When connecting to your vCenter server via PowerCLI, one can use the -menu option. This will give a list of entries you recently used. You can manage the entries here:
C:\Users\username\Appdata\Roaming\VMware\PowerCLI\RecentServerList.xml
Connect-viserver -menu
vCenter is showing an alarm on the TrendMicro Deep Security Virtual Appliance (DSVA): ‘vShield Endpoint SVM status’
Checking vShield for errors:
The DSVA VA console window shows: (as to where it should show a red/grey screen)
Let’s go for some log file analysis
To get a login prompt: Alt + F2
Login with user dsva and password dsva (this is the default)
The log file we are going to check is the messages log file at /var/log/messages
|
1 |
less /var/log/messages |
(why less is more: you get almost all the vi commands)
To go to the last line:
|
1 |
G |
For some reason the ovf file is not like it is expected. The appliance is not able to set some ovf settings, in this case the network interfaces.
To exit the log file display mode:
|
1 |
q |
To gain root privileges:
|
1 |
sudo -s |
Enter the dsva user password
Navigate to the /var/opt/ds_agent/slowpath directory
|
1 |
cd /var/opt/ds_agent/slowpath |
Create the dsva-ovf.env file (if the file exists, delete the existing file first):
|
1 |
touch dsva-ovf.env |
Reboot the appliance, once rebooted give it 5 minutes and the alarm should clear automatically:
|
1 |
reboot |
Start the ssh service on all hosts:
|
1 2 3 |
Get-VMHost | Foreach { Start-VMHostService -HostService ($_ | Get-VMHostService | Where {$_.Key -eq "TSM-SSH"}) } |
If you want to start the ssh service on a single host, change ESXiHostName to your ESXi FQDN:
|
1 2 3 |
Get-VMHost -Name ESXiHostName | Foreach { Start-VMHostService -HostService ($_ | Get-VMHostService | Where {$_.Key -eq "TSM-SSH"}) } |
If you want to stop the ssh service on all hosts:
|
1 2 3 |
Get-VMHost | Foreach { Stop-VMHostService -HostService ($_ | Get-VMHostService | Where {$_.Key -eq "TSM-SSH"}) } |
If you have multiple cluster in vCenter, are connected to multiple vCenters, be sure to launch the command only to the necessary hosts:
|
1 2 3 |
Get-Cluster -Name ClusterName | Get-VMHost -Name ESXiHostName -Server vCenterServerName | Foreach { Stop-VMHostService -HostService ($_ | Get-VMHostService | Where { $_.Key -eq "TSM-SSH"} ) } |
These are other services I frequently use:
There are other services available but I have never used them in this context (yet):
Change the startup policy for a service:
|
1 2 3 |
Get-VMHost | Foreach { Set-VMHostService -HostService ($_ | Get-VMHostService | Where {$_.key -eq "TSM-SSH"}) -policy On } |
VMware I/O Analyzer is a tool to launch orchestrated tests against a storage solution available from the VMware flings website. It can be used as a single appliance where the worker process and the analytics is done within. Additional appliances can be deployed to act as Worker VMs. The Analyzer VM launches IOmeter tests (on the Worker VMs) and after test completion it collects the data. All configuration is done from a web interface on the Analyzer VM.
This post is describing how I deployed VMware I/O Analyzer and how I got to a test with maximized IOs. The first tests were conducted launching a IOmeter from within a virtual machine on the vSAN datastore and showed more or less 300 IOs being generated. In the end 18 Worker VMs with 8 disks each on a 6 host vSAN cluster were used generating 340K+ IOPS. The purpose was to create a baseline for a VSAN datastore maximum IOPs.
6 hosts
1 disk group
1 800GB SSD drive5 1,2 TB 10K SAS
vSphere 5.5 U3
The VM OS disks should not be put on the vSAN datastore you want to test, if not the generated IOPs will be part of your report. To keep the Analyser VM IOPS out of the performance graphs, put it on a different datastore.
