting hiccups along the way, thought i would share.

(i upgraded the NSX components to the 6.3 release prior to the vcenter update, with no really big issues)

So i have an external PSC running on a VCSA, and two vcenter servers.  had one vcsa vcenter, and one windows vcenter server (original).

per upgrade recommendations, did the PSC first using the upgrade option on the iso.. this one worked without issue.

next i did the VCSA vcenter appliance, which was running 6.0.

ran into an issue when trying to run the upgrader.

during the upgrade process (step 3) it asks you for your administrator@vsphere.local credentials, the fqdn of your appliance, and the host on which it resides.

couldn't get past this screen, encountering a credential error  (Invalid appliance (OS) root password).

looking at the log files, found the following error:

initiateFileTransferFromGuest error: ServerFaultCode: Failed to authenticate with the guest operating system using the supplied credentials.

this was strange, as all authentication credentials were valid.  much googling and no good results.  logged into the vcsa management ui, and changed the root password to a less complex password, but same issue.

I then tried to set the root password to the same password (a rather complex one) that my admin@vs.local account used.  the GUI crapped on this and wouldn't change.

logged into the vcsa via ssh, shell, and changed the root password via command line to match the admin@vs.local password.   

after that change, the updater successfully logged on and i was able to continue the upgrade.

the rest of the upgrade for that appliance went smooth.  (I do have a separate root password from admin@vsphere.local, and still used a separate root password when prompted for it in the upgrade process..  it just appears that when connecting to the appliance that needs to be updated, they need to be the same)

Success.

--------------

On to the windows vcenter box.

this time we are using the "migrate" option to go from windows to vcsa.  first have to run the migration assistant on the windows box, and change one local security policy.. all pretty easy.

(remember if you are mounting the iso via local vsphere client, login to the host directly, not through the vcenter server you are migrating / taking offline.. oops)

migration steps all went well.. got into the 6.5 interface and something really weird..

So a few months ago, after updating some naming conventions in my environment, I changed some of the esxi host names (using vmware published procedures)..  I think it was via a disconnect / reconnect and specifying a new name on the reconnect.  End result was in my 6.0 environment, some of my hosts had lived through a name change, and some had their "new" names from day 1.

after the migration, the "new" hosts were fine, but the hosts that had their names changed in the past had imported into the 6.5 environment under their OLD names.. (which is kinda problematic, as the host doesn't know it's old name anymore).  It was really weird, the hosts were half connected, but couldn't establish an HA group (cause vcenter couln't contact the hosts - trying via their old names).  I disconnected and attempted to reconnect one, but in 6.5 you cannot change the name this way anymore.  I also could not reconnect, as the SSL certs didn't match the names.

End result.. shut down the new 6.5, restored my 6.0 windows machine, and reconnected via the 6.0 vcenter. 

Once my clusters were all online and connected normally again, opened a ticket to try and figure out WHY.

TL;DR:  in vcenter database, vpx_host table had new correct host names, but VPX_ENTITY table had old names.  (all other tables reference objects by their ID, vpx_entity was the only table where the hosts were specifically named outside of the vpx_host table, which had their DNS name)..

We (support and I) removed a renamed host from a cluster and added it back in, confirming that it updated the entries in the tables (well it actually removed and created new entries) - this of course also has the adverse affect of killing all historic info for that host, as it's ID has changed.

The official line from support was to remove and re-add all the renamed hosts to correct the database, then to reimport.

Being the rebel that I am... I just updated the entries in the VPX_ENTITY table to reflect the new names, then ran the migrate process again to a new vcsa.

After this second migration process, all my hosts are looking good in 6.5, talking to vcenter, and they all have their correct names.

Now on to the fun and exciting process of updating all the hosts to 6.5 as well!

Jared

Hi,

I'm planning to get setup Vmware vSphere 6.5 (VCSA) update manager.

It's VCSA.

Do I need windows server?

Can I get step-by-step instruction?

Please advise! or what's best practice?

Thank you

I have a vCenter appliance 6.5 with vDS set up and total 9 ESXi hosts. I rebooted vCenter and two of the hosts lost ping for few seconds. It's no big deal, but very curious why only two ESXi hosts get that.

Any idea where to troubleshoot?

Thank you,

Hi Guys,

We are currently backing up our exchange server with the bog standard backup which comes with windows (windows backup), which is saving to the hyper-v vhdx file type, what is the best way to go about converting the file from vhdx to vmdk?