Thursday, April 16, 2015

Windows 8.1/Windows Server 2012R2 virtual machines fail with a blue screen and report the error: CRITICAL_STRUCTURE_CORRUPTION (2060019)

Applied workaround and confirmed working!


http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2060019

Windows 8.1/Windows Server 2012R2 virtual machines fail with a blue screen and report the error: CRITICAL_STRUCTURE_CORRUPTION (2060019)


Symptoms

  • Windows 8.1/Windows Server 2012R2 virtual machines fail with a blue screen.
  • You see the error:

    CRITICAL_STRUCTURE_CORRUPTION

    STOP: 0x00000109

  • In the Windows Event Viewer, you may see an entry similar to:

    Log Name: System
    Source: Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Power
    Event ID: 41
    Level: Critical

Resolution

This issue is resolved in vSphere 5.0 Update 3:


To work around this issue, manually create a CPUID mask for the affected virtual machines:

To manually create a CPUID mask for the affected virtual machines:
  1. Power down the virtual machine.
  2. Right-click the virtual machine and click Edit Settings.
  3. Click the Options tab.
  4. Select CPUID Mask under Advanced.
  5. Click Advanced.
    • For Intel:

      1. Under the Register column, locate the edx register under Level 80000001.
      2. Paste this into the value field:

        ----:0---:----:----:----:----:----:----

        For example, cpuid.80000001.edx = ----:0---:----:----:----:----:----:----

    • For AMD:

      1. Select the AMD Override tab.
      2. Change cpuid.80000001.edx.amd = -----------H-------------------- to
        cpuid.80000001.edx.amd = ----0---------------------------
  6. Click OK to close the virtual machine properties.
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Wednesday, April 15, 2015

VMware ESXi Release and Build Number History

http://www.virten.net/vmware/esxi-release-build-number-history/#esxi5.0

VMware ESXi Release and Build Number History

The following listings are a comprehensive collection of the flagship hypervisor product by VMware. All bold versions are downloadable releases. All patches have been named by their release names. Please note that the ESXi hypervisor was first available with version 3.5.
[Last Update: April 9, 2015] –


vSphere ESXi 6.0

NameVersionReleaseBuild
ESXi600-201504001
2015-04-092615704
VMware ESXi 6.0ESXi 6.0 GA2015-03-122494585


vSphere ESXi 5.5

NameVersionReleaseBuild
ESXi550-201504001
2015-04-072638301
ESXi550-201502001ESXi 5.5 Express Patch 62015-02-052456374
ESXi550-201501001ESXi 5.5 Patch 42015-01-272403361
ESXi550-201412001ESXi 5.5 Express Patch 52014-12-022302651
ESXi550-201410001ESXi 5.5 Patch 32014-10-152143827
VMware ESXi 5.5 Update 2ESXi 5.5 Update 22014-09-092068190
ESXi550-201407001ESXi 5.5 Patch 22014-07-011892794
ESXi550-201406001ESXi 5.5 Express Patch 42014-06-101881737
ESXi550-201404020ESXi 5.5 Express Patch 32014-04-191746974
ESXi550-201404001ESXi 5.5 Update 1a2014-04-191746018
VMware ESXi 5.5.1 Driver Rollup
2014-03-111636597
VMware ESXi 5.5 Update 1ESXi 5.5 Update 12014-03-111623387
ESXi550-201312001ESXi 5.5 Patch 12013-12-221474528
vSAN Beta Refresh
2013-11-251439689
VMware ESXi 5.5ESXi 5.5 GA2013-09-221331820


