Tuesday, 14 April 2015

VMware Interview questions and answer

1. VMWare Kernel is a Proprietary Kenral and is not based on any of the UNIX operating systems, it's a kernel developed by VMWare Company. 
2. The VMKernel can't boot it by itself, so that it takes the help of the 3rd party operating system. In VMWare case the kernel is booted by RedHat Linux operating system which is known as service console. 
3. The service console is developed based up on Redhat Linux Operating system, it is used to manage the VMKernel  
4. To restart webaccess service on vmware
service vmware-webaccess restart – this will restart apache tomcat app 
5. To restart ssh service on vmware
service sshd restart 
6. To restart host agent(vmware-hostd) on vmware esx server
service mgmt-vmware restart 
7. Path for the struts-config.xml
/usr/lib/vmware/webAccess/tomcat/apache-tomcat-5.5.17/webapps/ui/WEB-INF/ 
8. To start the scripted install the command is
    esx ks=nfs:111.222.333.444:/data/KS.config ksdevice=eth0
               location  device name
9. Virtual Network in Simple……………….
Virtual Nic(s) on Virtual Machine(s) -----> 
Physical Nic on the ESX Server (Virtual Switch - 56 Ports)  ----->
Physical Switch Port Should be trunked with all the VLANS to which the VM's need access  
All the ESX servers should be configured with Same number of Physical Nics (vSwitches) and Connectivity also should be same, So that vMotion succeeds
All the Virtual Machines are connected to one vSwitch with Different VLANS, this means the Physical Nic(vSwitch) needs to be trunked with the same VLANS on the Physical Switch Port
10 What are the three port groups present in ESX server networking
   1. Virtual Machine Port Group - Used for Virtual Machine Network
   2. Service Console Port Group - Used for Service Console Communications
   3. VMKernel Port Group - Used for VMotion, iSCSI, NFS Communications
11. What is the use of a Port Group?
The port group segregates the type of communication.
12. What are the type of communications which requires an IP address for sure ?
   Service Console and VMKernel (VMotion and iSCSI), these communications does not happen without an ip address (Whether it is a single or dedicated)
13. In the ESX Server licensing features VMotion License is showing as Not used, why?
    Even though the license box is selected, it shows as "License Not Used" until, you enable the VMotion option for specific vSwitch
 14. How the Virtual Machineort group communication works ? 
     All the vm's which are configured in VM Port Group are able to connect to the physical machines on the network. So this port group enables communication between vSwitch and Physical Switch to connect vm's to Physical Machine's
15. What is a VLAN ?
     A VLAN is a logical configuration on the switch port to segment the IP Traffic. For this to happen, the port must be trunked with the correct VLAN ID.

16. Does the vSwitches support VLAN Tagging? Why?
     Yes, The vSwitches support VLAN Tagging, otherwise if the virtual machines in an esx host are connected to different VLANS, we need to install a separate physical nic (vSwitch) for every VLAN. That is the reason vmware included the VLANtagging for vSwitches. So every vSwitch supports upto 1016 ports, and BTW they can support 1016 VLANS if needed, but an ESX server doesn’t support that many VM’s. :)  
17. What is Promiscuous Mode on vSwitch ? What happens if it sets to Accept?
     If the promiscuous mode set to Accept, all the communication is visible to all the virtual machines, in other words all the packets are sent to all the ports on vSwitch
     If the promiscuous mode set to Reject, the packets are sent to inteded port, so that the intended virtual machine was able to see the communication.
18. What is MAC address Changes ? What happens if it is set to Accept ?
When we create a virtual machine the configuration wizard generates a MAC address for that machine, you can see it in the .vmx (VM Config) file. If it doesn't matches with the MAC address in the OS this setting does not allow incoming traffic to the VM. So by setting Reject Option both MAC addresses will be remains same, and the incoming traffic will be allowed to the VM.
19. What is Forged Transmits ? What happens if it is set to Accept ?
When we create a virtual machine the configuration wizard generates a MAC address for that machine, you can see it in the .vmx (VM Config) file. If it doesn't matches with the MAC address in the OS this setting does not allow outgoing traffic from the VM. So by setting Reject Option both MAC addresses will be remains same, and the outgoing traffic will be allowed from the VM.
20. What are the core services of VC ?
VM provisioning , Task Scheduling and Event Logging
21. Can we do vMotion between two datacenters? If possible how it will be?
Yes we can do vMotion between two datacenters, but the mandatory requirement is the VM should be powered off.
22. What is VC agent? and what service it is corresponded to? What are the minimum req's for VC agent installation ?
VC agent is an agent installed on ESX server which enables communication between VC and ESX server.
The daemon associated with it is called vmware-hostd , and the service which corresponds to it is called as mgmt-vmware, in the event of VC agent failure just restart the service by typing the following command at the service console    
     " service mgmt-vmware restart "
VC agent installed on the ESX server when we add it to the VC, so at the time of installtion if you are getting an error like " VC Agent service failed to install ", check the /Opt size whether it is sufficient or not.
23. How can you edit VI Client Settings and VC Server Settings ?
Click Edit Menu on VC and Select Client Settings to change VI settings
Click Administration Menu on VC and Select VC Management Server Configuration to Change VC Settings
24. What are the files that make a Virtual Machine  ?
     .vmx - Virtual Machine Configuration File
     .nvram - Virtual Machine BIOS
     .vmdk - Virtual Machine Disk file
     .vswp - Virtual Machine Swap File
     .vmsd - Virtual MAchine Snapshot Database
     .vmsn - Virtual Machine Snapshot file
     .vmss - Virtual Machine Suspended State file
     .vmware.log - Current Log File
     .vmware-#.log - Old Log file


