vlab Student Hand Out - Overview This document provides remote access information for people attending VMware vsphere Install, Configure Manage [v5.5] classes. Use the information in this document to connect to our remote access servers and to complete the labs in your vsphere Class. You will use Microsoft Terminal Services (with non-standard ports) to connect to the server pod. Your instructor will assign you to a dedicated server in the pod. Please use your assigned server only. Getting Started Connecting to your Remote Access Server Pod The server pod we will be using this week is: pod.vlab.pro I will be connecting using the following IP/Port combination: (Use this value for the Microsoft Terminal Services/RDP Client) My instructor assigned virtual ESXi host is: (NOTE: This will be either Student A or Student B) Domain account user name (with Administrator privileges): (Where # is your assigned Server Number above) Domain account user password (assigned by your instructor) Your generic VM Administrator password pod.vlab.pro:170 +# (# is your unique student number) Student A esxi1. Student B esxi2. VLAB\student# (# is your unique server number) Please launch the Microsoft Terminal Services client (Start > Run > mstsc.exe) from any Windows PC. At the Computer prompt, enter the IP/Port combination as specified above. Click the Options link and adjust your Display to 1280x1024 (or higher) with 16 bits of color. Note that 32 bits color will work but will slow down your remote session. Once you log in, please verify/correct the time in your student remote access VM. www.vlab.pro - VMware vsphere and View Lab Rentals - 1 -
Lab 1 Installing VMware vsphere GUI Student desktop password Location of installation software Setup language Your VMware ESXi host name ESXi host user name ESXi host root password (please ask your instructor) vsphere55 folder on your remote access desktop English Student A esxi1. Student B esxi2. root Task 1 - You are logging into your instructor-assigned remote access VM via RDP using a non-standard RDP port. See the Getting Started - Connecting to the Remote Server Pod section defined earlier in this handout for details. Task 2, Step 7 If you receive a message that some of the files in use need to be updated and see a reference to the VMware USB Arbitration Service, simply accept the default selection (Automatically close and attempt to restart applications) and click OK to continue. Lab 2 Configuring VMware ESXi Your ESXi host name ESXi host root password Student A esxi1. Student B esxi2. Preferred DNS server 192.168.20.2 VMkernel default gateway 192.168.20.1 Domain name / AD domain name Network Time Protocol (NTP) Server Domain administrator user name Domain administrator password 0.us.pool.ntp.org VLAB\student# (# is your unique server number assigned by your instructor) (Instructor assigned password for VLAB\student# account) Task 3, Step 4 The hostname should and other fields should already by correctly populated so no changes are required here. www.vlab.pro - VMware vsphere and View Lab Rentals - 2 -
Omit Task 3, Step 5. Task 3, Step 7 You won't see the IPv6 VMKernel gateway at all since IPv6 has been disabled on your ESXi host. Task 5, Step 4 Domain administrator username should be entered as student# (where '#' represents your student number) and the domain name is. NOTE: After completing Task 5, you might notice that you cannot log into your assigned ESXi host via the vsphere Client using your domain administrator username despite that you carried out Task 5 successfully. This is a known issue which has been observed numerous times. You will not need to log into your ESXi host directly with your assigned AD domain administrator account for the remainder of this course. This anomaly can be safely ignored. Lab 3 Working with Virtual Machines Your VMware ESXi host name ESXi host root password Virtual machine datastore Guest operating system version ISO images location Guest installation ISO Virtual machine administrator password Student A esxi1. Student B esxi2. Student A - esxi1-datastore1 Student B - esxi2-datastore1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 (32-bit) Student A - [esxi1-datastore1] ISOs/W2k3EE-auto.iso Student B - [esxi2-datastore1] ISOs/W2k3EE-auto.iso W2k3EE-auto.iso Task 2, Step 3 If you see an amber warning about the VM memory usage, you can safely ignore it. Task 4, Step 1 - Once you have completed your install and logged in to your new VM as Administrator with password, in the Manage your Server window, scroll down and click the Don't display this page at login check box and then dismiss the window. You may want to change your VM's screen resolution to at least 800x600 pixels (right click the desktop > Properties > Settings tab). Change the color depth to 16- www.vlab.pro - VMware vsphere and View Lab Rentals - 3 -
