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VMware vSphere 5.5 Cookbook

By : Abhilash G B
Book Image

VMware vSphere 5.5 Cookbook

By: Abhilash G B

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VMware vSphere 5.5 Cookbook
Abhilash G B
Feb, 2015 | 560 pages
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Table of Contents (22 chapters)
VMware vSphere 5.5 Cookbook
VMware vSphere 5.5 Cookbook
Credits
Credits
About the Author
About the Author
About the Reviewers
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Preface
Free Chapter
1
Upgrading to vSphere 5.5
Upgrading to vSphere 5.5
Introduction
Downloading vCenter 5.5
Carrying out pre-upgrade checks
Upgrading the Single Sign-On component
Upgrading the vSphere Web Client
Upgrading the vCenter Inventory Service
Performing an upgrade of vCenter Server
Upgrading ESXi to Version 5.5
Upgrading vCenter Server Appliance to Version 5.5
Upgrading VMware Tools
Upgrading the virtual machine hardware
Scheduling the virtual machine hardware upgrade
2
Performing a New Installation of vSphere 5.5
Performing a New Installation of vSphere 5.5
Introduction
Installing ESXi 5.5
Configuring the ESXi Management Network
Installing vCenter 5.5
Adding an additional Identity Source to the SSO server
Assigning users/groups to the vCenter Server
Deploying SSO for the vCenter Linked Mode
Creating a vCenter Linked Mode group
Deploying vCenter Server Appliance 5.5
3
Using vSphere Host Profiles
Using vSphere Host Profiles
Introduction
Preparing a reference host
Creating a Host Profile
Exporting a Host Profile
Importing a Host Profile
Duplicating a Host Profile
Attaching/detaching ESXi hosts to/from a Host Profile
Verifying the profile compliance of an ESXi host
Remediating an ESXi host for profile compliance
Using Host Profiles to push a new configuration change
4
Using ESXi Image Builder
Using ESXi Image Builder
Introduction
Downloading an ESXi offline bundle
Creating an image profile by cloning a predefined profile
Removing an ESXi image profile
Adding a VIB (software package) to an image profile
Adding the HA VIB to the image profile
Exporting an image profile as an ISO or offline bundle
Creating an image profile from scratch
Applying an image profile to the host
5
Using vSphere Auto Deploy
Using vSphere Auto Deploy
Introduction
Installing an Auto Deploy server
Configuring a TFTP Server with Auto Deploy files
Configuring the DHCP server for PXE boot
Testing the PXE boot configuration
Preparing VMware PowerCLI for first use
Preparing vSphere Auto Deploy for provisioning
Choosing an ESXi Image Profile to deploy
Creating a Host Profile
Creating a deploy rule
Activating a deploy rule
Testing Auto Deploy
Enabling Stateless Caching
Performing an Auto Deploy stateful install
6
Configuring vSphere Networking
Configuring vSphere Networking
Introduction
Creating a vSphere Standard Switch
Deleting a vSphere Standard Switch
Creating a VMkernel interface on a standard vSwitch
Deleting a port group from a standard vSwitch
Adding an uplink to a standard vSwitch
Creating a vSphere Distributed Switch
Creating a distributed port group
Adding hosts to a vSphere Distributed Switch
Migrating a virtual machine network from a vSphere Standard Switch to a vSphere Distributed Switch
Mapping a physical adapter (vmnic) to a dvUplink
Configuring security, traffic shaping, teaming and failover on a vSwitch and a VDS
Migrating VMkernel interfaces between a standard vSwitch and VDS
Creating additional VMkernel interfaces on a VDS
Creating a backup of a VDS
Restoring a VDS configuration
Importing a VDS into the data center from a backup
Creating Network Resource Pools on a VDS
Enabling port mirroring on a VDS
Enabling NetFlow on a VDS
Configuring private VLANs on a VDS
7
Creating and Managing VMFS Datastores
Creating and Managing VMFS Datastores
Introduction
Viewing the LUNs presented to an ESXi host
Viewing the datastores seen by the ESXi hosts
Viewing and changing the multipathing of a LUN
Creating a VMFS datastore
Expanding/growing a VMFS datastore
Extending a VMFS datastore
Unmounting a VMFS datastore
Mounting a VMFS datastore
Deleting a VMFS datastore
Upgrading from VMFS3 to VMFS5
Mounting VMFS from a snapshot LUN
Resignaturing VMFS on a snapshot LUN
Masking paths to a LUN
Unmasking paths to a LUN
Creating a datastore cluster
Enabling Storage DRS
8
Managing iSCSI and NFS Datastores
Managing iSCSI and NFS Datastores
Introduction
Adding the software iSCSI adapter