25. What are the devices that can be added while the virtual Machine running
In VI 3.5 we can add Hard Disk and NIC's while the machine running.
In vSphere 4.0 we can add Memory and Processor along with HDD and NIC's while the machine running 
26. How to set the time delay for BIOS screen for a Virtual Machine?
Right Click on VM, select edit settings, choose options tab and select boot option, set the delay how much you want.
27. What is a template ?
We can convert a VM into Template, and it cannot be powered on once its changed to template. This is used to quick provisioning of VM's.
23. What to do to customize the windows virtual machine clone,?
copy the sysprep files to Virtual center directory on the server, so that the wizard will take the advantage of it.
24. What to do to customize the linux/unix virtual machine clone,?
VC itself includes the customization tools, as these operating systems are available as open source.
25. Does cloning from template happens between two datacenters ?
Yes.. it can, if the template in one datacenter, we can deploy the vm from that template in another datacenter without any problem.
26. What are the common issues with snapshots? What stops from taking a snapshot and how to fix it ?
If you configure the VM with Mapped LUN's, then the snapshot failed. If it is mapped as virtual then we can take a snapshot of it.
If you configure the VM with Mapped LUN's as physical, you need to remove it to take a snapshot.
27. What are the settings that are taken into to consideration when we initiate a snapshot ?
Virtual Machine Configuration (What hardware is attached to it)
State of the Virtual Machine Hard Disk file ( To revert back if needed)
State of the Virtual Machine Memory (if it is powered on)
28. What are the requirements for Converting a Physical machine to VM ?
An agent needs to be installed on the Physical machine
VI client needs to be installed with Converter Plug-in
A server to import/export virtual machines
29. What is VMWare consolidated backup ?
It is a backup framework, that supports 3rd party utilities to take backups of ESX servers and Virtual Machines. Its not a backup service.
30. To open the guided consolidation tool, what are the user requirements ?
The user must be member of administrator, The user should have "Logon as service" privileges - To give a user these privileges,open local sec policy, select Logon as service policy and add the user the user should have read access to AD to send queries.
9. What is the difference between Thick provision Lazy Zeroed, Thick provision Eager Zeroed and Thin provision?
Thick Provision Lazy Zeroed
Creates a virtual disk in a default thick format.

·         Space required for the virtual disk is allocated when the virtual disk is created.
·         Data remaining on the physical device is not erased during creation, but is zeroed out on demand at a later time on first write from the virtual machine.
·         Using the default flat virtual disk format does not zero out or eliminate the possibility of recovering deleted files or restoring old data that might be present on this allocated space.
·         You cannot convert a flat disk to a thin disk.
Thick Provision Eager Zeroed
·         A type of thick virtual disk that supports clustering features such as Fault Tolerance.
·         Space required for the virtual disk is allocated at creation time.
·         In contrast to the flat format, the data remaining on the physical device is zeroed out when the virtual disk is created.
·         It might take much longer to create disks in this format than to create other types of disks.

