I recently got a question on how to use regex within vRealize Operations to make a symptom if DNS server settings on a host is incorrect. I did a quick google search and found out that info on regex and vROps wasn’t easily available. So here is a litte write up on the process.
Create the Symptom
First we need to create a symptom Go to Configure, Alerts, Symptom Definitions and choose ADD In the Add Symptom Definition view change Base Object Type to Host System and Symptom Type to Properties. In Select Specific Object expand Configuration, Network and double click on DNS Server.
Give the Symptom a resonable Name and on the If Property choose Does not match regular expression. In the Property value field you should now see the value we need to match.
In my case the correct config is [192.168.10.20, 192.168.6.10] so I created a regex that will match on this value. There is probably other ways to create the regex but this worked for me. Regex example: \D192.168.10.20, 192.168.6.10\D
When that is done remember to set wanted Criticality and then save.
Create Alert Definitions
When that is done you can create your alert definitions and use the new symptom. (no step, by step guidance here)
More advanced reqex
In my simple lab setup this regex was doing its job, but for a live production environment it might not be the case, what if some servers have the DNS configured in the opposite way? Then my regex won’t match.
That brings me to the customer use case brought to me by Bernt Christian Torbjørnsen, a vRealize Operations admin and virtualization evangelist. When combining my testing, some brainstorming and a screen sharing session with some trail and error we managed to tweak his regex to work within vROps and this is the code we ended up with.
This regex will result in match if DNS servers is configure in any of thees to ways. [192.168.10.20, 192.168.6.10] or [192.168.10.10, 192.168.6.20]
Hot Tip
If you want to test your expression quicker than waiting for vROps collection cycles, you can create a custom group instead and use your regex there to get instant preview.
In vRealize Operations it seems like we need to match the whole string including [ ] to get a match [192.168.10.20, 192.168.6.10]
This blog post is a result of me ranting to a colleague about vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager (vRSLCM) not supporting deployment of the extra small vRealize Log Insight node. I do not know the official reason for this, but I guess it is because the extra small node is only meant for proof-of-concept and test deployments.
The reason for reducing the storage footprint on Log Insight is because it will eventually fill all its available storage space with log data. And using 500 GB of storage space in a lab environment is probably never desirable.
Use the Extra Small version of the appliance in a proof-of-concept or test environment, but not in a production environment. This configuration supports up to 20 ESXi hosts (~200 events/second or ~3GB/day) .
During this spontaneous brainstorming session where I wanted to deploy Log Insight with a smaller storage footprint than default. We did a few tests and found that it was easy to achieve this as long as we don’t use vRSLCM. Or could we?
RESOURCES
MINIMUM REQUIREMENT
Memory
4 GB
vCPU
2
Storage Space
530 GB
Extra Small Log Insight Deployment Requirements
This table shows default setup for the extra small node. In the next section I have listed the steps on how to choose your own storage size.
Deploying vRealize Log Insight with smaller disk size.
vRealize Log Insight Live Storage after replacing default 500 GB disk with a 100 GB disk
Deploying Log Insight appliance with a smaller disk size is supprisingly easy. Just follow these few steps.
Download the VMware vRealize Log Insight Virtual Appliance
Deploy it using vCenter «Deploy OVF Template»
Before you power on the VM remove Hard disk 2
Add a new Hard disk 2 with your desired size.
Power on the VM.
As you can see from the Live Storage picture, I don’t get 100 GB of usable storage space so it is probably a good idea to give it more disk space than 30 GB.
This is off course not a supported setup, but it can be a good solution for reducing the size of your vRealize Log Insight deployment in a lab or for other testing purposes.
Deploying vRealize Log Insight extra small node with vRSLCM
There is probably not many use cases for this way of doing it, but that doesn’t mean we should test it. So here is a few of the questions we asked ourself and tested before we found a solution.
Question
answer
Can I deploy vRealize Log Insight extra small node with vRSLCM?
