vmware

vRO, an External SQL Database, and the case of the Missing Plugins

After setting up a fresh deployment of the vRO 5.5.2.1 appliance and configuring it to use an external SQL database I noticed that many of the default plugins appeared to be missing in the Workflow library folder: (there should be a lot more than listed here) Logging into the vRO configuration page showed the below list of plugins (and more going off the screen) appeared to exist and be installed correctly.

Issue with Nested ESXi and Multiple VMkernel Ports

While working with Nested ESXi in my lab, I had an issue where I could communicate with the IP address on vmk0, but after adding multiple additional VMkernel Ports could not communicate with any of the additional IP addresses. It’s a simple network for testing, everything on the same subnet and no VLANs involved. I hadn’t done too much reading on the subject before, other than knowing I needed to implement Promiscuous Mode for the Port Group on the physical ESXi servers.

London VMUG January 2015

The first London VMUG of 2015 is almost upon us and as usual looks like a great line up of activities. My employer Xtravirt is sponsoring the labs and have a tech-preview of some software that you may be interested to check out. Plus one of my colleagues Michael Poore will be talking about a real world automation project. Make sure you register and get along to the event. [table id=2 /]

Presenting a Password Confirmation Form in vCO / vRO

Requirement: Present a vCO / vRO form which contains two password entry fields using SecureStrings and a field which displays whether the two entered passwords match. Using an if statement to test whether two SecureStrings are equal will fail even if the text entered is identical. As mentioned in this communities post, in a workflow it is possible to take the SecureStrings into a scriptable task and output them as Strings.

Enabling NFS VAAI Support in Synology 5.1

Synology enabled VAAI support for NFS in version 5.1 of their DSM software. In order to take advantage of this technology from ESXi hosts we need to do two things: Upgrade DSM to at least version 5.1-5004 (2014/11/06) Install the Synology NFS Plug-in for VMware VAAI DSM DSM can be upgraded from within the Control Panel application. Head to the Update & Restore section, check for and install updates. This will likely require a reboot so ensure anything or anyone using it is shutdown or notified.

Delegating Permissions to vCO Workflows and Publishing for Consumption

I needed to look into the possibilities around granting delegated access to vCO workflows and ways to consume them without necessarily using the standard vCO client. The general idea was to have one group of people authoring workflows and another group consume some of them. vCO has the ability to delegate permissions to workflows and folders of workflows using users and groups; ideally you would have already setup vCO to use your AD for authentication so enabling this delegation via AD users and groups.

Automating Disk Zeroing on VM Deletion

A requirement for a project I had was to zero the VMDK of all VM disks at the time of VM removal. One consideration was to SSH into the host where the VM was located and use vmkfstools like the below on each vmdk to zero the disk. vmkfstools –w /vmfs/volumes/<…>.vmdk Looking for alternatives I found that the PowerCLI cmdlet Set-HardDisk has a ZeroOut parameter. Note the text from the help (version 5.

vFACTOR London VMUG January 2015

Ever thought about presenting at a user group, but not quite found that extra incentive to give it a go for the first time? Many people I know have benefited in both a personal and professional capacity from doing so and I certainly have too. The opportunity to relate tales of a project at work or a particular piece of technology you have an interest in can often be quite an experience I’ve found, with discussions afterwards leading to new ideas about your topic or even people believing you’re an expert at something, just because you had the guts good sense to stand up in front of your peers and talk about it.

Resource Action Object Not Correctly Passed Through to ASD Form in vCAC 6.0.x

When using the Advanced Service Designer to create Resource Actions it’s possible you may hit the following issue in vCAC 6.0.x if you attempt to access the Input Resource as part of the workflow Presentation. While everything will appear to work correctly in vCO, when the form is accessed by a vCAC user the Input Resource may not (I say *may* because the behaviour is inconsistent, sometimes it works, sometimes not!

Deploying a vShield Edge: "The virtual machine is not supported on the target datastore"

Content as string: Failed to publish configuration on vShield Edge. Failed to deploy edge appliance.10105The virtual machine is not supported on the target datastore.vShield Edge The API call was the second of two calls to deploy an Edge device into a vSphere Datacenter and Cluster, i.e. one Edge per datacenter, into a specified cluster. The first Edge was deployed successfully, but not the second. Both clusters were configured in a very similar manner, the only real difference being the name of the datacenter they belonged to.