bits (it takes much less network bandwidth to update screens at 16 bits/pixel than the default 32bpp). Lab 4 Configuring VMware vcenter Server Appliance vcenter Server Appliance name https://vcenterapp-81.:5480 vcenter Server root password Preferred DNS server 192.168.20.2 vcenter Server license key Your ESXi host name ESXi host root password VMware vsphere Enterprise Plus Edition license key (please ask your instructor) Student A esxi1. Student B esxi2. (please ask your instructor) Unless otherwise stated, please use Google Chrome to connect to the vcenter Server Appliance for the duration of this class. In this lab, it is very important you wait for each step to complete before moving on to the next step. Task 1 After completing this task, it may take up to 10-15 minutes before your vcenter Server Appliance is ready to use so please be patient. Once task 1 has been completed, you may log out of the vcenter Server Appliance Management User Interface by clicking on Logout user root in the upper right hand corner. Task 2 - Please ask your instructor for evaluation license keys for vsphere and vcenter. Task 4, Step 2 If you don't see the Related Objects tab, then you may need to refresh the display by clicking the refresh icon. www.vlab.pro - VMware vsphere and View Lab Rentals - 4 -
Lab 5 Using the VMware vsphere Web Client VMware vcenter Server root password Local datastore name Your VMware ESXi host name Student A - esxi1-datastore1 Student B - esxi2-datastore1 Student A esxi1. Student B esxi2. Note: Your VMware vcenter Server system name is vcenterapp-81.. Unless otherwise stated, please use Google Chrome to connect to the vsphere Web Client for the duration of this class. Task 1, Step 1 If you see a yellow banner prompting you for permission to run the VMware Remote Console Plug-in, then select Always run on this site : Task 1, Step 2 If prompted where to save the Client Integration Plug-in, just accept the default download directory (Favourites Downloads). Task 1, Step 9 - If you receive a message that some of the files in use need to be updated and see a reference to the VMware USB Arbitration Service, simply accept the default selection (Automatically close and attempt to restart applications) and click OK to continue. Task 2, Step 7 Your vcenter Server appliance name is vcenterapp-81., not vcva as outlined in the Lab Guide. Lab 6 Configuring VMware vcenter Single Sign-On vcenter Server Appliance name vcenter Server Appliance root password Windows Domain administrator user name Windows Domain administrator password vcenterapp-81. (NOTE: Administrator login is root) student#@ (# is your unique server number assigned by your instructor) (Instructor assigned password for VLAB\student# account) www.vlab.pro - VMware vsphere and View Lab Rentals - 5 -
Windows domain vcenter Server Appliance single signon (SSO) administrator user name vcenter Server Appliance SSO administrator password Base DN for users Base DN for groups Fully qualified domain name (FQDN) Windows domain administrator user name Windows domain administrator password Primary Server URL administrator@vsphere.local DC=vlab,DC=local DC=vlab,DC=local VLAB\student# (# is your unique server number assigned by your instructor) (Instructor assigned password for VLAB\student# account) https://vcenterapp-81.:9443 Task 1, Step 1 VMware vcenter Server Appliance user name is root. Task 2 If you get a blank screen when trying to access the Web Client URL via Google Chrome after you rebooted the vcenter Server Appliance, then please be patient as the Web Client may take several minutes to fully initialize before accepting logins. If you still see a blank screen even after