No
Can i deploy small node using vRSLCM and then change storage size later?
No (no option to stop autostart of VM)
Is the Extra small setup having a smaller disk than the small appliance?
No
Can I deploy vRealize Log Insight manually using downloaded ova and reconfigure the VM with a smaller disk?
Yes
Can do a switcheroo? Delete VM deployed by vRSLCM before the process realizes that the VM is available and deploy an extra small node using method described previously?
Yes
This is the steps needed
vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager Node Size Options for Log Insight
Deploy small vRealize Log Insight node using vRSLCM.
Power off the VM as soon as it is powered on by the deployment.
Delete the VM.
Follow the manual deployment procedure in the section above. Make sure the settings is identical to the ones used with the vRSLCM deployment.
When the new VM is powered on, vRSLCM will continue with its deployment steps and should complete successfully.
Im not sure of the timeout limit in vRSLCM but it was long enough for me to do the deployment without failing. And if it should stop with a failure, my guess is that you can click retry and it will continue.
Another option that is probably also possible is to deploy Log Insight manually in and then import it into vRSLCM later, but I have not tested this.
You can do this from both vIDM (Workspace One Access) appliance or from the vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager (vRSLCM) appliance. Changes done in one will sync to the other. In this walkthrough I will configure AD integration using vRSLCM.
Walkthrough
First you need to login as admin@local and go to Identity and Tenant Management then to Directories and Add Directory. Choose Active directory over LDAP
Insert your details as shown in picture below. when you have added all the details click the Test Connection button. If all is green you are good if not you need to start troubleshooting. Start with verifying that all the details indeed are correct.
On the next screen verify that it has found the correct domain and click Save And Next
On the Attribute page you can choose to go with det defaults shown in this picture or you can make changes if needed. Click Save and Next.
In the Group Selection section you must add a DNs for the groups you want to synchronize into vIDM. If you for some reason only want to add users you can do that in the next section. When you are satisfied with your selection click Save and Next.
Select any users you want to sync that is not in any of your synced groups and click Save and Next
In this next section a dry run will be performed and you will get a summary of the users and groups that will be synced and a warning if any of the users don’t contain the required attributes and therefor cannot be synchronized. If you are not satisfied you can always click Back button and do changes. When you are happy click Sync and Complete.
Summary
You can now use AD users and groups within Identity Manager. It can be smart to go through the directory settings inside the vIDM appliance after setup to change Sync Frequency and other settings. By default the sync is once pr week.
If you have vRealize Suite license it is a good chance that you have deployed a vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager and the included Identity Manager appliance. If not you probably should! You will have a nice portal for all your vRealize URLs with SSO, but you do not have true SSO all the way from your windows client to your vRealize applications. Users still have to login to the portal each time they want to use it. Here is a quick write up on how to enable kerberos authentication to achieve true SSO.
Attention If you have vIDM 3.3.3 and 3.3.4 this feature is not working with the embedded connector. please upgrade to 3.3.5 where it is working again.
In this blog I will walk you through how to setup true SSO, but first to some prerequisites.
vIDM portal
Prerequisites
vIDM Appliance deployed
Active Directory
A user that can join a machine to the domain
Directories configured in vIDM or through vRSLCM.
Make sure AD users or groups have been given access and login is already working.
If all prerequisite are met we can start the setup. But before we can configure the adapter we need to join the appliance to the domain. Login to your Identity Manager with admin user and go to Identity & Access Management and then Setup
Under Available Actions click Join Domain and Insert username and password to join the domain. You can leave Organizational unit (OU) of domain to join blank or If you want the machine placed directly in the correct OU, just add the details for your environment. Example: OU=Computers,OU=LAB,DC=lab,DC=vedaa,DC=net
When that is done we can continue and enable KerberosIdpAdapter Make sure you still are at Identity & Access Management and Setup as before. Under Worker click on your appliance FQDN and then Auth Adapters
Now click on KerberosIdpAdapter check the box Enable Windows Authentication and click Save. Close the current browser tab.
