What can go wrong: Upgrading vCenter 5.5 to vCenter 6.0

These are the things that can go wrong; very wrong!

The digital signature on the installer has failed a verification check. The install can not continue.

This may indicate that the installer has been modified or corrupted and a new copy needs to obtained.

• This is not an issue actually. You just have to add the publisher certificate to your trusted root authorities certificates repository.
• Visit https://www.symantec.com/theme/roots
• Download the Root package for VeriSign Certificates.
• Unzip the package and open > VeriSign Root Certificates > Generation 5 (G5) PVA > VeriSign Class 3 Public Primary Certification Authority – G5.
• Double click the certificate and click Install Certificate.
• When prompted for location make sure you add them in the following repositories.
  • Root Authority
  • Trusted Root Authorities
  • Third Party Root Authorities.
• This will resolve the issue.

Error: Incompatible source vCenter Server database version.

Error: Internal error occurs during VMware vCenter Server Database pre-upgrade checks.

• This is MS SQL compatibility error.  VMware has provided an Inter-operability matrix as well which you can consult before any up-gradation. Minimum requirement is to upgrade your database server to Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 SP3.

 

Horton Works – Assign Static IP to HDP Sandbox V2.X in vSphere 6.X

I downloaded the HDP Sandbox 2.6 and tried to install it in vSphere. After making and breaking the file .ova file and finally deploying it;the machine got up but with network issues. To give your appliance a static IP address you will have to edit the networking scripts and reboot the machine. First of all verify your NIC instance with the following command (ens32 in my case).

ip addr show

The scripts can be found in the following location.

cd /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts

Evidently a script in my NIC instance name was missing.  I copied the contents of the already provided script (ifcfg-ens33) into a new file in my NIC instance name and modified the parameters to give a static IP to my sandbox instance.

vi ifcfg-ens32

BOOTPROTO=static

IPADDR=172.X.X.X.

NETMASK=255.255.255.0

GATEWAY=172.X.X.X

Save the file and reboot your appliance.

# reboot

After the reboot; the script assigned the static IP to the NIC instance and the Ambari server was up and running.

Device “Bootstrap” is not available.

Virtual machine not powering on; with error output:

Device ‘Bootstrap’ is not available.

 

You will have to recreate the vmx file for the machine to run. Take the following steps:

1. Note the specifications of the misconfigured VM (Processor, RAM, etc)
2. Right click on VM; Click “Remove from Inventory”.
3. Create new customized VM with the same specifications as the base machine.
4. Attach the hardisks attached with the previous machine (VMDK’s)
5. Once the VM is created and configured; power it on.
6. If everything went according to the steps; the VM will turn on without any problems.

Windows Server 2012 R2: Backup Failure

Error reviewed: 

• Error Code: 0x8078006B
• Windows Backup failed to create the shared protection point on the source volumes. Detailed error: The operation ended before completion.
• MMC has detected an error in a snap-in and will unload it. (Windows Server Backup MMC console getting crashed.)

Resolution:

• Ensure Dot Net Framework 3.5 SP1 is installed.
• Hard-drive or partition designated for backup is a primary active partition.
• And most importantly Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service or VSS is up and running. If on a domain then ensure that the service is running with local system rights.

VMware ESXi Update Failed: Cannot run upgrade script on host.

I faced some problems while upgrading my VMware infrastructure from ESXi 5.1 to 5.5. On one of the server; the remote and manual update both failed and resulted in error:

Cannot run upgrade script on host. 

Upon exploring the issue; came across a KB article that suggested to move the boot sate file up a folder level. But that didn’t helped either. The issue was only solved when the H/A agent (VMware FDM) was removed manually. Although there were other servers in the cluster with agents installed and they upgraded seamlessly. Anyhow the manual uninstall solved the issue. Following snapshot shows the commands on how to uninstall the VMware FDM agent manually.

Errors with File Server Resource Manager (FSRM) in Windows Server 2008 R2

That amazing moment amazing amazing moment when you are able to resolve a long pending issue even that the TechNet forum was all baboons about it.