waiting several minutes, then you may have to reset Google's Chrome browser settings back to its original defaults. To do that, perform the following within Chrome: Open up Chrome custom settings icon (3 horizontal lines icon to the right of the URL bar) Select Settings Select Show Advanced Settings Scroll down to the bottom and select Reset Browser Settings Select Reset on confirmation box. Close down Chrome and re-open it and try to access the Web Client URL again. Task 2, Step 2 The VMware Single Sign-On administrator name is administrator@vsphere.local and the password is. Task 2, Step 7 Domain alias is VLAB. See sample screenshot below: www.vlab.pro - VMware vsphere and View Lab Rentals - 6 -
Task 2, Step 19 Log in as VLAB\student# on the Web Client. Lab 7 Creating Folders in VMware vcenter Server VMware vcenter Server Appliance root password Task 1, Step 10 First, expand the Training Data Center folder. Omit Task 2, Steps 2 4. They have been carried out in Task 1. www.vlab.pro - VMware vsphere and View Lab Rentals - 7 -
Lab 8 Standard Switches VMware vcenter Server Appliance name Your VMware ESXi host name vmnics to use for the Production virtual switch Virtual machine administrator password vcenterapp-81. Student A esxi1. Student B esxi2. vmnic1 Task 3, Step 8a If you don't get a console after you launched it, then it's because Google Chrome's default pop-up policy has blocked it. To enable all pop-ups from your VirtualCenter Server Appliance, click on the small square with a red-x present within the URL bar on the upper right hand side and select Always allow pop-ups from vcenterapp-81. and click Done... sample screenshot below: After enabling the pop-ups, repeat Task 3, Step 8a again to get the VM console. Before carrying out Task 3, Step 9, you should disable the Internet Explorer Enhanced Security as it will interfere with your ability to browse the Internet. Please remove IE Enhanced Security as follows: Click Start > Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs Click Add/Remove Windows Components Scroll down, uncheck Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration > Next > Click Finish and dismiss Add or Remove Programs You should now be able to browse the Internet freely. You might find that visiting http://www..com may not work very smoothly with IE6 supplied under Windows 2003 Server so please feel free to go to another alternate website. www.vlab.pro - VMware vsphere and View Lab Rentals - 8 -
Lab 9 Accessing ISCSI Storage VMware vcenter Server Appliance name vcenter Server root password VMkernel port IP address / subnet mask vcenterapp-81. VMkernel default gateway 192.168.20.1 Your ESXi iscsi qualified name (IQN) n/a Name of the iscsi Target 192.168.20.9 Student A - 192.168.20.121 / 255.255.255.0 Student B - 192.168.20.122 / 255.255.255.0 Omit Task 2, Step 9. Lab 10 Accessing NFS Storage VMware vcenter Server Appliance name vcenterapp-81. NFS Server host name 192.168.20.9 Your NFS logical unit number Path to your NFS datastore n/a /mnt/privateluns/nfs1 Note: We have created a 40 GB shared SAN LUN called Production that will appear in your Storage inventory when you carry out Task 1, Step 4. You will be using this LUN for future labs such as VMotion, HA and DRS. Task 1, Step 6 For the first option, select your assigned ESXi host (Student A esxi1. / Student B esxi2.) After carrying out Task 1, you may notice that your NFS datastore has disappeared (or renamed to your partner's NFS datastore) after your partner created their NFS datastore. This behaviour is by design as vsphere doesn't support multipathing from multiple ESXi hosts over to the same NFS server IP and mount managed by the same vcenter Server instance. As such, vcenter Server automatically associates the NFS datastore to be a shared datastore and will use the last named NFS datastore. For this class, this is fine and no further action is required. Task 2, Step 3 After clicking on the Monitor tab, you must select the Storage Reports subtab first to activate the Report On drop-down menu. www.vlab.pro - VMware vsphere and View Lab Rentals - 9 -
