Category: VMWare

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VMWare: How to Set ESXi Sytem Time Using NTP

Once we have set the system and hardware clocks via the CLI, we can move on to set ESXi sytem time using NTP on the vSphere Client:
This is very easily achieved by following these steps from the VMware knowledge base:
  1. Connect to the ESX/ESXi host using the vSphere Client.
  2. Select a host in the inventory.
  3. Click the Configuration tab.
  4. Click Time Configuration.
  5. Click Properties.
  6. Click Options.
  7. Click NTP Settings.
  8. Click Add.
  9. Enter the NTP Server name. For example, pool.ntp.org.

    Note: When entering the multiple NTP Server names, use a comma (,) followed by a space ( ) between the entries.

  10. Click OK.
  11. Click the General tab.
  12. Click Start automatically under Startup Policy.

    Note: It is recommended to set the time manually prior to starting the service.

  13. Click Start and click OK.
  14. Click OK to exit.

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VMWare: Connect a USB Device to a VM in ESXi

Connect a USB Device to a VM in ESXi

This article describes how to connect a USB device to a vm in ESXi – for example a storage device, camera, USB handset etc. etc. Whilst previously not possible, since ESXi 5.0 this is now reality, much to the relief of many, many people!

1. Add a VM USB Controller

Firstly, your VM needs to have a USB controller; this is added as standard to most new virtual machines but if one is not present then we need to add it – open your VM settings and click the “Add” button:

Connect a USB Device to a VM in ESXi

Choose “USB Controller” and click “Next”; when prompted for the controller type, choose “EHCI+UHCI” for best compatibility or “xHCI” for USB 3.0 support. Note: xHCI USB 3.0 is only supported with Linux VMs currently – see this documentation for further details.

Connect a USB Device to a VM in ESXi

Once complete, you should see something akin to the following in your VM properties:

Connect a USB Device to a VM in ESXi

Excellent! Now let’s add a USB device to our VM:

2. Add a USB Device to the VM

Insert a USB device into one of the ports on your ESXi host. For this example I have used a Sandisk storage device. Open your VM machine properties and once again, click on “Add Hardware.” This time, choose “USB Device”: if your device has been correctly recognised by your ESXi host then it will show up on the next screen:

Connect a USB Device to a VM in ESXi     —–>       Connect a USB Device to a VM in ESXi

Click “Next,” “Finish” and lastly “OK” to complete the reconfiguration of the VM. Congratulations! Your USB device is now added.

3. Mount the Storage Device (*nix Only)

If you have just added a storage device to a Windows VM then you should see it pop up in explorer shortly. If you are on Linux / Unix / FreeBSD etc then you will need to mount your drive. Firstly we will need to find out what ID it has been assigned by the operating system – the easiest way to do this is to check the last entries in “dmesg” after adding the device:


[1546647.937025] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 10 using ehci_hcd
[1546648.363146] usb 1-1: New USB device found, idVendor=0781, idProduct=5408
[1546648.363152] usb 1-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[1546648.363157] usb 1-1: Product: U3 Titanium
[1546648.363160] usb 1-1: Manufacturer: SanDisk Corporation
[1546648.363164] usb 1-1: SerialNumber: 000015E96A63058A
[1546648.364943] scsi11 : usb-storage 1-1:1.0
[1546649.369282] scsi 11:0:0:0: Direct-Access SanDisk U3 Titanium 3.21 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2
[1546649.373306] scsi 11:0:0:1: CD-ROM SanDisk U3 Titanium 3.21 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2
[1546649.374503] sd 11:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg5 type 0
[1546649.399562] sd 11:0:0:0: [sde] 8015505 512-byte logical blocks: (4.10 GB/3.82 GiB)
[1546649.403475] sr1: scsi3-mmc drive: 8x/40x writer xa/form2 cdda tray
[1546649.403817] sr 11:0:0:1: Attached scsi CD-ROM sr1
[1546649.404505] sr 11:0:0:1: Attached scsi generic sg6 type 5
[1546649.417867] sd 11:0:0:0: [sde] Write Protect is off
[1546649.417873] sd 11:0:0:0: [sde] Mode Sense: 03 00 00 00
[1546649.422634] sd 11:0:0:0: [sde] No Caching mode page present
[1546649.422800] sd 11:0:0:0: [sde] Assuming drive cache: write through
[1546649.451967] sd 11:0:0:0: [sde] No Caching mode page present
[1546649.452074] sd 11:0:0:0: [sde] Assuming drive cache: write through
[1546649.480289] sde: sde1
[1546649.506074] sd 11:0:0:0: [sde] No Caching mode page present
[1546649.506184] sd 11:0:0:0: [sde] Assuming drive cache: write through
[1546649.506332] sd 11:0:0:0: [sde] Attached SCSI removable disk

The most relevant part is the line reading “[1546649.480289] sde: sde1” – this tells us that the disk has been assigned the descriptor “sde” and the single partition on it “sde1“.

From here we can do a standard *nix mount command and access it normally – in this example I am mounting the newly added sde1 device to a pre-existing directory “/mnt/usb”:

root@merlin:~# mount /dev/sde1 /mnt/usb

We can check the operation has been successful by issuing the “mount” command on its own

root@merlin:~# mount
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
...
...
...
/dev/sde1 on /mnt/usb type vfat (rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=cp437,iocharset=utf8,shortname=mixed,errors=remount-ro)

Job done! If this has been of interest to you, check out some of the other articles in the VMWare category!

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f5 VE on ESXi: “The requested media for interface 1.1 is invalid.”

This article addresses the following error: “The requested media for interface 1.1 is invalid” when using the f5 virtual edition on ESXi.

Once possible reason for this error is mentioned under “Known Issues” in the release notes for 11.x e.g. : http://support.f5.com/kb/en-us/products/big-ip_ltm/releasenotes/product/relnote-ve-11-4-0.print.html

The entry reads as follows:

ID 352856 “If an SCF is migrated between BIG-IP VE running on non-similar hypervisor software, a validation error may prevent configuration loading. Loading the configuration … BIGpipe interface creation error: 01070318:3: “”The requested media for interface 1.1 is invalid.”” When this condition is encountered on BIG-IP Virtual Edition, configuration may be fixed for import by removing the entire line that contains “”media fixed”” statements for each interface.”

If however, like me, you cannot find the “media fixed” anywhere in your bigip_base.conf file then it is most likely to be an issue with the vmxnet3 network adapters that are deployed by default.

My management adapter, also vmxnet3, came up fine but the other 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3 interfaces remained uninitialised and any attempts to edit just threw the error above.

My solution was to change the adapter types in the .vmx file for the virtual machine:

1. Shut down the machine2. SSH / console into your ESXi host and change directory to /vmfs/volumes/<datastore_name>/<vm_directory>f5 VE on ESXi: "The requested media for interface 1.1 is invalid."

 

 

 

 

 

3. Use the “vi” command to edit the <your_vm>.vmx file and change the “vmxnet3” entries to “e1000.” Note: you can generally leave the first interface (management) as vmxnet3.

f5 VE on ESXi: "The requested media for interface 1.1 is invalid."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4. Save the file and start up your machine – you should now be able to initialise and edit your interfaces under “Network” -> “Interfaces”

Job done, let me know if this works / doesn’t work for you!

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