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By Haareshh
The service console is developed based up on Redhat Linux Operating system, it is used to manage the VMKernel
What are the basic commands to troubleshoot connectivity between vSphere Client /vCenter to ESX server?
VMWare Kernel is a Proprietary kernel of vmwareand is not based on any of the flavors of Linux operating systems,
.VMkernel requires an operating system to boot and manage the kernel. A service console is being provided when
VMWare kernel is booted. Only service console is based up on Red hat Linux OS not VMkernel.
Service console port group required to manage the ESX server and it acts as the management network for the
ESX.Vcenter/Vsphere Client uses the service console IP's to communicate with the ESX server.
Vmkernel port is used by ESX/ESXi for vmotion, ISCSI & NFS communications. ESXi uses Vmkernel as the
management network since it don't have service console built with it.
All the Virtual Machines which are configured in VM Port Group are able to connect to the other machines on the
network. So this port group enables communication between vSwitch and Physical Switch by the use of uplink
(Physical NIC) associated with the port group.
What is the default number of ports configured with the Virtual Switch?
When the time of Virtual switch created, Vswitch is created with 56 ports by default. We can extend the no of ports by
editing the vswitch properties.
/ -root
Swap
/var
/Var/core
/opt
/home
/tmp
If the promiscuous mode set to Accept, all the communication is visible to all the virtual machines, in other words all
the packets are sent to all the ports on vSwitch. It can be useful when you are running virtual machines with network
sniffers to capture packet in that network.
All the virtual machines nics are provide with the MAC address at the time of creation and it is stored in .VMX file. If
the packet doesn't match with the MAC address as same as in the .VMX file , it does not allow incoming traffic to the
VM by setting this option as reject.
If it is set as Accept,ESX accepts requests to change the effective MAC address to other than the MAC address save
din the .VMX file.
Which is same as the Mac Address changes setting but it worked for the outgoing traffic but the MAC address
changes setting is for incoming traffic.
What is a VLAN ?
A VLAN is the Virtual LAN which is used to broke down the Broadcast traffic into many logical groups. Basically, one
physical switch comprise of one broadcast domain. VLAN used to separate the one broadcast domain into many
small pieces to separate the networks within the broadcast domain.
Traffic shaping policies are disabled by default. There are 3 different traffic shaping policy setting
Average Bandwidth
Peak Bandwidth
Burst Size
Route based on the originating virtual switch port ID - Chooses an uplink based on the virtual port where the
traffic entered the virtual switch. The traffic will be always send with that same uplink until that particular uplink is
failed and failed over to another NIC.
Route based on source MAC hash - Choose an uplink based on a hash of the source Ethernet MAC address.The
traffic will be always send with that same uplink until that particular uplink is failed and failed over to another NIC.
Route based on IP hash - Choose an uplink based on a hash of the source and destination IP addresses of each
packet.
Link Status only - Relies solely on the link status provided by the network adapter. This detects failures, such as
cable pulls and physical switch power failures, but it cannot detect configuration errors, such as a physical switch port
being blocked by spanning tree or misconfigured to the wrong VLAN or cable pulls on the other side of a physical
switch.
Beacon Probing - Sends out and listens for beacon probes — Ethernet broadcast frames sent by physical adapters
to detect upstream network connection failures — on all physical Ethernet adapters in the team. In addition to link
status, to determine link failure. This detects many of the failures which are not detected by Link Status.
What is the command to check the IP address along with the detailed network cards assigned to the esx
server?
Ifconfig -a
=========================================================================
You can use "ip addr" command also to view the ip information
=========================================================================
=========================================================================
what is the command to check the ESX vswitch details, port group and its ip address?