vSphere ESXi 5.1

NameVersionReleaseBuild
ESXi510-2015030015.1.0 Patch 72015-03-262583090
VMware ESXi 5.1 Update 35.1.0 U32014-12-042323236
ESXi510-2014100015.1.0 Patch 62014-10-312191751
ESXi510-2014070015.1.0 Patch 52014-07-312000251
ESXi510-2014060015.1.0 Express Patch 52014-06-171900470
ESXi510-2014040015.1.0 Patch 42014-04-291743533
ESXi510-2014020015.1.0 Express Patch 42014-02-271612806
VMware ESXi 5.1 Update 25.1.0 U22014-01-161483097
ESXi510-2013100015.1.0 Patch 32013-10-171312873
ESXi510-2013070015.1.0 Patch 22013-07-251157734
ESXi510-2013050015.1.0 Express Patch 32013-05-221117900
VMware ESXi 5.1 Update 15.1.0 U12013-04-251065491
ESXi510-2013030015.1.0 Express Patch 22013-03-071021289
ESXi510-2012120015.1.0 Patch 12012-12-20914609
ESXi510-2012100015.1.0a2012-10-24838463
KB20347965.1.0Hot-Patch837262
VMware ESXi 5.15.1.0 GA2012-09-11799733


vSphere ESXi 5.0

NameVersionReleaseBuild
ESXi500-201502001
2015-02-262509828
ESXi500-2014120015.0.0 Patch 102014-12-042312428
ESXi500-2014080015.0.0 Patch 92014-08-282000308
ESXi500-2014070015.0.0 Express Patch 62014-07-011918656
ESXi500-2014050015.0.0 Patch 82014-05-291851670
ESXi500-2014010015.0.0 Patch 72014-01-231489271
VMware ESXi 5.0 Update 35.0.0 U32013-10-171311175
ESXi500-2013080015.0.0 Patch 62013-08-291254542
ESXi500-2013050015.0.0 Express Patch 52013-05-151117897
ESXi500-2013030015.0.0 Patch 52013-03-281024429
VMware ESXi 5.0 Update 25.0.0 U22012-12-20914586
ESXi500-2012090015.0.0 Patch 42012-09-27821926
ESXi500-201207001 5.0.0 Patch 32012-07-12768111
ESXi500-2012060015.0.0 Express Patch 42012-06-14721882
ESXi500-2012050015.0.0 Express Patch 32012-05-03702118
ESXi500-2012040015.0.0 Express Patch 22012-04-12653509
VMware ESXi 5.0 Update 15.0.0 U12012-03-15623860
ESXi500-2011120015.0.0 Patch 22011-12-15515841
ESXi500-2011110015.0.0 Express Patch 12011-11-03504890
ESXi500-2011090015.0.0 Patch 12011-09-13474610
VMware ESXi 5.05.0.02011-08-24469512


vSphere ESXi 4.1

NameVersionReleaseBuild
ESXi410-2014040014.1.0 Patch 112014-04-101682698
ESXi410-2013120014.1.0 Patch 102013-12-051363503
ESXi410-2013070014.1.0 Patch 92013-07-311198252
ESXi410-2013040014.1.0 Patch 82013-04-301050704
ESXi410-2013010014.1.0 Patch 72013-01-31988178
ESXi410-2012110014.1.0 Patch 62012-11-15874690
VMware ESXi 4.1 Update 34.1.0 U32012-08-30800380
ESXi410-2012060014.1.0 Express Patch 32012-06-14721871
ESXi410-2012050014.1.0 Express Patch 22012-05-03702113
ESXi410-2012040014.1.0 Patch 52012-04-26659051
ESXi410-2012010014.1.0 Patch 42012-01-30582267
VMware ESXi 4.1 Update 24.1.0 U22011-10-27502767
ESXi410-2011070014.1.0 Patch 32011-07-28433742
ESXi410-2011040014.1.0 Patch 22011-04-28381591
VMware ESXi 4.1 Update 14.1.0 U12011-02-10348481
ESXi410-2010110014.1.0 Express Patch 12010-11-29320137
ESXi410-2010100014.1.0 Patch 12010-11-15320092
VMware ESXi 4.14.1.02010-07-13260247


