VMware vRealize Log Insight is an easy to use virtual appliance that collaborates and manages real-time logs for you. Not only does it integrate nicely amongst VMware products, but it also has the ability to ingest logs from various other vendors such as Cisco, Netapp, Microsoft, Palo Alto, Solarwinds … via the use of content packs.

In this video tutorial, I walk you through the following VMware Log Insight topics:

VMware vRealize Log Insight Topics

1. Installing the virtual appliance
2. vRealize Log Insight setup wizard
3. Configuring vSphere Integration (ingesting events from vCenter server and ESXi hosts)
4. Interactive Analytics
5. Filtering Logs
6. Creating Alerts from Queries
7. Creating custom dashboards
8. Content Packs
9. System Monitor (Resources and Statistics)

VMware vRealize Log Insight Installation and Configuration

I came across this error message the other day when configuring a Veeam Replication job with separate virtual networks, which displayed “The given key was not present in the dictionary”

The error appeared within the Replication Job after selecting Separate Virtual Networks, and clicking Next until I got to the point where you select Source and Destination Networks.

Let’s take a look with a few screen shots.

Veeam Replication Job – The given key was not present in the dictionary

Within the Veeam Replication Job, I’ve selected “Separate virtual networks”

At step number 4 (Network), I have selected the source network successfully

When I click on Browse for the Target Network, and try to expand into the VMware ESXi host, the error message pops up “The given key was not present in the dictionary”

The issue is not actually with Veeam but with permissions on the distributed switch. A dedicated Veeam user called veeamrepl has been created (used specifically for Veeam Replication) along with the necessary role permissions and applied only to the port-group called Internal.

If we take a look at what permissions that have been applied to the distributed switch, we can see that we don’t have our veeamrepl user applied with any permissions and hence why we are getting the “The given key was not present in the dictionary” error.

To be able to add the veeamrepl user along with the appropriate permissions to the vmlab-dswitch we either have to apply the permission at the Datacenter level with the propagate setting enabled, or create a new Network folder and move the distributed switch into it. After moving the switch into the folder we can then apply the permission at the folder level (with the propagate setting enabled) which will then propagate down to the distributed switch.

Right click on the datacenter and select All vCenter Actions – New Network Folde

Now that we’ve created a folder called switches, we can select the manage tab followed by the Permissions button. Click on the green plus sign and add the user and role you wish to assign to your distributed switch

As you can see by clicking on the vmlab-dswitch, the veeamrepl account and its permissions have propagated down.

Now when we go back into the replication job and browse the target network, we can see the list of network available.

In this tutorial I will show you how to renewal a Netapp vserver certificate via the command line.

Netapp Vserver Certificate Renewal

Firstly we want to have a look at the certificate that is attached to our vserver called SVM1

::> security certificate show -vserver SVM1 -fields expiration,common-name,ca,serial

At the time of this post we can see that the certificate expiry date is well into the future. We will be deleting this certificate and re-creating a new one for this tutorial.

We are going to want to take note of the serial number on the certificate that we wish to delete. In the example above we can see that the serial number is 532655944DCB0

To delete the certificate we will type:

::> security certificate delete -vserver SVM1 -common-name SVM1 -ca SVM1 -type server -serial 532655944DCB0

You will be presented with asking for confirmation in deleting the certificate.

Once you have deleted the certificate we can recreate a new certificate by typing in the following command:

::> security certificate create -vserver SVM1 -common-name SVM1 -size 2048 -type server -country AU -expiry-days 1825 -hash function SHA256

Change the following command line options to suite your certificate, -common-name, -country, -expiry-days

Now that the new certificate has been created, you can type the following command to view its information:

::> security certificate show -vserver SVM1 -fields expiration,common-name,ca,serial

We can see in the screen shot above that the expiry date is now 2021

Netapp Vserver Certificate Check

Lastly we will associate this new certificate with our SVM. To do that we type in:

::> ssl modify -vserver SVM1 -server-enabled true

The next command will verify the ssl certificate on the vserver

::> ssl show -vserver SVM1

We upgraded a pair of Cisco Nexus 5K switches early last week which had been running a 7.0 release for a while. The switch pair was running beautifully and by that I mean no errors or discards on any interfaces.

However after we upgraded to 7.1 (recommended Cisco release), boom we saw within our solarwinds monitoring, huge amounts of input packet discards on particular busy interfaces. I thought this was a software bug so I logged a ticket with Cisco TAC and started troubleshooting straight away.

Cisco TAC explained that within the 7.1 release there have been some changes to how the switch handles queueing, that the VOQ (virtual output queuing) queues had changed.

Cisco Nexus egress congestion

As an example, if I have a flow of packets with input (ingress) to ports 1-5 and that flow is destinated to output (egress) to port 10. If port 10’s egress queue becomes congested you will most probably see input discards amongst future ingress packets. The diagram below illustrates this.

Cisco Nexus – How to identify egress congestion

The easy part of this is that we can identify the input discards by typing in the following command:

SWITCH1# show interfaces | i discard|Description

However, the tricky part on the Cisco Nexus 5500 series switches is how do we identify which outbound port is congested ?

Firstly determine how many asics your switch has by typing in the command below and looking at the car column.

SWITCH1# sh hardware internal carmel all-ports

We can see from the output that we have asics 0, 1, 2 and 3. We don’t count the sup modules.

Now that we have established how many asics we have, we now need to look at the output congestions on each asic. Best way to identify congested outbound ports would be at a busy network period. The command to check for outbound congestion is:

The command to check for outbound congestion on asic 0 is:

SWITCH1# show hardware internal carmel asic 0 registers match .*STA.*frh.* | i eg

A value of 0 means no congestion. Any other value means there is congestion on this interface.

The table above does not keep a record of outbound congestion for very long, so unfortunately you need to keep repeating the above command and record down how many instances of congestion you see on the interface. In the above example if we continue to see a number other than 0 on the addr_1 interface we can conclude that this interface is suffering from egress congestion.

To link car_bm_STA_frh_eg_addr_1 to a physical interface we need to return to the previous table and look for the asic number followed by the addr_ number.

The interface with outbound congestion is eth1/2

You will need to repeat the command, show hardware internal carmel asic 0 registers match .*STA.*frh.* | i eg for asic 1, 2 and 3 as well.