Lab 11 Managing VMware vsphere VMFS VMware vcenter Server Appliance name Your VMware ESXi host name Local datastore name Shared storage type used in this lab environment First assigned LUN ID Second assigned LUN ID vcenterapp-81. Student A esxi1. Student B esxi2. Student A - esxi1-datastore1 Student B - esxi2-datastore1 iscsi SAN Student A LUN 0 Student B LUN 2 Student A LUN 1 Student B LUN 3 The vlab server pods have 2x 6 GB LUN for each student so you will see a total of 4x 6GB LUNs. Task 5, Step 4: If you receive an error when trying to delete a LUN, please delete it again. Note: At the end of this lab, ensure you have a single VMFS-## volume (total size of 12GB) for your ESXi host. SAN VMFS Volumes... At the end of Lab 10, you should have 1, 12GB VMFS volume per ESXi host (which consists of 2, 6GB volumes spanned together). Student A should have a datastore named VMFS-01 and Student B should have a datastore named VMFS-02. Lab 12 Using Templates and Clones VMware vcenter Server Administrator password Location of the Windows Sysprep files Windows product key Virtual machine administrator password Time zone VMware vsphere VMFS datastore for virtual machines (NOTE: User name is root) The Sysprep W2k3_32-bit folder on your Remote Access Desktop H8H46-644WM-B3MYR-MGB48-CMPMB (As appropriate for your location, or EST) Student A Local-ESXi01 Student B Local-ESXi02 www.vlab.pro - VMware vsphere and View Lab Rentals - 10 -
(This was performed in Lab 11) Notes: Omit Task 1, Steps 2 and 3. Instead, perform the following after you launch WinSCP by entering the hostname/fqdn of your assigned vcenter Server system in the hostname field (vcenterapp-81.). From there, you may proceed to Task 1, Step 4. Task 1, Step 5 Click the Login button and click Yes to add the server's host key in the cache. If prompted, click on Continue. Task 1, Step 6 The sysprep files are located in the Sysprep W2K3_32-bit folder on your remote access desktop. Lab 13 Modifying a Virtual Machine VMware vcenter Server Appliance host name vcenterapp-81. Your raw LUN ID Student A LUN 4 Student B LUN 5 Virtual Machine Administrator password The vlab server pods have one 3GB LUN for each student. Task 1, Step 9c You will need to add the My Computer icon to your desktop. To do this, log in to your HotClone## VM. Then, right-click the background and select Properties > Desktop tab > Customize Desktop button. Check My Computer, click OK to close the Desktop Items window and OK again. Task 5, Step 13 You might notice that the Used Size and Provisioned Size columns haven't changed despite that the disk inflation operation succeeded. This appears to be a Web Client refresh issue or a browser refresh issue. One alternate way to verify that the virtual disk inflation succeeded is by right-clicking your virtual machine name whose virtual disk was inflated and select Edit Settings. Click the arrow next to Hard disk 1 to open up the virtual hard drive properties and observe that the disk type is now a Thick provision eager zeroed. Click on Cancel to close the settings window. This is an indicator that the inflation procedure worked as expected. The traditional vsphere client also correctly displays the Used Size and Provisioned Size whose size differences are less than 1GB. www.vlab.pro - VMware vsphere and View Lab Rentals - 11 -
Lab 14 Migrating Virtual Machines vcenter Server root password Shared datastore vmnic for the vsphere vmotion network Production vmnic2 vsphere vmotion IP address Student A - 192.168.21.51 Student B - 192.168.21.52 vsphere vmotion subnet mask 255.255.255.0 ESXi host to which to migrate virtual machines Virtual machine administrator password Local datastore name (Work with someone whose ESXi host is managed by your vcenter Server Appliance) Student A Local-ESXi01 Student B Local-ESXi02 This was performed in Lab 11. Notes: Task 1, Step 4 Students will be Storage vmotioning their VM between source and destination LUNs on the same iscsi SAN system. This task will take some time so please be patient. For best results to mitigate the performance hit, work with your partner and Storage vmotion one VM at a time. Task 3, Step 6b vcenter Server Appliance name is vcenterapp-81, not vcva as per the Lab Guide. Task 6 You must use the flash-based vsphere Web Client to perform the combined storage vmotion and host vmotion (Change both host and datastore) for this specific task. If you try to use the standard vsphere Client, then you'll find the option greyed out. IMPORTANT: At the end of this lab, all of your virtual machines should reside on the shared datastore and should meet the vmotion requirements outlined earlier. www.vlab.pro - VMware vsphere and View Lab Rentals - 12 -
