Hi,

Ive just looked on the VMware store, atm i have about 19 esxi hosts, but im using vsphere essentials i bought two so i can licnese 6 hosts and have two vcenters.

but ive noticed there is a VSphere standard which is about £1,300 but im abit confused as it doesn't say how many hosts you can licnese or anything? ive been waiting on the phone for an hour to VMware but no one answered. i noticed one part somewhere else that its £1,300 per CPU in a server but i wasn't sure f that's right as i have 19 esxi hosts that would make me have 40 CPU's with my quad socket m820. so that would be £52,000 without VCenter. seems silly to me. when you can buy essentials term for £270 with vcenter for three hosts.

Matt

I am trying to troubleshooting why a host is not able to join an AD domain

All necessary ports from this kb has been opened

https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/1026538

VMware Knowledge Base

but its failing to join

any idea?

I tried doing a packet capture

but do not see anything i can tell in the cap file

It's annoying. I'll be working on a remote host, then all off a sudden it disconnects, brings the vSphere Client into focus, but I can click back on the remote machine & it's reconnected. Happens every few minutes.

I know it has to do with my ISP because if I connect the same machine at my office (where I have Time Warner / Spectrum) everything works normally. Bring the machine home where I have Frontier Fios (which is even faster than my office) and I have issues. I do have a dedicated external IP in the office, not sure if that matters.

All of the kB articles I read mention an advanced setting to change the heartbeat timeout (if this is the same issue) but that setting is not available on vSphere Client. I am not running vSphere Server, just ESXi 5.1 on a server which has been in the same datacenter for 5 years.

Any ideas?

Hi folks:

I'm having a problem with a particular USB 3 device in trying to connect it to a VM.  The device is a Toshiba USB 3 5tb hard drive, and it's recognized by ESXi as I can see it when I do a lsusb command, but it's never offered as an available choice to connect to any VM.  I've tried restarting all the management agents, rebooting ESXi with the device plugged in so that it's detected immediately at bootup.  I've tried using both the vcenter server appliance web client and the native C client.  It simply never appears as a choice just as if it's not there.  Other USB 3 devices, including a Startech gigabit network device and another 2tb Toshiba USB drive appear as choices, so it doesn't appear to be an issue with USB 3 devices as a whole.  I've connected to other computers and even to an Arch Linux VM under the same ESXi that has a Startech USB 3 controller connected to it via PCI Passthrough and it works in all those places.  I even tried connecting it to a USB 2 port just for the heck of it, and I got the same result (invisible to VMs)  Here is what information I have via the logs.  I see some entries about the device being suspended in the vmkernel log, but I don't know if that's normal procedure for a device until it's assigned to a VM. 

Any ideas of what's wrong or how to fix it welcome.

Hi There,

We are planning to upgrade our ESXi hosts (15) currently running on vSphere 5.5 with Enterprise license to vSphere 6.5 update1.

As we are aware, Enterprise license model is discontinued and Standard, Enterprise Plus and Enterprise Plus with vSOM are available in 6.x, and, existing active SnS Enterprise licenses are supported till 2020.

We do not want to move to to Enterprise Plus license model at this time, so, Is it possible to upgrade 5.5 Enterprise license to its equivalent license type in 6.5?

Thanks

Mahe

Hi There,

We are planning to upgrade our ESXi hosts (15) currently running on vSphere 5.5 with Enterprise license to vSphere 6.5 update1.

As we are aware, Enterprise license model is discontinued and Standard, Enterprise Plus and Enterprise Plus with vSOM are available in 6.x, and, existing active SnS Enterprise licenses are supported till 2020.

We do not want to move to to Enterprise Plus license model at this time, so, Is it possible to upgrade 5.5 Enterprise license to its equivalent license type in 6.5?

Thanks

Mahe

Hello all,

I'm an ESXi beginner trying to get my graphics cards to passthrough my VM. In ESXi under Host>Manage> under the "hardware tab">PCI Devices, it states the device is not capable for passthrough. At first, I suspected that the hardware wasn't passthrough capable. The first card I tried was a Asus RX550 4G. Called Asus, they could not tell me whether or not it would work.  I then tried a XFX- AMD Radeon HD 7970, this shows the same, Not Capable. I cannot add a PCI Device, this is greyed out. I have scoured the Bios settings for the board and ensured all settings for VT-D are enabled.

Hoping to find help on the next steps or direction here, currently at a loss.

My specs are:

ASUS P9X79-E WS

Intel Xeon Processor E5-2695 v2

CORSAIR Vengeance 32GB (4 x 8GB)

Samsung 850 EVO 1 TB SSD

I truly appreciate any help on this, thanks!

Chris

Hello everyone!

This is a new HP ProLiant DL380p Gen8 server with ESXi 5.5 installed. Around every month I've had to restart the management services because I keep loosing connection to the ESXi through vSphere. All VM's keep working correctly, it's a textboox case of VMWare's KB1003490.

