VMware ESXi 6. 5 Update 1 Release Notes. The earlier known issues are grouped as follows. You cannot apply an SSH root user key from an ESXi 6. ESXi 6. 5. In ESXi 6. SSH keys is deprecated. However, the deprecated version was set to 6. As a result, you cannot apply the root user SSH key for a host profile 6. Workaround To be able to use a host profile to configure the SSH key for the root user, you must create a new 6. Applying the host profile by rebooting the target stateless ESXi host results with an invalid file path error message. When you first extract a host profile from a stateless host, edit it to create a new role with user input for the password policy and with enabled stateless caching, then attach that profile to the host, update the password for the user and the role in the configuration, rebooting the host to apply the host profile fails with ERROR Engine. Module Apply. Host. Config. Exception Invalid file path. Workaround You must apply the host profile directly to the host Stop the Auto Deploy service and reboot the host. After the host boots, verify that the local user and role are present on the host. Log in with the credentials provided in the configuration. Booting a stateless host by using Auto Deploy may result with failure. Delay of about 1. Auto Deploy when the following conditions are met A local DNS caching is enabled for a stateless host by adding the resolve parameter in the hosts entry hosts files resolve dns. The hosts files resolve dns is part of the Photon etcnsswitch. A NIC on the host gets its IP from DHCP and the same IP is not present in the DNS server. Workaround In the NICs configuration file of the v. Center Server, which gets the IP from the DHCP, set the Use. VMware NSX is the SDDC technology of the future. What ESX was once for Servers, NSX is now for Networks. I highly encourage everyone to make yourselves familiar with. In what instances would a VMware shop prefer an OVA file over an OVF package VMware is the global leader in virtualization software, providing desktop and server virtualization products for virtual infrastructure solutions. I am trying to create a power shell script to return results of snapshots, create snapshots, and delete snapshots. I can run all of these commands in the. Ova Vmware Powercli Connect' title='Ova Vmware Powercli Connect' />DNS key to false DHCP Use. DNSfalse. A stateless ESXi host might remain in maintenance mode when you deploy it using v. Sphere Auto Deploy and the v. Sphere Distributed Switch property is specified in the Host Profile When you deploy a stateless ESXi host using v. Sphere Auto Deploy and the v. Sphere Distributed Switch property is specified in the host profile, the host enters maintenance mode while the host profile is applied. If the process fails, the host profile might not be applied and the host might not exit maintenance mode. Ova Vmware Powercli' title='Ova Vmware Powercli' />Ova Vmware Powercli CommandsWorkaround On the host profile page, manually remove the deployed host from maintenance mode and remediate it. Performing remediation to apply the Host Profile settings on i. SCSI enabled cluster results with error in the v. Sphere Web Client. After you attach a host profile extracted from a host configured with large number of LUNs to a cluster comprised of i. SCSI enabled hosts, and you remediate that cluster, the remediation process results in the following erro message in the v. Sphere Web Client interface Apply host profile operation in batch failed. Transport. Protocol. Exception org. apache. Client. Protocol. Exception You can also see an error in the vpxd. T1. 2 0. 6 0. 1. Z error vpxd7. FF1. FE8. FB7. 00 Originator6. Soap. Adapter length of HTTP request body exceeds configured maximum 2. When you remediate one cluster, the v. Sphere Web Client makes one API request with data for all hosts in that cluster. This request exceeds the maximum HTTP request size supported by VPXD. Workaround Perform the following steps Select fewer hosts in the Remediate wizard. Only after remediation completes, start another wizard for the remaining hosts. The Auto Deploy option is not present in the v. Sphere Web Client after an upgrade or migration of the v. Center Server system from 5. After upgrading or migrating the v. Center Server system with version 5. Auto Deploy option is not present in the Configure Settings screen of the v. Sphere Web Client. The v. Sphere Auto Deploy service together with the Image Builder service are installed but not started automatically. Workaround Perform the following steps Start the Image Builder service manually. Log out and log back in to the v. Sphere Web Client. On the v. Sphere Web Client Home page, navigate to the v. Center Server system and select Configure Settings to locate the Auto Deploy service. If you attach more than 6. If you extract a Host Profile from the reference host and attach more than 6. Center Server system becomes heavily loaded and the time for generating a host specific answer file exceeds the time limit of 1. The customization page loads with an error The query execution timed out because the backend property provider