vRealize Network Insight Support Bundle

Recently a customer of mine had an issue with an instance of vRealize Network Insight and I needed to provide a support bundle to engineering for further analysis.  In order to create a support bundle you first need to SSH into the vRNI Platform VM with the following credentials:

Username - consoleuser
Password - ark1nc0ns0l3

Once authenticated run the following command:

support-bundle create

Once the support bundle has been created you should see the new support bundle filename:

You can optionally run support-bundle list to view all support bundles that have been created.

You then need to copy the support bundle off the vRNI Platform VM.  Easiest way I found to do this was copy it to a datastore on an existing ESXi host and then download the bundle via the datastore browser.  To copy the support bundle to an ESXi host's datastore simply run the following command and provide the root password for the ESXi host:

support-bundle copy --user root --ip 10.1.2.23 --port 22 --bundle DOFNNHE-IOFNNHD-11012016-104042 --targetpath /vmfs/volumes/ESXI6-03:Local-SSD

Once the copy process completes you should be able to browse the datastore and download the support bundle:

North East VMUG - Thursday 3rd November

The next North East VMware User Group is locked and loaded.

Date:
03 November 2016

Time:
11:30 - 18:00

Location:
Victoria Room
Royal Station Hotel
Neville Street
Newcastle Upon Tyne
NE1 5DH

Some of the highlights of the event are:

Atif Qadeer (VMare) – vROPS
Community Session: Ian Sanderson - Veeam Troubleshooting
Kyle Jenner (NE-VMUG) – Feedback from VMWorld Barcelona
Steve Wood (VMWare) - vSphere 6.5 What’s New
Community Session: Kevin Johnson –  Open Tech Cast
Hear from our Gold Sponsors: Simplivity and Rubrik

The full agenda and registration for the event can be found here

Big thanks to our gold sponsors Simplivity and Rubrik

and our silver sponsors iGel

See you all at the event.

Central CLI - Host Health

A new feature of Central CLI that was introduced in NSX 6.2.3 is host health.  The host heath command runs over 30 checks against a host which includes network config, VXLAN config, resource utilisation and many others.  For those who are new to Central CLI it's accessed via SSH'ing into NSX Manager.

Once you have SSH'd into NSX Manager we need to identify the Host ID that want to perform a health check against.  We first need to list all the clusters with the following command:

show cluster all

We are interested in the Cluster ID first.  We now need to view all the hosts within a particular cluster:

show cluster <ClusterID>

Now that we have the Host ID's we can run the following command to show the health status for a particular host:

show host <HostID> health-status

This host is clearly in a healthy state but if I make a few changes can you guess what's wrong now?

NSX 6.2 Central CLI MindMap

For those of you not familiar with the Central CLI feature available in NSX 6.2 it allows you to troubleshoot your environment from a single interface rather than having to connect to multiple systems such as NSX Manager, Hosts, Edges and Controllers.  I'm going to be doing some work for the VMware Hands On Labs so I figured I'd create a MindMap of all the Central CLI commands that are available:

The commands were taken from an installation of NSX 6.2.2 so depending on your version they may have changed.  You can download a .jpg version of the MindMap from here

New NSX Editions (Standard | Advanced | Enterprise)

NSX has three primary use cases that we focus on when talking to customers:

Security
Microsegmentation
DMZ Anywhere
Secure User Environments

Automation
IT Automating IT
Developer Cloud
Multi-tenant Cloud

Application Continuity
Disaster Recovery
Metro Pooling
Hybrid Cloud Networking

I have worked with customers who have only had a requirement for the security use case for specific projects such as securing virtual desktop environments and others who have deployed the entire SDDC stack for a developer cloud environment with security and disaster recovery.  Previously NSX was only available in a single edition which provided all functionality irrespective of the customer utilising or requiring that functionality.

As of the 3rd May 2016 NSX is now available in three editions that align the functionality to the primary use cases that are mentioned above.  The following image depicts the new editions available and what functionality they provide:

I feel this is a tremendous step forward as the majority of objections that I receive from customers is around cost of the full license when their only requirement is security.  NSX also requires the vSphere Distributed Switch (vDS) which only comes as part of Enterprise Plus licensing.  If you are running vSphere 5.5 U3 or vSphere 6.0 onwards then the the vDS license comes with NSX so there is no longer a requirement for Enterprise Plus licensing from an NSX perspective.  This KB article explains the licensing requirements for NSX.

For existing customer who have already purchased NSX you will automatically be upgraded to the Enterprise edition which unlocks all functionality.