To resolve the outbound congestion, you will need to add more links to the end device to increase the outbound queues.

This process is only for the Cisco Nexus 5500 series switches. For 5600 and 9000 series, it is much easier as you are able to look into the VOQ’s

VMware has released vCloud Director 8.2 for Service Providers which now includes a new HTML5 interface for NSX Edge advanced gateway.

As I take a look at this in the lab I did notice that something was missing from the HTML5 interface which is actually called the Tenant Portal.

vCloud NSX Edge Gateway Firewall Log Setting

In the original vCloud Edge Gateway firewall rules we had the option to enable logging on a per-rule basis:

However in the new Edge Gateway HTML5 interface (Tenant Portal), we don’t have that option:

If you originally created the firewall rule with logging enabled before converting the Edge Gateway to an Advanced Edge Gateway, then the logging configuration will remain enabled.

When you create a new rule or if you want to disable logging on a particular rule, currently there is no way to do this in the tenant portal HTML5 interface.

vCloud Edge Advanced Gateway and Enabling Firewall Logs

Good news is that if I need to enable or disable logging of a firewall rule, I can simply do it via the VMware vCenter Vsphere Web Client.

Browse to Networking & Security – NSX Edges and double clieck on the Edge Gateway that you wish to modify. Click on the Manage tab followed by Firewall.

If you don’t see the Log column, select what looks like a calendar next to the search field on the right hand side and tick the Log option

Now that we have the Log column enabled we can click on the plus symbol and change the Log option to Log or Do no log.

I’ve done some tests whereby I change the rule settings via the vCloud Edge Gateway interface, and I can confirm that the Log settings stick.

If you are running VMware vCenter 6.5 Build Number 4944578 or below and you try to deploy an OVF template via the vSphere Web interface, you will most likely experience this error:

“This version of vCenter Server does not support Deploy OVF Template using this version of vSphere Client. To Deploy OVF Template, login with version 6.5.0.0 of vSphere Web Client”

VMware vCenter 6.5 cannot deploy OVF Template

After a bit of research within the VMware communities, I came across a post that states, upgrading to vCenter 6.5.0b resolves this issue. I entered into the vServer Server Appliance admin interface, checked for updates, and installed updated version 6.5.0 Build 5178943 (vCenter 6.5.0b)

VMware vCenter 6.5.0b can now deploy OVF templates via the Web Interface

Now, when I right click within the left navigator window and select Deploy OVF template, I no longer get the above error message and can successfully deploy an OVF template.

One of the components that the VMware vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) is missing, is the ability to automatically backup. In VCSA 6.5, VMware has introduced a backup feature within the appliance admin portal, however what do we do with VCSA 6 ?

Within the VMware KB 2091961 it states “Use of image-based backup and restore is the only solution supported for performing a full, secondary appliance restore” (in my case I’m using Veeam Backup and Replication), the vPostgres database creates almost real-time logs and that in the event of a disaster, you will just need to restore the VCSA virtual machine and vPostgress will replay up to the most recent log file. This will allow you to restore the entire virtual machine as well as the vPostgress Database.

This link points to the VMware documentation on the requirements for backing up VMware vCenter Server 6

However what if you want to also backup the database and have the ability to restore it to the same appliance the backup was taken from ? Maybe you don’t need to spend the time to restore a full image, maybe you just need a restore of the database which could potentially reduce downtime.

Backing up the VMware VCSA vPostgress Database with a script

I had a requirement to backup the vPostgress database within VCSA and copy the backup file to a cifs share. So I wrote a custom script that you can upload to the VCSA appliance that will do the following:

Create a backup_results.txt file (this is where we will store the results of the backup, i.e. successful or failed)

• Backup the VCSA database
• Rename the backup_results.txt and VCSA backup file to append today’s date
• Mount a cifs share
• Copy the backup_results.txt and VCSA backup file to the cifs share
• Unmount the cifs share
• Delete backup files on the VCSA older than 3 days

Pre-Requisites for backing up VMware VCSA vPostgress Database

Before we start we need to download the backup script files from VMware – KB 2091961 and download my linux script from my GitHub page

Once we have the files downloaded to your pc (2091961_linux_backup_restore.zip, go ahead and unzip this file), you will then have a script file for backup, restore and my linux script file:

• backup_lin.py
• restore_lin.py
• vcsa6-backups.sh

Uploading Files to VMware VCSA

Next, we’ll need to make sure we have SSH enabled on our VCSA as we’ll be using WinSCP to upload the script files. To enable SSH login to the VCSA admin site https://:5480 click on Access. If your SSH login is enabled you don’t need to do anything. Otherwise, click on Edit and enable SSH login.

Open up WinSCP and create an SFTP connection to your VCSA appliance. Before you click ok on the new connection, click the advanced button and under Environment select SFTP. In the field SFTP Server enter in:

shell /usr/lib64/ssh/sftp-server

Click ok and then proceed to login to the VCSA.

Upload the backup_lin.py, restore_lin.py and vcsa6-backups.sh files to /tmp on the VCSA

The VMware VCSA Shell

We can now close WinSCP and open up a Putty SSH session to your VCSA appliance. Within the putty window, login to your VCSA and then type “shell.set –enabled True” – this will enable the shell. On the next line type “shell”

Once we’re in the shell, we’ll type the following commands:

• mkdir /backups (Creates a backup folder)
• mv /tmp/backup_lin.py /backups (move script file to the backups directory)
• mv /tmp/restore_lin.py /backups (move script file to the backups directory)
• mv /tmp/vcsa6-backups.sh /backups (move script file to the backups directory)
• chmod 700 /backups/backup_lin.py (Give file execute permission)
• chmod 700 /backups/restore_lin.py (Give file execute permission)
• chmod 700 /backups/vcsa6-backups.sh (Give file execute permission)

Now if we list the /backups directory we should see the script files in green:

The VMware VCSA backup script

Below is the contents of the vcsa6-backups.sh script file. The lines that you will need to change to suit your environment are:

Line 18 Change the following values:

• username=vcloud8backup (your cifs server username)
• password=’p@ssw0rd’ (your cifs server password)
• //192.168.1.4/vcloud8vcenter-backups (your cifs server and share path)

#Purpose = Backup VMware VCSA Database
#Created on 28-3-2017
#Author = David Rodriguez
#Version 1.0