Preparing the vSphere network for iSCSI multipathing
Binding VMkernel interfaces to the software iSCSI adapter
Adding an iSCSI target server to the software iSCSI adapter
Creating an NFS Datastore
9
vSphere Storage Policies and Storage I/O Control
vSphere Storage Policies and Storage I/O Control
Introduction
Adding a storage provider
Creating user-defined capability tags for datastores
Creating VM storage policies
Assigning VM storage policies to virtual machine disks
Enabling Storage I/O Control
Modifying disk shares on a VM
10
Creating and Managing Virtual Machines
Creating and Managing Virtual Machines
Introduction
Creating a virtual machine
Creating a new hard disk for a virtual machine
Adding an existing hard disk to a virtual machine
Attaching RDM to a virtual machine
Mapping a virtual machine's vNIC to a different port group
Adding a new virtual network adapter to a virtual machine
Creating a virtual machine snapshot
Deleting a virtual machine snapshot
Reverting to a current virtual machine snapshot
Switching to an arbitrary virtual machine snapshot
Consolidating snapshots
Exporting a virtual machine
11
Configuring vSphere HA
Configuring vSphere HA
Introduction
Enabling vSphere HA on a cluster
Configuring vSphere HA Admission Control
Setting the host isolation response for an HA cluster
Setting the VM restart priority for an HA cluster
Configuring VM monitoring
Configuring datastore heartbeating
Configuring a VM to override host monitoring and VM monitoring settings
Disabling host monitoring
12
Configuring vSphere DRS, DPM, and VMware EVC
Configuring vSphere DRS, DPM, and VMware EVC
Introduction
Enabling vSphere DRS on a cluster
Configuring VMware EVC
Choosing a DRS automation level
Overriding the cluster automation level for a VM
Setting a migration threshold
Creating DRS host groups
Creating DRS VM groups
Creating VMs to the host affinity rules
Creating VM affinity/anti-affinity rules
Configuring vSphere Distributed Power Management
Enabling power management on a per-host level
13
Upgrading and Patching Using vSphere Update Manager
Upgrading and Patching Using vSphere Update Manager
Introduction
Preparing database connectivity for VUM
Installing vSphere Update Manager
Installing the vSphere Update Manager plugin
Adding a download source
Creating a baseline
Importing ESXi Images
Creating a host baseline group
Creating a VM and VA baseline group
Remediating a host or a cluster
Remediating a VM or a VA
Staging patches
Installing the Update Manager Download Service
Configuring UMDS and downloading data
Creating a shared repository
Using a shared repository
14
Using vSphere Management Assistant
Using vSphere Management Assistant
Introduction
Deploying the vMA appliance
Preparing VMware vMA for first use
Configuring VMware vMA to join an existing domain
Adding vCenter to vMA with AD authentication
Adding vCenter to vMA with fastpass (fpauth) authentication
Adding an ESXi host to vMA
Reconfiguring an added target server
Running CLI commands on target servers
Updating the vMA
15
Monitoring the Performance of a vSphere Environment
Monitoring the Performance of a vSphere Environment
Introduction
Using esxtop to monitor performance
Exporting and importing esxtop configurations
Running esxtop in batch mode
Gathering VM I/O statistics using vscsiStats
Using vCenter performance graphs
Index
Index

Creating a baseline

A baseline is a list of patches that can be used to check the ESXi hosts or virtual appliances for compliance. By default, there are two sets of baselines that are predefined:

  • Critical host patches (dynamic)

  • Non-critical host patches (dynamic)

The other baselines are:

  • VMware tools upgrade to match host (dynamic)

  • VM hardware upgrade to match host (dynamic)

  • VA upgrade to latest (dynamic)

You can manually create a new custom baseline that can be used to check the ESXi hosts for compliance.

How to do it...

The following procedure will guide you through the steps required to create a baseline:

  1. Connect to vCenter Server as an administrator using the vSphere Client.

  2. Go to Home | Update Manager.

  3. Navigate to the Baselines and Groups tab, select the Hosts view, and click on Create.., as shown in the following screenshot:

  4. Enter a name for the baseline and select the baseline type. The selections available are:

    • Host Patch, Host Extension, and Host Upgrade

    • VA Upgrade

  5. Select the baseline type as either...

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