I had to upgrade some ESX hosts from ESX 3.5 the other day, as they are a long way away, and version 4.1 is hot off the presses (at time of writing) that’s what I wanted to upgrade them to.
Lessons Learned
1. At first I tried with the “Host Update Utility”.
2. But no matter what version I gave it, it gave me this error,
3. That points you HERE, and the fix is “Download the latest Version of Host Update Utility” DONT BOTHER YOU WILL NOT FIND IT.
Solution
1. First I got the hosts updated to version 4.0.0 Update 2 – To do that I used the VMware Update Manager (Install on your Virtual Center it’s on the VIM setup CD).
2. Then found out I couldn’t upgrade to version 4.1 using the same method.
You have an ESXi server running 4.0 and you want to update to 4.1
Note: This procedure is carried out on a stand along ESXi 4.0 host, if you have 4.0 ESXi servers managed by Virtual Center you MUST update your Virtual Center to version 4.1 FIRST. If you don’t you cannot connect to the updated 4.1 ESXi host post upgrade, if you try you will see the following error,
Error: HA agent disabled on {hostname}
And for Virtual Center 4.1 the host server needs to be x64 bit (at time of writing Server 2008 R2 is NOT supported).
Seen on Windows Server 2008 R2 running on VMware ESX/ESXi 4.0 and 4.1
Solution
Firstly, I’m assuming you are running the latest version of VMware tools on the machine in question, this procedure was carried out with VMware tools version 8.3.2 and cures the problem.
1. On the affected VM Click Start > In the search run box type > devmgmt.msc {enter}
2. Expand “Display adapters” Right click the one in use > “Update Driver Software.”
3. Browse to ” C:/Program Files/Common Files/VMware/Drivers/wddm_video” > Next.
4. When finished it should say “VMware SVGA 3D” Drivers have installed successfully. > Close
5. You will be prompted for a reboot, do so.
Note: Also ensure that you have allowed at least 8MB RAM for the graphics card (machine needs to be powered off before you can edit this).
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ES! it is, if in doubt see the compatibility matrix. But you have tried to install it and seen an error?
Error: This product can only be installed on the following 64-bit operating systems: Windows XP SP2 or above Windows Server 2003 Windows Server 2008
Solution
Essentially this just a bad error message that bears no resemblance the the actual problem!
The REAL REASON you are seeing this error is because you re trying to install vCenter on a domain controller.
This happens because, as part of the vCenter 4.1 setup the following takes place,
And if the server is a Domain controller, ADLDS cannot be installed. You will notice that if you watch the “Roles” section during the install of vCenter, that a role drops onto the list.
Final Thoughts
For anyone who thinks “Well Ill put vCenter on first then make the server a domain controller”. That won’t work either, if you try that you will see this error,
Error: The TCP ports shown below are required by Active Directory Domain Services, but are already in use on this computer. 389 ldap
To be honest a more descriptive error message would help. (Cheers VMware!). It’s not as if you cant do it…
Same thing on Server 2008
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Openfiler is a free NAS / SAN prebuilt Linux distribution, that can provide iSCSI storage to your VMware environment, it’s ideal for small setups (This video was made with all the devices running in VMware workstation 7, on my laptop. That’s two ESXi servers, a vCenter server, and the Openfiler iSCSI target server).
Solution
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Openfiler Thanks to VMware for the free copy of VMware Workstation.
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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