Current method for Linux Guest Shared folder access? Is there an 'open-vm-tools only' way?

December 8, 2016, 1:21 pm

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Hi;

What is the current suggested way to access shared folders on a Windows 7-64 Host from a Linux Guest (using Workstation Pro 12.1)? Is this possible with only open-vm-tools?

I've been using Centos 7.2/RHEL 7.2 Linux guests. I've been using open-vm-tools/open-vm-tools-desktop for the guest tools. But, the only way I've figured out to get access to the hosts shared folders from the Guest is to go ahead and also install the vmware tools package on the Guests. This then ends up automatically mounting my shared folders in /mnt/hgfs/xxxxx as specified in the Host VM settings.

Is there a better way to do this so that I don't need to install the VMware tools anymore? The reason I ask it that I frequently end up with fatal compiler errors when an updated version of the guest OS comes out.

For example, I just updated a Guest from RHEL 7.2 to RHEL 7.3. The Guest tools failed to compile (in page.c) for the hgfs stuff. I found an entry in the workstation forum that suggested that I try to download and use the 10.1.0 Linux Guest tools (instead of the 10.0.x ones that seem to come with Workstation 12.1).

I did this which ultimately seemed to work, but I saw a concerning warning during install that says:

WARNING: It appears your system is missing the required /usr/bin/vmhgfs-fuse

So, is installing both the open-vm-tools and the VMware guest tools the necessary/right way to access the Hosts shared folders from the guest? Should I be concerned about the missing 'vmhgfs-fuse'?

Thanks;

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Vms wont work with 10GB capped at 1GB

December 8, 2016, 1:22 pm

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Hello,

im using several hosts with ESX 5.5 they all have 8 10Gb ethernet cards being used as 2 LAGs of 40Gb on each host. They are all connected in a 10Gb switch.

We are trying to fine tune to improve our performance and we discovered the following.

Using iperf or just transfering files from linux to linux or windows to windows, the max speed we can get its 1Gb of transfer and i mean like 120Mb being multiplied by 8 getting around a 1Gb speed.

On the Vms itself they have VMXnet3 and the speed shows 10GB. Some transfers as shown above we're made with Virtual Machines in different hosts and Virtual Machines on the same host.

Any ideas or suggestions of were can i look to understand better this behavior ?

LAGs are almost not being used.

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Windows 7 Sessions

December 8, 2016, 1:43 pm

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Hi all

Following situation:

We have 5 VMs and 5 domain users for one pool (automated desktop pool, automatic assignment)

The 5 user are generic ones, so each user in the company can log in with one of those 5 accounts into one of those 5 VMs.

Now, if for example Jon is logged in with User1 and 30 minutes later Peter is also taking User1 to log in, he will take over the session from Jon. I think this is by design from Microsoft in Windows 7. But is there a way to block this? So if User1 is logged in, no other person can log in with User1, until User1 does not have an active (RDP) session?

With RDS I think you can achieve this with the following policy:

Restrict Remote Desktop Services user to a single Remote Desktop Services session but it does not work for "only" Windows 7.

I don't know, maybe there is a way with some Horizon settings / RegKeys?

Thank you for your advice.

Regards

Solero

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PSC HA 6.5 - requires load balancer? Or not?

December 8, 2016, 1:43 pm

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From the KB article "Configuring Platform Service Controller HA in vSphere 6.5 (2147018)", it seems to me that an external load balancer is still required for seamless PSC HA in v6.5. However, the vSphere 6.5 Upgrade Guide has a section that seems to claim that an external load balancer is no longer required. It talks about raising the "domain functional level" to "2". I can't seem to mind much other documentation that discusses this, so I am wondering if this is a documentation error, or could someone explain it to me in more depth? Here is the blurb from the vSphere 6.5 Upgrade Guide (note the section I highlighted in BOLD):

Upgrade an Environment in Which Platform Services Controller High Availability Is Enabled

In vSphere 5.5 and vSphere 6.0, Platform Services Controller high availability is supported only if a load balancer handles redirection of vCenter Server tra c in case of Platform Services Controller failure. When you upgrade Platform Services Controller and vCenter Server, the resulting environment supports high availability. The load balancer is no longer needed because the Platform Services Controller is capable of handling heavy loads.

Before the upgrade, each node has a domain functional level 1. Failover is handled by an external load balancer.

Prerequisites

Your environment is set up with an external load balancer and Platform Services Controller instances highly available.

Procedure

Upgrade each Platform Services Controller node.

The domain functional level does not change, and the external load balancer continues handling failover.

Enable Platform Services Controller high availability after the upgrade of all Platform Services Controller nodes.

a Log in to the shell of one Platform Services Controller instance.
b Set the domain functional level to 2 by running the following command.
```
  dir-cli domain-functional-level set --level 2 
```
The domain functional level change propagates to the other Platform Services Controller instances.
c Repoint each vCenter Server node to one of the Platform Services Controller instances by using the
cmsso-util script, as discussed in the vSphere Installation and Setup documentation.
The vCenter Server nodes are currently pointing to the external load balancer.

After you test that Platform Services Controller high availability works correctly, you can remove the load balancer from your environment.

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SQL Failover and DRS

December 8, 2016, 1:48 pm

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Is it possible for a DRS migration to cause a fully virtualized SQL server cluster failover event due to the packet or two that might be dropped while the virtual machine moves to the new ESXi host?