took more than 1. Workaround Attach the host profile to the cluster or the host without generating the customization data Right click the cluster or the host and select Host Profiles Attach Host Profile. Select the profile you want to attach. Select the Skip Customizations check box. The v. Sphere Web Client interface does not call the Retrieve. Host. Customizations. For. Profile to generate customization data. Populate the customization data Right click the host profile attached to the cluster or the host and select Export Host Customizations. This generates a CSV file with customization entry for each host. Fill in the customization data in the CSV file. Right click the host profile, select Edit Host Customizations and import the CSV file. Click Finish to save the customization data. Auto deploy with PXE boot of ESXi installer on Intel XL7. GB network adapters results with failure. When you use the preboot execution environment to boot the ESXi installer from the Intel XL7. ESXi image fails before the control is being transferred to the ESXi kernel. You get the following error Decompressed MD5 0. Fatal error 3. 4Unexpected EOF serial log Booting through VMware Auto. Deploy. Machine attributes. Power. Edge R7. 30. Dell System. oemstring50. C4. B7. E0. 88. 54. C6. 57. oemstring1. F9. 0B9. D0. CECE3. B5. A. oemstring1. XJRR5. 2. uuid4c. Dell Inc. Image Profile ESXi 6. VC Host None Bootloader VIB version 6. Scanning the local disk for cached image. If no image is found, the system will reboot in 2. The system on the disk is not stateless cached. Rebooting. Workaround None. Connection fails when a v. NIC is connected to a v. Sphere Standard Switch or a v. Sphere Distributed Switch with Network IO Control disabled. If a v. NIC is configured with reservation greater than 0 and you connect it to a v. Sphere Standard Switch or to a v. Sphere Distributed Switch with disabled network IO control, the connection fails with the following error message A specified parameter was not correct spec. Change. device. backing. Workaround None. Network becomes unavailable with full passthrough devices. If a native ntg. 3 driver is used on a passthrough Broadcom Gigabit Ethernet Adapter, the network connection will become unavailable. Workaround Run the ntg. Run the esxcli system module parameters set m ntg. Mode0 command. Reboot the host. Use the tg. 3 vmklinux driver as the default driver, instead of the native ntg. A user space RDMA application of a virtual machine fails to send or receive data. If a guest user space RDMA application uses Unreliable Datagram queue pairs and an IP based group ID to communicate with other virtual machines, the RDMA application fails to send or receive any data or work completion entries. Any work requests that are enqueued on the queue pairs are removed and not completed. Workaround None. Sphere VM Templates A Complete Guide. Mar 2. 01. 7 by Jason Fenech. Automation and Management. In this first installment from a 4 post series, Ill be introducing v. Sphere VM templates. The series kicks off by exploring the basics and ends with an automation example showing how Power. CLI is used to mass deploy VMs quickly and efficiently using templates and guest OS customization. Sphere 6. 5 is the platform referenced throughout this series. What is a VM template As the name suggests, a VM template is a blue print, baseline image or master copy of a generalized virtual machine. As you probably know, creating and configuring VMs, is a time consuming process. In this respect, deploying a VM from a template can drastically lower provisioning times and help you maintain standards templates can be readily configured to tally with the specifications demanded by your environment and organization. Theres also the option of having a library of Windows and Linux templates perpetually updated to the latest for easy provisioning. Guest OS customization GOSC, a symbiotic feature that allows you to automate template provisioning, is something Ill cover later on in the series. Note that a VM template differs from an OVFOVA template. The latter is used to import or export VMs using the OVF format. One question that regularly pops up is How does a VM clone differ from a VM template. Simply put, a clone is an independent copy of a VM taken at a specific point in time. It is an exact replica of the parent VM which is what ultimately makes cloning a bad provisioning choice due to IP conflicts, duplicate computer names and so on. A template on the other hand, is generic and left mostly unconfigured to facilitate both manual and automated provisioning. There are a few other subtleties you should be aware of. For example, you cannot power up a template or change settings save for the VM name and description. Youll encounter no such restrictions when using clones. Creating a basic template. Creating a template is a straight forward albeit laborious process. First, create the VM and install a guest OS as you would normally do. Depending on the intended use, install the required software packages and apply the latest product and OS patches. You should also delete all temporary and redundant files. Remove