Questions tagged [vmware-esxi]
VMWare ESXi is an installable/embeddable virtualization platform based around the ESXi Hypervisor.
3,246
questions
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10
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How to [politely?] tell software vendor they don't know what they're talking about
Not a technical question, but a valid one nonetheless. Scenario:
HP ProLiant DL380 Gen 8 with 2 x 8-core Xeon E5-2667 CPUs and 256GB RAM running ESXi 5.5. Eight VMs for a given vendor's system. ...
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2
answers
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vSphere education - What are the downsides of configuring VMs with *too* much RAM?
VMware memory management seems to be a tricky balancing act. With cluster RAM, Resource Pools, VMware's management techniques (TPS, ballooning, host swapping), in-guest RAM utilization, swapping, ...
47
votes
1
answer
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mount: unknown filesystem type 'linux_raid_member'
I have Suse Linux 12.1 and
i am trying to mount a single RAID 1 disk, to explore the files in it. However when mounting it:
# mount /dev/sdc1 /mnt/test
mount: unknown filesystem type '...
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1
answer
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Is there still a use for irqbalance on modern hardware?
This question has been asked before, but I believe that the world has changed enough for it to be asked again.
Does irqbalance have any use on today’s systems where we have NUMA-capable CPUs with ...
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44
votes
7
answers
17k
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Troubleshooting latency spikes on ESXi NFS datastores
I'm experiencing fsync latencies of around five seconds on NFS datastores in ESXi, triggered by certain VMs. I suspect this might be caused by VMs using NCQ/TCQ, as this does not happen with virtual ...
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votes
5
answers
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Are VMware ESXi 5 patches cumulative?
This seems basic, but I'm confused about the patching strategy involved with manually updating standalone VMware ESXi hosts. The VMware vSphere blog attempts to explain this, but the actual process is ...
32
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11
answers
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When deploying a single server on new hardware, do you virtualize it or not?
There are a few questions that I've found on ServerFault that hint around this topic, and while it may be somewhat opinion-based, I think it can fall into that "good subjective" category based on the ...
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4
answers
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What happens when the USB key or SD card I've installed VMware ESXi on fails?
An SD (SDHC) card installed in an HP ProLiant DL380p Gen8 server running VMware ESXi just failed :(
I encountered some ominous looking messages on the vCenter console and in the HP ProLiant ILO event ...
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30
votes
9
answers
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Is there a way to clone an existing VM on an ESXi server without having to re-import it?
I have imported a VM into an ESXi server using the VMware "Converter stand alone utility". However, this process is a little tedious. Since I eventually want several copies of this VM (or, to be ...
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30
votes
5
answers
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Move VMware ESXi VM to new datastore - preserve thin-provisioning
I'm looking for a good solution to a VMware ESXi environment issue where there's no vCenter available.
What's the best way to move a VM from one datastore to another on a single ESXi host, while ...
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29
votes
4
answers
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Why VM snapshots are affecting performance?
I read in one of the VMware KB articles that snapshots will directly affect VM performance.
But my team keeps asking me how snapshots can affect performance.
I would like to give them solid reason ...
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28
votes
6
answers
13k
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Why are snapshots considered as temporary backups not real backups?
I am using VMware ESXi. In our team we use to provide snapshots for long term backup.
Then we faced issues like memory spillover and the server got hang up.
I started reading in VMware knowledgebase ...
- 1,311
28
votes
3
answers
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VMWare ESXi free?
Much is made of the fact that VMWare's ESXi hypervisor is "free"
As best I can tell, you can install the hypervisor on a host for "free".
Because ESXi does not have a built in management console, ...
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27
votes
3
answers
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How to run VMWare ESX or ESXi in a virtual machine?
Can VMWare ESX or ESXi be installed and used inside a virtual machine?
It can be installed inside VMWare Workstation or Server, but then it doesn't work; the main symptoms are:
It runs REALLY slowly....
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27
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9
answers
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What kind of storage do people actually use for VMware ESX servers?
VMware and many network evangelists try to tell you that sophisticated (=expensive) fiber SANs are the "only" storage option for VMware ESX and ESXi servers. Well, yes, of course. Using a SAN is fast, ...
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8
answers
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How to backup virtual machines on a standalone ESXi host?
Standalone ESXi (4.1) host without any vCenter Server.
How to backup virtual machines as quickly and storage-friendly as possible?
I know I can access the ESXi console and use the standard Unix cp ...