For more info visit http://www.vmware.com/products/nsx/compare.html

North East VMUG - Thursday 19th May

The next North East VMUG is locked and loaded.

Location:
The Auditorium - Bunker Coffee & Kitchen, 9-11 Carliol Square, Newcastle upon Tyne & Wear, NE1 6UF

Agenda:
11:30 - Registration, networking and refreshments
12:00 - Introduction
12:15 - EUC Update: Ben Ward, VMware
13:00 - Networking and refreshments
13:15 - Community Session: "Automating the Data Center", Tim Hynes, ANS
14:00 - Networking and refreshments
14:15 - Gold Sponsor Presentation: PernixData, Eliminate the Guesswork with “Analytics Driven Storage”
15:00 - Networking and refreshments
15:15 - Introduction to the NSX Distributed Firewall: Michael Armstrong, VMware
16:00 - Networking and refreshment
16:15 - Gold Sponsor Presentation: Latest updates from Nimble Storage including  "Unified flash fabric" and "InfoSight Predictive Analytics", Rich Fenton
17:00 - Community Session: "Career Disruption 101 - Reinvent yourself", Amit Panchal, EMC
17:45 - Close: Q&A and prize giveaway (a list of prizes will be published prior to the event)
18:00 - vBeers (Centurion bar, next to Central Station)

Big thanks go out to our sponsors as without them the guys would not be able to put on these events:

Checking MD5 hash on a mac

When downloading software it's always advisable to check the MD5 hash to ensure the download hasn't been corrupted in transit.  To do this on a mac simply run the following command in a terminal:

md5 <file>.iso or ova

Verify the MD5 hash is the same as the hash supplied by the software vendor.

Resolving Error "Failed to clear disk on...." when clearing a partition table

I'm starting a new project and I needed to spin up a single nested ESXi host and deploy a VCSA to manage and integrate with NSX.  I used to run a VSAN cluster a while back to get more familiar with the product but disabled it when I was finished.  When starting this new project I decided to utilise the SSD in my host as a datastore for my new nested ESXi host to improve performance.  I upgrade the host to ESXi 6.0 U2 to utilise the new HTML5 host Web Interface and started to create the new SSD Datastore.  I first had to clear the existing partition table which is a lot easier in the web client now rather than having to use the CLI but I encountered the "Failed to clear disk Local HP Disk" error:

I then tried to do this via partedUtil but encountered a "Read-only file system during write on" error:

I verified the device wasn't being used for any existing datastore's, DRM's or diagnostic logs:

I remembered that this device was previously used for VSAN so checked that it still wasn't a member of the cluster, which it wasn't, but the devices were still associated with the disk group somehow:

Problem was resolved by using the "esxcli vsan storage remove -u <VSAN UUID>" to disassociate the device from the VSAN Cluster:

Once this was completed the devices were no longer in use and I could clear the partitions and create a local datastore.

Recap of the North East VMUG on Thursday 25th February

Yesterday was the first North East VMware User Group event for 2016 and boy did we start off with a bang.  We kicked off the event with a keynote presentation from Joe Baguley (twitter) who is VMware's CTO for EMEA talking about A Software Defined Future which obviously included cats and chickens and how they need to learn to live together:

Next up was rockstar Duncan Epping (blog | twitter) talking about VSAN's journey from initial release back in March 2014 through to the latest VSAN 6.2 release which includes a wealth of new features such as compression, deduplication, erasure coding, QOS and IOPS limits:

Matthew Bunce (blog | twitter) was the first of our community speakers up talking about real world NSX deployments for customers.  Matthew works in PSO and has been around the world deploying NSX for customer and ensuring it's meets their requirements and has some interesting discussions along the way:

Next up were our Gold sponsors Tegile who were talking about their adaptive flash storage platform and how Barnsley College have made significant saving adopting their technology:

Last up was Kyle Jenner (blog | twitter) talking about the importance of a VDI assessment for an accurate design which ultimately leads to a successful deployment.  Kyle talked about the various tools available to assist in the assessment and why it's so important:

Finally we had our professional, competent and well respected VMware staff ready to answer an array of technical questions from attendees during the event:

Big thanks to our gold sponsor Tegile and Silver Sponsor 10Zig for supporting the event.  Without your support we would not be able to put on these events, or more importantly, keep them free.

The next event is tentatively booked for for the 19th May 2016.

Communication Channel Health not showing correct health

I recently had an issue in my homelab whereby the communications channel health was showing that communication from NSX Manager to the firewall agent was down but NSX Manager to Control Plane Agent and Control Plane Agent to Controllers were both fine:

This seemed a bit strange to me because in order for NSX Manager to communicate with the Control Plane Agent (NETCPA) it does this via the vShields Firewall Deamon (VSFWD) as per my pervious blog article on NSX 6.2 Communication Channel Health.