Esxcfg-vswitch -l
Outuput will appear like this:
=========================================================================
[root@ESXTEST1 ~]# esxcfg-vswitch -l
Switch Name Num Ports Used Ports Configured Ports MTU Uplinks
vSwitch0 32 4 32 1500 vmnic0
Switch Name Num Ports Used Ports Configured Ports MTU Uplinks
vSwitch1 64 3 64 1500 vmnic2,vmnic1
Switch Name Num Ports Used Ports Configured Ports MTU Uplinks
vSwitch2 64 4 64 1500 vmnic3
esxcfg-vswif -l
=========================================================================
[root@ESXTEST1 ~]# esxcfg-vswif -l
Name Port Group/DVPort IP Family IP
Address Netmask Broadcast Enabled TYPE
vswif0 Service
Console IPv4 192.168.0.75 255.255.255.0 192.168.0.255 true STATIC
vswif1 Service Console
2 IPv4 192.168.0.78 255.255.255.0 192.168.0.255 false STATIC
=========================================================================
what is the command to get the information about vmkernel ports and its ip address?
esxcfg-vmknic -l
=========================================================================
[root@ESXTEST1 ~]# esxcfg-vmknic -l
Interface Port Group/DVPort IP Family IP Address Netmask Broadcast MAC
Address MTU TSO MSS Enabled Type
vmk0 VMkernel IPv4 192.168.0.110 255.255.255.0 192.168.0.255 00:50:56:78:7e:73
1500 65535 true STATIC
vmk1 Vmotion IPv4 192.168.0.77 255.255.255.0 192.168.0.255 00:50:56:76:42:df
1500 65535 true S
=========================================================================
what is the command to get the information about physical nics installed on ESX server?
esxcfg-vmknic -l
What is command to add the new virtual switch named (vswitch3) to our ESX server?
======================================================================
Switch Name Num Ports Used Ports Configured Ports MTU Uplinks
vswitch3 64 1 64 1500
What is command to add the new port group named (mgmt)to vswitch (vswitch 3) ?
=========================================================================
Switch Name Num Ports Used Ports Configured Ports MTU Uplinks
vswitch3 64 1 64 1500
How to add the service console port (vswif2) to our newly created port group "mgmt" with the ip addr
192.168.0.79 ?
How to add the vmkernal port (vmk2) to our newly created port group "mgmt" with the ip addr 192.168.0.83?
=========================================================================
vmk2 mgmt IPv4 192.168.0.83 255.255.255.0 192.168.0.255 00:50:56:7b:bd:36
1500 65535 true STATIC
=========================================================================
Edit the file with your new id address " 192.168.0.255" then save and exit.
======================================================
DEVICE=vswif2
HOTPLUG=yes
MACADDR=00:50:56:43:92:be
ONBOOT=yes
PORTGROUP=mgmt
BOOTPROTO=static
BROADCAST=192.168.0.255
DHCPV6C=no
IPADDR=192.168.0.96
IPV6INIT=no
IPV6_AUTOCONF=no
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
======================================================
restart the network service for ip change to take effect:
This will delete the existing vswif0 and it will give the message about "nothing to flush".
nano /etc/sysconfig/network
======================================
NETWORKING=yes
HOSTNAME=ESXTEST1.lab.com
GATEWAY=192.168.0.20
GATEWAYDEV=vswif0
IPV6_AUTOCONF=no
NETWORKING_IPV6=no
======================================
restart the network service for ip change to take effect:
nano /etc/hosts
nano /etc/resolv.conf
Edit the file to make changes or to make new entry of dns for your ESX server
========================
name server 192.168.0.20
search lab.com
=======================
esxcfg-firewall - q
How to open the port in firewall (port no 8877, tcp, incoming , name: test3 ?