- 71.3k
23
votes
1
answer
2k
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How to describe VMware performance requirements for our application to a VMware admin?
Often, an installation of our on-site, debian-stable based application runs in a virtual machine - typically in VMware ESXi. In the general case we do not have visibility into or influence over their ...
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4
answers
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What are the benefits of "enterprise-level" virtualization?
For a company with modest virtualization needs - VirtualBox is currently doing fine at hosting a few light servers - what would some of the benefits be of moving to a more robust platform?
I'm ...
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22
votes
3
answers
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How to disable swap files in ESXi?
We are running a few Solaris / Linux VMs on ESXi that contain very sensitive encrypted data that eventually get decrypted as required in memory.
Everything is fine, except for the ESXi swap files ...
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21
votes
6
answers
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Should Linux VM's in VMware/ESX have a swap partition?
On a VMware ESX setup what is the difference of these options?:
a Linux VM with 1GB RAM and 1GB swap partition and the VM uses 1.5 GB ram
a Linux VM with 1GB RAM and no swap partition and the VM ...
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20
votes
9
answers
96k
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VMware ESXi shutdown triggered by APC UPS connected via USB
I am shipping a bunch of ESXi 5.1 servers to remote offices where they will be powered via APC UPS.
I would like to have the UPS trigger a shutdown of the connected server - I would then rely on the ...
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9
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Is it possible/advisable to run VMware Server ESX/ESXi on a laptop?
The idea of having a small footprint hypervisor as the primary OS on a laptop or desktop where every "real" OS is a guest appeals to me. Now I realize this software is more typically used on blades ...
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19
votes
3
answers
5k
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Is running permanently in a VMWare snapshot bad for performance?
I understand that the VMWare KB frowns upon long running snapshots mainly due to two things (In my opinion)
Taking tons of snapshots can fill up the data store. Snapshots are simply delta files. ...
19
votes
3
answers
1k
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VMware Snapshot Longer than 3 days
Referring to this article
https://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1025279
I know it is not good practice to keep a snapshot longer than ...
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18
votes
9
answers
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Hyper-V vs. ESXi vs. XenServer
Can anyone share their experiences (for example, this was great! This failed miserably!) with using the Hyper-V, ESXi, and XenServer virtualization platforms? Cost? Management? features? Handling load ...
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18
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3
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Understanding the VMware ESXi limitations of the free Version
I am running an ESXi Vsphere Client Version 6.0.0 but with all the different documentation and changes I have trouble to understand my limitations.
From the official documentation I see that my limit ...
- 1,451
18
votes
7
answers
5k
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Nested RDP and VMWare and ILO console sessions: keystroke repetition and latency
I'm working on a remote server installation entirely through ILO (but this also applies to IPMI and VMWare console sessions). Due to the software application and environment, my access is restricted ...
- 198k
18
votes
1
answer
41k
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vSphere - Why upgrade VM Hardware Version?
At the beginning of the year we performed an upgrade of our vSphere environment from vSphere 5.0 to vSphere 5.1 U1 Build 1063329 compromised of about a dozen ESXi hosts and a vCenter instance hosted ...
user62491
17
votes
3
answers
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How is memory allocated in ESXi server?
We have an ESXi 4.1 server with 48 GB RAM.
For each VM, we are allocating 4GB of memory. Since the server will have 13 virtual machines, my manager thinks this is wrong.
I am going to explain to ...
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17
votes
5
answers
3k
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Best Practices for virtualizing servers onto the SAN?
Alright, so I want to start leveraging my SAN a little more than I have been, and at the same time, take advantage of ESXi.
Currently, I've got an array of Dell PowerEdge 1955 blades connected to a ...
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16
votes
2
answers
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Is the gang scheduling employed by VMware a serious drawback?
I was reading some technet articles as well as this one regarding the differences between the way VMware and hyper v doing CPU scheduling.
I was wondering if I could get some objective info on this. ...
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16
votes
4
answers
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Hardware firewall vs VMware firewall appliance
We have a debate in our office going on whether it's necessary to get a hardware firewall or set up a virtual one on our VMWare cluster.
Our environment consists of 3 server nodes (16 cores w/ 64 GB ...
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3
answers
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In VMware ESXi 5.x, does it make a difference if I select 2 CPU cores vs. 2 CPU sockets?
Title pretty much says it all. I'm just wondering if this makes a difference in the way VMs will process things and if one method is preferable vs. another.