Thin Provision
·         It provides on on-demand allocation of blocks of data.
·         All the space allocated at the time of creation of virtual disk is not utilized on the hard disk, rather only the size with utilized data is locked and the size increases as the amount of data is increased on the disk.
·         With thin provisioning, storage capacity utilization efficiency can be automatically driven up towards 100% with very little administrative overhead.

10. What is a snapshot?
A snapshot is a “point in time image” of a virtual guest operating system (VM). That snapshot contains an image of the VMs disk, RAM, and devices at the time the snapshot was taken. With the snapshot, you can return the VM to that point in time, whenever you choose. You can take snapshots of your VMs, no matter what guest OS you have and the snapshot functionality can be used for features like performing image level backups of the VMs without ever shutting them down.

11. What is VDI?
·         VDI stands for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure where end user physical machine like desktop or laptop are virtualized due to which VMware described VDI as "delivering desktops from the data center”.
·         Once VDI is used the end user connect to their desktop using a device called thin client.
·         The end user can also connect to their desktop using VMware Horizon View installed on any desktop or mobile devices

12. What is VMware HA?
·         VMware HA i.e. High Availability which works on the host level and is configured on the Cluster.
·         A Cluster configured with HA will migrate and restart all the vms running under any of the host in case of any host-level failure automatically to another host under the same cluster.
·         VMware HA continuously monitors all ESX Server hosts in a cluster and detects failures.
·         VMware HA agent placed on each host maintains a heartbeat with the other hosts in the cluster using the service console network. Each server sends heartbeats to the others servers in the cluster at five-second intervals. If any servers lose heartbeat over three consecutive heartbeat intervals, VMware HA initiates the failover action of restarting all affected virtual machines on other hosts.
·         You can set virtual machine restart priority in case of any host failure depending upon the critical nature of the vm.
NOTE: Using HA in case of any host failure with RESTART the vms on different host so the vms state will be interrupted and it is not a live migration

13. What is the difference between VMware HA and vMotion?
VMware HA is used in the event when any of the hosts inside a cluster fails then all the virtual machines running under it are restarted on different host in the same cluster.
Now HA is completely dependent on vMotion to migrate the vms to different host so vMotion is just used for the migration purpose between multiple hosts. vMotion also has the capability to migrate any vm without interrupting its state to any of the host inside cluster.

14. What is storage vMotion?
·         Storage vMotion is similar to vMotion in the sense that "something" related to the VM is moved and there is no downtime to the VM guest and end users. However, with SVMotion the VM Guest stays on the server that it resides on but the virtual disk for that VM is what moves.
·         With Storage vMotion, you can migrate a virtual machine and its disk files from one datastore to another while the virtual machine is running.
·         You can choose to place the virtual machine and all its disks in a single location, or select separate locations for the virtual machine configuration file and each virtual disk.
·         During a migration with Storage vMotion, you can transform virtual disks from Thick-Provisioned Lazy Zeroed or Thick-Provisioned Eager Zeroed to Thin-Provisioned or the reverse.
·         Perform live migration of virtual machine disk files across any Fibre Channel, iSCSI, FCoE and NFS storage

15. What is VMware DRS and how does it works?
·         Here DRS stands for Distributed Resource Scheduler which dynamically balances resource across various host under Cluster or resource pool.
·         VMware DRS allows users to define the rules and policies that decide how virtual machines share resources and how these resources are prioritized among multiple virtual machines.
·         Resources are allocated to the virtual machine by either migrating it to another server with more available resources or by making more “space” for it on the same server by migrating other virtual machines to different servers.
·         The live migration of virtual machines to different physical servers is executed completely transparent to end-users through VMware VMotion
·         VMware DRS can be configured to operate in either automatic or manual mode. In automatic mode, VMware DRS determines the best possible distribution of virtual machines among different physical servers and automatically migrates virtual machines to the most appropriate physical servers. In manual mode, VMware DRS provides a recommendation for optimal placement of virtual machines, and leaves it to the system administrator to decide whether to make the change.

