I’ve talked about vMA and Active Directory (AD) integration before, also upgrading and troubleshooting it. This time out, we’re going to talk about doing this on vMA 5.0. I’ll start with the assumption that you’ve deployed vMA already.

Attaching vMA 5.0 to Active Directory (AD)

1. Make sure vMA is in DNS
   
2. Make sure vMA is using your DNS server(s):
   
3. Check DNS:
   
4. Set the hostname:
   sudo hostname vma.provmware.local
5. Do this stuff:
   vi-admin@localhost:~> sudo domainjoin-cli join provmware.local provmware@provmware.local
   vi-admin’s password:
   Joining to AD Domain:   provmware.local
   With Computer DNS Name: vma.provmware.local

   provmware@PROVMWARE.LOCAL’s password:
   Warning: System restart required
   Your system has been configured to authenticate to Active Directory for the first time.  It is recommended that
   you restart your system to ensure that all applications recognize the new settings.

   SUCCESS

Once you’ve rebooted, all should be good! Really:

Going over some of the vCO book material I found this diagram I made for the troubleshooting system of the vCO book

Basically, it lists out most of the various systems that the vCO engine talks to or depends on out of the box. Useful when you have something that died and you’re not sure where or what could have caused it.

On 8/3 we talked vSphere performance as it relates to the VCAP-DCA exam. Specifically objective 6.2 on the exam blueprint. We also had special guest Hersey Cartwright along for the ride. First the Video, then some of the links:

The Video

ProfessionalVMware BrownBag – VCAP-DCA Objective 6.2 from ProfessionalVMware on Vimeo.

The Links

• Generating Load (Load Storm): http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2010/04/09/generating-load/
• HCL (for searching for hot-add supported guest OS): http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php?deviceCategory=software
• http://www.vmware.com/resources/techresources/10129
• http://www.vmware.com/resources/techresources/10066
• http://www.vmware.com/resources/techresources/10179
• http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/PowerCLI/PowerCLI41U1/html/Get-Stat.html

For this week’s BrownBag we’ve scored Hersey Cartwright to come talk to us about vSphere performance as it relates to the VCAP-DCA.

Hersey has a little over 20 years experience in system and network administration. Currently he is the Network Operations Manager for a community Credit Union located in Southeastern, VA. he is responsible for the design and management of the Credit Union’s network and virtual infrastructure. Hersey also blogs at: http://www.vhersey.com/

Critical Details:

Topic: VCAP-DCA Objective 6, vSphere Performance
Date/Time: 8/3/2011 @ 7PM CST
Register: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/351927521

Oh my… when it comes to tasks that are set and forget, this one was mostly forget. Not so much setting up the ODBC Connection, rather installing the SQL Native Client ODBC Driver for SQL 2008 when SQL is running on a host other than vCenter.

Finding the installation

The link in the sources below states you can find the installation files here:
%CD%\Setup\

This is only about 1/2 right. Depending on your CPU Architecture these files can be found in the following spots:

x86

..\1033_ENU_LP\x86\Setup\x86

x64

..\1033_ENU_LP\x86\Setup\x64

Installing

The installation itself is a bouncing ball style… next, next, done.

Sources

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms131321.aspx

I can’t say this will fix it for everyone, or will even be the cause of your 500 error. Earlier today an epic battle played out between Windows Live Writer and the WordPress install this site sits on. More specifically, I was greeted with a “500 Server Error”.

In my server logs I found the following:

[25-Apr-2011 17:43:30] PHP Fatal error:  Allowed memory size of 33554432 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 122880 bytes) in /wp-includes/class-wp-xmlrpc-server.php on line 2769

Out of memory? What? After some searching I came across this article by Asif Rahman which listed 4 possible solutions, of which #1 fixed it for me:

Add the following line to the wp-config.php file:

define(‘WP_MEMORY_LIMIT’, ’64M’);

With luck and judging by the number of posts asking for help when I Google’d around this should help some others out.

Nostra-Daniel once pontificated that memory is like stacking penguins on an island. Each thing you’d like to remember is a penguin, as you fill the island, you have to choose which penguins end up in the ocean. For me, setting a static IP on Ubuntu was one of those penguins that ended up being fed to the seals.

Setting A Static IP

You’ll need to edit /etc/network/interfaces and add/change the following area:

# The primary network interface
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
        address 192.168.0.100
        netmask 255.255.255.0
        network 192.168.0.0
        broadcast 192.168.0.255
        gateway 192.168.0.1

Reference

http://codesnippets.joyent.com/posts/show/319

Nathan Small, a Senior Escalation Engineer with VMware storage sent along this presentation he has been giving on troubleshooting vStorage Performance. Lots of gold in here… lots and lots:

I’ve hit the point in Chrome where I’ve been so productive that I can’t be productive. That is, the point in which I have more tabs open than I could hope to reasonably read. What that means for y’all, is that as I close them out, I hit a few that hit interest points and are worth sharing. This week that includes some “Face Melting” and some guidance on running Java apps in virtual machines:

Face Melting

Duncan linked to some pretty cool whitepapers. Most, if not all of them are worth a read… you know, when you have some time to read things:

http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2011/03/07/talking-about-face-melting-stuff/

Java in a VM

• VMware Guidance – http://blogs.vmware.com/apps/2011/03/enterprise-java-applications-on-vsphere-best-practices.html
• Best Practices – http://www.vmware.com/resources/techresources/1087
• Eric Sloof’s Whitepaper – http://www.ntpro.nl/blog/archives/1713-New-Technical-Paper-Performance-of-Multiple-Java-Applications-in-a-VMware-vSphere-4.1-VM.html
• Java Urban Legends (IBM) – http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/java/library/j-jtp04223.html
• Serialization – http://techcrux.blogspot.com/2010/11/java-best-practices-high-performance.html
• 10 Things about Java Performance – http://techcrux.blogspot.com/2010/11/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-java.html

Actually, learned this one yesterday, but just got around to writing the post. I was actually clued into this by some friends in the UK.

According to these VMware docs:

• http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1015180
• http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-esx-4-1/wwhelp/wwhimpl/js/html/wwhelp.htm#context=vm_admin&file=c_about_snapshots.html

An ESX snapshot contains the VM settings. Thus reverting it, will also revert this settings. Because I was under the opposite impression, I had to see for myself:

Before:

Snapshot taken, Setting changed:

Reverted:

Snapshots revert settings… can’t explain that.

Summary:

It makes sense, but I’m not sure why I was under the impression it was otherwise. I hope by putting this out there my help others. If you found this useful, have comment or questions, drop a line in the comments or on twitter here.