The environment was working as expected so I started troubleshooting by verifying that both deamons were in fact running on the host, as expected they were:

I didn't have much time to troubleshoot as I was travelling home so I picked this up the following day, when opening my RDP connection to my jumpbox I noticed that I was not automatically logged out of the web client.  I then logged out and refreshed the browser but the login page would not load.  I tested this on another browser which displayed the login screen as expected, once logged in the communications channel health with the host in question was showing that everything was OK.  A simple clear of the chrome cache on my jumpbox VM resolved the inconsistencies with the communications channel health.

Tagging Firewall rules within NSX

One of the new features that was introduced as part of NSX 6.2 was the ability to tag a particular firewall rule with a text string which would then be sent as part of the syslog message.  This could then allow you to easily search / filer for that rule within vRealize Log Insight or any other logging application.  This can be particular handy if you have multiple tenants and you want to be able to filer rules based on tenants:

I've created two rules, one to allow access to WEB01 and log with Tenant 1 and another to allow access to WEB02 and log with Tenant 2:

Now if I ping both servers to hit the rules, the syslog messages should be sent with the appropriate tags, and then I can check vRealize Log Insight and I should now be able to filter my logs based on those tags:

North East VMUG - Thursday 25th February

It's that time again, the next North East VMware User Group is happening on Thursday 25th February and boy do we have a great line up of speakers for you.  Joe Baguley (twitter) Chief Technical Officer for EMEA will be delivering a keynote session and Duncan Epping (blog | twitter) will be talking about Virtual SAN.  We have two community sessions at the event, one from Matthew Bunce (blog | twitter) and Marco Van Baggum (blog | twitter) on NSX in the real world and another from Kyle Jenner (blog | twitter) on the importance of a VDI assessment for an accurate design and ultimately a successful project.  We have some great prizes to give away but you have to be there during the draw to win and then onto vBeers afterwards.

You can register here and the event will take place at Campus North:

Campus North
Auditorium
Sunco House
5 Carliol Square
Newcastle, Tyne and Wear
NE1 6UF

Click here for directions

The agenda is as follows:

• 11:30 - Registration and Networking – Light lunch, Teas and Coffees will be provided
• 12:00 - NEVMUG Introduction
• 12:15 - Keynote – Joe Bagluey (VMWare VP / CTO, EMEA)
• 13:15 - Networking – time to interact with our sponsors and enter vendor giveaways.  Grab yourselves a drink and have a chat!
• 13:40 - Duncan Epping (VMWare Chief Technologist – Storage and Availability) - Virtual SAN, the story up to 6.2
• 14:30 - Networking – time to interact with our sponsors and enter vendor giveaways. Don't just sit there – get up and mingle!
• 14:45 - Community Session: Matthew Bunce (Xtravirt) / Marco Van Baggum (ITQ) – NSX in the real world
• 15:30 - Networking – time to interact with our sponsors and enter vendor giveaways. Come on you know you want to!
• 15:45 - Gold Sponsor Presentation: Tegile – Consolidate all your workloads onto a single flash array that's fast, flexible and economical.
• 16:30 - Networking – time to interact with our sponsors and enter vendor giveaways. Grab yourselves a beer and have a natter!
• 16:45 - Community Session: Kyle Jenner (SITS Group) – The importance of a VDI assessment for an accurate design and ultimately a successful project
• 17:30 - NEVMUG Close – Q&A and prize giveaway – all these prizes have to go, but you have to be here to win them!

Big thanks go to our sponsors of the day as without you the leadership team would not be able to put these events on:

Gold - Tegile
Silver - 10Zig

                    

New Book - VMware vRealize Operations Essentials

Have you ever wanted to understand vRealize Operations?  Well, my colleague and friend Matthew Steiner (Blog | Twitter) has written a book entitled VMware vRealize Operations Essentials which is now available on Amazon and Packet Publishing.

So, why should you buy this book?  If you've ever seen Matt present at a VMUG or had the please of attending a meeting with him you'll very quickly learn that he knows his stuff when it comes to vRealize Operations Manager whether is be policies, super metrics or capacity planning and 3rd party integration.

Secondly Matt is very generously donating all his royalties to the Princes Trust in Scotland.  He is hoping to raise £5,000 in the next 18 months so this is all for a very good cause.

So if you want to improve your knowledge and skills on vRealize Operations and help out a charity then purchase the book.