#Create Results File
date &> /backups/backup_results.txt

#Create Backup File
python /backups/backup_lin.py -f /backups/vcsa_backup_VCDB.bak >> backup_results.txt 2>&1

#Rename Files
mv /backups/backup_results.txt /backups/backup_results_$(date +"%d-%m-%y").txt
mv /backups/vcsa_backup_VCDB.bak /backups/vcsa_backup_VCDB_$(date +"%d-%m-%y").bak >> backup_results_$(date +"%d-%m-%y").txt 2>&1

#Mount cifs share
mkdir /mnt/cifs-backups >> backup_results_$(date +"%d-%m-%y").txt 2>&1
mount -t cifs -o username=vcloud8backup,password='p@ssw0rd' //192.168.1.4/vcloud8vcenter-backups /mnt/cifs-backups >> backup_results_$(date +"%d-%m-%y").txt 2>&1

#Copy Files
cp -v /backups/backup_results_$(date +"%d-%m-%y").txt /mnt/cifs-backups >> backup_results_$(date +"%d-%m-%y").txt 2>&1
cp -v /backups/vcsa_backup_VCDB_$(date +"%d-%m-%y").bak /mnt/cifs-backups >> backup_results_$(date +"%d-%m-%y").txt 2>&1

#Unmount Cifs Share
umount /mnt/cifs-backups
rm -rf /mnt/cifs-backups

#Remove Backup File
find /backups/ -name '*.txt' -mtime +3 -exec rm {} ;
find /backups/ -name '*.bak' -mtime +3 -exec rm {} ;

To execute the script type in:

./vcsa6-backups.sh

After the script executes type in ls -l, which will list the contents of the directory. Within the directory you can see the backup file as well as the results file.

Type in cat backup_results_29-03-17.txt to display the backup results.

Now i’ll have a look at my cifs share to check that the backup file as well as the text file copied over successfully

Restoring VMware VCSA

You can restore the VMware VCSA by simply restoring a full image backup with your backup software of choice

OR

To restore the VMware VCSA Database only:

• The database must be restored to the same VCSA appliance as to which the backup was taken.
• Ensure your VCSA is powered on and enter into the shell once again.
• Use WinSCP to upload the latest backup file into the /backups directory.
• Within the VCSA shell type the following:
  • service vmware-vpxd stop
  • service vmware-vdcs stop
• We’ll use the restore script to restore the vPostgress database:
  • python /backups/restore_lin.py -f /backups/backup_VCDB_29-03-17.bak

Once the restore process has finished, you can go ahead and start the services:

• service vmware-vpxd start
• service vmware-vdcs start

Within VMware vCloud Director you have the option of creating additional secondary subnets within an External Network. You may do this to introduce additional networks to your vCloud infrastructure while re-utilizing the same External Network vlan

In my lab, I have an example of an External Network called External-Net-2 which resides on vlan 5. Within vlan 5 I’m using 2 subnets, 192.168.2.0/24 and 192.168.105.0/24

VMware vCloud Director Network Specification

The network specifications are easy enough to Add, by simply clicking on the Add button and filling in such details as default gateway, network mask, primary and secondary DNS, DNS suffix and a Static IP Pool

The issue here is that there is no button to delete Network Specifications. Going through the vCloud Manual it states that there is a delete button, as you can see in the screen shot above there is no delete button.

Below is a screen shot from the VMware vCloud Director 8.2 Administrator’s Guide

I proceeded to log a support ticket with VMware, as I didn’t want to delete the whole external network. Below I will highlight the workaround to successfully delete a network specification.

How to delete a VMware vCloud Director Network Specification

First up, take a backup of the vCloud Director database as well as a snapshot of the vCloud Director Cell. The workaround below is for Microsoft SQL.

Within vCloud Director disable the network specification you wish to delete by unticking the Enabled box.

Open up Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio and at the top left-hand corner click on New Query. Within the new Query window type in the following, replacing vcloud8 with the name of your vCloud Director Database:

select * from [vcloud8].[dbo].[ip_scope]

In the Results below the query, look for the Network Specification that you wish to delete. Right click on the ID field and select copy

Create a New Query by clicking on the New Query button at the top left-hand side of the screen. Once the new Query window opens up type in the following, replacing vcloud8 with your vCloud Director Database name and replacing 0x28540EB526824B56A335A1EC535B9E65 with the ID from your network specification that you copied in the last step:

delete from [vcloud8].[dbo].[ip_scope] where id = 0x28540EB526824B56A335A1EC535B9E65

Click on the Execute button and the subnet will be deleted from the network specification. You will see the query result displaying 1 row(s) affected.

If we return to vCloud Director – Manage & Monitor – Cloud Resources – External Networks and enter into the properties of the External Network followed by Network Specification. You will see that the subnet we removed no longer exists.

I ran into an issue recently with vCloud Director 8.20.0.5070630 while trying to import a virtual machine from vCenter into a vApp. The Import VM into vApp window appeared, I filled out all the info and when I click on OK, vCloud produced a class java.lang.NullPointerException error.

VMware vCloud Director Cannot Import VM to vApp Fix

I did some investigation within the communities and blog sites but could not find anything. I also checked through the vCloud logs (/opt/vmware/vcloud-director/logs/vcloud-container-info.log) where I found the errors.

After not being able to resolve the issue, I had no choice but to log a VMware support ticket. It turns out that this is a known issue and that a hot-fix patch was being worked on, which was to be  released within the next day or 2.

The VMware vCloud Director hot-fix patch updates your build version to 8.2.0.5301496 and resolves the following issues:

• VCD logs showing up false errors
• Import VM to existing vApp fails
• Failure to deploy a VM in compute fabric does not do the appropriate cleanup
• Slowness observed in workflow ‘opening VM Properties’ and ‘opening the Add to My Cloud’ dialogues
• ClusterComputeResourcePropertyAggregatorImpl logging currently excessive
• All context Help links to the User’s Guide are broken in 8.20

How to install the patch to VMware vCloud Director

First up, we are going to shutdown the vCloud Director cell. Once the cell is shutdown we’ll take a backup of the database as well as a VM snapshot of the vCloud Director cell.