Deploy one Analyser VM. Deploy a Worker VM per ESXi host. You should end up with as much Worker VMs as you have hosts in your cluster.
I changed the IP of all VMs to static as there was no DHCP server available in the subnet. This means that no DNS entries were required.
Preferably you will want to change the Analyser VM to a static IP as you will manage the solution from a web browser. The Worker VMs you can leave as is if there is DHCP server available. You will need dns entries and change the configuration used here.
To work easily set the Worker VMs on static IPs or create dns aliases as you will be doing a lot of work on the Worker VMs. I prefer static IPs because they add no complexity due to name resolving, etc…
Download ova from: https://labs.vmware.com/flings/i-o-analyzer
Deploy ovf template. Choose your settings in regards to the recommendations above.
Delete the 100MB disk (second disk) from the virtual machine.
Start the Analyser VM via vSphere client and the open console
Login with root – vmware
A terminal window will be opened upon login
To configure static IP:
Change /etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg-eth0 with your preferred text editor.
|
1 |
vi /etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg-eth0 |
Assuming the subnet you’re deploying the vm is 192.168.1.0/24
Change the following lines highlighted to your needs:
|
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 |
BOOTPROTO=’static’ BROADCAST=’192.168.1.255’ ETHTOOL_OPTIONS='' IPADDR=’192.168.1.20’ MTU=’1500’ NAME='82545EM Gigabit Ethernet Controller (Copper)' NETMASK=’255.255.255.0’ NETWORK=’192.168.1.0’ REMOTE_IPADDR='' STARTMODE='auto' USERCONTROL='no' |
Leave the other lines as is.
Save and close the file (:wq)
Now we will configure the default gateway
Assuming your default gateway is 192.168.1.1
|
1 |
vi /etc/sysconfig/network/routes (The file will be created if it doesn’t exist) |
Add / Change the following line:
|
1 2 |
Default 192.168.1.1 - - (Default space GW space hyphen space hyphen) |
Save and close the file (:wq)
Restart the network service:
|
1 |
service network restart |
Check if the VM is reachable.
Now shutdown the VM.
Clone the Analyser VM.
Add a Hard Disk of 1GB.
Choose advanced and put the 1GB disk on the VSAN datastore.
I needed to configure static IPs on the Worker VMs, so I had to start each VM and change the IP address. After changing the network settings, shut down the VM and create a new clone. Not changing the IPs will give duplicate IPs.
Two ease of access configurations were applied. The first is configured for easy copying from the Analyzer VM to the Worker VMs. The second because all appliances need to be logged onto for the VMware IO Analyzer solution to work. All commands are executed on the Analyzer VM and then copied to the Worker VMs.
Generate a key pair
|
1 |
ssh-keygen (with an empty passphrase) |
ssh-copy-id will copy your public key to the target machine
|
1 2 3 4 5 6 |
ssh-copy-id -i id_rsa.pub root@192.168.1.21 ssh-copy-id -i id_rsa.pub root@192.168.1.22 ssh-copy-id -i id_rsa.pub root@192.168.1.23 ssh-copy-id -i id_rsa.pub root@192.168.1.24 ssh-copy-id -i id_rsa.pub root@192.168.1.25 ssh-copy-id -i id_rsa.pub root@192.168.1.26 |
The root account password of the destination will need to be supplied for each of the above lines.
BE AWARE: This has the following security downside. If the root account is compromised on the Analyzer vm all worker vms should be considered compromised too.
Change autologon=”” to autologon=”root” in the displaymanager (/etc/sysconfig/displaymanager) file with the following command:
|
1 |
sed -i ‘s/AUTOLOGIN=””/AUTOLOGIN=”root”/g’ /etc/sysconfig/displaymanager |
This will force the machine to login with root after boot.