I have noticed in other similar cases that the usual culprit is the hostd service getting hanged. Checking the hostd.log file I have found this, usually around the day that the ESXi get's disconnected:

2015-12-15T22:35:02.197Z [3A981B70 info 'Vimsvc.ha-eventmgr'] Event 289 : Issue detected on ESX01 in ha-datacenter: hostd detected to be non-responsive

-->  (2015-12-15T22:35:02.196Z cpu39:7373211)

I would like help finding out what might be freezing the hostd service, because constantly restarting the management services doesn't seem like a long term solution. Any suggestions about how to pinpoint the root cause?

Thanks for your help.

Hi,

Can the vSphere 6.5 support the auto reclaimed space of datastore? e.g. If I write and delete the 100GB files on one of VM, the datastore can reclaim the space of datastore?

Can the vSphere 5.5 / 6 support the manual reclaim space? Where to run the reclaiming function through GUI? Need command base to do that?

Is there a Rest API available for ESXi?

If so can someone point me to the documentation for it?

I'm new to VMWare/vSphere/ESXi so struggling getting this initial configuration complete. I have installed ESXi 6.5, and have been able to complete most of the configuration on the host. I installed a new Virtual Machine from an OVA file, and that went well.

Now, we have two networks. A management network, and a data network. These are two completely isolated networks. I was able to configure the Host to connect to the two networks, and I created a new Port Group/vSwitch/VLAN on the Host. I want to add that Network to the VM, but then I edit the Virtual Machine and add the Network Adapter and attempt to assign the second Port Group, it is not available in the drop down list. How to I make that available to assign the the 3rd Network Adapter.

I am not familiar at all with VMWARE infrastructure and just learning. Can anyone tell me what means the -A in the following command sequence:

#esxcfg-scsidevs –a

#esxcli system coredump file add

#esxcli system coredump file list

#esxcli system coredump file add –a

thanks

Hi there,

I wish all a happy new year!

Did anybody ever tried to manipulate the CPUID, which is shown to the guest OS?

I have the following scenario:

CPUID shown in the guest OS: 0FABFBFF00020651
 

vmx-File Parameters:
 

guestCPUID.0 = "0000000b756e65476c65746e49656e69"
guestCPUID.1 = "0002065100010800829822030fabfbff"
 
As you can see I find the ID shown above splitted in two parts inside of the value of guestCPUID.1 (marked in bold).
 
 
I need to change this ID to 0FEBFBFF000006F1
If I manipulate the guestCPUID.1 value according to the ID I need I get the following result: After PowerOn the VM again the value gets instantly overwritten by the original value.  
I assume that the other part of the value and maybe also guestCPUID.0 are also related in some way.

Unfortunally I can´t find anything in the documation / google about this paramaters.

Thanks for any help!

Cheers,

Mario
 
 

Hi,

I had my hardrive removed from a Lenovo notebook, which had broken hardware.

It got virtualized and put into a virtual machine, with some helpfull posts in this Forum.

Now when booting up, the OS boots correctly (I checked with Windows Startup repair, and the reports etc - all fine) yeah....

However I can not login,because the keyboard is not recognized (no, I don't have Ps2 it is USB and it is linked and recognized and does work - UNTIL - the logon screen appears)

apparently the Lenovo notebooks (and some others) have some drivers inherited (mouse pointers whatever, lenovo keyboards dunno)..... so I need to bypas the log on routine so that I can install the VMware tools. - or disable this odd driver.... so that the standard keyboard driver is used.......

Obviously on screen keyboard to login also doesn't work ....

First hurdle/attempt is.... I need to create an auto logon..... I tried this in the registry with my username and also the password.

The harddrive has 3 partitions.... first the recovery partition...system whatever.... x: bootup

I got there with:

Windows Startup repair utilities (pressing the F8 key on startup etc)

Then command line ( after puttin in my crdentials I think I was doing this as admin (it said so)

then I naviagated to the partition

c: regedit

d: regedit

e: regedit

x: regedit

When in the registry I added the strings to HTKLM/windws NT / winlogon etc. ..... many posts on this online (.. I m sure the pro s here....know this)

Autologon - set to "1"

User - set

Passwod - set

I actually did this on all 4 partitions.... just to make sure.....

However it seems the changes don't come through and I still can not access my OS - still no keyboard - still I am asked to login

Second hurdle/attemt I tried was

Finding the drivers via the prompt line and commands.... I tried using driverquery....and so on........ I couldn't get there

So I could neither navigate to the drivers, nor could I list my drivers.... put aside uninstalling the one driver that might be my odd "Lenovo" driver

Probably a lack of skill to do this correctly here.........

Third hurdle/atemp

I wanted to install VMware tools from outside the VM .... with my credentials ...... but I don't know how to do this either.

This is now evening 3..... frustration levels are high and I tested all the above without really knowing what I am doing.... Really I am more a user than a "registry editor" .....

I am already quite proud that I managed to get this VM working...... !!!!

All ideas so far appear not to lead anywhere....

I am not even sure if this is the right forum......where I placed this.......sorry if it is....

Any ideas possibly step by step instructions would be sincerely appreciated....

thank you

I need to automate some ESXi commands, and parse the output. For example esxcfg-scsidevs -l (among other commands)

My question is, do esxcfg-scsidevs, and the other esxcfg commands available always output in English?

