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Another way is to check the summary tab of the ESX/ESXi host, "Host Configured for FT" yes or NO.
If " Host Configured for FT" is No. It will display the items required for that particular ESX for FT to work.
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.
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4.Management network redundancy to avoid frequent isolation response in case of temporary network issues (preferred
not a requirement)
What is maximum number of primary HA hosts in vSphere 4.1?
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 secondary nodes.
How to see the list of Primary nodes in HA cluster?
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
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.
How to add additional isolation address for redundancy?
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
2. Goto to advanced options of HA
3. Add the line "das.isolationaddress1 = 192.168.0.1"
4. Add the line "das.isolationaddress2 = 192.168.1.1" as the additional isolation address
To know more about the Advanced HA Options
What is HA Admission control?
As per "VMware Availability Guide",
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 2 types of settings available for admission control?
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?
As per VMWare's Definition,
"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.
How the HA Slots are Calculated?
I have written a post about how the HA slots are calculated.
How to Check the HA Slot information from vSphere Client?
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
das.slotMemInMB - Maximum Bound value for HA memory slot size
das.slotCpuInMHz - Maximum Bound value for HA CPU slot Size
das.vmMemoryMinMB - Minimum Bound value for HA memory slot size
das.vmCpuMinMHz - Minimum Bound value for HA CPU slot size
For More HA related Advanced options, Please refer my blog post
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.
How the "Specify a failover host" admission control policy works?
In the Specify a failover host" admission control policy, We can define a specific host as a dedicated failover host. When
isolation response is detected, HA attempts to restart the virtual machines on the specified failover host.In this
Approach, dedicated failover hist will be sitting idle without actively involving or not participating in DRS load
balancing.DRS will not migrate or power on placement of virtual machines on the defined failover host.
What is VM Monitoring status?
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.
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.
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
Output appears like this
========================================================================
lo
vswif0
vswif1
========================================================================
=
You can use "ip addr" command also to view the ip information
========================================================================
=
[root@ESXTEST1 etc]# ip addr
1: lo: mtu 16436 qdisc noqueue
link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo
2: vmnic0: mtu 1500 qdisc noop qlen 1000
link/ether 00:0c:29:85:0d:76 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
3: vmnic1: mtu 1500 qdisc noop qlen 1000
link/ether 00:0c:29:85:0d:80 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
4: vmnic2: mtu 1500 qdisc noop qlen 1000
link/ether 00:0c:29:85:0d:8a brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
5: vmnic3: mtu 1500 qdisc noop qlen 1000
link/ether 00:0c:29:85:0d:94 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
6: vswif0: mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast qlen 1000
link/ether 00:50:56:4d:69:d1 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
inet 192.168.0.75/24 brd 192.168.0.255 scope global vswif0
7: vswif1: mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast qlen 1000
link/ether 00:50:56:4f:45:b1 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
9: vswif2: mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast qlen 1000
link/ether 00:50:56:43:92:be brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
inet 192.168.0.96/24 brd 192.168.0.255 scope global vswif2
========================================================================
=
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
PortGroup Name
VLAN ID Used Ports Uplinks
Service Console
0
1
vmnic0
VMkernel
0
1
vmnic0
Switch Name Num Ports Used Ports Configured Ports MTU
Uplinks
vSwitch1
64
3
64
1500 vmnic2,vmnic1
PortGroup Name
VLAN ID Used Ports Uplinks
VM-10.0.0 subnet 0
0
vmnic2,vmnic1
VM-192.168.0 subnet 0
0
vmnic2,vmnic1
Switch Name Num Ports Used Ports Configured Ports MTU
vSwitch2
64
4
64
1500 vmnic3
Uplinks
PortGroup Name
VLAN ID Used Ports Uplinks
Service Console 2 0
1
vmnic3
Vmotion
0
1
vmnic3
========================================================================
=
From the above output,
we come to know that we have 3 virtual switches named vSwitch0,vSwitch1 and vSwitch2.
4 uplinks (physical nics in our esx server) Vmnic0,vmnic1,vmnic2,vmnic3.
vswitch0 constains 2 port group (Service Console & VMKernel), vSwitch1 contains 2 virtual machine port group (VM10.0.0 subnet & VM-192.168.0 subnet) and Vswitch2 contains 2 port group (Service Console 2 & Vmotion) port group.
What is command to get the information about Service console ports and its IP address assigned to it?
esxcfg-vswif -l
Output will appear like this:
========================================================================
=
[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
Output will appear like this:
========================================================================
=
[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
Output will appear like this:
========================================================================
=
[root@ESXTEST1 sbin]# esxcfg-nics -l
Name PCI
Driver
Link Speed
Duplex MAC Address
MTU Description
vmnic0 02:00.00 e1000
Up 1000Mbps Full 00:0c:29:85:0d:76 1500 Intel Corporation 82545EM Gigabit
Ethernet Controller (Copper)
vmnic1 02:02.00 e1000
Up 1000Mbps Full 00:0c:29:85:0d:80 1500 Intel Corporation 82545EM Gigabit
Ethernet Controller (Copper)
vmnic2 02:03.00 e1000
Up 1000Mbps Full 00:0c:29:85:0d:8a 1500 Intel Corporation 82545EM Gigabit
Ethernet Controller (Copper)
vmnic3 02:04.00 e1000
Up 1000Mbps Full 00:0c:29:85:0d:94 1500 Intel Corporation 82545EM Gigabit
Ethernet Controller (Copper)
========================================================================
What is command to add the new virtual switch named (vswitch3) to our ESX server?