Lab 15 Managing Virtual Machines VMware vcenter Server Appliance system name vcenter Server root password Virtual machine Administrator password Third party Software ISO location vcenterapp-81. Student A - [Local-ESXi01] ISOs Student B - [Local-ESXi02] ISOs (This was performed in Lab 11) Task 1, Step 3 You can select vcenter VMs and Templates instead to see the VM Summary page. Task 1, Step 10 After selecting the VMFS datastore, select Manage Files to be able to browse the file and directory structures within the datastore. Task 2, Step 3a Select vcenter VMs and Templates to see the inventory tree (vs. the flat VM list). Task 3, Step 7 You won't see the folder with the original virtual machine name of your_name##-4 because it has been removed from disk all together. You renamed your virtual machine from your_name##-4 to your_name##5 when you registered it in the VM inventory. If you have followed the lab guide, you should current have 2 VMs: your_name##-2 and your_name##-3. Lab 16 Managing VMware vsphere vapps Lab 17 User Permissions VMware vcenter Server Appliance root password Active Directory (AD) domain Your nonprivileged domain account name Your nonprivileged domain account password Datastore for domain users / VLAB VLAB\user# Student A VMFS-01 Student B VMFS-02 (established from Lab 11) www.vlab.pro - VMware vsphere and View Lab Rentals - 13 -
ESXi host Guest operating system Student A esxi1. Student B esxi2. Microsoft Windows Server 2003 (32-bit) Task 3, Step 11 Log off from the web client by clicking the username on the upper-right hand side and selecting Logout. Lab 18 Resource Pools VMware vcenter Server Appliance vcenterapp-81. Lab 19 Monitoring Virtual Machine Performance VMware vcenter Server Appliance VMware vcenter Server root password VMware vsphere Web Client URL vcenterapp-81. https://vcenterapp-81.:9443/vsphere-client/ Lab 20 Using Alarms VMware vcenter Server Appliance vcenterapp-81. Task 1, Step 6 To see the Trigger Type, VM CPU Usage (%), you must first add it by clicking the green plus sign. Task 1, Step 11 Omit the email address configuration field. You'll find that you can't add it if the action selected is to suspend a VM. www.vlab.pro - VMware vsphere and View Lab Rentals - 14 -
Lab 21 Using VMware vsphere High Availability VMware vcenter Server Appliance VMware vsphere ESXi host to partner with vcenterapp-81. Memory Reservation (MB) 2048 All ESXi hosts who are on your common vcenter Server appliance Task 3, Step 10 You may notice that after several minutes the master host that was rebooted is still unresponsive and that the VMs it hosted are marked as being inaccessible. You may need to periodically refresh the Web Client view to see the true status of the cluster and VMs after the failover. To refresh the Web Client display, click the refresh icon (on the upper right hand side to the left of the logged in user name). Task 5, Step 11 If your Virtual Machine <your_name>##-3 isn't powered on, then you will need to power it up first otherwise the next task won't show the slot changes. You might also notice that after you carried out this task that the Starting Task remains at 0% indefinitely under both the recent tasks and running tasks pane on the right hand side and you'll find that you can't cancel or clear these phantom tasks. This is a Web Client issue that has been observed and can be safely ignored. You'll notice that the slot information has been correctly updated in Task 5, Step 13. You'll also notice that if you log out of the Web Client and log back in, the phantom running tasks will be cleared. Task 6, Step 9 - Before configuring the memory reservation, you must adjust the Virtual Machine memory size on <your_name>##-2 Virtual Machine to match the memory reservation as recorded in the Preparing for the Labs section as it may be configured to use 384 MB or 512 MB of memory. If you omit this task, you will not be able to set the memory reservation to the required size. Task 6, Step 9b - Use the memory reservation as recorded in the Preparing for the Labs section which would be 2048 MB and NOT 256 MB as per the lab guide. To set the memory reservation, you must click the arrow next to the memory to expand it. www.vlab.pro - VMware vsphere and View Lab Rentals - 15 -