esxcfg-firewall -o 8877,tcp,in,test3
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If you looking for Difference between vSphere 4.1 and vSphere 5. Please refer my blogpost on "Difference between
vSphere 4.1 and vSphere 5"
-->
Features ESX 3.5 ESX 4
Linked Mode Supportis introduced in
Linked Mode No Linked Mode Support vSphere 4.0
Host Profiles is Introduced in
Host Profiles No Host Profiles vSphere 4.0
Require dedicated License License can be managed within
Centralized License server vCenter server
Performance chart Yes Lot More enhancements
Events and Alarms Yes Lot More enhancements
Fault tolerance Not Available Available from vSphere 4.0
SVMotion available only with
Storage VMotion CLI SVMotion available in GUI
VMotion Yes Yes
Virtual CPUs per host 192 512
Virtual Machines per host 170 320
Logical processors per host 32 64
RAM per host 256 GB 1 TB
Maximum Service console
Memory 800 MB 800 MB
DRS Yes Yes
Backup using VCB (VMware VMware Data Recovery and VCB
VMware Data Recovery Consolidated backup) support
Enhanced VMotion
Compatibility (EVC) No EVC EVC is introduced in vSphere 4.0
Admission Control is improved to
VMware HA Admission Yes but without options to provide more flexible configuration
Control reserve failover capacity options to reserve failover capacity.
High Availability Clustering
with Windows Server 2000,
2003, 2008 Not Available Available in vSphere 4.0
Available to support MSCS on win
Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) Not Available 2008
Hosts per storage volume 32 64
Fiber Channel paths to LUN 32 16
NFS Datastores 32 64
Hardware iSCSI initiators
per host 2 4
Virtual Machine Hot Add
Support NO Yes
Number of virtual CPUs
per virtual machine 4 8
Virtual Hardware version 4 7
RAM per virtual machine 64 GB 255 GB
virtual machine swap file
Size 65532MB 255GB
VMDirectPath for Virtual
Machines NO Yes
Vmkernel 32 Bit 64 bit
Service Console 32 Bit 64 bit
Concurrent remote console
sessions 10 40
Virtual Disk Thin Thin Provisioning introduced in
Provisioning No Thin Provisioning vSphere 4.0
High-performance storage adapters
that offer greater throughput and
VMware Paravirtualized lower CPU utilization for virtual
SCSI (PVSCSI Not available machines
Only Via VCLI using
Hot Extend for Virtual Disks vmkfstools Available via GUI
Hot plug support for virtual
devices No Yes
VMXNET Generation 3 Not Available Yes
If you are looking for Difference between ESX 3.5 and ESX 4.0. Please refer my Blogpost "Difference between ESX
3.5 and ESX 4.0"
vSphere Essentials
vSphere Essentials Plus vSphere Essentials
vSphere Standard vSphere Essentials Plus
vSphere Advanced vSphere Standard
vSphere Enterprise vSphere Enterprise
Licensing vSphere Enterprise Plus vSphere Enterprise Plus
ESX (Elastic Sky X) is the VMware’s enterprise server virtualization platform. In ESX, VMkernel is the virtualization
kernel which is managed by a console operating system which is also called as Service console. Which is Linux
based and its main purpose is it to provide a Management interface for the host and lot of management agents and
other third party software agents are installed on the service console to provide the functionalists like hardware
management and monitoring of ESX
hypervisor.
ESXi (Elastic sky X Integrated) is also the VMware’s enterprise server virtualization platform. In ESXi, Service
console is removed. All the VMware related agents and third party agents such as management and monitoring
agents can also run directly on the VMkernel. ESXi is ultra-thin architecture which is highly reliable and its small
code-base allows it to be more secure with less codes to patch. ESXi uses Direct Console User Interface (DCUI)
instead of a service console to perform management of ESXi server. ESXi installation will happen very quickly as
compared to ESX installation.
Difference between ESX and ESXi
ESX 4.1 is the last version availability of ESX server. After vSphere 5, only ESXi is available. This comparison
based out of the VMware Article
Needed as smilar to linux Few pacthes because of small footprint and more
Software patches and updates
operation system secure
vSphere web Access Only experimental Full managenet capability via vSPhere web client
Major Administration
esxcfg- esxcli
command-line Command
This post explains you the major difference between VMFS 5 datastore upgrade from VMFS 3 and newly created
VMFS 5 datastore. VMFS 5 is available as part of vSphere 5. VMFS 5 is introduced with lot of performance
enhancements. Newly installed ESXi 5 will be formatted with VMFS 5 version but if you have upgraded the ESX 4 or
ESX 4.1 to ESXi 5, then datastore version will be VMFS 3 only. You will able to upgrade the VMFS 3 to VMFS 5 via
vSphere client once ESXi upgrade is Complete. Even though the upgraded datastore will be with VMFS 5
version but there are many technical difference between upgraded VMFS 5 and newly created VMFS 5. This posts
tells you some major differences between upgraded VMFS 5 and newly created VMFS 5.