Copy the file to all workers:
|
1 2 3 4 5 6 |
scp /etc/sysconfig/displaymanager root@192.168.1.21:/etc/sysconfig/ scp /etc/sysconfig/displaymanager root@192.168.1.22:/etc/sysconfig/ scp /etc/sysconfig/displaymanager root@192.168.1.23:/etc/sysconfig/ scp /etc/sysconfig/displaymanager root@192.168.1.24:/etc/sysconfig/ scp /etc/sysconfig/displaymanager root@192.168.1.25:/etc/sysconfig/ scp /etc/sysconfig/displaymanager root@192.168.1.26:/etc/sysconfig/ |
TIP: Create affinity rules in vCenter to keep the Worker VMs on dedicated hosts, otherwise the configuration on the VMware I/O Analyzer dashboard will be outdated soon. The consequence is that certain Worker VMs will not be launching their IOmeter profiles and therefor the reports will not be correct.
Enable the SSH service on the ESXi hosts via the vSphere (Web) Client or through Powershell.
The powershell way: (be aware to filter your hosts if needed). There is a dedicated post about starting and stopping ESXi services through powershell here.
|
1 2 3 |
Get-VMHost | Foreach { Start-VMHostService -HostService ($_ | Get-VMHostService | Where { $_.Key -eq "TSM-SSH"} ) } |
Add the hosts to the host list.
Search for the Worker VMs in the list and add preferred IO test.
There are a lot of standard tests included in the appliance. The one that should be generating the most IOPs is 4k, 100% read and 0% random.
To reach an optimized setup, three Worker VMs per host were deployed and 7 additional disks were added.
Adding the extra disks via PowerCLI:
|
1 2 3 |
$VMs = Get-VM -Name "*IOW*" ForEach ($vm in $VMs) {ForEach ($num in 1..7) { New-HardDisk -CapacityGB 1 -datastore vsan* -VM $vm.name}} |
The following specification was created on the Analyzer VM…
|
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 |
'TEST SETUP ==================================================================== 'Test Description 4k_100Read_0Rand_cust 'Run Time ' hours minutes seconds 0 1 0 'Ramp Up Time (s) 0 'Default Disk Workers to Spawn NUMBER_OF_CPUS 'Default Network Workers to Spawn 0 'Record Results ALL 'Worker Cycling ' start step step type 1 1 LINEAR 'Disk Cycling ' start step step type 1 1 LINEAR 'Queue Depth Cycling ' start end step step type 1 32 2 EXPONENTIAL 'Test Type NORMAL 'END test setup 'ACCESS SPECIFICATIONS ========================================================= 'Access specification name,default assignment 4k; 100% Read; 0% Random, NONE 'size,% of size,% reads,% random,delay,burst,align,reply 4096,100,100,0,0,1,4096,0 'END access specifications 'MANAGER LIST ================================================================== 'Manager ID, manager name 1,IOA-manager 'Manager network address 127.0.0.1 'Worker IOA-worker 'Worker type DISK 'Default target settings for worker 'Number of outstanding IOs,test connection rate,transactions per connection 16,DISABLED,1 'Disk maximum size,starting sector 0,0 'End default target settings for worker 'Assigned access specs 4k; 100% Read; 0% Random 'End assigned access specs 'Target assignments 'Target sdb 'Target type DISK 'End target 'End target assignments 'End worker 'Worker IOA-worker 'Worker type DISK 'Default target settings for worker 'Number of outstanding IOs,test connection rate,transactions per connection 16,DISABLED,1 'Disk maximum size,starting sector 0,0 'End default target settings for worker 'Assigned access specs 4k; 100% Read; 0% Random 'End assigned access specs 'Target assignments 'Target sdc 'Target type DISK 'End target 'End target assignments 'End worker 'Worker IOA-worker 'Worker type DISK 'Default target settings for worker 'Number of outstanding IOs,test connection rate,transactions per connection 16,DISABLED,1 'Disk maximum size,starting sector 0,0 'End default target settings for worker 'Assigned access specs 4k; 100% Read; 0% Random 'End assigned access specs 'Target assignments 'Target sdd 'Target type DISK 'End target 'End target assignments 'End worker 'Worker IOA-worker 'Worker type DISK 'Default target settings for worker 'Number of outstanding