vSphere ESXi 4.0

NameVersionReleaseBuild
ESXi400-2014040014.0.0 Patch 202014-04-101682696
ESXi400-2013100014.0.0 Patch 192013-10-241335992
ESXi400-2013050014.0.0 Patch 182013-05-301070634
ESXi400-2013020014.0.0 Patch 172013-02-07989856
ESXi400-2012090014.0.0 Patch 162012-09-14787047
ESXi400-2012060014.0.0 Patch 152012-06-12721907
ESXi400-2012050014.0.0 Patch 142012-05-03702116
ESXi400-2012030014.0.0 Patch 132012-03-30660575
VMware ESXi 4.0 Update 44.0.0 U42011-11-17504850
ESXi400-2011100014.0.0 Patch 122011-10-13480973
VMware ESXi 4.0 Update 34.0.0 U32011-05-05398348
ESXi400-2011040014.0.0 Patch 112011-04-28392990
ESXi400-2011030014.0.0 Patch 102011-03-07360236
ESXi400-2011010014.0.0 Patch 92011-01-04332073
ESXi400-2010090014.0.0 Patch 82010-09-30294855
VMware ESXi 4 Update 24.0.0 U22010-06-10261974
ESXi400-2010050014.0.0 Patch 72010-05-27256968
ESXi400-2010030014.0.0 Patch 62010-04-01244038
ESXi400-2010020014.0.0 Patch 52010-03-03236512
ESXi400-2009120014.0.0 Patch 42010-01-05219382
VMware ESXi 4 Update 14.0.0 U12009-11-19208167
ESXi400-2009090014.0.0 Patch 32009-09-24193498
ESXi400-2009070014.0.0 Patch 22009-08-06181792
ESXi400-2009060014.0.0 Patch 12009-07-09175625
VMware ESXi 44.0.02009-05-21164009


ESXi 3.5

NameVersionReleaseBuild
ESXe350-201302401-O-SG3.5 Patch 272013-2-21988599
ESXe350-201206401-O-SG3.5 Patch 262012-06-14725354
ESXe350-201205401-O-SG3.5 Patch 252012-05-03702112
ESXe350-201203401-O-SG3.5 Patch 242012-03-09604481
VMware ESXi 3.5 June 2011 Rollup3.5 June 2011 Rollup2011-06-30391406
ESXe350-201105401-O-SG3.5 Patch 232011-06-02391406
ESXe350-201012401-O-BG3.5 Patch 222010-12-07317866
ESXe350-201008401-O-SG3.5 Patch 212010-09-01283373
ESXe350-201006401-O-SG3.5 Patch 202010-06-24259926
ESXe350-201003401-O-BG3.5 Patch 192010-03-29238493
ESXe350-201002401-O-SG3.5 Patch 182010-02-16226117
ESXe350-200912401-O-BG3.5 Patch 172009-12-29213532
VMware ESXi 3.5 Update 53.5 U52009-12-03207095
ESXe350-200910401-I-SG3.5 Patch 162009-10-16199239
ESXe350-200908401-I-BG3.5 Patch 152009-08-31184236
ESXe350-200907401-I-BG3.5 Patch 142009-07-30176894
ESXe350-200906401-I-BG3.5 Patch 132009-06-30169697
ESXe350-200905401-I-BG3.5 Patch 122009-05-28163429
ESXe350-200904401-I-SG3.5 Patch 112009-04-29158874
VMware ESXi 3.5 Update 43.5 U42009-03-30153875
ESXe350-200903411-I-BG3.5 Patch 102009-03-20153480
ESXe350-200901401-I-SG3.5 Patch 92009-01-30143129
ESXe350-200811401-I-SG3.5 Patch 82008-12-02130755
VMware ESXi 3.5 Update 33.5 U32008-11-06123629
ESXe350-200809401-I-SG3.5 Patch 72008-10-03120505
ESXe350-200808501-I-SG3.5 Patch 62008-09-18113338
VMware ESXi 3.5 Update 2 (reissued)3.5 U22008-08-13110271
ESXe350-200807812-I-BG3.5 Patch 52008-08-12110180
VMware ESXi 3.5 Update 2 (timebombed)3.5 U22008-07-25103909
ESXe350-200805501-I-SG3.5 Patch 42008-06-0394430
ESXe350-200804401-O-BG3.5 Patch 32008-04-3085332
VMware ESXi 3.5 Update 13.5 U12008-04-1082664
ESXe350-200802401-I-BG3.5 Patch 22008-03-1076563
ESXe350-200712401-O-BG3.5 Patch 12008-01-17
VMware ESXi 3.5 Initial Release3.52008-01-1070348
VMware ESXi 3.5 First Public Release3.52007-12-3167921