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Deploying VM from vmdk / vmx file
I have a vmdk file and vmx file (and all the other files from someone elses datastore) copied onto my own data store. If I try to deploy from the vmx file, I get a vm with the name "unknown # (invalid)...
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votes
2
answers
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Running containers inside a virtual machine?
It is my understanding that containers are much more lightweight than VMs because they do not virtualize the hardware but instead just isolate the software running in them from software running in ...
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votes
2
answers
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VMware ESXi SSD on RAID showing as non-ssd
I am replacing a KVM server with a ESXi server. I just installed ESXi 5.5u1 and added a data store. The new server has 4 SSD drives in RAID 6 using hardware RAID. When I added the data store VMware ...
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4
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how to update esxi 5?
I have an ESXi 5 host (free) and vSphere Client. I would like to update to u1 but I cannot find the way to do it. Updates are ZIP files with modules in it; no installer. vSphere client doesn't have an ...
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votes
1
answer
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Incredibly slow snapshot removal
I have an ESXi box with HP LeftHand storage exposed via iSCSI.
I have a virtual machine with a 1TB disk, of which 800GB is consumed. The disk is thick provisioned on the LeftHand storage.
A snapshot ...
- 69.1k
15
votes
3
answers
7k
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How to crack the 1 Gbit iSCSI limit between ESXi and VNXe
I'm having big troubles with my iSCSI network and can't seem to get it working as fast as it could.
So I've tried pretty much everything to gain full performance from my SAN, having involved ...
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3
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Server 2012 Cannot find C: Boot to cd
Server 2012 R2
ESXI 6
I am having an issue with resetting the local admin password on a windows server 2012 VM.
I first booted to a windows server 2012 cd, hit the repair option -> toubleshooting -> ...
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14
votes
2
answers
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how to run hyper-v like vmware
I have been challenged to configure and setup a HA Hyper-v Cluster that will never go down.
I have mainly only used VMWare for clustering and HA.
My question how can i run a Hyper-V cluster like a ...
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votes
4
answers
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VMware ESXi - vSphere - Can't exit VM console access
I'm running ESXi 4.1 on a Dell T110 Server
I connect to ESXi using vSphere
vSphere is running inside a Windows 7 VM
The Windows 7 VM is running in VMware Fusion on my Mac OS X system
When I'm in ...
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14
votes
6
answers
44k
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VMware ESXi: help downloading large ISO
I'd like to download a large OS install ISO directly to my datastore. I used to be able to SSH to the ESXi terminal and use wget to download large files directly to the datastore, but it seems that ...
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2
answers
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VMware Distributed vSwitches (VDS) - Design, theory, *real* use cases and examples?
I'm starting to explore VMware Distributed Switches (dvSwitches or VDS) for use in existing and new installations. Assume VMware version 5.1 and newer with Enterprise Plus licensing. Prior to this, I'...
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14
votes
2
answers
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How to manage a global VM startup order across the whole datacenter?
Suppose you have a fully virtualized VMware infrastructure: ESXi, vCenter, vMotion, HA, DRS, the whole package.
Inside, you have lots of VMs, which at any given time may reside on one host or another ...
- 71.3k
14
votes
1
answer
3k
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Why is vCenter 5.1u1 exiting hosts from maintenance mode?
This vCenter server was just upgraded to 5.1 update 1. I'm going through hosts and bringing firmware up to date, then upgrading them from various versions of 5.0 to 5.1u1.
vCenter 5.1u1 seems to ...
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13
votes
4
answers
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Why don't people just use rsync to back up vmware guests?
If I am running a modern vmware ESXi system, I can drop in a statically linked rsync binary and rsync files to any destination over SSH.
I'm trying to understand why most (all ?) backup of vmware ...
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votes
8
answers
3k
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Free hypervisor for small configuration
I'm building a server for virtualization for a non profit organization. I was planning on employing VMware ESXI free but I'm second guessing my plan because newer ESXI don't seem to be well supported ...
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13
votes
2
answers
15k
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VM Inaccessible
So I had to remotely shut down my servers last night as the air conditioner crapped out on us. I shut down the VMs and then the hosts. Fired up the 2 hosts today which auto start the VMs. Datastores ...
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votes
1
answer
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When cloning a VMware Virtual Machine, how can I prevent MAC address & UUID conflicts?
I've run into the following problem on both VMware Fusion (for Macs) and with VMware ESXi/vSphere. Many of you are familiar with the problem, and it is described at VMware KB: "Networking does not ...
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