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VMware vCenter Server Appliance 5.1 (vCSA) Limitations

One of my favorite developments by VMware is the vCenter Server Virtual Appliance (vCSA) as I want to get rid of as much Windows Machines as possible in my environments. It also simplifies the administration because you do not to have to configure and patch another operating system. Unfortunately the vCSA is really rare in a production environment. In my opinion this is caused by the fact that the vCenter Server Appliance always has some limitations, which are often not completely understood.

Here are the limitations from the current version of VMware vCenter Server Appliance 5.1:Read More »VMware vCenter Server Appliance 5.1 (vCSA) Limitations

Nagios Check: VMware Virtual Machine Snapshot Age

As you might know it is a VMware best practice to keep snapshots for more than 24-72 hours. To monitor aged snapshots using Nagios i created a perl script that checks the whole vCenter for snapshots. The script throws a warning because i think this is still not a critical event. You can easily change the behavior by changing the exit code to 2.

I set the allowed age to 3 days, based on VMware  KB1025279. You can change the maximum allowed age to whatever you want by changing the subroutine check_age.

You can use this script as source for Nagios. There is also a multiple line output which allows you to see the virtual machine that caused the warning event.Read More »Nagios Check: VMware Virtual Machine Snapshot Age

Free Active Directory for your VMware Lab using Samba 4 (UCS 3.1)

Are you looking for a free alternative for a Windows based Active Directory controller? The recently published version 4 allows Samba to be an Active Directory domain controller, participating fully in a Windows Active Directory Domain. This is a great replacement for a Windows based AD Controller if you want to use Active Directory features in your Lab.

With the new release of the Univention Corporate Server 3.1 (UCS) you can deploy your Samba 4 Controller in a few minutes. The quickest way is to use the preinstalled VMware Images.Read More »Free Active Directory for your VMware Lab using Samba 4 (UCS 3.1)

VMware Support Upload Script

Tired from uploading VMware Support logs to VMware tickets i wanted to do this job with just one click. I wrote a script which can be used to upload files to VMwares FTP server quite fast. The script uses the FTPupload howto from KB1008525. Please open a ticket with VMware prior to start this script, to get a support request number. You need the ticketnumber to run the script.Read More »VMware Support Upload Script

First Look: Veeam Backup & Replication 6.1

Veeam has recently published a new version of its Backup Software: Veeam Backup & Replication Version 6.1. The last version I evaluated was around 2010. Back then it was definitely a great tool, but as my main environment is Linux based and veeam was lacking some features there I decided to stick with my old backup strategy.

Today I want to renew my view and test their current product. Please note that this review is focused on backing up Linux guests. Nevertheless if you are a Windows Admin, feel free to read on if you want to know why it sometimes could be a pain to backup Linux guests with VMware.

The first thing I am going to do is to just download the software and check out how intuitive the installation and configuration process will be. Later I am going to dig deeper into the functionality.

Part 1 – First Backup Job
Before we can start the installation we need to download the software. Downloading is very easy as veeam only provides one package, so the only decision is whether you need the 32-bit or the 64-bit version. Go to www.veam.com > Products > Veeam Backup & Replication > Download and select your architecture. You need to register to download anything, but it is free and quite quick.

Read More »First Look: Veeam Backup & Replication 6.1