Deleting the datastore where a content library is hosted is probably not the best idea

Deleting the datastore where a content library is hosted is probably not the best idea but … yes stupid error and now what. If you are not faint of heart (and now how to take a snapshot), you can rectify this. You should contact GSS as there is not documented solution and this might break.

Take a snapshot and verify if the vCenter backups are in a healthy status. Yes? Ok go ahead.

Log on to the vCenter and create a new Content Library and name it ‘i-made-an-error’. Use the new datastore you want to use and keep the rest of the settings default as these don’t really matter.

Open an SSH session to the vCenter and connect to the Postgress DB ‘VCDB’

To show which tables are present within the database:

Show an overview of the Content Libraries added ( make sure to add the trailing ;):

Show the Content Library entries in the vCenter database

Now that we have an overview of the Content Libraries, with the one that is throwing an error highlighted.

In the following overview we find the library id from the new Content Library we just added and also the corresponding storage id.

Database Content Library storage ids

I will update the storage id from the faulty one we found on the previous screenshot with the one we found for the new Content Library.

Update the storage id for the faulty Content Library

There are a couple of places that helped me in solving this:

https://communities.vmware.com/t5/VMware-vCenter-Discussions/Content-library-item-delete-issue/td-p/2266050

https://tinkertry.com/how-to-remove-vmware-vsphere-zombie-datastore

https://vmninja.wordpress.com/2019/04/05/remove-inaccessible-datastore-from-inventory/

vLCM fails to upgrade a firmware component

I recently experienced an issue within a HPE environment where vSphere Lifecycle Management (vLCM) fails to upgrade the firmware on a HP FlexFabric 534FLR-SFP+ Adapter.

On HPE Gen10 servers it is possible to leverage vSphere LifeCycle Management to manage not only the ESXi version but also the firmware and drivers of the different hardware components. vLCM leverages a vendor tool, in HPE’s case it is either HP OneView or HP Amplifier, to do the lift and shift for the firmware.

Apparently it fails when there are multiple adapters present in the system which have a firmware v7.15.97 or prior. The upgrade would succeed on one adapter but not on the subsequent adapter(s), see here. The KB is specifically mentioning HP OneView but as I experienced it is also affecting HP Amplifier, which makes sense.

The following screenshot shows two hosts out of compliance with the image, because of that specific firmware. Other hosts in that cluster upgraded the firmware on the adapter just fine. It really is due to the version to upgrade from.

vLCM Cluster Image settings and Compliance

Resolution

The article is providing a link to a firmware upgrade utility, which is for ESXi 6.0 / 6.5. You can download the 7.0 version here.

Now that we downloaded the firmware update utility, put the host into Maintenance Mode and copy it onto the ESXi host. Putting it in the /tmp directory gives the (dis)advantage that is tis removed when the machine is rebooted.

SSH to the host and install the firmware update utility (Smart Component):

This should be the output:

Now go to the directory where the firmware update utility is installed and run it:

This should be the output:

If the Return value is 1, that is a good sign. I had to rerun it some times because of return value 0. I also had a return value of 106, which didn’t change after several runs. I rebooted that host, ran it again and then it went ok.

As a final step clean up the actions, so remove the firmware update utility:

Reboot. When the host is back, Check Compliance again and you should be good to go.

VCSA 7 U1 available updates error

Today I deployed a new VCSA 7 U1 and as U2 has GA’d recently I wanted to update the environment first. So I headed to the VAMI interface > Available Updates page. Immediately there was an error:

Error in method invocation ({‘id’: ‘com.vmware.appliance.update.manifest_verification_failed’, ‘default_message’: ‘Manifest verification failed’, ‘args’: []}, ‘Verification Failure\n’, ”)

I found some blogs that showed to delete upgrade status file ‘software_update_state.conf’ at /etc/applmgmt/appliance. While I tested with renaming this file to .old this did not resolve the error.

The file was recreated but held the same info, which is in JSON format and has an the following content:

“UP_TO_DATE”, it clearly is not. So I found this KB article. This is also where I got the solution for my install. I compared the url I found in the KB article with the one that is included by default in the update settings page.

The one on the KB page is the following:

https://vapp-updates.vmware.com/vai-catalog/valm/vmw/8d167796-34d5-4899-be0a-6daade4005a3/6.7.0.31000.latest/

The one that is included in the VAMI interface is the following:

https://vapp-updates.vmware.com/vai-catalog/valm/vmw/8d167796-34d5-4899-be0a-6daade4005a3/7.0.1.00200.latest/

In my case when I alleviated the .latest from that url, updates are detected and I can proceed.

So as you can see in the screenshot below (well not entirely but you will need to take my word for it), I selected ‘Specified’ and supplied the following url:

https://vapp-updates.vmware.com/vai-catalog/valm/vmw/8d167796-34d5-4899-be0a-6daade4005a3/7.0.1.00200

Update settings link

As soon I clicked ‘SAVE’, the updates became available to install.