Power on the vCloud Director cell

Once the cell has started (monitor the startup process by viewing the cell.log – tail -f /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/logs/cell.log), we then put the cell into maintenance mode by typing the following command:

/opt/vmware/vcloud-director/bin/cell-management-tool -u administrator cell --shutdown

You will be prompted to enter in the administration password, as you can see in the screenshot below

Click on Help – About we can see that my current version of vCloud Director is 8.20.0.5070630

Download the bin file from VMware. I got the download link from the VMware engineer I was working with, unfortunately the download link expired in 2 days, so if you need the same patch, best bet would be to log a support ticket with VMware.

Once the file is downloaded, you can use WinSCP to upload the file to /tmp

Next, we’ll make the patch file eXecutable by typing:

cd /tmp
chmod + x vmware-vcloud-director-distribution-8.20.0-5301963.bin

Once it has the eXecute permission we can type in:

./vmware-vcloud-director-distribution-8.20.0-5301963.bin

The upgrade wizard will start.

Type Y to begin the upgrade.

The next part of the patch upgrade willupgrade the database schema. Ensure you have a backup of your database before running the next command. Type in:

/opt/vmware/vcloud-director/bin/upgrade

When prompted, type Y

Another reminder to backup your database before continuing. Type Y

Once the database schema upgrade is complete you can start the vCloud Director services by typing Y. Highlighted in yellow are the previous commands

Monitor the cell.log, by typing in:

tail -f /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/logs/cell.log

Once you see either Successfully handled all queued events, or Successfully verified transfer spooling area:

Your vCloud Director server is ready to serve clients

To view the new vCloud Director build number, log into vCloud and click on Help – About. You can see the new build number is now 8.20.0.5301496

Now I am able to import a virtual machine from vCenter into an existing vCloud Director vApp.

By now most people have heard about the evolution of cryptocurrency, including bitcoin, ethereum, dash, litecoin, just to name a few. A lot of people are making good profits trading and mining these coins as their popularity increases.

I want to show you what I’m currently doing with Hashflare cloud mining that is helping me generate over $4000 USD a year on an initial $1080 USD investment mining bitcoin.

There’s 2 ways to mine cryptocurrency coins:

• Purchase your own hardware and run the system at home
  • This includes motherboard, power supply, graphics cards (which do the bulk of processing and are always in short supply or you pay a big premium), cpu, memory and hard drive
  • If you are a techie, it’s definitely fun to build and watch your creation generate you income over time
  • however you need to take into consideration, time, initial hardware costs, cooling, and the biggest factor – electricity costs
• Buy hashing power from a mining company such as Hashflare
  • Start mining either bitcoin, dash, ethereum or zec as soon as you purchase hashing power
  • Saves you a lot of time compared to purchasing your own hardware
  • There are small fee’s for maintenance and withdrawal of coins which can be expected however I find these do not cut into your profits that bad and you are still making excellent profits.

Being a techie I went through the first option, which I learned a lot from. But now I just concentrate on buying hashing power from Hashflare

Here is a great example of why I purchase hashing power as opposed to increasing gpu compute power on the hardware rig running at home. If I want to increase my hashing rate on my hardware I need to purchase another graphics cards which includes: purchase, delivery, install and tuning (tuning involves re-flashing the bios). This could take anywhere from a few days to multiple weeks, depending on delivery.

However with Hashflare, if I decide I want more hash power, I simply login, purchase the additional hash power, and it is immediately in effect. I’m not wasting any time in mining bitcoin and generating more revenue.

I’m not saying that running your own hardware is wrong, many people do run their own hardware and make a great amount of money doing so. I’ve had experience in both and I much prefer cloud mining.

Let’s move onto Hashflare, how it works and how to get you going with your first bitcoin hashing.

Purchasing your first hashing power with Hashflare

Firstly browse to Hashflare by clicking this link https://hashflare.io/r/B0CEC24 This link will use my affiliate code, which means I referred you to Hashflare. Click on the register menu at the top right side and create yourself an account

After you have created your account and logged in, you will be presented with your dashboard. At this stage all the hashrates will be at 0 and it is now time to purchase you’re first hashing power.

On the left-hand side menu at the top, click on Buy Hashrate. You will be presented with 4 options:

• SHA-256 is for mining bitcoin (SHA-256 is an open-ended contract, meaning that as long as your hashrate is profitable minus maintenance fee’s, it will continue to mine. Otherwise the hash rate is removed)
• Scrypt is for mining litecoin which then gets converted to bitcoin (Scrypt is an open-ended contract, meaning that as long as your hashrate is profitable minus maintenance fee’s, it will continue to mine. Otherwise the hash rate is removed)
• ETHASH is for mining Ethereum (ETHASH is a 1 year contract, meaning after 1 year your hash rate will be removed)
• X11 is for mining Dash (X11 is a 1 year contract, meaning after 1 year your hash rate will be removed)

In our example we will click on SHA-256 for bitcoin mining and move the slider up to 9TH/s (please note you do not need to start on 9TH/s you can start with what you can afford at the time). Remember this example is showing you how I turned my $1080 USD investment into over $4000 USD a year return based on today’s prices (Bitcoin currently at $4100 USD 13th August 2017)

If you want to start off smaller, here are some example prices:

• 500GH/s = $60 USD
• 1TH/s = $120 USD (if you want to purchase 2TH/s it will be $240 USD and so on)

Once you decide on your hashing power and click proceed, you will be presented with a select payment option:

I usually do all my purchases with credit card, however you can also purchase by transferring bitcoin.

One thing to note if you are a new user and adding a credit card to the system for the first time, Hashflare will not allow you to withdraw your coins earning for 2 weeks. They say due to security reasons and checks.

Next thing we’ll want to do is setup our wallet addresses. It’s important to do this right away as a new user because each time you change a wallet address there is another 2 week wait on withdrawals. Your wallet is where you can send your bitcoin to outside of Hashflare.

If you don’t already have a bitcoin wallet you can use the following sites to create your own address:

• Exodus – https://www.exodus.io/ (I personally use this one as I can keep multiple coins in the one place and it also gives me the ability to exchange coins, i.e. bitcoin to ethereum. This is a software application that runs on your computer)
• Coinpayments – https://www.coinpayments.net (An online wallet that supports a huge range of cryptocurrency)
• BTC.com – https://wallet.btc.com (A simple online wallet that supports bitcoin)

Once you have your wallet, you will want to get your bitcoin wallet address which looks something like this 32qQntBaLgjveFeraqyqyjLviPXqSX52UW and paste it into your Hashflare wallet settings and press save.

