Installing APC PowerChute Network Shutdown On A VMware vSphere 4 Host
I did this today for a client of ours because they did not have it installed and the local power company will be shutting them down on Sunday for maintenance. APC PowerChute Network Shutdown is used when your APC UPS has one of their network cards installed in it. The Windows version is free, however the VMware version is not, it costs $99 which isn't bad but personally I think it should be free as well. You can purchase the download here, however be sure sure to check their compatibility matrix to make sure your system is supported.
After buying the software you can download it immediately, I downloaded it on my vCenter server. Once I had it downloaded I opened the zip file and found multiple folders for different operating systems: ESX, ESXi, Windows, and Server 2008 Core. This client is running VMware vSphere 4 so I will be using the file in the ESX folder.
Open your vSphere Client and browse to a datatore and upload the pcns224esx.tar.gz file
SSH into the host and browse to your datastore which can be local or on shared storage.
cd /vmfs/volumes/<GUID>
Move the file to your home directory.
mv /home/<username>
Extract the compressed file.
tar -zxvf pcns224esx.tar.gz
Start the installation.
./install.sh
Press any key to view the license terms and space bar until you are done then type "yes" to agree to them. If you have only one UPS select 1 for the number of instances, if you have more select the appropriate number. I allowed the software to use the default installation directory and the bundled JRE which is version 1.5 update 18.
------------------------------------------------------------------
PowerChute Network Shutdown v.2.2.4 for VMware
Copyright (c) 2009 Schneider Electric, All Rights Reserved.
------------------------------------------------------------------OS=Linux
Initializing ...
Press any key to display End User License Agreement
Do you agree to the above license terms? [yes or no]
yesPlease enter the PCNS instance number [1|2|3] or press enter to use default value of 1:
1 PCNS instance(s) will be installed.
Please enter the installation directory or press enter to install to the default directory (/opt/APC/PowerChute):
Are you sure you want to install PCNS to /opt/APC/PowerChute [Yes|No]?
Yes
Creating /opt/APC directory ...
PCNS will be installed to /opt/APC/PowerChute
Copying the installation files ...
Extracting PCNS files ...
PCNS is extracted to /opt/APC/PowerChutePlease enter java directory if you want to use your system java (example:/usr/local/bin/jre/jre1.5.0_18) or press enter to install the bundled Java:
Copying jre to /opt/APC/PowerChute/jre ...
Extracting jre to /opt/APC/PowerChute/jre ...java version "1.5.0_18"
Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build 1.5.0_18-b02)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.5.0_18-b02, mixed mode, sharing)JAVA_DIR=/opt/APC/PowerChute/jre/jre1.5.0_18
Configuring startup files ...
Startup script=/etc/rc.d/init.d/PowerChute
Updating Linux symbolic link ...
2010-08-21 05:00:57 (28215) WARN : OpenPort: Opening a previously opened port: 3052.
2010-08-21 05:00:59 (28749) WARN : OpenPort: Opening a previously opened port: 3052.
2010-08-21 05:01:00 (29226) WARN : OpenPort: Opening a previously opened port: 3052.
Configuring uninstall script ...Completed.
Please run the PCNSConfig.sh script located within the PCNS installation directory to complete the installation.
After the installation has finished browse to the installation directory.
cd /opt/APC/PowerChute/group1/
Run the configuration file.
./PCNSConfig.sh
It will ask you to select the IP address that you want to register with the UPS. In my case I selected #3 which is the service console of the host, the other two are the iSCSI connections. It will also ask you for your subnet and how many UPS you have and the type.
It will want the IP address of your UPS, the port being used, the username, the password, and the authentication phrase. It did not like the password I entered, as it cannot be empty and no more than ten characters which mine was. I logged into the UPS and changed the password to something shorter that it would like.
If you have not configured an authentication phrase log into your UPS, select the UPS tab, select PowerChute, then configure. Also select the configuration link then the shutdown link and change the low battery duration to 5 minutes.
You should then be able to register with the UPS and start the service. Once you have done that you can browse to https://IP Address:6547 and login with the username/password you used in this configuration file.
--------------------------------------------------
PowerChute Network Shutdown Configuration Utility
--------------------------------------------------Press Ctrl + C at anytime to abort.
[1]: 192.168.131.9
[2]: 192.168.130.9
[3]: 192.168.0.228Please select the local host IP address to register [ 1 - 3 ]: 3
Please enter the subnet mask of the local host IP address to register or just press enter key to use default subnet mask [255.255.255.0]:
Configuring PowerChute Network Shutdown ...