IOs,test connection rate,transactions per connection 16,DISABLED,1 'Disk maximum size,starting sector 0,0 'End default target settings for worker 'Assigned access specs 4k; 100% Read; 0% Random 'End assigned access specs 'Target assignments 'Target sde 'Target type DISK 'End target 'End target assignments 'End worker 'Worker IOA-worker 'Worker type DISK 'Default target settings for worker 'Number of outstanding IOs,test connection rate,transactions per connection 16,DISABLED,1 'Disk maximum size,starting sector 0,0 'End default target settings for worker 'Assigned access specs 4k; 100% Read; 0% Random 'End assigned access specs 'Target assignments 'Target sdf 'Target type DISK 'End target 'End target assignments 'End worker 'Worker IOA-worker 'Worker type DISK 'Default target settings for worker 'Number of outstanding IOs,test connection rate,transactions per connection 16,DISABLED,1 'Disk maximum size,starting sector 0,0 'End default target settings for worker 'Assigned access specs 4k; 100% Read; 0% Random 'End assigned access specs 'Target assignments 'Target sdg 'Target type DISK 'End target 'End target assignments 'End worker 'Worker IOA-worker 'Worker type DISK 'Default target settings for worker 'Number of outstanding IOs,test connection rate,transactions per connection 16,DISABLED,1 'Disk maximum size,starting sector 0,0 'End default target settings for worker 'Assigned access specs 4k; 100% Read; 0% Random 'End assigned access specs 'Target assignments 'Target sdh 'Target type DISK 'End target 'End target assignments 'End worker 'Worker IOA-worker 'Worker type DISK 'Default target settings for worker 'Number of outstanding IOs,test connection rate,transactions per connection 16,DISABLED,1 'Disk maximum size,starting sector 0,0 'End default target settings for worker 'Assigned access specs 4k; 100% Read; 0% Random 'End assigned access specs 'Target assignments 'Target sdi 'Target type DISK 'End target 'End target assignments 'End worker 'End manager 'END manager list |
… and copied over to the Worker VMs
|
1 2 3 4 5 6 |
scp ./VSAN_4k_100read_0rand.icf root@192.168.1.21:/var/www/configs/ scp ./VSAN_4k_100read_0rand.icf root@192.168.1.22:/var/www/configs/ scp ./VSAN_4k_100read_0rand.icf root@192.168.1.23:/var/www/configs/ scp ./VSAN_4k_100read_0rand.icf root@192.168.1.24:/var/www/configs/ scp ./VSAN_4k_100read_0rand.icf root@192.168.1.25:/var/www/configs/ scp ./VSAN_4k_100read_0rand.icf root@192.168.1.26:/var/www/configs/ |
I found that looking at the console of the Worker VMs is interesting for troubleshooting. You can see the IOmeter tests being launched. This was very usefull in the process of creating the IOmeter profile. You don’t need to wait untill the test is finished to see it has failed. Stopping IOmeter tests from the console gives the opportunity to look at, edit and save the launched profile.
VMware SRM 5.8.1 Embedded Database refuses to uninstall. Clicking uninstall in ‘Control Panel – Programs and Features’ showed a progress bar going forward and then rolling back. Afterwards ‘Control Panel – Programs and Features’ showed that the embedded PostgreSQL was still installed.
So I tried it through the command line with the purpose of generating a log file:
|
1 |
msiexec /l*a c:\temp\uninst.log /x VMware-SRM-Postgres.msi |
The log file shows a 1603 error code in the end but msiexec error 1603 is a very generic failure error which does not give a direction to search for.
Microsoft msiexec error codes:
| ERROR_INSTALL_FAILURE | 1603 | A fatal error occurred during installation. |
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa376931(v=vs.85).aspx
Going up in the log file, somewhere halfway there is a remark that the “C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager Embedded Database\data\postgresql.conf” file cannot be found.
I created the postgresql.conf file in the “C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager Embedded Database\data\” and tried the msiexec uninstall again. Now the uninstall succeeded.
