After upgrading my vCenter to 8.0 Update 3 I went to login, and the login box itself was grayed out, with a ‘no entry’ sign when I attempted to click it, and Bizarrely I now had a Use RSA ID option?
Solution: Login Grayed Out
Apparently, this is a known problem with this update, and the ‘fix’ is to clear the browser cache, which I attempted to do.
However the problem persisted, the only way I could fix the problem was to delete ALL BROWSING DATA.
Thankfully after a browser restart, I was up and running again.
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One of the lads in support messaged me this week, he needed to raise the size of the hard drive on a VM, and the option was greyed out (not available).
Solution
Now assuming you actually have the rights to do this, the problem is ‘nearly always‘ that the ‘disk’ in question has an active snapshot on it. Remove your snapshots first.
Now you can raise the size.
Don’t forget: In your OS you will then need to increase the volume size to accommodate the additional space!
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I was trying to hot add some memory to a VM the other day, and found the option grayed out. Normally I’d just down the VM, add the memory, then bring it back up. But it was a production server and I was pretty sure the OS supported it.
A quick Google search told me why it was grayed out, but it also transpired there was little to no information on what version of Windows hot add and hot plug would work with.
Solution
I’m not going to argue the semantics of the differences between “hot add” and “hot plug”, if I’m taking about hot add I’m talking about memory, if I’m talking about hot plug I’m talking about adding CPUs. You also need to be aware that to date Few OS’s support hot remove or hot unplug. If you try you will see the following;
vSphere version 6 or 6.5 (Hot Unplug )
It simply wont let you lower the value;
Note: With a Supported O,S (i.e. Server 2016 and 2019) you CAN hot remove CPU.
vSphere version 5.0 or 5.5
Hot Add Memory/ CPU in vSphere 6 & 6.5
As with earlier version of vSphere, to enable hot plug or hot remove, the machine has to be shut down. Then the option can be enabled. Select the VM > Edit Settings.
CPU: Virtual Hardware > CPU > Tick ‘Enable CPU Hot Add’ > Save.
Hot Plug, Hot Add in the vSphere HTML5 Client
Hot Add Memory/ CPU in vSphere 5 & 5.5
As for memory and CPU settings you will probably see what I was seeing. Both the options are not changeable.
2. Sorry but to enable this feature you need to power off the client machine, then when you edit its settings > Options > Advanced > Memory/CPU_Hotplug > You can enable hot add and hot plug > OK . Power the VM back on again.
3. Now you will see you have the option to hot add memory and hot plug CPUs.
What Operating Systems support this?
Like I said above, I did some testing because information is thin on the ground, this is what I was actually able to make work.
With 2008 R2 Standard
1. As you can tell from the table memory hot add will work but to add a CPU will need a reboot. Before I started I had 2 CPUs and 4GB of memory.
2. Lets add more memory and CPUs.
3. For all machines I tested there was a lag, sometimes as little as 3-5 seconds, other times as long as 15-20 seconds, during this time you will see some processor and memory usage spikes. But as shown the memory eventually becomes available.
4. Post reboot, your extra CPUs will appear.
With 2008 R2 Enterprise and Datacenter
1. Note I’m using Datacenter here, but Enterprise is the same. I increased the memory from 4 to 5 GB, And added a further 3 CPUs.
2. It does work, you simply need to restart the “Task Manager” to reflect the increased CPU count.
3. Finished.
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This article is primarily geared towards making your guest virtual machines hard drives LARGER, If you want to SHRINK or make the drive smaller then see the following article.
1. On the properties of the VM select the hard disk in question and locate its size.
2. Enter the new size and hit OK. Note: Making the drive size smaller, will have no affect, if you want to do that clone the drive. If the option is “Greyed out” then make sure you DO NOT have any snapshots for this machine.
Re-sizing the guests “Volume” Option 1 – Graphically
Note: To do this using diskpart skip forward to number 10.
3. On the guest > Right click “My Computer” > Manage > Locate “Disk Management”. You will see there’s some free space that’s appeared on the end of the drive, (Click action > Re-scan if you can’t see it).
4. Simply right click the existing volume and select “Extend Volume”.
5. Next.
6. Copy in the extra space you want to assign (all of it probably) > Next.
7. Finish.
8. All the physical drive should now be committed.
9. And just to be sure, look in “My Computer” the drive is now 300 GB.
Re-sizing the guests “Volume” Option 2 – From Command Line with diskpart
10. Start > run > cmd{enter}
[box]diskpart list volume< select volume x –Where x is the volume number of the volume to be re sized[/box]
11. The final command is simply extend (This uses ALL the available free space.) Note the volume size in the picture below has jumped up by 40 GB.
Resizing a System (boot) Partition.
Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 can do this quite happily. Older versions of Windows do not like having their system drive re sized, you see the following error if you try,
Error: The volume you have selected may not be extended. Please select another volume and try again.
Option 1 (Connect this drive to another machine)
In a virtual environment this is much simpler, but even if its a real physical hard drive, you can put it into another server and re size it. In an ESX environment simply do the following,
1. Shut down the machine that needs its drive re sizing, then go to another virtual machine’s properties and select add.
2. Hard Disk > Next.
3. Select “Use existing virtual disk” > Next.
4. Browse to the the drive we want to re size > Next.
5. Next.
6. Finish.
7. Now on the VM (Action > Re-scan disks). You will see the drive, and it’s not listed as a system drive, so you can extend it using any of the methods listed above.
8. For example, heres the drive re sized using disport.
9. when you have re sized the drive go back to the properties of the machine you have connected it to, and remove it.
10. OK.
11. Now power on the original VM and drive will be re sized.
Option 2 (Re size the Windows volume with GParted)
Note: This will work for a physical server as well.