If not, the parsing becomes more complex.

Hi All

First foray into ESXi here I'm combining a whole lot of PCs I have sitting around into VMs running on a secondhand HP proliant server I'm setting up as a home lab.

I've got ESXi 6.5 setup fine - many times over as I've tried every version since 5.0 trying to get a Hauppauge 2200 PCIe tuner card working in pass-through so I can virtualise my media server. I've have learnt a lot in the process - definitely way more complicated than I was expecting but after much trial and error and tweaking settings in passthru.map and vm config it's now running great on the latest ESXi.

My next challenge is getting some sort of GPU support in the VMs so I can virtualise the Windows PCs I have here. I've read a lot on this but a lot of the material is aimed at either corporate setups running GRID GPUs or gamers who game directly on the server. My server will be headless. I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction and I've tried various things without much success. Here is what I'm trying to achieve:

1. Virtualise win7 and win10 machines without losing 3d acceleration, aero etc
2. I need decent 3D accelerated desktop performance, but not expecting to run high-end games or run CAD software although it would be nice if I could run some games that may need modern directx versions.
3. It's a home lab so budget is limited. I can't afford GRID GPUs and enterprise ESXi licenses. I'm willing to buy some second-hand graphics hardware as needed.
4. I was hoping to control the VMs using Fusion 8.5 or Workstation 12 as I already licenses for both these setup on a mac and windows laptop I won't be virtualising.
5. I have no vsphere server, I'm connecting directly to the ESXi host

Based on that what would be the recommended approach for setting up 3d accelerated machines?

Here's what I've tried:

• I've installed an older nvidia consumer pcie card (GeForce 9400 GT) I had lying around in the host as a proof of concept to try out vDGA.
• I've set the onboard graphics in my HP server as primary and the nvidia card as secondary so I can allocate it out to the VM without losing my ESXi console, iLo etc
• I've set the card to passthrough, masked the hypervision in the VM settings, msiEnabled = FALSE and got the drivers loaded in the guest
• The card is detected fine in the guest, no BSOD. I can't use the card though without plugging a monitor into it. Once I do that, I can use it. However I only get 3D acceleration on the desktop that is output on the monitor attached to the card. The desktop shown on my vmware fusion/workstation session is treated as a monitor running on the svga adapter and is not accelerated.
• I've tried all sort of things - delaying VMWare tools startup, disabling the SVGA adapter, unistalling the SVGA driver in VMWare tools, etc I can't seem to get a VMWare session running on the nvidia display adapter. I'm not sure if it's something I'm doing wrong? I have a feeling the gamers are okay with this as they use the monitor(s) attached to their video card?
• I then tried disabling the secondary card in the server and using the nvidia card as the primary. I lose the ESXi console part way through booting the host when the card is reassigned to pass through. Within the VM I still end up with the vmware svga adapter. This time though the nvidia driver seems to be onto me and I get the code 43 error - it's somehow detecting the vmware driver when it wasn't before. Disabling this adapter gets the nvidia driver to load but my session still isn't accelerated it behaves more like a remote desktop session.

So one question I have at this point is whether running a VM using Workstation or Fusion to connect to an ESXi host will even give me a session capable of hardware acceleration? If not, what is the solution? If so, what am I doing wrong?

Sorry about the long post appreciate you taking the time to read it.

Hi,

We are using ESXi 6.0 U1 version now we are going to upgrade from ESXi 6.0 to 6.5 version.

We are not using any backup software so,I have taken the virtual machine backup manually.

In ESXi 6.5 version Vsphere client is not available by using the vsphere web client how to restore the virtual machine backup. 

Hi!

I'm struggling a bit to install esxi on a new Dell server. I have not ordered the preinstalled version which usually is shipped using the SD card module.

I am trying to install esxi on the disks using the provided Dell images containing additional drivers.  I have tried at least three versions of the Dell image using different installation mediums with the same results.

The box is set up with the preinstalled RAID 5 setup on a PERC H730 controller. I have noticed that when I try to set up the RAID myself, I cannot choose other blocksizes than 4k, which seems to cause some troubles for the vmware software (KB: 2091600). According to Dell support, this should not be a problem.

All of the hardware drivers should be up to date, at least BIOS and RAID.

As a sidenote the esxi installer for version 6.0 could see the disks under the remote section, but crashed immediately after selecting disks for installation.

Does anyone know how to fix this?

Let me know if I can provide more information.

There aren't too many cards listed on the official supported list, but I'm wondering if any of the older nVidia cards like Tesla M2070Q/M2090 or the Quadro 4000 cards are still working for people using vSGA or vGPU on ESXi 6.5??

Eg there are 5.1 host drivers here: NVIDIA DRIVERS 304.76  supporting more cards than the 6.5 drivers

Dears,,

I am facing a strange issue, i have a VSAN cluster, one of the ESXIs hosts every day appears as "not responding" on the Vcenter, however, i can successfully ping the host and i can access the host DCUI normally through ILO. the host return to the normal state after restart.

Please  guide me if you have any suggestions about how to stop this behavior.

Attached the "event log".