Available updates success

Upgrade Methodology – Upgrade the homelab

This post is not as a end-to-end upgrade guide but a methodology guide. Everything is more or less straight forward if one uses the correct methodology.

As this is a home lab I have chosen not to add complexity by adding additional nodes to the various components for High Availability but depend on vSphere HA. This eases and shortens my upgrade path. In a production environment every application should be evaluated and talked through with the stakeholders whether it can rely on vSphere HA or some form of application HA should be introduced.

The release of vSphere 7 introduced a starting point for an update/upgrade round in the lab. I have not always used the methodology when upgrading components as I should have in the lab. When I used this methodology in the current upgrade round it has come to light that some components were not interoperable with each other. Why is this important? If you have a problem with your environment and you call VMware support, they will go through the logs and verify the environment is on par with the documentation.

So where do I start?

Reading the docs first takes time but it will save a lot of time in the long run. Can’t stress it enough RTFM !!

I always create my own high level upgrade guide. This will include the research that I have done and it also includes the upgrade path to follow.

Phase 1: Information gathering

Determine the components and versions

Be thorough in determining the components and versions (BOM or Bill Of Materials).

  • VMware vSphere 6.7U3
  • vRealize Log Insight 4.5
  • vRealize Operations 7.5
  • VMware Horizon 7.11

You will see below that I had forgotten to include VMware Horizon in my component set. This could have been catastrophic as some components might stop to work when you don’t follow the correct upgrade procedure.

Gather the documentation

After you determine which components are used in the environment you can go and search for the necessary documentation. Find the release notes, upgrade guides and other relevant documentation

I used the following documentation set:

Release notes:

Upgrade documentation:

Other:

Remarks

In the ‘Compatibility Considerations’ in Important information before upgrading to vSphere 7.0 vRealize Operations is mentioned as not compatible with vSphere 7.0. This will be overruled by the VMware Product Interoperability Matrix between the two products (VMware Product Interoperability Matrix overview section),

VMware Hardware Compatibility List

What I learned from these documents was that I was not sure the NVMe drives in my hosts would be compatible. After all they are consumer grade NVMe drives and are not on the VMware HCL.
I recently installed two NVMe drives, a CT500P1SSD8 and a CT1000P1SSD8 and at the time of install the Crucial CT500P1SSD8 was not recognized. A quick googling showed me a blog post from William Lam that replaced the vSphere 6.7 U3 nvme driver with one from a vSphere 6.5U2 install.
I will discuss how I determined if there would be issues around this in ESXi 7.0 in a later phase.

All components should be checked with the vendor and the VMware HCL. Be aware that the vendor and VMware might not always agree and that the VMware HCL might not always be in sync with the the documentation of the hardware vendor. You should always follow the VMware HCL but be aware of the following KB. If vSAN hardware is involved it is advised to use extreme caution as this has a specific section of the VMware HCL for vSAN Ready Nodes and for Build Your Own

VMware Product Interoperability Matrix overview

I did a research on which versions would be compatible with vSphere 6.7 and vSphere 7.0 as I was not yet sure if would be able to upgrade to vSphere 7.0

One product I forgot about was VMware Horizon. I’m currently on 7.10 and the VMware Product Interoperability Matrix show that at least 7.12 is needed to be supported. As I currently use Horizon with a full clone this should not pose much problems and I am planning to upgrade this as well. If I would be using Linked Clones or Instant Clones this could have been worse.

Update sequence for vSphere 7.0 and its compatible VMware products

Now that we checked all the info on whether everything would be compatible and supported after the upgrade, it is time to check the knowledge base article on the update sequence. This article shows what must be upgraded before another component can be upgraded to keep a supported environment.

Phase 2: The upgrade

vRealize Log Insight upgrade

vRealize Log Insight was running version 4.6. Digging back through the release notes showed me that I had to upgrade from 4.6 > 4.7(.1) > 4.8 > 8.1. The VMware Product Interoperability Matrix showed that vRealize Log Insight 8.1 was compatible with either vSphere 6.7U3 and vSphere 7.0

The upgrade process was painless. It just took a lot of time. The process itself is straight forward. Go to Administration > Management > Cluster, upload the pak file and follow the screens. In my case again and again because I did not upgrade Log Insight a long time.

vRealize Operations Manager upgrade

Upgrading the vRealize Operations Manager node is a breeze too, mainly because it is a simple setup with only one master node. vRealize Operations Manager was running version 7.5. I missed the 8.1 release so I upgraded to 8.0 first.

There are a couple of things that need some attention.