Go back to Identity & Access Management but this time stay on Manage and click on Policies. Select the default_access_policy_set and click edit
Click next og 2 Configuration and then click on All Ranges(Device Type Web Browser)
Edit the policy by first clicking ADD FALLBACK METHOD. Then change the order of the logins as shown below. First Kerberos then Password and last Password (Local Directory) then click Save, and then Next and Save.
True SSO should now be working form the VMware side of things. If it is not working take a look at thees additional steps.
Additional settings
Here is some additional steps you might need to perform if it is not working. First make sure that vIDM URL is part of local intranet zone. If it is not add it by following thees steps.
In Windows search for Internet Options In Internet Options, click the Security tab. On the Security page, select Local intranet. Click Sites and add your vIDM URL to the list of websites.
It it is still not working verify that Integrated Windows Authentication is enabled.
In the Internet Options window, click the Advanced tab. In the Settings list, under Security, select Enable Integrated Windows Authentication.
Do you know what a VMware TAM is? If not, keep on reading. In this blogpost I will look into some of the sources out there that explains what a VMwareTAM is.
But first, the reason for this blogpost is related to my own career choices. Life has its phases and for me 2021 contains changes to my work life. I’m leaving my current employer and my role as a senior consultant and joining VMware. My first introduction to VMware was around 2008 and has gradually increased since then, through different roles and companies. Today I’m embarking on an exiting new journey as a Technical Account Manager.
You won’t evolve if you never go outside your comfort zone.
Before I applied to the position I had some experience with the TAM Service from the customer-side. But not a whole lot more. And that is probably the case for you as well. If you want to learn more take a look at thees sources.
“VMware Technical Account Manager Services provide cross-functional advisors and customer advocates, backed by the full resources of the VMware organization, who partner with customers to help realize their success with VMware solutions, accelerate their return on VMware investments and mitigate risk”
If you are the type that like to consume knowledge through podcast you can listen to this episode TAM at VMware with Gert Verbeyst on the vSuperheroes podcast.
VMware just released a security patch for vROps with severity critical. Here is a quick walkthrough on how you can do the patching from vRealize Suite Lifecycle manager.
Patching vROps with vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager
First you must login to vRSLCM with admin@local account. Then go to Binary Mapping. Click on Patch Binaries and Check Patches Online to update vRSLCM with the latest patches.
When that is done you should have all the latest patches available in the Binary Mapping – > Patch Binaries view. To download the patch you need to click the download icon under Action.
Sadly it is not possible to sort by ReleaseDate or filter by year / month so you need to find it by looking through the pages or filtering by 8.3 in version.
When the patch is downloaded you can head over to the Environments section and find your vROps installations. Choose your deployment and navigate to Install Patch.
Attention: Make sure you have taken your cluster offline and created a snapshot before you proceed.
Select the patch and hit next
Review and click Install The patch installation will take the cluster offline during the process
vRSLCM will now install the patch for you.
My installation took almost 1 hour but may vary between different setups. Also remember to remove the snapshot when you have verified that everything is working as is should.
Wrap-up
When using the vRSLCM appliance to do patching and upgrades it makes your job easier and its less prone to errors or mistake. It is not perfect but its better than the alternative. I have also added my takeaways from the process and where it could improve.
My tips for improvement
Missing the ability give full admin access to domain authenticated users.
Sort by ReleaseDate option in Binary Mapping -> Patch Binaries view.
Add built inn workflow to take vROps cluster offline, create snapshot and bring online within the upgrade and patch process.
Missing ability to auto download of patches.
Missing built in function to alert of new versions and patches through email. (this should be combined with the SMTP settings in the other products to have a single point of config for SMTP across vRealize.
Fra 01.09.2020 startet VMware en kampanje med 50% rabatt på nykjøp og oppgradering til vRealize og vCloud Suite. Kampanjen varer til 22.01.2021 og er en gyllen mulighet til å få produktene i pakken til en rabattert pris.