16. What is VMware Fault Tolerance?
·         VMware Fault Tolerance provides continuous availability to applications running in a virtual machine, preventing downtime and data loss in the event of server failures.
·         VMware Fault Tolerance, when enabled for a virtual machine, creates a live shadow instance of the primary, running on another physical server.
·         The two instances are kept in virtual lockstep with each other using VMware vLockstep technology
·         The two virtual machines play the exact same set of events, because they get the exact same set of inputs at any given time.
·         The two virtual machines constantly heartbeat against each other and if either virtual machine instance loses the heartbeat, the other takes over immediately. The heartbeats are very frequent, with millisecond intervals, making the failover instantaneous with no loss of data or state.
·         VMware Fault Tolerance requires a dedicated network connection, separate from the VMware VMotion network, between the two physical servers.

17. In a cluster with more than 3 hosts, can you tell Fault Tolerance where to put the Fault Tolerance virtual machine or does it chose on its own?
You can place the original (or Primary virtual machine). You have full control with DRS or vMotion to assign it to any node. The placement of the Secondary, when created, is automatic based on the available hosts. But when the Secondary is created and placed, you can vMotion it to the preferred host.

18. How many virtual CPUs can I use on a Fault Tolerant virtual machine ?
vCenter Server 4.x and vCenter Server 5.x support 1 virtual CPU per protected virtual machine.

19. What happens if vCenter Server is offline when a failover event occurs?
When Fault Tolerance is configured for a virtual machine, vCenter Server need not be online for FT to work. Even if vCenter Server is offline, failover still occurs from the Primary to the Secondary virtual machine. Additionally, the spawning of a new Secondary virtual machine also occurs without vCenter Server.

20. What is the difference between Type 1 and Type 2 Hypervisor?
Type 1 Hypervisor
·         This is also known as Bare Metal or Embedded or Native Hypervisor.
·         It works directly on the hardware of the host and can monitor operating systems that run above the hypervisor.
·         It is completely independent from the Operating System.
·         The hypervisor is small as its main task is sharing and managing hardware resources between different operating systems.
·         A major advantage is that any problems in one virtual machine or guest operating system do not affect the other guest operating systems running on the hypervisor.
·         Examples: VMware ESXi Server, Microsoft Hyper-V, Citrix/Xen Server

Type 2 Hypervisor
·         This is also known as Hosted Hypervisor.
·         In this case, the hypervisor is installed on an operating system and then supports other operating systems above it.
·         It is completely dependent on host Operating System for its operations
·         While having a base operating system allows better specification of policies, any problems in the base operating system a ffects the entire system as well even if the hypervisor running above the base OS is secure.
·         Examples: VMware Workstation, Microsoft Virtual PC, Oracle Virtual Box
21. How does vSphere HA works?
When we configure multiple hosts for HA cluster, a single host is automatically elected as the master host. The master host communicates with vCenter Server and monitors the state of all protected virtual machines and of the slave hosts. When you add a host to a vSphere HA cluster, an agent is uploaded to the host and configured to communicate with other agents in the cluster.

22. What are the monitoring methods used for vSphere HA?
The Master and Slave hosts uses two types of monitoring the status of the hosts
·         Datastore Heartbeat
·         Network Heartbeat
23. What are the roles of master host in vSphere HA?
·         Monitoring the state of slave hosts. If a slave host fails or becomes unreachable, the master host identifies which virtual machines need to be restarted.
·         Monitoring the power state of all protected virtual machines. If one virtual machine fails, the master host ensures that it is restarted. Using a local placement engine, the master host also determines where the restart should be done.
·         Managing the lists of cluster hosts and protected virtual machines.
·         Acting as vCenter Server management interface to the cluster and reporting the cluster health state.
24. How is a Master host elected in vSphere HA environment?
When vSphere HA is enabled for a cluster, all active hosts (those not in standby or maintenance mode, or not disconnected) participate in an election to choose the cluster's master host. The host that mounts the greatest number of datastores has an advantage in the election. Only one master host typically exists per cluster and all other hosts are slave hosts.

If the master host fails, is shut down or put in standby mode, or is removed from the cluster a new election is held.

25. If the vCenterserver goes down with a situation that it was pre configured with vSphere HA and DRS, so after power down will HA and DRS perform their task?
vSphere HA is not dependent on vCenterserver for its operations as when HA is configured it installs an agent into each host which does its part and is not dependent on vCenterserver. Also HA doesnot uses vMotion, it justs restarts the vms into another host in any case of host failure.