Clone Template
Clone creates an exact copy of a running Template acts as a baseline image with
Virtual Machine at the time of cloning the predefined configuration as per
process organization standards
Cloning a virtual machine creates a exact Create a template to create a master
duplicate copy of the virtual machine with the image of a
same configuration and installed software virtual machine from which you can
without performing any additional settings. deploy multiple virtual machines
You can create a clone of existing installed You can create a template by converting a
and Configured running virtual machine by virtual machine
right clicking the VM and Clone. to a template, cloning a virtual machine
to a template, or cloning another
template
VM clones are best suited in test and Templates are best suited for production
development environments where you want environments where you want the mass
to create, test and work with exact copies of deployment of virtual machines along
production servers without disturbing with the installed OS and basic software,
production servers by creating clone of the configured policy as per the security
production virtual machine. policy of your organization as a base
Machine. Once template is deployed, you
can install software depend on the role of
the server like IIS,Database
VM Clones are not suited for mass Templates are best suited for Mass
deployment of Virtual Machines Deployment of Virtual
Machines
We Cannot Convert back the Cloned Machine You can convert the template back to
virtual machine to update the base
template with the latest released patches
and updates and to install or upgrade any
software and again convert back to
template to be used for deployment of
virtual machines with latest patches.
You cannot Clone a Virtual Machine if you You cannot create a template of a Virtual
have connected directly to ESX/ESXi host Machine if you have connected directly
using vSphere Client to ESX/ESXi host using vSphere Client
You can customize the guest operating You can also Customize the guest
system of the clone to change the virtual operating system while deploying from
machine name, network settings, and other template
properties. This prevents conflicts that can
occur if a virtual machine and a clone with
identical guest operating system settings are
deployed simultaneously.
Clone of a virtual machine can be created Convert virtual Machine to template
when the virtual machine is powered on cannot be performed, when Virtual
machine is powered on. Only Clone to
Template can be performed when VM is
powered on
AAM is the Legato automated availability management. Prior to vSphere 4.1, VMware's HA is actually re engineered
to work with VM's with the help of Legato's Automated Availability Manager (AAM) software.
VMware's vCenter agent (vpxa) interfaces with the VMware HA agent which acts as an intermediary to the AAM
software. From vSphere 5.0, it uses an agent called ―FDM‖ (Fault Domain Manager).
Maximum number of primary HA host is 5. VMware HA cluster chooses the first 5 hosts that joins the cluster as
primary nodes and all others hosts are automatically selected as secondar nodes.
View the log file named "aam_config_util_listnodes.log" under /var/log/vmware/aam using the below command
cat /var/log/vmware/aam/aam_config_util_listnodes.log
/Var/log/vmware/aam
What the basic troubleshooting steps in case of HA agent install failed on hosts in HA cluster?
3. Check the vmware HA agent status in ESX host by using below commands
4. Check the networks are properly configured and named exactly as other hosts in the cluster. otherwise, you will
get the below errors while installing or reconfiguring HA agent.
5. Check HA related ports are open in firewall to allow for the communication
6. First try to restart /stop/start the vmware HA agent on the affected host using the below commands. In
addition u can also try to restart vpxa and management agent in the Host.
7. Right Click the affected host and click on "Reconfigure for VMWare HA" to re-install the HA agent that particular
host.
8. Remove the affected host from the cluster. Removing ESX host from the cluster will not be allowed untill that host
is put into maintenance mode.
