Use Windows 2008 R2 as an NFS Server for vSphere

Most people don’t realize it, but Windows 2008 R2 comes with a decent and simple to use NFS component.

This can change a simple File Server in Shared Storage for vSphere (to store ISO files, Templates or even VMs).

To start, fire up Server Manager and go the the Roles section.  Right click and select Add Roles.

Hot Remove a hard disk from a Virtual Machine on vSphere 4.1

Hot Adding hard disks has been around since the stone ages on VMware platforms.  As from vSphere 4.1, you can also Hot Remove a hard disk (VMDK and RDMs!) from a Virtual Machines.  This means that there is no downtime for the Virtual Machine and no reboot is necessary!

In my opinion this is a huge improvement and quite a benefit.

You have to be carefull however to remove/disable/uninstall/whatever the hard disk inside the VM first to make sure that the VM is not affected.

The remove operation is not a big deal for vSphere, but if your VM is still accessing that disk, things might get ugly inside the VM…  (just think of a physical Windows box and disappearing SAN connection 🙂 ).

Let’s see how to Hot Remove a hard disk for a Windows Server 2008 R2.  This method works from Windows 2000 and higher but the screenshots might differ.

Set verbose logging on Emulex Driver in ESX 3.5

If you’re troobleshooting SAN/HBA issues, it might come in handy to enable verbose logging on your Emulex HBA driver.

Run the following command to list the drivername

vmkload_mod -l | grep lpfc

The HBA driver is our case is lpfc_740 (lpfc stands for LightPulse Fibre Channel and 740 is the version number)

List the current options for the driver by entering

esxcfg-module -g lpfc_740

Run the following command to set the verbose logging option:

esxcfg-module -s lpfc_log_verbose=0xffff lpfc_740

You can run the esxcfg-module –g lpfc_740 command again to verify the settings:

Make the change (re)boot persistent

esxcfg-boot -b

Reboot your host (make sure no VM’s are running)

reboot

If you now check your vmkernel logfile (/var/log/vmkernel), you will see a LOT of entries from your HBA driver.

 

After you have done your stuff, make sure to disable to logging by running (basically, you will remove the lpfc_log_verbose option from the driver loading module)

esxcfg-module –s ‘’ lpfc_740

esxcfg-boot -b

reboot

After the reboot, open up your vmkernel logfile and verify the HBA driver entries no longer appear.

Update Emulex HBA Firmware on VMware ESX

If you have Emulex HBA’s in your ESX host and you need to update the firmware, you have several options.

One of them is doing this inside the Service Console with the help of HBAnywhere.

This can be downloaded and installed on your ESX Server. Download the HBAnyware Kit from here.  Keep in mind that there are specific versions for ESX 3.5 and vSphere. Install the rpm through rpm -ivh elxvmwarecorekit…rpm

Change your working directory to /usr/sbin/hbanywhere

cd /usr/sbin/hbanywhere

Get a list of all HBA’s with the command below.

Note that you can access all the Emulex HBA’s in the zone.  So if you have other servers in the zone, you might see other HBA’s as well!  Be careful when selecting your HBA!

./hbacmd ListHBAs

Select the Port WWN and use it in the following command:

./hbacmd Download WWN /tmp/lpe1150_wf282a4.all

You will receive a message that the Download is complete! That’s it!