Further vSphere DRS is very much dependent on vCenterserver as it uses vMotion for its action for live migration of vms between multiple hosts so in case vCenterserver goes down the vMotion won't work leading to failure of DRS.

26. What is the use of vmware tools?
VMware Tools is a suite of utilities that enhances the performance of the virtual machine's guest operating system and improves management of the virtual machine. Without VMware Tools installed in your guest operating system, guest performance lacks important functionality. Installing VMware Tools eliminates or improves these issues:
·         Low video resolution
·         Inadequate color depth
·         Incorrect display of network speed
·         Restricted movement of the mouse
·         Inability to copy and paste and drag-and-drop files
·         Missing sound
·         Provides the ability to take quiesced snapshots of the guest OS
·         Synchronizes the time in the guest operating system with the time on the host
·         Provides support for guest-bound calls created with the VMware VIX API
1) Explain about your production environment? How many cluster’s, ESX, Data Centers, H/w etc ?
2) How does VMotion works? What’s the port number used for it?
ANS–> TCP port 8000
3) Prerequisites for VMotion?
Ans–>
1)ESX Servers must be configured with VMkenerl ports enabled for vmotion and on the same network segment
2)ESX Servers must be managed by the same Virtual Center server
3)ESX Must have compatible CPUs
4)ESX Servers muct have consisten Networks and NEtwroks labels
5)The VMs must be stored on shared storage – iSCSI or FC SAN or NAS/NFS
6)The VMs can not use localcd/floppy or internal only vrtual switches on the ESX server
Check out http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_35/esx_3/r35u2/vi3_35_25_u2_admin_guide.pdf for more information
4) How does HA works? Port number? How many host failure allowed and why?
ANS–> Maximum allowed host failures within a HA cluster is 4. What happens if 4 hosts have failed and a 5th one also fails.
I have still enough free resources to start up the virtual machines on the remaining hosts. Will HA start these virtual machines from the 5th failed host on the remaining hosts?
ANS) That depends. If you have admission control enabled, if there are any resource constraints some VM’s may not restart. If you have admission control disabled, the VM’s will get restarted on any host left in the cluster. However, that doesn’t mean they will be functional. Make sure you have enough port groups configured on your vSwitch for your Virtual Machine port group to accommodate
Host Firewalls. On ESX/ESXi hosts, VMware HA needs and automatically opens the following firewall ports.
Incoming port: TCP/UDP 8042-8045
Outgoing port: TCP/UDP 2050-2250
5) What are active host / primary host in HA? Explain it?
ANS–>
When you add a host to a VMware HA cluster, an agent is uploaded to the host and configured to communicate
with other agents in the cluster. The first five hosts added to the cluster are designated as primary hosts, and
all subsequent hosts are designated as secondary hosts. The primary hosts maintain and replicate all cluster
state and are used to initiate failover actions. If a primary host is removed from the cluster, VMware HA
promotes another host to primary status.
Any host that joins the cluster must communicate with an existing primary host to complete its configuration
(except when you are adding the first host to the cluster). At least one primary host must be functional for
VMware HA to operate correctly. If all primary hosts are unavailable (not responding), no hosts can be
successfully configured for VMware HA.
One of the primary hosts is also designated as the active primary host and its responsibilities include:
n Deciding where to restart virtual machines.
n Keeping track of failed restart attempts.
n Determining when it is appropriate to keep trying to restart a virtual machine.
If the active primary host fails, another primary host replaces it.
6) Prerequisites for HA ?
First, for clusters enabled for VMware HA, all virtual machines and their configuration files must
reside on shared storage (Fibre Channel SAN, iSCSI SAN, or SAN iSCI NAS), because you need to
be able to power on the virtual machine on any host in the cluster.
Second, VMware HA monitors heartbeat between hosts on the console network for failure
detection. So, to have reliable failure detection for HA clusters, the console network should have
redundant network paths. That way, if a host’s first network connection fails, the second
connection can broadcast heartbeats to other hosts.
Last, if you want to use DRS with HA for load balancing, the hosts in your cluster must be part of
a VMotion network. If the hosts are not in the VMotion network, however, DRS can still make
initial placement recommendations.