9.Alternative solution for 3 step is, Goto cluster settings and uncheck the vmware HA in to turnoff the HA in that
cluster and re-enable the vmware HA to get the agent installed.
10. For further troubleshooting , review the HA logs under /Var/log/vmware/aam directory.
VMware HA has a mechanism to detect a host is isolated from rest of hosts in the cluster. When the ESX host loses
its ability to exchange heartbeat via management network between the other hosts in the HA cluster, that ESX host
will be considered as a Isolated.
In HA cluster, ESX hosts uses heartbeats to communicate among other hosts in the cluster.By default, Heartbeat will
be sent every 1 second.
If a ESX host in the cluster didn't received heartbeat for for 13 seconds from any other hosts in the cluster, The host
considered it as isolated and host will ping the configured isolation address(default gateway by default). If the ping
fails, VMware HA will execute the Host isolation response
Power off – All the VMs are powered off , when the HA detects that the network isolation occurs
Shut down – All VMs running on that host are shut down with the help of VMware Tools, when the HA detects that
the network isolation occurs.If the shutdown via VMWare tools not happened within 5 minutes, VM's
power off operation will be executed. This behavior can be changed with the help of HA advanced options. Please
refer my Post on HA Advanced configuration
Leave powered on – The VM's state remain powered on or remain unchanged, when the HA detects that the
network isolation occurs.
By default, VMWare HA use to ping default gateway as the isolation address if it stops receiving heartbeat.We can
add an additional values in case if we are using redundant service console both belongs to different subnet.Let's say
we can add the default gateway of SC1 as first value and gateway of SC2 as the additional one using the below value
1. Right Click your HA cluster
VCenter Server uses admission control to ensure that sufficient resources are available in a cluster to provide failover
protection and to ensure that virtual machine resource reservations are respected.
What are the different types of Admission control policy available with VMware HA?
How the Host Failures cluster tolerates admission control policy works?
Select the maximum number of host failures that you can afford for or to guarantee fail over. Prior vSphere 4.1,
Minimum is 1 and the maximum is 4.
In the Host Failures cluster tolerates admission control policy , we can define the specific number of hosts that can
fail in the cluster and also it ensures that the sufficient resources remain to fail over all the virtual machines from that
failed hosts to the other hosts in cluster. VMware High Availability(HA) uses a mechanism called slots to calculate
both the available and required resources in the cluster for a failing over virtual machines from a failed host to other
hosts in the cluster.
What is SLOT?
"A slot is a logical representation of the memory and CPU resources that satisfy the requirements for any powered-on
virtual machine in the cluster."
If you have configured reservations at VM level, It influence the HA slot calculation. Highest memory reservation and
highest CPU reservation of the VM in your cluster determines the slot size for the cluster.
Click on Cluster Summary Tab and Click on "Advanced Runtime Info" to see the the detailed HA slots information.
Let's take an example, you are performing network maintenance activity on your switches which connects your one
of th ESX host in HA cluster.
what will happen if the switch connected to the ESX host in HA cluster is down?
It will not receive heartbeat and also ping to the isolation address also failed. so, host will think itself as isolated and
HA will initiate the reboot of virtual machines on the host to other hosts in the cluster. Why do you need this unwanted
situation while performing scheduled maintenance window.
To avoid the above situation when performing scheduled activity which may cause ESX host to isolate, remove the
check box in " Enable Host Monitoring" until you are done with the network maintenance activity.
How to Manually define the HA Slot size?
By default, HA slot size is determined by the Virtual machine Highest CPU and memory reservation. If no reservation
is specified at the VM level, default slot size of 256 MHZ for CPU and 0 MB + memory overhead for RAM will be
taken as slot size. We can control the HA slot size manually by using the following values.
There are 4 options we can configure at HA advanced options related to slot size
How the "Percentage of cluster resources reserved as failover spare capacity" admission control policy
works?