1. Here’s our system drive with some nice shiny free space.
2. Make sure the server in question can boot from CD, in VMware do the following to boot to the machines BIOS, for a real server watch the screen as the server boots for instructions (Usually F10, F1 or Esc but differs depending on vendor).
3. Locate the boot order and make sure CD/DVD is at the top of the list.
4. Download GParted burn the image to CD, if you are working on a real server (use ImgBurn if your stuck). Or simply point the VM to the iso image, and boot the machine in question from it. At the welcome screen press Enter.
5. Use your arrow and tab keys to select Don’t touch the keymap > OK.
6. Pick a language.
7. We want to launch the GUI (X Windows), so select 0 (Zero).
8. Select Re size/Move > Drag the arrow to include the free space > Re size/Move.
9. Apply
10. Apply.
11. Close.
12. Click GParted > Quit.
13. Exit > Reboot/Shutdown > OK.
14. Remove the CD/ISO and press Enter.
15. The guest will run chkdsk the firs time it boots. This is normal don’t panic.
16. Once booted the volume will be re sized.
Shrink a Windows Partition with diskpart
1. To actually make the volume smaller with diskpart, the initial commands are the same.
2. If you use “shrink” on its own is will shrink the drive as much as it can (I cannot think of any situation where you would do this!). So to shrink the volume by 10 GB simply issue a “shrink minimum 10240”. (The figure in in MB).
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I’ve seen this happen a few times now, while looking at your Virtual infrastructure, one or more client machines is greyed out and shown as (Orphaned).
Solution
If you have many guests VM’s on one host with this problem, you can cure this by removing the parent host and re-adding it to the cluster, then right clicking it and select “Reconfigure for HA“.
Or you can do the following, on a machine by machine basis.
1. Right click the affected VM and select “Remove from Inventory” (nothing gets deleted don’t worry.)
2. Select one of your ESX hosts > Configuration > storage > Right click the storage that holds the virtual machine we are dealing with and select “Browse Datastore” > Locate the machines .vmx file > Right click > Add to inventory > Follow the instructions.
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Whilst attempting to add 3D graphic support to a Windows Server 2012 guest VM, the option was greyed out.
Solution
1. Locate the .vmx file for this virtual machine and download it so you can edit it (Select a Host > Configuration > Storage > {Storage the guest is on} > Right Click > Browse Data Store > {Guest VM Name}) > Download.
2. Edit the file, and add the following to the end of the vmx file;
[box]
mks.enable3d = TRUE
[/box]
3. Upload the file back to your storage, at this point I checked and it was still greyed out. I had to remove the VM from the inventory* then add it back to the inventory.
*WARNING: Remove it from the inventory by right clicking the VM in the VI Client. DO NOT Delete it from Disk!
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While working on the vSphere Web Client in Google Chrome, I was unable to ‘Open Console’, the option was on the right click menu, but disappeared and was then greyed out after a second or so.
Essentially this happens because the plug-in has either not been installed, (from the login page) or a pop-up blocker is stopping the plug-in working.
Solution
1. With Chrome there’s an extra hoop to jump though, the plug-in uses NPAPI, and Chrome disabled that beginning with version 42. To enable it open a new tab and navigate to;
Seen when trying to carry out a restore in Bexec 2012, when you select the server you wish to restore, (on the Backup and restore tab), both the restore icon, and restore on the right click menu, are greyed out and cannot be selected.
Solution
1. Double click the server in question to open its properties. Select the job history tab and locate either the last good backup, or the backup you wish to restore from. Double click that job to open the job log. Expand the ‘Device and Media Information’ Tab, and locate the tapes/media that this job used. In this case its a tape called 000188L3.
2. In this example I’m using an autoloader and the tape is still in the carousel. If you have a single tape drive insert the tape/media in question. locate the media, right click it and select catalog.
3. To see it’s progress, you can select the jobs tab.
4. When the job is complete, you should now be able to select the restore option.
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I changed the IP addressing of a new client a few weeks ago. They have a remote site that uses Remote Desktop Services (Terminal Services). By the time I got to the remote site to set everything back up again I was greeted with this.
The remote session was disconnected because there are no Remote Desktop Licence Servers available to provide a license. Please contact the server administrator.
I assumed this was simply because I had changed the IP structure at the main site so I jumped on to check the license server settings.
I could not change the licence server, it was greyed out, (It was the OLD ip of the server, in this case the license server role was on the same server).
Solution
In trying to formulate a ‘fix’ I came across the actual cause of the problem, the previous IT supplier had (when they had set it up), locked down the Remote Desktop Services License Server Settings using Group Policy. Remember all my RDP roles are on one server here so I just have to edit the local policy on this server.
1. Start > Windows Key+R > gpedit.msc {Enter}.
2. Navigate to;
[box]
Computer Configuration > Policies > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Remote Desktop Services > Remote Desktop Session Host > Licensing > Use the specified Remote Desktop License Server
[/box]
3. Edit the ‘enabled’ entry, to reflect the correct IP or FQDN of the Remote Desktop License Server, (I prefer IP addresses).
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Before Server 2008 R2 when we needed to inject drivers into our WDS images we had to do it like this.
Now however the process is a lot more elegant! Simply import the drivers into WDS, then inject them into the boot images (Yes the boot images NOT the Windows Images you are deploying!)
Solution
Add Driver Packages to Image is “Greyed out”
If while attempting to add drivers, the option to “Add Driver Packages to Image” is grayed out.
Then you may need to update your boot images from Server 2008/Vista images to 2008 R2/Windows 7 Images. (or from version 6.0.6000 to 6.1.7600).
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