7) How do DRS works? Which technology used? What are the priority counts to migrate the VM’s?
8) How does snap shot’s works?
9) What are the files will be created while creating a VM and after powering on the VM?
10) If the VMDK header file corrupt what will happen? How do you troubleshoot?
11) Prerequisites VC, Update manager?
12) Have you ever patched the ESX host? What are the steps involved in that?
13) Have you ever installed an ESX host? What are the pre and post conversion steps involved in that? What would be the portions listed? What would be the max size of it?
14) I turned on Maintenance mode in an ESX host, all the VM’s has been migrated to another host, but only one VM failed to migrate? What are the possible reasons?
15) How will you turn start / stop a VM through command prompt?
16) I have upgraded a VM from 4 to 8 GB RAM; it’s getting failed at 90% of powering on? How do you troubleshoot?
17) Storage team provided the new LUN ID to you? How will you configure the LUN in VC? What would be the block size (say for 500 GB volume size)?
18) I want to add a new VLAN to the production network? What are the steps involved in that? And how do you enable it?
19) Explain about VCB? What it the minimum priority (*) to consolidate a machine?
20) How VDR works?
21) What’s the difference between Top and ESXTOP command?
22) How will you check the network bandwidth utilization in an ESXS host through command prompt?
23) How will you generate a report for list of ESX, VM’s, RAM and CPU used in your Vsphere environment?
24) What the difference between connecting the ESX host through VC and Vsphere? What are the services involved in that? What are the port numbers’s used?
25) How does FT works? Prerequisites? Port used?
26) Can I VMotion between 2 different data centers? Why?
27) Can I deploy a VM by template in different data centers ?
28) I want to increase the system partition size (windows 2003 server- Guest OS) of a VM? How will you do it without any interruption to the end user?
29) Which port number used while 2 ESX transfer the data in between?
30) Unable to connect to a VC through Vsphere client? What could be the reason? How do you troubleshoot?
31) Have you ever upgraded the ESX 3.5 to 4.0? How did you do it?
32) What are the Vsphere 4.0, VC 4.0, ESX 4.0, VM 7.0 special features?
33) What is AAM? Where is it used? How do you start or stop through command prompt?
ANS) VMware-aam = HA.
VMware purchased the HA technology from Legato, who originally coined it as “Automated Availability Manager”.
34) Have you ever called VMWare support? Etc
35) Explain about Vsphere Licensing? License server?
36) How will you change the service console IP?
Note: ESX 4.0 Update 2 introduces a new tool that simplifies the process of creating or restoring networking in the ESX service console. For more information, see Configuring or restoring networking from the ESX service console using console-setup (1022078).
Changing settings from the physical or remote console connection
Changing the IP for the Service Console must be done from the physical console or through a remote console session. If you make changes through a network connection such as SSH, network connectivity to the Service Console disconnects because the Service Console’s network interface changes.
1.Run this command to set the IP address:
[root@server root]# esxcfg-vswif -i -n vswif0
where is the IP address and is the subnet mask.
Note: In this example, vswif0 is the Service Console adapter that is the interface to which you are applying the IP address change.
2.Open the /etc/hosts file with a text editor and modify it so that it reflects the correct IP address and hostname.
3.To change the default gateway address and the hostname, edit the /etc/sysconfig/network file and change the GATEWAY and HOSTNAME parameters to the proper values.
4.For the changes to take place, restart the network service with the command:
[root@server root]# service network restart
Note: If you are required to edit the hostname, then you must reboot the host.
Note: This command breaks any current network connections to the Service Console, but virtual machines continue to have network connection. If the ESX host is managed by VirtualCenter or vCenter Server, you may have to remove and re-add the host to the inventory. For more information, see ESX not working properly in VirtualCenter after IP address change (1005633).
Note: Making changes to IP and DNS server settings can have a negative impact on the normal operation of ESX/ESXi, particularly in HA clustered environments. For more information, see Identifying issues with and setting up name resolution on ESX/ESXi Server (1003735).
Note: If the changed IP does not persist across a reboot, try deleting and recreating the Service Console vswif management interface. For more information, see Recreating Service Console networking from the command line (1000266).
Changing the hostname without rebooting
