How-to

Recovering a vSAN disk group from a failed ESXi host

Sep 12, 2019 VMware vSphere vSAN

In this post I’ll run through the steps required to recover a vSAN disk group from a failed ESXi host running vSphere 6.7 U3. If you need to recover data from a vSAN datastore after a situation like an ESXi host has died but the vSAN disks are intact, read on.

Searching vCenter events & tasks in vRealize Log Insight

May 22, 2017 VMware

The list of events and tasks that vCenter maintains for each object in the inventory are extremely useful for forensics analysis in a vSphere environment. For identifying who created or deleted a VM, resized a vmdk, or shut down a VM or host, events and tasks are where you look. In its default state, however, the …

Configuring syslog on NSX Controllers using PowerShell

Mar 25, 2017 NSX Powershell VMware

I recently needed to configure a number of NSX Controller nodes to forward their logs using syslog to a vRealize Log Insight cluster. Unlike the NSX manager (and most other components of a VMware SDDC), NSX controllers don’t provide a graphical way of configuring syslog. In fact, they don’t even offer a …

How to get vCenter updates through a proxy using the Appliance MUI (or VAMI)

Nov 17, 2016 VCSA VMware vSphere vSphere 6.5

In yesterday’s post, I updated my VCSA 6.0 appliance to version 6.5. Today, logged into the Appliance MUI and noticed that my appliance was not able to check for updates using the default web repository.

Before we really start, a quick note on terminology. The Appliance MUI (which means Appliance Management UI) …

vSphere 6.5 - upgrading your VCSA from version 6.0

Nov 16, 2016 vCenter VCSA VMware vSphere vSphere 6.5

With today’s exciting release of VMware vSphere 6.5, I thought I’d celebrate by upgrading the vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) in my lab from version 6.0 u2 to version 6.5. Since I’m doing this more or less blind, without having read any documentation whatsoever, I thought I would write a (hopefully …

Decommission a PSC or vCenter Server in vSphere 6.0

Mar 17, 2016 PSC vCenter VMware vSphere

This is an (extremely) quick post to cover the steps required to decommission a Platform Services Controller (PSC) or vCenter Server from the vSphere single-sign on (SSO) domain. The steps below are for a VCSA; steps for a Windows VC are very similar, and are contained in the VMware KB article I used as a reference …

Query and change the Platform Services Controller being used by vCenter Server in vSphere 6.0

Mar 15, 2016 PSC vCenter VMware vSphere

Here’s a quick guide on how to query and change the Platform Services Controller (PSC) being used by vCenter. Querying for the in-use PSC is possible on vCenter 6.0, but changing the PSC is only possible on 6.0 Update 1 or newer. Note that I performed these steps on the vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA), and …

Increasing the disk size on a vCenter Server Appliance in vSphere 6.0

Mar 4, 2016 vCenter vSphere

As VMware continues to push in the direction of unix-based appliances for their vSphere management components, those without a Unix background (like myself) are having to come to grips with the Unix versions of common administrative tasks. Increasing the disk size on a vCenter Server appliance (VCSA) is one such task. …

Useful Unix commands for managing disk space on VMware appliances

Feb 19, 2016 cli vSphere

Coming from a Windows background without much knowledge of Unix commands, I often find myself at a loss when trying to figure out how to do things on VMware’s vSphere appliances. Managing disk space from the command line on an appliance is something I’ve had to do more than a few times, so I thought …