Tag Archives: VMware

VMware vSphere 5.5: Installing vCenter results in “Error 29102. Unable to Contact Lookup Service. Check vm_ssoreg.log in the system temporary folder for more details.”

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Recently I have been re-installing my home lab due to the 60 day trial license coming to an end and discovered something odd. During the installation of vCenter 5.5 on Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 I came across the following error:

VMware_vSphere_5.5_Installing_vCenter_results_in_Error_29102_Unable_to_Contact_Lookup_Service_1.png

The solution was rather simple but not straight forward to work out initially. My internal network ID for VMware hosts is 10.10.0.0/24 but what I was missing is the corresponding rDNS zone in my DNS (reverse). The minute I have created 0.10.10.in-addr-arpa the error went away. What makes this even stranger is the fact I have to redo my lab every 60 days and this is the first time this error has come up!

VMware vCenter 5.5 Update 2 Service Health displays Storage Monitoring Service Initialization Failed

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Don’t we all just love to see everything in green/healthy/hunky dory state when it comes to service availability? I know I am definitely one of those that do (OCD and all that..)

If you’re running VMware vCenter 5.5 Update 2 you might find, upon checking, that VMware vCenter Storage Monitoring Service has an alert with a message stating that Service Initialization Failed:

VMware_vCenter_5.5_Update_2_Service_Health_displays_Storage_Monitoring_Service_service_initialization_failed_1

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ESXi 5.5 update 3b (build 3248547) host fails to connect to vCenter 5.5 U2 after patching…

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To cut this long story short – if you have vCenter Server 5.5 update 2 you will have issues if you patch your hosts to the latest available patch level for ESXi. VMware disabled SSLv3 (POODLE and all that..) in update 3b for ESXi meaning if your vCenter Server is running update 2 you won’t be able to connect until the vCenter is patched to update 3b as well. Running ESXi hosts on update 3b and having vCenter Server on update 2 is normally a perfectly valid configuration but because SSLv3 got disabled as part of this process the connectivity is broken.

Example error messages in vpxd log file when patched host in being added to vCenter Server include:

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Renaming Local Site on VMware SRM 5.8 from its default value

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Pretty silly thing to do really – I have left the default site name when installing SRM 5.8 so it has FQDN of my vCenter box instead of a proper name:

Renaming_Local_Site_on_VMware_SRM_5.8_from_its_default_value__1

From vSphere Web Client point of view having FQDN in there is not ideal as well as introducing confusion which site is which (live vs. recovery):

Renaming_Local_Site_on_VMware_SRM_5.8_from_its_default_value__2

To get the site name changed we need to edit vmware-dr.xml which lives (by default) in the following location:

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Windows Server 2012 R2 Explorer Reports Wrong Disk Size?!?

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I have been struggling to fix this rather weird disk space issue for quite some time now. Basically, underlying thin provisioned disk on vSphere 5.5 was extended by additional 5GB (from 125 to 130GB) and expanded using Disk Management from within the OS as per the normal routine. No problems thus far BUT Explorer in Windows Server 2012 R2 was not reporting the increased space and was still showing the 125GB total size! How odd. Here is the screenshot for illustration purposes showing Disk Management and Windows Explorer both reporting different values!

Windows_Server_2012_R2_Explorer_Reports_Wrong_Disk_Size_1

I must have done the disk space increase from vSphere and extension from the guest OS hundreds of times and never had any real issues. There are tons of potential solutions to this problem, quite a few posted here:

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vCenter Multi-Hypervisor Manager connection fails with “A problem occurred while connecting to the vCenter Multi-Hypervisor Manager service. The server fault ‘NoPermission’ had no message.”

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I thought that it would be a good idea to finally install vCenter Multi-Hypervisor Manager to manage my 3rd party hosts i.e. Hyper-V – at least that was the initial idea anyway since I don’t have enough time to mess around with SCVMM for now. Multi-Hypervisor Manager server installation was pretty straight forward and so was the client. With plugin enabled in vSphere C# client I was able to see the relevant icon in my client:

vCenter_Multi-Hypervisor_Manager_fails_with_A_problem_occurred_while_connecting_to_the_vCenter_Multi-Hypervisor_Manager_service_The_server_fault_NoPermission_had_no_message_4

but the next screen was not so pretty:

vCenter_Multi-Hypervisor_Manager_fails_with_A_problem_occurred_while_connecting_to_the_vCenter_Multi-Hypervisor_Manager_service_The_server_fault_NoPermission_had_no_message_1

Basically ‘NoPermission’ but I can access vCenter server just fine since I have all the relevant rights! It turns out Multi-Hypervisor Manager assigns the default ‘Admin’ role only to the user specified during the installation of MHM and no one else. During the installation of MHM you have to specify the account that will be made administrator of the third-party hosts inventory:

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Virtual machine customisation fails with error “A specified parameter was not correct. spec.identity.userData.computerName”.

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Today I was testing some new Windows Server 2012 templates and noticed something rather odd. Basically my costomisations would cause the deployments from template to fail for no real reason. Error message that came up was:

Virtual_machine_customisation_fails_with_error_A_specified_parameter_was_not_correct._spec.identity.userData.computerName_1

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Cancelling stuck VMware Tools install on vSphere 5.5

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(Not so) happy Monday morning!

First request of the day – one of the VM’s was unresponsive and had to be rebooted (RDP was hanging and no incoming connections were allowed). I’m thinking not a big deal so VM was rebooted but I have noticed that VMware Tools were not up to date so thought why not update them at the same time? This is where it all started to go wrong… At this point VM was not responding (which I knew about) AND VMware Tools install was totally stuck on some random percentage in Recent Tasks. Great start.

Few things I have tried before finding the proper solution:

  • Trying to cancel the install by right clicking on Initiated VMware Tools Install or Upgrade in Recent Tasks didn’t yield any results. Option was greyed out.

  • Powering off the VM was unsuccessful as well. Again, options to Power Off, Reset etc. were greyed out.

  • Ejecting the .iso file that’s responsible for VMware Tools install didn’t help since the .iso was not connected.

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    VMware vSphere 5 virtual machine thin provisioned disk size greyed out!

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    Here’s something rather interesting. I was about to increase size of thin provisioned disk on one of my VM’s and was greeted with my usual option (as expected) being greyed out (not so expected!) I certainly haven’t seen that before. Picture for illustration purposes showing what I’m on about:

    VMware_virtual_machine_thin_provisioned_disk_size_greyed_out!_1

    I’m thinking since there is -000001.vmdk file present I must be running off a snapshot that prevents me from resizing the disk (which would make sense..) Another picture showing Snapshot Manager window:

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    Creating a host profile from an ESXi host results in “argument of type NoneType is not iterable” error message.

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    Here’s an interesting one – all of a sudden my hosts started showing as “Unknown” on Host Profile Compliance screen. Error message that I was presented with reads as – “Unexpected error checking compliance: argument of type NoneType is not iterable”. Screenshot to complete the picture:

    Creating_a_host_profile_from_an_ESXi_host_results_in_argument_of_type_NoneType_is_not_iterable_error_message_2

    Trying to create a new host profile from the affected host was not successful either with similar error message:

    Creating_a_host_profile_from_an_ESXi_host_results_in_argument_of_type_NoneType_is_not_iterable_error_message_1
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