VMware Identity Manager portal satt opp med SSO til alle tjenestene i vRealize Suite I tillegg til NSX og vRealize Network Insight
Hvem kan utnytte rabatten?
De fleste kan utnytte denne rabatten da den gjelder på ny kjøp av vRealize Suite og oppgradering for dem med eksisterende vRealize Operations Standard lisenser (pr CPU) Man kan også benytte rabatten ved oppgradering av vSphere lisenser til vCloud Suite, se listen under for detaljer.
Produktnummer
Produkt Beskrivelse
VR19-STD-PRO
VMware vRealize Suite 2019 Standard (Per PLU) Promo
CL19-STD-PRO
VMware vCloud Suite 2019 Standard Promo
CL19-STD7-STD-UG-PRO
Upgrade: VMware vSphere 7 Standard to vCloud Suite 2019 Standard Promo
CL19-ENT7-STD-UG-PRO
Upgrade: VMware vSphere 7 Enterprise to vCloud Suite 2019 Standard Promo
CL19-EPL7-STD-UG-PRO
Upgrade: VMware vSphere 7 Enterprise Plus to vCloud Suite 2019 Standard Promo
VR19-OSTC-STD-UG-PRO
Upgrade: VMware vRealize Operations 8 Standard (Per CPU) to VMware vRealize Suite 2019 Standard (Per PLU) Promo
When I saw that VMware had updated the SNMP management pack for vROps a little while ago i wanted to test and see what it could be used for. But first I want to thank Steven Bright at https://www.stevenbright.com for making the job a bit easier with his blog Monitoring devices using SNMP in vRealize Operations 8.1 In my post I will go into details on installing the XUPS-MIB file and the creation of the Eaton UPS dashboard.
Before you begin
I would always recommend to check if there is a management pack available for the devices you want to monitor. When it comes Eaton UPS devices a quick search on the VMware Marketplace reveals that there is a management pack, unfortunately it is old and outdated. This is of course a bummer but we can still monitor the devices using SNMP and creating our own views and dashboards. A tip for this dashboard is that you can download the old management pack and extract the UPS icon for use with our Eaton UPS dashboard.
Preparation
So how can I monitor my device using the SNMP management pack. First make sure you have the SNMP details for the devices you want to monitor. And verify if the MIB file is present inside vROps. In my case it was not, so I had to figure out what MIB file to use and where to download the Eaton MIB files. I also made sure the devices was updated with the latest firmware found at Eatons download page.
How to upload MIB files to vROps
To upload the Eaton MIB files to my vROps nodes I tried to follow the VMware documentation on how to upload MIB files. It gives us the info but not all the details. So here’s a detailed description on how I did it.
Step 1
I used WinSCP and Putty when uploading the MIB file and running the script on all vROps nodes. Navigate to the location of the mib files and upload your mib files.
When the mib file is uploaded go to usr/lib/vmware-vcops/user/plugins/inbound/snmp_adapter3/conf and I run the updateMibs.sh script file.
sh updateMibs.sh
When that is done you can check the mib-import.log file to search for your newly imported mib file. If you can’t find it some thing went wrong. Once you have verified that the mib is in the log file you are good to go.
Important: Many of the mib files are called MIB something, make sure that your mib file have the .mib extension or it won’t import. It happened to me once, the filename ended on MIB so I dint see that the .mib extension was missing. This type of issue is easy to miss but also easy to catch if you verify using the mib-import.log after running the updateMibs.sh file.
Step 3
Edit the describe.xml file and update the version number shown in RED.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!-- Copyright (c) 2007-2020 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved -->
<AdapterKind key="SNMPAdapter" nameKey="1" version="9"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
Make sure step 1-3 is done on all your vrops nodes.
Step 4
Login to your vROps appliance and run redescribe.
Verify: You can verify that you have done everyting correctly. The number for the SNMP Adapter in the Describe Version column should match the number in the describe.xml file you just updated. When you run the redescribed it should increase to the new number.