[1]: Configure for a single UPS device
[2]: Configure for a parallel Silcon UPS / Smart-UPS VT / Galaxy system
[3]: Configure for multiple Smart-UPS or Galaxy devices
[4]: Configure for multiple Symmetra devicesPlease select the appropriate configuration type (1) [ 1 - 4 ]: 1
Management Card IP: 192.168.0.210
Management Card Port # (80):
Administrator User Name: apc
Administrator Password: [ MASKED ]
Authentication Phrase (default): [MASKED ]Setting Summary:
Management Card IP: 192.168.0.210
Management Card Port #: 80
Administrator User Name: apc
Administrator Password: [ MASKED ]
Authentication Phrase (default): [ MASKED ]Do you wish to register these settings [ Yes | No | Abort ]? Yes
Registering PowerChute Network Shutdown with the management card ...
PowerChute Network Shutdown registration completed successfully.Do you wish to start the PowerChute Network Shutdown service [ Yes | No ]? Yes
PowerChute Network Shutdown service started.Configuration completed.
Attempting To Update VMware Data Recovery
I deployed VMware Data Recovery 1.2 this week which is my first experience with the product. After deploying the OVF I logged into the shell with the username "root" and password "vmw@re" which I changed thereafter. This appliance runs on CentOS 5.2 and I figured like any good system admin I should update it. After running "yum update" on it the OS was up to the current release of 5.5 along with all the packages it was using.
After the update I was unable to reach the web page to administer the application (although you can't really do anything through the page). I tried a reboot of the system which did not help either. At that point I started Googling to see the problem was and how I go about fixing it, however I was not able to find anything useful.
There are a few posts on the VMware Communities about updating this appliance, this one has a workaround to VMware Tools breaking, by creating a symbolic link to the newer version of libssl and libcrypto, he did not comment on any issues accessing the webpage. As I sit here typing this article I can't say I tested the functionality of Data Recovery after the update, only the web page functional. However with the fact that VMware Tools breaks as reported in the post linked above and the fact that the web server breaks in the process I can't say I am comfortable with this updated product in a production environment.
With that said I am disappointed with VMware in regard to this particular product. While I know it is not their flagship software it can be purchased and is also included in every version of vSphere above standard as well as in their Essentials Plus bundle. I believe that a call to VMware support would also be a waste of time knowing that their response would be updating the appliance is not supported therefore support would not be given.
I would suggest to VMware that in their next release of Data Recovery that they use their own repositories rather than the official CentOS repos. This way they would then be able to release updates to the appliance that would not break it in the process. It is unacceptable these days to to leave production machines unpatched and force end users to troubleshoot on their own to figure out workarounds to problems that should not exist in the first place.
VMware vSphere Client & VMware Converter Plugin on Windows 7
I am frustrated with VMware like many others are using the vSphere client on Windows 7 or Windows 2008 R2 due to the fact that the client does not work without a hack. I am not going to go over the fix in this post, the information can be found in KB1011329. I was actually at a client a few weeks ago while working on an ESX 3.0 host and needed my client but was unable to use it on my laptop due to this issue. This forced me to me waste time attempting to install the older client on two of their servers which would not work. I ended up using the web interface after wasting much time with the client.
But I digress, after following the steps in KB1011329 the I received the following error.
Failed to load shared library in C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\Virtual Infrastructure Client\Launcher\ssleay32.dll:1260
I tried KB1005446 in an attempt to resolve the issue, however after making the changes I was still getting the error. Since having this plug-in is not critical for me I uninstalled it and was able to launch my vSphere client.
I am disappointed in VMware and the fact that they have not released an official fix for this. Windows 7 has been coming for a long time now through the beta, RC, RTM, and now officially out. The fact that they either were unaware of this problem or simply have chose not release an update to resolve the issue is surprising to say the least.
Update: Brian commented that this issue has been fixed in vCenter 4.0 Update 1 so be sure to upgrade for that and all the other fixes/enhancements.
Dell OpenManage 6.1.0 Fails To Install on ESX 4.0
Normally, the installation of OpenManage can be run after extracting the archive with the following command unless you want to supply optional arguements.
./srvadmin-install.sh
We had upgraded one of the two servers from VMware ESX 3.5 to 4.0 and upgraded OpenManage from the previous version to 6.1 with no problems. However, on this server, after upgrading VMware from 3.5 to 4.0 we recieved the following error when trying to install OpenManage 6.1. The error message is basically saying that three OpenMange packages were already installed and during the upgrade process could not find asssociated files. The problem with this is that this was a fresh installation and those packages should not have existed at all.
Server Administrator version 6.1.0-426 is currently installed.