VMware ESX History Diagram

vmware-esxi-build-history-2015
Please note that this is not an official list by VMware. All informations are based on VMware documentation. Some informations or versions are not consistent.
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Manually Download VMware Tools ISO Image

This post is to share the information about How to manually download the VMware tools for various Operation system based on VMware vSphere versions. VMware tools varies for each and every operating system. When we try to install or Upgrade VMware tools using vSphere client, It will automatically mount the associated VMware tools ISO into virtual CD ROM drive of your virtual machine based on the Guest Operating system of the virtual machine. If in case you face any problem with mounting VMware tools ISO image to the virtual machine using vSphere client, you can manually download the VMware tools from the VMware website and install it manually.
You can even download the complete list of VMware tools available for various operating systems and place it in your organization repository to be used by administrators. It will make your job easy. VMware tools helps to optimize the performance of your virtual machine using ESX/ESXi  hypervisor resource management mechanisms.
Using the above link you can Select the version of vSphere to download the VMware tools. I have Selected ESXi 5.1 U1 
After selecting the ESX/ESXi version, It will allow us to select the Operating system to download the respective VMware tools version
I have selected Windows in the above section and intern it will ask you to select either 32 bit or 64 bit of VMware tools version for the windows operating system.
Choose either X64 or X86 based on your operating system of the Virtual Machine. It will allow  you to download VMware tools .exe file and also VMware tools ISO image.
Thats it. You are done with the manual download of VMware tools for your guest operating system. I hope this post is informative for you. Thanks for Reading !!!

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Monday, March 30, 2015

High Disk Space is being consumed by C:\Program Files\Symantec\Symantec Endpoint Protection Manager\data\outbox\Importpackage

. Delete all files from %installlocation%\Symantec\Symantec Endpoint Protection Manager\data\outbox\ImportPackage folder. (without stopping any services)
2. Delete everything older than today's date in %installlocation%\Symantec\Symantec Endpoint Protection Manager\Inetpub\content (also without stopping any services)
3. In the Symantec Admin Console go to Admin > Servers > localhost. Right-click localhost and truncate the transaction logs.


Symantec has released new version of Symantec Endpoint Protection. English versions of Symantec Endpoint Protection 12.1.5337.5000 (RU5) is now available.
It has new content storage optimization feature:
As part of the upgrade to SEPM 12.1 RU5, the SEPM converts all of the content from full definitions to delta definitions. This process is resource intensive and may take an extended period of time. After this process is completed, the SEPM will use significantly less disk space.
In a typical enterprise setup where 30 content revisions stored, the SEPM upgrade process must reduce 55GB of full content to under 2GB of delta content. This process requires significant resources to complete and is impacted by the performance of any available CPUs, CPU cores (physical/logical/hyperthreading), memory, and disks (I/O). On a server that performs multiple roles, stores larger numbers of content, or is otherwise resource constrained, this process may take a longer duration to complete.
Refer this article to find more info: The LiveUpdate content optimization and content storage space optimization steps take a long time to complete when upgrading to Symantec Endpoint Protection Manager 12.1 RU5
http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH224055
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Thursday, March 12, 2015