  1. Always run the vRealize Operations Manager Pre-Upgrade Readiness Assessment Tool (APUAT pak)
  2. Make sure to upgrade the OS through the OS pak files first, then the vROps pak file
  3. As I upgraded to 8.0 I had to switch files to execute the 8.1 upgrade

The Pre-Upgrade Readiness Assessment Tool showed me warnings for two items:

  1. Validating product version Make sure to run vRealize Operations Manager – 6.6.1, 6.7, 7.0 and 7.5 Virtual Appliance upgrade, as product version is 7.5.0 Ensure product and upgrade versions meet the requirements.
  1. Checking /dev/sda partition size. The size of the partition is less than 20GB. Increase the size of the partition to be greater or equal to 20 GB (https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/75298).

Both are easily addressed. The first one gives a warning to use the correct pak file when upgrading. The second one refers to a KB article that has only a couple of steps:

  • take vRealize Operations offline
  • shut down guest OS
  • increase hard disk in vCenter
  • boot Virtual Machine
  • take vRealize Operations online

After addressing both warnings I was able to upgrade.

vCenter upgrade

Simple and easy when you are already on the VCSA with an embedded Platform Services Controller (PSC).

Run the installer and choose upgrade. Supply the source vCenter information and destination vCenter information and click Next – Next – Finish. Grab a drink and wait. It is a two part process. The first part will deploy the new machine with the chosen information and the second part will migrate the data from the old vCenter to the new vCenter.

ESXi upgrade

Before the actual upgrade could take place I needed to be sure that everything would work after the upgrade. Within the vExpert vCommunity I had seen a nice and easy way to do this. I am sorry that I can’t give credits to the person that I got the idea from.

  • Create a bootable USB ESXi installer or use the iDRAC or equivalent technology to boot your server from the ESXi installer
  • Find an empty USB flash drive
  • Put your server in Maintenance Mode
  • Shutdown and boot your server from the USB installer or the iDRAC or equivalent technology
  • Install to the empty USB drive – BE CAREFUL not to install to the wrong location

Upgrade check workaround

ESXi will create a VMFS volume from the remaining local space where ESXi is installed by default. After installing I tried to add the ESXi host to vCenter but failed because it had detected the local VMFS volume from the original install and that was conflicting with the one that was still present in vCenter but disconnected. I rebooted the ESXi host, booted into the original drive, verified nothing was on the local drive in the original install and deleted the datastore. Rebooted again into the USB drive and now could add the USB installed ESXi 7.0 to vCenter. Now I was able to get a glimpse of how everything was seen from an ESXi 7.0 install. The NVMe drives I was worried about were showing all fine.

Again this is a home lab and not all components are on the VMware HCL so this adds some extra steps like checking from an actual install. This would not be necessary in a production environment where everything has green checks on the VMware HCL.

The actual upgrade

Upgrading ESXi hosts is done easiest through VMware vSphere – Lifecycle Manager (VMware Update Manager has been rebranded)

I imported the Dell customized ISO, created a baseline and did a Host Compliance Check. The Host Compliance Check was Incompatible and led me to the following two knowledge base articles:

I had to remove everything based on the qedi and qedf drivers

VMware Tools / VM Hardware Compatibility

Upgrading the VMware Tools and the VM Hardware Compatibility is the last part in the process. Determine the viability of each VM to upgrade the VMware Tools and the VM Hardware Compatibility. For most VMs this won’t pose a problem. Nevertheless there are some vendor appliances that will need to run a specific version.

vSAN upgrade

Although vSAN is not really a separate component to upgrade, you will need to upgrade the on-disk format. This is an online upgrade that will not impact the running VMs.

Conclusion

Good preparation of an upgrade is key !!

Upgrade Methodology checks:

  1. Determine your BOM (Bill Of Materials)
  2. Check the documentation first
    1. Read the Release Notes
    2. Read the Upgrade guides for each component
  3. Check the HCL
  4. Check the Interoperability Guide
  5. Determine the update sequence
  6. Upgrade according your plan

Use iPerf to test NIC speed between two ESXi hosts

Sometimes you want/need use iPerf to test the nic speed between two ESXi hosts. I did because I was seeing a NIC with low throughput in my lab.

How can we test raw speeds between the two hosts? iPerf comes to the rescue. I was looking on how to do this on an ESXi host. I doesn’t come as a surprise that I found the solution here at William Lams’ virtuallyghetto.com. Apparently iperf has been added to ESXi since 6.5 U2. You used to have to copy iperf to iperf.copy. In ESXi 7.0 that has been done for you, although you will need to look for /usr/lib/vmware/vsan/bin/iperf3.copy

ESXi host 1 (iperf server)

Disable the firewall:

Change to the directory containing the iperf binary

Execute iPerf as server

Overview of the used parameters:

-swill start iperf as server
-Bdefines the IP the iperf server will listen to

Disable the firewall

ESXi host 2 (iperf client)

Change to the directory containing the iperf binary

Execute iPerf as client

Overview of the used parameters:

-iwill determine the interval of reporting back
-ttime iperf will be running
-cclient ip, will force the usage of the correct vmkernel interface
-fmdefaults to kbit/s, adding m will use mbit/s

Don’t forget to re-enable the firewall on both systems.

esxcli network firewall set --enabled true