[root@ESXTEST1 sbin]# esxcfg-vswitch -a vswitch3
Now vswitch3 is created without any port group.
======================================================================
Switch Name Num Ports Used Ports Configured Ports MTU
vswitch3
64
1
64
1500
Uplinks
PortGroup Name
VLAN ID Used Ports Uplinks
========================================================================
What is command to add the new port group named (mgmt)to vswitch (vswitch 3) ?
[root@ESXTEST1 sbin]# esxcfg-vswitch -A mgmt vswitch3
now port group "mgmt" is added.
========================================================================
=
Switch Name Num Ports Used Ports Configured Ports MTU
Uplinks
vswitch3
64
1
64
1500
PortGroup Name
VLAN ID Used Ports Uplinks
mgmt
0
0
========================================================================
=
How to add the service console port (vswif2) to our newly created port group "mgmt" with the ip addr
192.168.0.79 ?
========================================================================
=
[root@ESXTEST1 etc]# esxcfg-vswif -d vswif2
Nothing to flush.
[root@ESXTEST1 etc]# esxcfg-vswif -a vswif2 -p mgmt -i 192.168.0.97 -n 255.255.255.0
[2011-09-17 19:35:46 'Vnic' warning] Generated New MAC address, 00:50:56:43:92:be for vswif2
Nothing to flush.
========================================================================
=
How to change the ESX host name and default gateway?
edit the below file:
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:
[root@ESXTEST1 sysconfig]# service network restart
How to edit the ESX host file ?
nano /etc/hosts
Edit the file to make entry to your host file.
==========================================
127.0.0.1
localhost
::1
localhost
192.168.0.75 ESXTEST1.lab.com ESXTEST1
==========================================
How to edit the DNS entry of your ESX server?
nano /etc/resolv.conf
Edit the file to make changes or to make new entry of dns for your ESX server
========================
nameserver 192.168.0.20
search lab.com
=======================
what is the command to query the firewall ports ?
esxcfg-firewall - q
How to open the port in firewall (port no 8877, tcp, incoming , name: test3 ?
esxcfg-firewall -o 8877,tcp,in,test3
1.What is SvMotion?
Migration of a virtual machine files and disks from one datastore to another with Zero downtime.
2. What are the use cases of SvMotion ?
Migrating from Old storage to new storage systems or migrating to different vendor storage without
downtime to VM's.
Performing Scheduled activity like storage upgrades on the source Lun.
Converting VM disk type from Thick to Thin and Thin to Thick.
Migrating the critical virtual machines to high performance storage arrays to improve performance of virtual
Machine.
ESX host in which virtual machine is running should have access to source and destination storage.
ESX host should have configured with the license for svMotion
svMotion copies all the files expect virtual machine disk and create the directory as same the Virtual Machine
name on the destination storage.
It uses Changed Block tracking to track the virtual machine disk. The change block tracking knows which region
disk includes data. This data will be stored in bitmap and reside either in memory or in a file.
Pre-copies Virtual machine disk and swap file will start from the source to destination datastore as the first
iteration. once it is completed, It only transfers the region which were modified or written after the first
iteration.
ESX performs fast suspend and resume of the virtual Machine. The final changed regions will be copied to the
destination before the virtual Machine is resumed on the destination datastore.
Virtual Machine will continue running on the destination datastore and source file and disk will be deleted.
1.What is vMotion?
Live migration of a virtual machine from one ESX server to another with Zero downtime . VMs disk files stay where
they are (on shared storage)
2. What are the use cases of vMotion ?
ESX servers must have compatible CPU's for the vMotion to work
ESX servers should have Shared storage (FB, iSCSI or NFS) and VM's should be stored on that
ESX servers should have exact similar network & network names
storage.
Virtual machines configured with the Raw Device Mapping(RDM) for clustering features using vMotion
VM cannot be connected to a CD-ROM or floppy drive that is using an ISO or floppy image stored on a drive
that is local to the host server. The device should be disconnected before initiating the vMotion.
Virtual Machine cannot be migrated with VMotion unless the destination swapfile location is the same as
the source swapfile location. As a best practice, Place the virtual machine swap files with the virtual machine
configuration file.
Virtual Machine affinity must not be set (aka, bound to physical CPUs).
A request has been made that VM-1 should be migrated (or "VMotioned") from ESX A to ESX B.
VM-1's memory is pre-copied from ESX A to ESX B while ongoing changes are written to a memory bitmap on
ESX A.
VM-1 is quiesced on ESX A and VM-1's memory bitmap is copied to ESX B.
VM-1 is started on ESX B and all access to VM-1 is now directed to the copy running on ESX B.
The rest of VM-1's memory is copied from ESX A all the while memory is being read and written from VM-1 on
ESX A when applications attempt to access that memory on VM-1 on ESX B.
If the migration is successful, VM-1 is unregistered on ESX A.