Now that we have everything setup, you are already mining your first bitcoins. Payouts happen every 24 hours.

If we click on Dashboard on the left-hand side menu, the day after purchasing your hashpower, you will see a Revenue Forecast based on the amount of hashpower you currently have and on what the bitcoin price is on the day.

I worked my way up to 9TH/s by purchasing 1 to 3TH/s when I had some spare cash, and as of today 13th August 2017 this is my projected revenue forecast with a bitcoin price of $4100

Mining Difficulty

Over time cryptocurrency can increase in mining difficulty, which means that you need more hashing power to mine. So keep in mind that over time you will probably want to increase your mining power to keep up with mining difficulty.

The best way to determine if you need to increase your hashing power is by keep a watch on the bitcoin mining difficulty charts like this one on www.coinwarz.com

Summary

In summary my initial investment of $1080 USD will take about 3 months to get my return on investment back and everything after that will be profit. Additionally, each time the bitcoin price rises, so does my Revenue Forecast.

Below is the latest BTC graph from the beginning of 2017 till today 13th August 2017 showing the increase in BTC price. As you can see it is definitely on the way up and many have predicted that it could reach $5000 by the end of the year

Some cautions in regards to Crypto Currency

Cryptocurrency can be quite volatile, it’s not uncommon to see such coins as bitcoin move plus or minus a few hundred dollars a day and in some cases even hours. However the outlook for bitcoin looks very promising from all the articles floating around, so I have decided to take this path and invest some money into cloud mining, which is basically on autopilot while I continue working my day job.

Disclaimer: This article is not financial advice or a guarantee

Within VMware vCloud Director it is possible to create custom system roles to create different levels of access for administrators. Such roles might include Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3.

If you are running a version of VMware vCloud Director 8.2 previous to build number 5439762 (vmware-vcloud-director-distribution-8.20.0-5515092.bin), you will find that system users with any other role besides System Administrator, will not be able to view any Organizations.

For Example if you have the following role structure setup:

VMware vCloud Director Custom System Roles Fix

The good news is that after you upgrade to VMware vCloud Director 8.2 build number 5439762 or later, the issue is fixed and you can then see all Organizations.

Below is an exert from the VMware vCloud Director Release Notes highlighting the fix

Since my last twitter post on Netapp Ontap 9.3, a few people have asked me how I’m running the latest version on the simulator without the Ontap 9.3 simulator being out. It’s actually quite simple and I’ll walk you through the steps below.

NetApp Ontap 9.3 Simulator

First download the Ontap 9.2 Simulator from the Netapp Support site

Download HTTP File Server Tool

I have installed my Ontap 9.2 Simulator within VMware.

Once the Simulator has been deployed, disks initialized and you have run through the cluster wizard, we can start with the upgrade.

Upgrading NetApp Ontap 9.2 to Ontap 9.3

Launch the HTTP File Server Tool and drag the 93RC1_q_image.tgz into the HTTP File Server Tool. HTTP File Server Tool should be reachable or on the same network subnet as your Ontap 9.2 management IP’s. Your HTTP File Server Tool should look like this:

Now that we have the URL for our Ontap 9.3 image we can login into our Ontap 9.2 Simulator with either SSH or console and begin the upgrade process.

::> cluster image package get -url http://192.168.1.110:8080/93RC1_q_image.tgz

::> cluster image package show-repository

::> cluster image validate -version 9.3RC1

::> cluster image update -version 9.3RC1 (Select yes to proceed when asked. The upgrade will be disruptive due to the fact that I only have 1 node within the cluster)

::> cluster image show-update-progress (Displays update progress)

::> cluster image show-update-history (Displays status of the upgrade as successful or failed, previous version and updated version)

Once the node has been updated, you will be able to login to the new looking Ontap 9.3 System Manager.

As you can see in the screenshot below, the navigation bar has been moved from the top to the left side.

Netapp scsi.cmd.checkCondition Warning

A quick blog post to highlight an EMS event that we have encountered after upgrading to Ontap 9.3 whereby the EMS throws up the following warning:

scsi.cmd.checkCondition: Disk device xx.xx.x: Check Condition: CDB 0x28:xxxxxxxx:xxxx: Sense Data SCSI:aborted command

We have been working with support changing about 5 disks in total, and in the end, changing to Toshiba disks resolved the issue.

Our disks were sent back to the lab for analysis where a software issue has been identified. New disk firmware will be released shortly to resolve these warnings.

I have been advised that the alerts can safely be ignored.

I recently tweeted out about the awesome boot menu option that NetApp has introduced in Ontap 9.x that saves a tonne of time called – Configure Advanced Drive Partitioning. In this post I will show you what steps to go through when using option 9 – Configure Advanced Drive Partitioning

NetApp Configure Advanced Drive Partitioning

WARNING: Using this option will perform a complete wipe of the data on your system!!!  Unless you are performing this step on a brand new system or a system where you have migrated data off and is completely empty, you should not use this option.

If your system is an AFF, the Advanced Drive Partitioning will partition each disk with 3 partitions. Each disk partition will look like: R+D+D (1 x R = Root Partition, 2 x D = Data Partition)

If your system is non-AFF consisting of SAS drives, the Advanced Drive Partitioning will partition the disks with 2 partitions. Each disk partition will look like: R+D (1 x R = Root Partition, 1 x D = Data Partition)

In the example below, we are drive partitioning a non-AFF system

Steps to configure NetApp Advanced Drive Partitioning

Now that we have the warning out of the way let’s get started with Advanced Drive Partitioning:

Make sure you are either directly connected to the console or connected to the console via the service-processor.

When you see “Press Ctrl-C for Boot Menu” press Ctrl-C

After a few more lines of text, you will see the Boot Menu. You will want to press option 9 on node 1 (leave node 2 at the boot menu for now)

Within the Advanced Drive Partitioning menu, you need to select option 9a first. This will unpartition all disks and remove their ownership. Previously in Ontap 8.x we had to remove aggregates, unpartition disks and remove ownership manually. If you do not select option 9a first and try to jump to option 9b or 9c you will get the following warning:

It is mandatory to perform 9a before choosing 9b or 9c, please return back to the menu and perform 9a.