In the Percentage of cluster resources reserved as failover spare capacity admission control policy, We can define
the specific percentage of total cluster resources are reserved for failover.In contrast to the "Host Failures cluster
tolerates admission control policy", It will not use slots. Instead This policy calculates the in the way below
1.It calculates the Total resource requirement for all Powered-on Virtual Machines in the cluster and also calculates
the total resource available in host for virtual machines.
2.It calculates the current CPU and Memory Failover capacity for the capacity.
3.If the current CPU and Memory Failover capacity for the cluster < configured failover capacity (ex 25 %)
4.Admission control will not allow to power on the virtual machine which violates the availability constraints.
HA will usually monitors ESX hosts and reboot the virtual machine in the failed hosts in the other host in the cluster in
case of host isolation but i need the HA to monitors for Virtual machine failures also. here the feature called VM
monitoring status as part of HA settings.VM monitoring restarts the virtual machine if the vmware tools heartbeat
didn't received with the specified time using Monitoring sensitivity.
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VMware Fault Tolerance is a component of VMware vSphere and it provides continuous availability to applications by
preventing downtime and data loss of Virtual machines in the event of ESX server failures.
What are requirements and Limitattions for ESX hosts & infrastructure components to run FT protected
virtual machines in Vsphere 4 & 4.1?
Please refer my blog post on ESX Host -Infrastrcuture Requirements & Limitations for VMware Fault Tolerance to see
the ESX requirements for VMware FT.
Please refer my blog post on Virtual Machine Requirements for VMware Fault Tolerance
One way from vSphere client is to run the cluster complaince check from profile compliance tab of your cluster. The
below checks as specified below will be performed as part of the compliance check.
If " Host Configured for FT" is No. It will display the items required for that particular ESX for FT to work.
FT logging is the one of option in VMkernel port setting which is similar to enable vmotion option in the vmkernel port.
when FT is enabled for the virtual machine, all the inputs (disk read.. wirte,etc..) of the primary virtual machine are
recorded and sent to the secondary VM over via FT logging enabled VMkernel port.
GO the ESX host -> Configuration-> Networking -> Properties of Virtual switch with the VMkernel portgroup
configured
Click on VMkernel Port -> click on Edit -> General tab -> select the Fault Tolerance Logging -> click on OK.
How do you configure or enable FT for the virtual machine ?
FT can be enabled only per virtual machine basis not at the cluster or ESX level.
Right-click the virtual Machine -> Fault Tolerance -> Turn on Fault Tolerance
How does the FT enabled virtual machine will be differentiated with non FT VM's in vSphere client?
FT Enabled Virtual machine will appear in Dark Blue colour as compared to non-protected virtual machines.
By default, Only Primary virtual machine will appear under the cluster and ESX host. To take a look at the secondary
VM , Go to Virtual Machines tab of the Cluster or Host.
When you enable Fault Tolerance for the virtual machine, a secondary virtual machine will be created to work with
the primary virtual machine in which you have enabled FT. The primary and secondary virtual machine resides on a
different ESX hosts in the cluster. Whatever the events or actions performed by the primary VM will be transmitted
via gigabit Ethernet network to be replayed by the secondary virtual machine using VLockstep technology.
Eventhough both the primary and secondary virtual machines appear as a single entity and access a common disk,
both running with the single IP address, MAc address but writes are only performed by the primary virtual
machine.The primary and secondary virtual machines sends heartbeat between each other frequently with
millisecond intervals to the check for the availability. If either of the virtual machine loses the heartbeat, other
virtual machine will take over the primary virtual machine role immediately.
Graphics Thanks toVMware.com
What happens when you enabled Fault Tolerance for your virtual machine?
When you enable Fault Tolerance for the virtual machine, a secondary virtual machine (live shadow image of the
primary) will be created to work with the primary virtual machine in which you have enabled FT. The primary and
secondary virtual machine resides on a different ESX hosts in the cluster.
When a failure is detected on the primary VM's ESX host, the secondary virtual machine which is running on the
another ESX server in the same cluster will takes the place of the first one with the least possible interruption of
service.