Having issues with management of your once applied quotas via File Server Resource Manager (FSRM) on your WIndows Server 2008 R2 SP2. Apparently the following can be the reasons for this error:

• You have installed the FSRM role; created quotas; un-installed the FSRM role and re-installed it.
• You have installed the FSRM as a Windows Feature instead of a Role.

And you will be apparently having these following errors/warnings in your Event Viewer:

• Warning 12317:  File Server Resource Manager failed to enumerate share paths or DFS paths. Mappings from local file paths to share and DFS paths may be incomplete or temporarily unavailable. FSRM will retry the operation at a later time.
• Error: DfsMapCacheAdd(Domain), 0x8007054b, The specified domain either does not exist or could not be contacted.
• Error 8197:  File Server Resource Manager Service error: Unexpected error.
• Error: CGlobalStoreManager::Install(), 0x80070005, Access is denied.

Now when you access the Quota tab from the FSRM MMC; you get the an error and no quotas are visible. Or you apply a quota on a folder but instead you get an error saying that the quota for the folder already exists but you don’t see any.

This is apparently due to the fact that the system files associated with the FSRM either get corrupted or the SYSTEM account access is restricted to these files or the previously installed FSRM role settings are still not completely removed.

Now the work around to this issue depends upon how bad have you played with your FSRM role. Just to let you know that This workaround will remove all your previously implemented quota rules and templates.

The work around to this is basically deleting the system files related to the FSRM. Before doing that; uninstall the FSRM Role or the FSRM Feature you installed previously.

Now to delete the FSRM related system files; you won’t be able to access them with you Admin credentials (even Enterprise Admin is not able to alter these files). Only the SYSTEM account has access to it.

Now to access these files here is a small tool; rather set of tools I used. Download the PSTools and follow the following steps.

1. Unzip the downloaded PSTools.
2. Run Command Prompt as Administrator.
3. Navigate to the folder where you unzipped the PSTools.
4. Execute the following command

PSEXEC -i -s -d CMD

Click YES if you have executed the command for the first time. A new Command Prompt window will be opened which basically is running under the privileges of the SYSTEM Account.

Now what you need to do is first delete a couple of files from inside the partition on which you have applied quotas before.   If you have quotas applied on multiple partitions then you will need to repeat the following steps for all the partitions.

What you will basically do is delete the files quota.xml and quota.md from the %SystemVolumeInformation\SRM folder. These two system files will be write-protected hence you will need to alter the rights before deleting them.

In the newly opened Command Prompt window; execute the following commands but do not close the windows yet after these commands.

cd \System Volume Information\SRM
attrib quota.xml -s -h
attrib quota.md -s -h
del quota.xml
del quota.md

Along these files you will also need to delete the files ReportSettings.xml and SrmGlobalSettings.xml inside the root drive (i.e. C:\) %SystemVolumeInformation\SRM\Settings folder. In the same Command Prompt window opened earlier; execute the following commands.

cd \System Volume Information\SRM
attrib ReportSettings.xml -s -h
attrib SrmGlobalSettings.xml -s -h
del ReportSettings.xml
del SrmGlobalSettings.xml

After deleting these system files; install the FSRM Role again; this time hopefully you will be able to install the FSRM Role without any errors. If not then feel free to leave a message! Cheerio!!

References: 

• Getting a CMD prompt as SYSTEM in Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008.
• You cannot create quotas on File Server Resource Manager (FSRM) in Windows Server 2003 R2 KB 555941.

vSphere Design Pocket Book

Came across this eBook today and finished it reading almost two times on the go. Its basically a combination of tweets by VMware tech evangelists/experts giving away some very valuable tips and tricks on ESXi, vSphere, clustering, hardware considerations and resource allocation. I surely will start to follow these guide lines for my data-center. Thanks to PernixData; its available as a free download. You can access it here.