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creating user in vCenter

December 8, 2016, 1:49 pm

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Hello,

Not sure if this is the appropriate place to ask. We need to create a user name "bob". We don't use SSO and don't plan on using.

So far we have found a way to do this but want a confirmation to this method. Are there other factors that we have to be aware of?

1) ssh into the vCenter Server Appliance

2) useradd -m bob

3) Go into vCenter and find Bob and add a role that is needed

4) create a resource group (folder) and move VMs to to the folder.

Thanks,

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Re: how to authenticate for rest api with vCenter 6.5 appliance

December 8, 2016, 2:02 pm

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Here is some sample vRO JS code that seems to work in my 6.5 environment. The workflow input parameter is the variable host (of type REST:RESTHost) configured with Basic authentication.

var vcenter = "10.20.160.200";
var user = "vcuser1";
var pass = "vcpass1";
var request = host.createRequest("POST", "https://" + vcenter + "/rest/com/vmware/cis/session", "");
var response = request.executeWithCredentials(user, pass);
var sessionid = JSON.parse(response.contentAsString).value;
System.log("response code: " + response.statusCode);
System.log("response body: " + response.contentAsString);
System.log("sessionid: " + sessionid);

var taskjson =
{ "piece":
      {          "location_type":"FTP",          "comment":"Automatic backup",          "parts":["seat"],          "location":"ftp://10.20.6.12/backup/",          "location_user":"ftpuser1",          "location_password":"ftppass1"      }
}

request = host.createRequest("POST", "https://" + vcenter + "/rest/appliance/recovery/backup/job", JSON.stringify(taskjson));
request.setHeader("Accept", "application/json");
request.setHeader("Content-Type", "application/json");
var response = request.executeWithCredentials(user, pass);
var jobid = JSON.parse(response.contentAsString).value.id;
System.log("response code: " + response.statusCode);
System.log("response body: " + response.contentAsString);
System.log("backup job id: " + jobid);

var status = "INPROGRESS";
while (status == "INPROGRESS") {
  System.sleep(10000);  request = host.createRequest("GET", "https://" + vcenter + "/rest/appliance/recovery/backup/job/" + jobid, "");  request.setHeader("Accept", "application/json");  response = request.executeWithCredentials(user, pass);  status = JSON.parse(response.contentAsString).value.state;  System.log("response code: " + response.statusCode);  System.log("status: " + status);  System.log("response body: " + response.contentAsString);
}

System.log("Completion status: " + status);

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Re: FT fail due to VM has more than one vCPU

December 8, 2016, 2:05 pm

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Thanks RichardBush, we had the same error in the desktop client and in the web client it gives us the dialogue to set it up and turn it on... well looks like I found our first "thing that doesn't work in the desktop client" which is a shame because I like the desktop client a lot more haha.

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Licensing required for new vCenter HA feature?

December 8, 2016, 2:18 pm

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Does anyone know if any special level of licensing is needed to leverage the new vCenter HA feature in v6.5? I know there are essentially (3) vCenter instances involved:

1) Active

2) Passive

3) Witness

Can a single license of vCenter Server support all (3) instances, or must additional licenses be purchased?

Also, does vCenter HA work with vCenter Foundation as well as vCenter Standard?

Thanks,

Bill

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Re: Status of LSI 9207 / Dell LSI SAS9207-8i

December 8, 2016, 2:21 pm

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Sounds good, that was what I was hoping was the case. I'll hold tight for a little while. So far vSAN 6.2 is working great on vCenter 6.5, in fact much better since the UI is way more responsive. Looking forward to upgrading to vSAN 6.5 at some point soon.

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Re: VMware vSphere Profile driven storage service AND VMware vCenter Storage Monitoring Service Alert

December 8, 2016, 2:26 pm

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FYI, I ran into the vmware vsphere profile driven storage missing during a vcenter upgrade from 5.5 U2 to 5.5 U3

I did not have access to the U2 ISO to repair, so vmware support had me UNINSTALL vcenter and do a clean U3 install

We had some trouble recreating the SQL DSN (uninstall deletes it!)

But everything was there in the DB once we had a working DSN

First time out of 20+ vcenter upgrades I had seen this!

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Re: VSAN Streched Cluster on nested host

December 8, 2016, 2:04 pm

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Ah ok, here is the problem - vSAN Stretched Cluster is not supported with ESXi 6.0 GA Bulid 2494585

vSAN Stretched Cluster came into existence from vSphere 6 update 1 onwards.

If you want 6.0 version - I would suggest you to download latest ESXi 6.0 version i.e. ESXi 6.0 U2 - Download VMware vSAN (6.2)

If you want 6.5 version - Download VMware vSAN (6.5)

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Was your question answered correctly? If so, please remember to mark your question as "Correct" or "Helpful" when you get the correct answer. This helps others searching for a similar issue.

Cheers!

-Shivam

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Re: VSAN stretched cluster grey tap

December 8, 2016, 2:19 pm

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I have replied to your post - Re: VSAN Streched Cluster on nested host

I believe this is also related to the ESXi version not supported with vSAN Stretched Cluster.

_________________________

Was your question answered correctly? If so, please remember to mark your question as "Correct" or "Helpful" when you get the correct/helpful answer. This helps others searching for a similar issue.

Cheers!

-Shivam

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