The system will go through and perform the following: destroy aggregates, unpartition drives and remove ownership. This is the output after selecting option 9a:

########## WARNING ##########

This is a disruptive operation and will result in the
loss of all filesystem data. Before proceeding further,
make sure that:
1) This option (9a) has been executed or will be executed
on the HA partner node, prior to reinitializing either
system in the HA-pair.
2) The HA partner node is currently in a halted state or
at the LOADER prompt.

Do you still want to continue (yes/no)? yes

Destroying existing aggregates..

Unpartitioning disks…

No disk found to be eligible for unpartitioning.

Removing disk ownership…
disk remove_ownership: No disks belonging to this host were found.

Disk ownership successfully removed.
bootarg.bootmenu.selection is ||

Now is a good time to perform the same steps on node 2 (Go to node 2 console and select option 9a)

Back on node 1 console, after deleting aggregates, removing partitions and disk ownership you are brought back to the Advanced Drive Partitioning Menu. You have the option of initializing the system with partitioned disks or unpartitioned disks.

Initializing node 1 with partitioned disks will cause the node to take ownership of all odd numbered disk drives. Initializing node 2 with partitioned disks will cause node 2 to take ownership of all even numbered disk drives.

Select option 9b and then type yes to continue, you will see the following output:

########## WARNING ##########

All configuration data will be deleted and the node will be
initialized with partitioned disks. Existing disk partitions must
be removed from all disks (9a) attached to this node and
its HA partner. The HA partner must be halted at the boot menu
or already initialized with partitioned disks (9b).

Do you still want to continue (yes/no)? yes

AdpInit: This system will now reboot to perform wipeclean.
bootarg.bootmenu.selection is |wipeconfig|
Terminated
.
Skipped backing up /var file system to boot device.
Uptime: 14m42s
System rebooting…

Wipe filer procedure requested.

AutoPartAFFDetermination: total_disks: 24 num_internal_disks: 24 num_ssds: 0 num_unknowns: 0 num_mediator_disks: 0 num_not_supported: 0 all_ssd? false
9b
AutoPartDiskScan: CandidateDisks: 24 UsableDisks: 12 LocalDisks: 0 UnusableSSDs: 0 PartitionMethod: Root+Data
AutoPartDistributionCheck: LocalExpected: 12 PartnerExpected: 12 CandidateDisks: 24 LocalAssigned: 0 NotYetAssigned: 24
AutoPartRootConfig: root d+p+s=8+2+2, root aggr size=112958795 (blks) per 8 disks, root partition size=14127145 (blks)
AutoPartRequestedDiskAssignment: DiskMaxCount: 12 CksumType: block Pool: 0 RPM: 10000 DiskType: SAS
AutoPartInfo: Disks must be from internal shelf
AdpInit: Root will be created with 12 disks with configuration as (8d+2p+2s) using disks of type (SAS).

bootarg.bootmenu.selection is |4|
AdpInit: System will now perform initialization using option 4
BOOTMGR: The system has 0 disks assigned whereas it needs 12 to boot, will try to assign the required number.
Sanown: Considering disks only from internal shelf

sanown_assign_disk_helper: Assigned disk 0a.00.23
sanown_assign_disk_helper: Assigned disk 0a.00.7
sanown_assign_disk_helper: Assigned disk 0a.00.13
sanown_assign_disk_helper: Assigned disk 0a.00.21
sanown_assign_disk_helper: Assigned disk 0a.00.15
sanown_assign_disk_helper: Assigned disk 0a.00.19
sanown_assign_disk_helper: Assigned disk 0a.00.11
sanown_assign_disk_helper: Assigned disk 0a.00.1
sanown_assign_disk_helper: Assigned disk 0a.00.17
sanown_assign_disk_helper: Assigned disk 0a.00.5
sanown_assign_disk_helper: Assigned disk 0a.00.9
sanown_assign_disk_helper: Assigned disk 0a.00.3

BOOTMGR: already_assigned=0, min_to_boot=12, num_assigned=12

You will then be presented with the cluster setup wizard. Now, you can go to the node 2 console and perform the same Advanced Drive Partitioning option (9b)

Below is the output of disk assigements for node 2:

sanown_assign_disk_helper: Assigned disk 0a.00.0
sanown_assign_disk_helper: Assigned disk 0a.00.6
sanown_assign_disk_helper: Assigned disk 0a.00.2
sanown_assign_disk_helper: Assigned disk 0a.00.22
sanown_assign_disk_helper: Assigned disk 0a.00.12
sanown_assign_disk_helper: Assigned disk 0a.00.16
sanown_assign_disk_helper: Assigned disk 0a.00.14
sanown_assign_disk_helper: Assigned disk 0a.00.8
sanown_assign_disk_helper: Assigned disk 0a.00.10
sanown_assign_disk_helper: Assigned disk 0a.00.20
sanown_assign_disk_helper: Assigned disk 0a.00.18
sanown_assign_disk_helper: Assigned disk 0a.00.4
BOOTMGR: already_assigned=0, min_to_boot=12, num_assigned=12

That’s it. I think all up it takes less than 10 mins to perform a full Advanced Drive Partitioning setup, whereas before with all the manual steps would of taken close to 30mins +

VMworld 2018 Day 1 What’s New

VMworld 2018 Day 1 started off with some exciting announcements from Pat Gelsinger that I want to highlight in this post.