Lab 23 Configuring VMware vsphere Fault Tolerance VMware vcenter Server Appliance Partner ESXi host vcenterapp-81. All ESXi hosts who are on your common vcenter Server appliance Task 2, Step 5 Click the Networking link and click VMkernel adapters. Please be patient when activating Fault Tolerance on a Virtual Machine under Task 3 as there will be a delay until Fault Tolerance is fully activated (it may take several minutes). VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: Task 3, Step 10, you will notice that the secondary virtual machine will never appear in the VM list despite the Web client refreshing and logging off and on again. You may want to carry out Tasks 4 and 5 using the traditional vsphere client. It is located on your remote access desktop. We have observed that there are numerous issues with this lab under the Web Client... specifically that the VM used for Fault Tolerance is activated is only present on the primary ESXi host but not the secondary one. This isn't an issue under the traditional vsphere C# client where you can see both the primary and secondary VMs displayed under the Lab Cluster. Task 4, Step 1 It is normal to see a warning message on the console title bar stating that the console for this secondary virtual machine is read-only when opening up the virtual console to the Fault-Tolerant activated VM on the secondary host. Task 4, Step 9 Using the traditional vsphere client, right-click your virtual machine and select Fault Tolerance Test Failover. Task 4, Step 15 You may need to close down the VM consoles and re-open them if you can't stop the ping jobs. www.vlab.pro - VMware vsphere and View Lab Rentals - 16 -
Lab 24 VMware vsphere Distributed Resource Scheduler VMware vcenter Server Appliance vcenterapp-81. Task 1, Step 5 By default, the Web Client will not show the ESXi host that the VM is registered against. To show the ESXi host, right-click one of the gray column names and select Show/Hide Columns and select Host from the list. Task 4, Step 15 Select DRS Rules Delete to delete the DRS rule. If you attempt to disable it rather than deleting it, you will receive DRS rules conflicts on the next labs and they may not work as expected. Task 6, Step 25 You can just delete the DRS rule by highlighting it and selecting Delete instead. Task 6, Step 26 You can log out of the Web Client and close down Google Chrome. You'll use the traditional vsphere Client for the next lab. Lab 25 VMware vcenter Update Manager vsphere Update Manager system name (You will install Update Manager on this host) NOTE: Use either Student A's remote desktop or Student B's remote desktop for this lab. Location of installation software Setup language vcenter Server system name vcenter Server root password VMware ESXi patch bundle Student A - vlab55-101. Student A IP: 192.168.20.101 OR Student B - vlab55-102. Student B IP: 192.168.20.102 vsphere55 folder on your remote access desktop English vcenterapp-81. vsphere55\update-from-esxi5.5-5.5_update01.zip (vsphere55 folder is on your desktop) Task 8 - Remediation of an ESXi host will fail if you have any powered on VMs that are not vmotion compatible. If you get remediation errors, find and shut down any non-vmotion compatible VMs and try Task 8 again. www.vlab.pro - VMware vsphere and View Lab Rentals - 17 -
Lab 26 (Optional) Installing the VMware vcenter Server Components Omit this lab. Your remote access desktop does not have enough memory to install the vcenter Server components for Windows. Thank you very much for using the vlab Remote Lab environment. We hope you've enjoyed using our labs. For more information about renting our servers: 1. To run through the labs again 2. For VCP certification preparation 3. For testing configurations before rolling out changes in your production environment 4. etc... Please visit www.vlab.pro. Regards, The entire vlab.pro infrastructure design and support team. www.vlab.pro - VMware vsphere and View Lab Rentals - 18 -