unused hardware from the VMs settings and configure the VM for optimal performance. Once all this is taken care of, simply power off the VM and convert it to a template. As per Fig. 1, the v. Sphere Web client provides two very similar options to this effect. Right clicking on a VM, gives you the options to either Convert to Template or Clone to Template. The significant difference is that with Convert to Template, the VM being converted must be powered off. The option is otherwise ghosted out. With cloning to template, the VM can be either on or off. In either case, a wizard will take you through a number of steps prior to converting or cloning a VM to a template. If you are using Content Libraries, you also have the option to Clone to Template in Library. Figure 1 Converting a VM to a template. Alternatively, you can use New Template Power. CLI cmdlet to convert a VM to a template. In the example shown in Fig. Ive created a template from an existing VM called Centos. Note that all the parameters supplied are mandatory. Figure 2 Using Power. Lenovo Fan Speed Control Windows 8 more. CLI to create a template. In v. Sphere client, templates are only displayed under the VMs and Templates view. The Get Template Power. CLI cmdlet replicates this. Figure 3 Templates displayed under v. Sphere Web Client. If you browse the datastore where a template resides, you will find a corresponding folder just like any other VM. The folder will contain all the files associated with any standard VM. The one exception is that the VM configuration file has a. Fig. 4. Figure 4 A template folder and its contents as listed in datastore browser. Just for the heck of it, I unregistered a template from inventory right click and Remove from Inventory, renamed the. VM. Surely enough, the resulting VM powered up with no apparent issues. This method is probably unsupported since the proper way to do this is to right click on a template and select Convert to Virtual Machine. However, you never know when this might come in handy. Preparing and converting a VM to a template. The process of finalizing a template is highly dependent on the VMs guest OS and the intended use. Most likely, the guest OS will be some flavor of Linux or Windows. To prepare a template, youd follow something along these lines 1 Create a bare VM with the required hardware resources. Power on the VM and access the BIOS. Press F2 while consoled to the VM and change the following a Main Menu. Set Legacy Diskette A to Disabled. This is disabled automatically when you delete the floppy drive while creating the VM Customize Hardware. Advanced Menu IO Device Configuration. Set Serial ports A and B and the Parallel port to Disabled. Set Floppy disk controller to Disabled. Boot Screen. Move the Hard Drive to the top of the list using the and keys assuming you want the VM to boot from the virtual hard drive. Press F1. 0 to save and exit. Figure 5 Changing a VMs BIOS settings. After youre done with the BIOS settings, using the v. Sphere Web client or otherwise, right click on the VM just created and a Delete the floppy drive, if still listed, along with other hardware you wont be needing. Figure 6 Deleting redundant hardware from a VMs settingsb Optional Configure the VM to automatically check and upgrade VMware Tools and synchronize the VMs guest OS time with the ESXi host. Figure 7 Setting a VM to check for VMware Tools and configuring it to time sync with its hostc Optional Configure the VM for CPU and RAM Hot Add which allows you to add CPU and memory resources to the VM while powered on. The Hot Add feature is supported on operating systems such as Windows Server 2. R2 or later. Note that the location of some settings may differ from whats shown depending on the v. Sphere client or version used. Figure 8 Adding hardware Hot Add capabilities to a VM4 When youre done configuring hardware, power on the VM and mount the guest OS ISO file. Install the Guest OS as youd normally do. Some common steps are listed below. These mostly apply to Windows templates but some equally apply to Linux. Set the correct time zone, date and time. Install VMware Tools Important. Install any software you want included in the VMs deployed from this template. Install any missing OS updates, software and Security patches. Use Windows Update for Windows OSes. For Linux, you can use something like yum update. Choose a strong administrator password and set it to never expire. Doing this ensures you wont get locked out of your VM. Yes, there are tools to unlock accounts and change passwords offline, but prevention is better than cure Using services. Audio and Wifi. For domain joined computers this can be handled via GPOs. Configure the network card to use DHCP and set the hostname to something generic such as Win. Centos. 6 template. Run msconfig to enabledisable startup items, change UAC settings, etc. When setting up a Windows 1. VM or template, use Task Manager instead to manage start up items. Clean up the OS use something like CCleaner or the Windows inbuilt Disk Cleanup. The following command is run from an administrative cmd prompt to reduce the size of Win.