Announcements at VMworld 2018 Day 1

VMware Cloud on AWS goodies

• Amazon Web Services is now available in Sydney, Australia. This allows VMware Cloud on AWS to now be deployed in the Sydney region
• VMware vSAN utilizing Amazon EBS (Elastic Block Storage) and new Amazon EC2 R5.metal instances (Still in Preview as of August 2018)
• New 3 host minimum SDDC environment. Limited promotion, offering 3-host SDDC for the price of 2
• Hybrid Cloud Extension (HCX) – now combines VMware Cloud Motion with vSphere Replication to allow an easier migration path between on-premise and VMware Cloud on AWS. Also allows for bulk VM migrations to VMware Cloud on AWS (Still in Preview as of August 2018)
• Elastic DRS maintains an evenly balanced workload across all hosts in the cluster. It provides recomendations to scale in or scale out (add or remove hosts) based on the workloads and thresholds
• VMware Cloud on AWS core service now includes a migration assessment and cost comparison tool – Cost Insight
• Customers who purchase the new vSphere Platinum with 5 or more CPU’s will be entitled to $10,000 of  VMware Cloud on AWS credits.
• Customers can now configure the number of physical CPU cores per host (Still in Preview as of August 2018)
• The Cloud Gateway virtual appliance, provides a single view which allows for management of both on-premise and VMware Cloud on AWS resouces (Still in Preview as of August 2018)
• VMware NSX allows for Micro-Segmentation of east-west traffic within VMware Cloud on AWS (Still in Preview as of August 2018)
• VMware Real-Time Log analysis is now included free of charge within VMware Cloud on AWS core service
• Read more at https://cloud.vmware.com
• VMware Cloud on AWS Road Map

Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)

• RDS will be available from within either VMware Cloud on AWS or on-premise VMware vSphere
• Read More on Techcrunch

Project Magna

• Focuses on learning an application behavior in which it can optimize the application and underlying infrastructure to provide greater performance and efficiencies
• Leverages AI / ML to self-optimize virtual infrastructure
• The reference today for Project Magna was self-driving datacenter
• Read more at – taking to new exciting level at VMworld 2018

Project Dimension

• Partnership with Lenovo and Dell EMC that will provide on-premise SDDC hardware-as-a-service cloud
• VMware takes care of managing Infrastructure, monitoring, troubleshooting, patching and maintenance
• The Hardware for Project Dimension is pre-configured and shipped out to the customer
• Discover more on Project Dimension at – Introducing Project Dimension

VMware vSphere Platinum

• vSphere Platinum includes VMware Appdefence which leverages Machine Learning to provider better security for applications
• Appdefence learns the intended application behaviour, locks compute and network using the knowledge of the application, adapts to continuous change and lastly shrinks the attack surface with little operational effort
• In combination with Appdefence and NS
• Check out the following link for more on vSphere Platinum – Introducing vSphere Platinum

VMware vSphere 6.7 Update 1

• The release date for vSphere 6.7 Update 1 will be towards the end of 2018
• Provides an upgrade path from vSphere 6.5 Update 2
• Within vSphere 6.7 Update 1 HTML 5 interface, all administrative functions are now included, such as Update Manager
• You can now migrate from an external PSC to embedded PSC with the vCenter Server Converge Tool located on the VCSA ISO
• Update 1 makes it easier to create a cluster, add hosts and configure the hosts with identical settings using a new workflow called Cluster Quickstart
• Enhanced Content Library allows importing OVA templates from local storage or an HTTPS source
• VMware vSphere vMotion for NVIDIA Quadro vDWS vGPU powered VM’s
• Find out more about vSphere 6.7 Update 1 by clicking here – Under the Hood vSphere 6.7 Update 1

VMware Cloud Operations

• Addresses the challenges of multi-cloud environments by delivering a SaaS based multi-cloud platform for automation, analytics, cost managemnt and compliance.
• Read more on VMware Cloud Operations by clicking here – New Cloud Operations Services

Cloud Health

• To simplify operations across native public clouds VMware intends to acquire CloudHealth
• Read about he press release here – VMware announces intent to acquire CloudHealth

ESXi for ARM

• Allows ESXi to run on 64-bit ARM devices at the edge
• We got a glimpse of this running on VMware ESXi 6.8.2
• Read more about ESXi for ARM based processors here – The Register – ESXi on ARM

Workspace One

• Managing End-User Computing (EUC) with simple patch management that gives nearly 100% guarantee your future patches will not cause an issue with your current applications
• Workspace One provides cross-platform modern management with insights and automation
• Read more on Workspace One here – Workspace One Digital Workspace

Project Concord

• An Open-source infrastructure project for digital consensus and smart contract execution for enterprise blockchain
• Find out more about Project Concrod here – Technology Innovations at VMworld 2018

NetApp HCI and VMware Private Cloud

• NetApp HCI with VMware vSphere collaborate together to bring you an automated out of the box Private Cloud build driven by NetApp Deployment Engine (NDE) This solution has been completely validated and the full validated design can be found by clicking here. Read the full blog post on VMware Private Cloud with NetApp HCI – VMware Private Cloud and NetApp HCI partnering for operational efficiencies
• Introducing the new NetApp H610S 1RU storage expansion node that can be used to increase storage within either your HCI or Solid Fire deployments. Containing 12 x lightning fast NVMe SSD drives per node along with 25Gb network port connectivity. A super dense storage unit that is sure to blow your mind on performance. Read the full blog post here – Storage Expansion for NetApp HCI and Solidfire

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How to update vCenter 6.7 Appliance to Update 1

VMware vCenter 6.7 Update 1 has been release 2 days ago. Update 1 brings new features to vCenter, includes some security patches, and lastly fixes a few previous issues.

The complete list of improvements and fixes can be found within the vCenter 6.7 Update 1 release notes by clicking here

Before attempting to update vCenter 6.7, please ensure you have taken a backup or at least shut down the vCenter VM and take a snapshot before proceeding.

vCenter 6.7 Appliance Update 1 – Appliance Management URL Update

Today I attempted to update my VCSA 6.7 server to update 1. I logged into the appliance management site, clicked on update, check updates and selected Check CD ROM + URL. This would then send a request out to the default repository URL to see if any updates were available. Unfortunately, no updates came back. I’m sure VMware will fix this soon

I then proceeded onto the next option which was checking the online patch repository manually.

vCenter 6.7 Appliance Update 1 – Manual Download and Update

To check the patch repository manually you can open up a browser and enter in the URL https://my.vmware.com/group/vmware/patch#search

Within the above page, choose VC in the Select a Product drop down list, followed by 6.7.0 in the next drop down list. You can leave All Severities and All Categories, then click on Search.

We can see the first entry is vCenter 6.7 Update 1. Click on Download and save the ISO file to your PC

Once the ISO file is downloaded we need to mount the ISO file to the DVD drive of the vCenter server. If your server is physical you can either use your out-of-band server management to mount the ISO, or burn the ISO image to a DVD and physically insert it into the DVD drive. Or, if you are running your vCenter 6.7 server as a virtual machine like I am in my lab, you can right click on the virtual machine and select open console. You will want to launch the VMware Remote Console.