To dynamically change the hostname, run the command:
[root@server root]# hostname newname
Note: This command creates a temporary hostname change. This change is lost when the system is rebooted.
Changing the DNS server settings
To change the DNS server settings, update the nameserver IPs and search domain in the /etc/resolv.conf file.
Changing settings in VMware vSphere or Infrastructure Client
To change the hostname, domain, DNS servers, and default gateway in VMware vSphere or Infrastructure Client:
1.Highlight the ESX host and click the Configuration tab.
2.Click DNS and Routing.
3.Click Properties.
4.To change the hostname, domain, and DNS servers, click the DNS Configuration tab and enter the appropriate values.
Note: Disable VMware High Availability if you do not want virtual machines to failover during the hostname IP change.
5.To change the default gateway, click the Routing tab and enter the appropriate value.
6.Reboot the ESX host for the changes to take effect .
7.Reconnect the ESX host to vCenter Server with the new IP address.
Generating new certificates for the ESX host
The ESX host generates certificates the first time the system is started. Under certain circumstances, it might be required to force the host to generate new certificates. Typically new certificates only need to be generated if the hostname has been changed or the certificates have been deleted accidentally.
Each time you restart the vmware-hostd process, the mgmt-vmware script searches for existing certificate files ( rui.crt and rui.key). If the files cannot be found, new certificate files are generated.
To generate new certificates:
1.Put the host into Maintenance Mode.
2.In the directory /etc/vmware/ssl, back up any existing certificates by renaming them with these commands:
[root@server root]# mv /etc/vmware/ssl/rui.crt /etc/vmware/ssl/orig.rui.crt
[root@server root]# mv /etc/vmware/ssl/rui.key /etc/vmware/ssl/orig.rui.key
Note: If you are regenerating certificates because you accidentally deleted them, you do not have to rename them.
3.Reboot your host to allow it to begin using the new certificate, or restart the host services:
a.Restart hostd, using this command:
service mgmt-vmware restart
b.Restart vmkauthd, using this command:
service vmware-vmkauthd restart
4.Exit Maintenance Mode.
5.Confirm that the ESX host successfully generated new certificates by running this command and comparing the time stamps of the new certificate files with orig.rui.crt and orig.rui.key:
[root@server root]# ls -la /etc/vmware/ssl/rui*
Notes:
•Disable VMware High Availability if you do not want virtual machines to failover during the hostname IP change. If you are using vSphere 4.x you can just disable host monitoring in the HA settings.
•For related information, see Verifying ESX Server host networking configuration on the service console (1003796).
•You may be required to regenerate your SSL certificate. For more information, see Replacing or Regenerating an SSL Certificate for the Management Interface (1843).
•You are required to edit files on an ESX host. For more information, see Editing files on an ESX host using vi or nano (1020302).
•For information on replacing VirtualCenter Server ceritificates, see:
?Replacing VirtualCenter Server Certificates in Virtual Infrastructure 3
?Replacing VirtualCenter Server Certificates in vSphere 4
•The iSCSI Qualified Name used for iSCSI storage configuration is based on the hostname of the ESX host. If you change the hostname of the ESX host, ensure to review your iSCSI software initiator configuration. For more information on iSCSI troubleshooting, see Configuring and troubleshooting basic software iSCSI setup (1008083).
•For more information on changing the hostname, see Changing the name of an ESX host (1010821).
37) What’s the difference between ESX and ESXi?
38) What’s the difference between ESX 3.5 and ESX 4.0?
39) P2V Prt Number and Log file location?
TCP/IP Ports Required by VMware Converter
Table lists the ports Converter uses in the conversion process.
If your VirtualCenter Servers or ESX Servers are configured to listen on port 905, you will have to make
adjustments accordingly.
Communication Paths | Port
Converter application to remote physical machine | 445 and 139
Converter application to VirtualCenter Server | 902
Converter application to ESX Server 3.x | 902
Physical machine to VirtualCenter Server | 902
Physical machine to ESX Server 3.x | 902
Log File Locations:
UFAD logs:
%WINDIR%\Temp\vmware-temp\vmware-converter*
%WINDIR%\vmware-temp\vmware-converter* (in Windows NT)
Client logs:
%TEMP%\vmware-temp\vmware-client*

Send these in to support using File > Export Logs. For Converter Boot CD, map a network drive using the
network configuration tool (see Chapter 5, “Using the Converter Boot CD for Local Cold Cloning,” on page 37)
and use File > Export Logs

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