2. In case of ESX host failure, virtual machines in the failed host are restarted and powered-on on the other active
hosts in HA cluster. So the restart duration of the virtual machine is the downtime for the virtual machine in HA
cluster. But in FT enabled virtual machine, there is no downtime. In case of host failure, secondary VM will become
primary and continuing the execution from the exact point where the primary VM is left off or failed. It happens
automatically without data loss, without downtime and with a little delay. Users will not see any interruption.
How do you see the summary status of the FT enabled virtual machines in the ESX host from vsphere client?
Click on Summary tab of the ESX host -> Fault tolerance information and VM counts will be displayed
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2. The VMKernel can't boot it by itself, so that it takes the help of the 3rd party operating system. In
VMWare case the kernel is booted by RedHat Linux operating system which is known as service
console.
3. The service console is developed based up on Redhat Linux Operating system, it is used to manage
the VMKernel
Physical Switch Port Should be trunked with all the VLANS to which the VM's need access
All the ESX servers should be configured with Same number of Physical Nics (vSwitches) and
Connectivity also should be same, So that vMotion succeeds
All the Virtual Machines are connected to one vSwitch with Different VLANS, this means the Physical
Nic(vSwitch) needs to be trunked with the same VLANS on the Physical Switch Port
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10 What are the three port groups present in ESX server networking
1. Virtual Machine Port Group - Used for Virtual Machine Network
2. Service Console Port Group - Used for Service Console Communications
3. VMKernel Port Group - Used for VMotion, iSCSI, NFS Communications
12. What are the type of communications which requires an IP address for sure ?
Service Console and VMKernel (VMotion and iSCSI), these communications does not happen without
an ip address (Whether it is a single or dedicated)
13. In the ESX Server licensing features VMotion License is showing as Not used, why?
Even though the license box is selected, it shows as "License Not Used" until, you enable the VMotion
option for specific vSwitch
21. Can we do vMotion between two datacenters ? If possible how it will be?
Yes we can do vMotion between two datacenters, but the mandatory requirement is the VM should be
powered off.
22. What is VC agent? and what service it is corresponded to? What are the minimum req's for VC
agent installation ?
VC agent is an agent installed on ESX server which enables communication between VC and ESX
server.
The daemon associated with it is called vmware-hostd , and the service which corresponds to it is called
as mgmt-vmware, in the event of VC agent failure just restart the service by typing the following command
at the service console
23. How can you edit VI Client Settings and VC Server Settings ?
Click Edit Menu on VC and Select Client Settings to change VI settings
Click Administration Menu on VC and Select VC Management Server Configuration to Change VC
Settings
25. What are the devices that can be added while the virtual Machine running
In VI 3.5 we can add Hard Disk and NIC's while the machine running.
In vSphere 4.0 we can add Memory and Processor along with HDD and NIC's while the machine running
26. How to set the time delay for BIOS screen for a Virtual Machine?
Right Click on VM, select edit settings, choose options tab and select boot option, set the delay how
much you want.
27. What is a template ?
We can convert a VM into Template, and it cannot be powered on once its changed to template. This is
used to quick provisioning of VM's.
26. What are the common issues with snapshots? What stops from taking a snapshot and how to
fix it ?
If you configure the VM with Mapped LUN's, then the snapshot failed. If it is mapped as virtual then we
can take a snapshot of it.
If you configure the VM with Mapped LUN's as physical, you need to remove it to take a snapshot.
27. What are the settings that are taken into to consideration when we initiate a snapshot ?
Virtual Machine Configuration (What hardware is attached to it)
State of the Virtual Machine Hard Disk file ( To revert back if needed)
State of the Virtual Machine Memory (if it is powered on)
30. To open the guided consolidation tool, what are the user requirements ?
The user must be member of administrator, The user should have "Logon as service" privileges - To give
a user these privileges ,open local sec policy, select Logon as service policy and add the user the user
should have read access to AD to send queries