Within the Remote Console, click on the VMRC menu, select Removable Devices, CD/DVD drive 1 and click on Connect to Disk Image File (iso)

Browse to where you saved your vCenter 6.7 Update 1 Patch ISO, select it and click on open

Now that the ISO file is mounted, we can return to our vCenter 6.7 Appliance Management interface, click on update, Check Updates and select CD-ROM. The system will query the DVD drive for any updates and display them under Available Updates. As you can see in the screen shot below, it has found a new update – version 6.7.0.20000

We can run the Pre-Update checks to ensure everything is ok before proceeding. Pre-Update checks have come back successful so we can click on Stage and Install.

Accept the end user license agreement

Optionally you can join the VMware’s Customer Experience Improvement Program

Next, you must acknowledge that you have taken a backup of your vCenter 6.7 Server. Once you click Finish the update begins

This next window displays the Update 1 Installation Progress

Once the installation completes, the appliance reboots. When you log back into your Appliance Management site, you will see that you vCenter 6.7 server is now at version 6.7.0.20000 with Build Number 10244745

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Upgrade vCenter Server 6.5 to vCenter 6.7

With the release of vSphere 6.7, quite a few people have asked: “What is the safest way to upgrade vCenter to this new release ?”. Within this video tutorial, I walk you through step-by-step, how to upgrade your vCenter 6.5 server with embedded platform services controller to vCenter server 6.7 Update 1.

vCenter 6.5 and vCenter 6.7 are both vCenter Server Appliances (VCSA). My source vCenter 6.5 server is with update 2 and I will be upgrading to vCenter 6.7 Update 1.

This tutorial is performed in my lab. As a best practice, I would highly recommend testing out any upgrade procedure in a lab environment before proceeding to upgrade a production environment.

The upgrade process is quite simple, however, there are a few things that you can do to ensure that your upgrade is successful. It is also extremely important that you have taken backups and are able to roll-back in the case of an upgrade failure. I will cover all this in my video below.

vCenter 6.5 to vCenter 6.7 Upgrade Topics Covered

Within this video tutorial, I cover the following 6 topics:

1. 5 steps to follow for a successful vCenter upgrade
2. Backing up your vCenter Server
3. Backing up your vSphere Distributed Switch Config
4. vCenter Upgrade Stage 1 – Deploying the new appliance
5. vCenter Upgrade Stage 2 – Upgrading the source vCenter
6. Check vCenter version and build numbers

If you are looking for a tutorial on how to perform a fresh installation of VMware vCenter 6.7 or ESXi 6.7, please follow my other video tutorials directly below:

• VMware ESXi 6.7 Install and Configuration
• VMware vCenter Server Appliance 6.7 (VCSA) Install and Configure

Don’t forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel and never miss a Video: https://bit.ly/SysadminTutorialsSubscribe

How to Upgrade vCenter 6.5 to vCenter 6.7 Update 1

The post How To Successfully Upgrade vCenter Server 6.5 to vCenter 6.7 appeared first on SYSADMINTUTORIALS IT TECHNOLOGY BLOG.

Within this video tutorial, I guide you through how to upgrade an ESXi 6.5 host to ESXi 6.7. Within my lab I have 2 x ESXi 6.5 Update 2 hosts managed by vCenter 6.7 Update 1. The first host I will upgrade using VMware Update Manager, the second host I will upgrade via the CLI.

Upgrade VMware ESXi 6.5 to ESXi 6.7

First up I start by downloading the two upgrade files needed for this tutorial. You can find the direct link to these files below:

• VMware vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi ISO) image (Includes VMware Tools) 6.7 Update 1
• VMware vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi) Offline Bundle 6.7

Once the above files have been downloaded, I head on over to Update Manager where I use the ESXi 6.7 ISO image to upgrade our first host (the first host is named nsx-a-esxi1.vmlab.local).

In order to upgrade our second ESXi host, we will require two tools, Putty and WinSCP. You can find the download links below:

• WinSCP
• Putty

Putty is used for establishing an SSH session to host number 2 (the second host is named nsx-a-esxi2.vmlab.local). WinSCP is used to uploads files from my local server to the ESXi host.

Once the file is uploaded, I perform a CLI upgrade which upgrades this host to ESXi 6.7. I then head back to VMware Update Manager where I install the latest Critical and Non-Critical patches.

How to Upgrade VMware ESXi 6.5 to ESXi 6.7

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Today I wanted to bring you a quick video to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Thank you to everyone for your support in 2018 and I look forward to bringing you more video tutorials in 2019

With that being said, I would like to demonstrate the new VMware vCenter 6.7 Update 1 Dark Theme, what it looks like and how to switch to it from the default white theme. It’s very simple to switch to the new theme and back again, and I think you will all be quite impressed with the new theme colours.

Let us know what you think by leaving a comment below, do you prefer the original white theme or the new dark theme ?

How To Switch To the New vCenter 6.7 Dark Theme

For more VMware vSphere 6.7 Tutorials click here

The post How To Use The New vCenter 6.7 Update 1 Dark Theme appeared first on SYSADMINTUTORIALS IT TECHNOLOGY BLOG.

I came across this error the other day in my lab and luckily there is a quick fix for it so I could proceed to backup my VMware VCSA server

When I tried to perform a manual backup within VCSA 6.7, I was presented with the following error:

Invalid vCenter Server Status: All required services are not up! Stopped services: ‘analytics, statsmonitor, eam’.

To resolve this error message we must login to the VCSA CLI. You can do this by using SSH (with a tool like Putty), enter in your username and password, and dropping into the shell. In VCSA 6.7 you simply type shell.

Within the shell you can have a look at the status of your running and stopped vcenter services by typing:

# service-control –status

You will see that the analytics, statsmonitor and eam service’s are not running.

To start the services you can simply type:

# service-control –start vmware-analytics

# service-control –start vmware-statsmonitor

# service-control –start vmware-eam

Now that we have started all the necessary services we can return to the VCSA admin page and head back to the backup page.

If we start the backup job again, we will see that it begins to perform the manual vcenter backup

The post VMware VCSA 6.7 Backup Error Invalid vCenter Server Status appeared first on SYSADMINTUTORIALS IT TECHNOLOGY BLOG.