vCenter Server Appliance: Troubleshooting full database partition



A customer of mine had within 6 months twice a full database partition on a VMware vCenter Server Appliance. After the first outage, the customer increased the size of the partition which is mounted to /storage/db. Some months later, some days ago, the vCSA became unresponsive again. Again because of a filled up database partition. The customer increased the size of the database partition again  (~ 200 GB!!) and today I had time to take a look at this nasty vCSA.
The situation
vcsa_overview
Within 2 days, the storage usage of the databse increased from 75% to 77%. First, I checked the size of the database:
 As you can see, the database had only 2 GB. The pg_log directory was more interesting:
 The directory was full with log files. The log files containted only one message:
The solution
This led me to VMware KB2092127 (After upgrading to vCenter Server Appliance 5.5 Update 2, pg_log file reports this error: WARNING: there is already a transaction in progress). And yes, this appliance was upgraded to U2 with high probability. The solution is described in KB2092127, and is really easy to implement. Please note that this is only a workaround. There’s currently no solution, as mentioned in the article.
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How to connect/interact with VCVA DB (DB2 and vPostgres)

If you need to connect/interact with the VC appliance database, for example to remove the locks of DB2 or performing an script, you can do the following after being logged in as root via SSH on the appliance:

- On VCVA 5.0 GA with DB2:

1. Turn into the db2inst user:

vcenter:/ # su db2inst1

2. Start the db2 client:

db2inst1@vcenter:/> db2

You'll see a prompt like this:

db2 =>

3. connect to the VCDB database:

db2 => connect to VCDB

(the command is like this, very literal)

4. Change to VC schema:

db2 => set schema vc

5. Perform any command you need. For example, to remove the VPX_SESSIONLOCK lines, you can do like this:

db2 => delete from VPX_SESSIONLOCK
DB20000I  The SQL command completed successfully.

You can type "quit" anytime you want to exit from the db2 client, and "exit" when you want to go back to root userspace.

- On VCVA with vPostgres:

1. Connect to the database using psql:

vcenter:/ # /opt/vmware/vpostgres/1.0/bin/psql -U vc -d VCDB

You'll see a prompt like this:

psql (9.0.4)
Type "help" for help.

VCDB=>

2. Perform any command you need (selects, inserts, etc). For example, to list all tables:

VCDB=> \dt

There are a lot of new tables in 5.1, (mainly the vpx_hist_stat* ones).

To quit, just type "\q"

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Changing the default VMware vCenter Server Appliance database password (2056968)

Changing the default VMware vCenter Server Appliance database password

 

 

Details

You can change the default password for the VMware vCenter Server Appliance database when you want or if the password is compromised.

Solution

To change the default:
  1. Change the embedded database password:

    1. Connect to the vCenter Server Appliance using SSH.
    2. Open the embedded_db.cfg file for editing with this command:

      vi /etc/vmware-vpx/embedded_db.cfg

    3. In the file, locate EMB_DB_PASSWORD and change the password between the single quotation marks.
  2. Change the password for the vc and postgres database users:

    1. Connect to the vPostgres database for SQL execution by running this command:

      /opt/vmware/vpostgres/current/bin/psql -d VCDB U postgres

    2. Run these SQL statements to change the passwords for the vc and postgres users:

      alter user postgres with password 'new-password';
      alter user vc with password 'new-password';
    3. Exit the database with this command:

      \q

    4. Open the .pgpass file for editing by running this command:

      vi /root/.pgpass
    5. Modify the .pgpass file with the new password as follows:

      localhost:5432:VCDB:postgres:new-password
      localhost:5432:postgres:postgres:new-password
      localhost:5432:VCDB:vc:new-password
  3. Change the postgres database password:

    1. To change the password for the vPostgres database by running this command:

      passwd postgres

    2. Type the new password.
    3. Retype the new password.
  4. To update the encrypted password in the vpxd.cfg file, run this command:

    /usr/sbin/vpxd -p

  5. Enter the password when prompted.
  6. Run this command to restart the vpxd service:

    /etc/init.d/vmware-vpxd restart
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