Installed components are:
- srvadmin-omilcore-6.1.0-426
- srvadmin-hapi-6.1.0-426
- srvadmin-ipmi-6.1.0-426.DUP
Upgrading Server Administrator to 6.1.0-648warning: srvadmin-hapi-6.1.0-648.i386.rpm: Header V3 DSA signature: NOKEY, key ID 23b66a9d
Preparing... ########################################### 100%
/var/tmp/rpm-tmp.49620: line 355: /tmp/dellupdatepackage-hapi-12342-24438/omil/prereqcheck/Funcs.sh: No such file or directory
error: %pre(srvadmin-omilcore-6.1.0-648.i386) scriptlet failed, exit status 1
error: install: %pre scriptlet failed (2), skipping srvadmin-omilcore-6.1.0-648
/var/tmp/rpm-tmp.49620: line 6: /tmp/dellupdatepackage-hapi-12342-24438/omil/prereqcheck/Funcs.sh: No such file or directory
error: %pre(srvadmin-hapi-6.1.0-648.i386) scriptlet failed, exit status 1
error: install: %pre scriptlet failed (2), skipping srvadmin-hapi-6.1.0-648
/var/tmp/rpm-tmp.49620: line 2: /tmp/dellupdatepackage-hapi-12342-24438/funcs/srvadmin-omilcore.sh: No such file or directory
error: %preun(srvadmin-omilcore-6.1.0-426.i386) scriptlet failed, exit status 1
I called Dell technical support to for assistance since I did not know what the issue was even after Googling. She had me check to see what packages were installed on the system.
rpm -qa | grep srv
With those packages identified she had more remove them.
rpm -e --nodeps --nofiles --noscripts srvadmin-ipmi-6.1.0-426.DUP
rpm -e --nodeps --nofiles --noscripts srvadmin-omilcore-6.1.0-426
rpm -e --nodeps --nofiles --noscripts srvadmin-hapi-6.1.0-426
Once the packages were removed the isntallation was successful. She explained that this was caused by upgrading the BIOS before OpenManage was installed, and that once the BIOS upgrade was complete it was trying to update OpenManage to report the BIOS version. However because OpenManage was not installed it could not update the version and left the packages on the server.
So with that said, you have two options. You can upgrade the BIOS and firmware, remove the orphaned packages, and install OpenManage 6.1 or better yet isntall OpenManage 6.1 then upgrade the BIOS and firmware so that those upgrades are completed successfully. On the other hand, Dell should correct this issue as it is more of a bug than working as it should since the orphaned packages should be deleted if OpenManage is not installed.
Installing VMware ESXi 4.0 On A USB Drive From Linux
Find what your USB drive location is (/dev/sdb for example)
sudo fdisk -l
Mount the ISO
sudo mount -o loop VMware-VMvisor-Installer-4.0.0-164009.x86_64.iso /mnt
Extract the image
tar zxf /mnt/image.tgz -C /tmp
Unmount the ISO
sudo umount /mnt
Change directories to the location with the image
cd /tmp/usr/lib/vmware/installer
Write the image to your USB drive
bzcat VMware-VMvisor-big-164009-x86_64.dd.bz2 |sudo dd of=/dev/sdb
Datastore Missing After Replacing Motherboard Or Storage Controller
This weekend I migrated to VMware ESXi, I previously did this but due to a bad motherboard had to scratch the project. I got a new motherboard for the server and all is well now. When I booted the system with the new motherboard I was missing my VMFS volume and the error message below was logged in ESXi.
Issue detected on in ha-datacenter: LVM: 4482: vmbha0:0:0:1 may be a snapshot: disabling access. See resignaturing section in SAN config guide.
Thankfully, I had encounter this same problem at work with one of our clients after Dell replaced a bad motherboard in a PowerEdge 2950 server and the datastore with 5 production servers went missing. If you get this warning, select your host and go to the 'Configuration' tab. Select 'Advanced Features' and a window will pop up, on the left hand side select 'LVM' and change 'LVM.EnableResignature' to 1 and click OK.
Once you have done that select 'Storage Adapters' on the left hand side and click 'Rescan' on the top right corner and your datastore should show up, named as a random string, you can rename it if you like. Now open the datastore and go into each virtual machine folder, right click the .vmx file and select add to inventory which will add your guest back into the host.
Coupons Can't Be Printed In VMware?
So I wanted to print out a coupon to get some free KFC grilled chicken but to do so you have to install a "printer coupon" which I don't want on my system. So I figure I will use VMware to create a snapshot, install the software, print my coupon, then revert back, no fuss no muss right? Wrong...