 

Microsoft’s Private Cloud

Just attended a conference; Microsoft’s Private Cloud which was an extension in regards to the TechEd 2013 event; the  Microsoft’s Premiere Event for IT Professionals & Enterprise Developers held from 3- 6 June 2013 at LA USA based on the new developments in Microsoft’s Private Cloud. So whats new? Well these are the new developments.

– R2 releases for Windows Server 2012 and System Center 2012 instead of going towards service packs.

– Azure comming to SQL as SQL Azure.

– SQL Server 2014 release.

– Concept of Hybrid Cloud was much emphasized. Utilization of services from a private cloud plus reservations in the Public Cloud as well. But then why would I let my datacenter invest in a 2-tier solution; didn’t understood that.

– Windows Intune now avaliable for Pakistan region.

– Full focus in integrating other virtualization platforms rather than sticking to Microsoft centric approach.

– Windows 8.1 release.

 

 

VMware Stand Alone Converter Issues

My woes with the P2V conversions is growing ever since I posted last time! Just an update on couple of things I learned in doing so. First would like to mention an error while specifying source computer to Standalone Converter; it would return the following error.

Unable to complete installation/uninstallation of vCenter Converter agent on ‘X.X.X.X’

As I stated in my last post that I read somehwere in the Standalone Converter help/troublshoot giude to disable files shares in order to access the source hardware information. I disabled my file shares last time for a server which I had to revert then as doing so didn’t solved my problem. But eventually I found out that in Windows Server; ADMIN$ (which points to C:\Windows) cannot be added from Computer Management once deleted. Hence to add that again; do the following steps:

• Run CMD Prompt as administrator.
• Run the command > net share ADMIN$ /UNLIMITED

This will enable your ADMIN$ share which will be used by the Standalone Converter to push its agent. Another error I figured out with one of my servers was

The source computer has GPT disk(s). Conversion of live computers with GPT disks is not supported. Conversion of virtual machines with GPT disk is supported only if disk-based cloning is performed.

This was due to the fact that the Standalone Converter is unable to read partitions with GUID tables! Hence it fails the whole process which is just insane on the part of VMware. At least it must give an option to skip that very partition and thus not failing the complete process. To resolve this you will need to disable the partitions. Following these steps:

• Run CMD Prompt as administrator.
• Run the command > DISKPART
• Type > list disk
• This will give you a list of the partition configured with GPT (indicated by *).
• Now goto Server Management > Disk Management and make the specific partition OFFLINE (Do note its capicity).
• Once the partition is OFFLINE; go to Device Manager > Disk Drives
• Verify the partition which you just turned OFFLINE by right clicking on the Disk Device > Properties > Volumes > Populate. You can verify it from the Capacity parameter. Click OK.
• Now right click on this Disk Device and click DISABLE.

After doing this again run the P2V conversion process; it will work like a charm! Hopefully 🙂 !!!

VMware Standalone Converter 5.1.0: Error: Unable to obtain hardware information for the selected machine.

With updating of VMware Infrastructure to 5.1; I also installed the latest Standalone Converter 5.1.0. While doing P2V conversions with Windows Server 2008 R2; I faced a few problems.

With Converter 5.1 Build 1087880: Was constantly getting the error:

Unable to obtain hardware information for the selected machine.

I made sure to follow the checklist given on VMware KB 1016330 but to no avail. Hence reverted all the changes I did according to the given list.

With Converter 5.0 Build 470252 (as used that version previously with success but with vCenter 5.0): Surpassed the initial error but when pointed to my vCenter 5.1; the Converter would stop responding and get crashed.

I then finally resolved the issue by using Converter 5.0.1 Build 875114. Worked like a charm!

I still haven’t figured it out what could be the issue!  But for now the Converter 5.0.1 is working great with vCetner 5.1 Update 1. But I did figured out the following steps bears no fruit;

• VSS Shadow Copy service on source machine does not need to be on.
• Third Party antivirus or backup services on source machine need not to be stopped.
• Simple file sharing on source machine need not to be disabled.