You are now done with the import and should be able to add a new adapter and find your newly imported MIB in the adapter mib file list.
Collecting data and creating the dashboard
I won’t go into details on how to add the adapters and create custom groups as that is thoughly described in Stevens blog. But when you have created a custom group for the devices, custom alerts and a new policy for collecting the mib data you need to figure out what data to collect and how to present it. I used Circitor.fr to find some more details about the XUPS-MIB file.
In my case certain UPS models seemed to work fine but no data was received inside vROps. This issue was resolved when I changed the settings to use SNMPv3.
What OIDs to use
I guess it depends on what you want to monitor, present and do trends on. I focused on the following in my dashboard.
For the time remaining the collected data was in seconds so I created the following super metric to convert it to minutes for easier viewing.
floor({
This Resource: XUPS-MIB|iso|org|dod|internet|private|enterprises|powerware|xups|xupsBattery|xupsBatTimeRemaining - OID: .1.3.6.1.4.1.534.1.2.1
}/60)
The dashboard
The dashboard I have created consist of a few different components – Object list: This list contains all the UPS units – History: This shows the trend of time remaining and state of the units. – Description: It contains a description on the different states. – Relationship: I have created a relationship from the UPS to the host it provides power to so it is easy to see what is impacted in case of a failure. – Alerts: I tried using syslog from UPS to Log Insight and then into vROps but unfortunately most EATON units I had did not support remote syslog.
Å flytte en VM til, fra og mellom skyer samt disaster recovery har aldri vert enklere. I vSphere 7.0 legger VMware til rette for dette ved å legge info om vCloud Availability i vCenter. I dette innlegget skal jeg prøve å forklare litt om produkter og hvordan det settes opp.
Hva kan vCloud Availability brukes til?
«Skyene» må være VMware Cloud Verified
vCloud Availability kan benyttes i forbindelse med en DRaaS løsning og eller for å migrere tjenester til fra og mellom skyer. Løsningen består av en vCloud Director installasjon satt opp og driftet av en VMware Partner og en vCloud Availability appliance installert i ditt datasenter.
Man kan velge kun å benytte DRaaS, men samtidig ha datasenter kapasiteter tilgjengelig ved en hendelse. Eller man kan migrere maskiner enkelt over og ha dem kjørende fast i skyen.
vCloud Availability
Noen muligheter med vCloud Availability
Skalere opp med resurser i skyen, og raskt migrere tjenester dit.
Enkelt flytte eksisterende tjenestene mellom datasentre ved behov.
Integrert i lokalt vCenter
Migrere eller beskytte VMer mellom datasentre.
Fra on-prem til sky
Fra sky til on-prem
Fra sky til sky
Hvordan komme i gang
Steg 1 (Gjelder for vCenter 7.0)
Gå til vCloud Availability i ditt vCenter der får du opp«getting started»siden.
En ting som kan være viktig å sjekke opp her er hvilken versjon leverandøren kjører. Tjenesten er bakover kompatibel, men funksjonalitet eller annet kan være påvirket.Bruk VMware Product Interoperability Matrices for å sjekke støtten.
Når den virtuelle maskinen er installert, sjekk at konfigurasjonen er riktig og kjør deretter «run initial setup wizard»
vCloud Availability Appliance konfigurasjon
Under denne prosessen vil du bli bedt om URL, brukernavn og passord, dette skal du ha mottatt fra leverandøren din.
Steg 3
Registrer vCenteret mot vCloud Availability appliance du nettopp har installert.
Koble vCenter mot appliance.
Du har nå satt opp vCloud Availability tjenesten og kan ta den i bruk.
vRealize Suite Lifecycle manager contains a feature called Content Management, this can among others be used to backup the content of your vRealize Operations Management Appliance. Like dashboards, views, alerts, super metrics, reports and other customizable content.
How to setup
Add endpoint in vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager
First you need to go to content management in your Lifecycle Manager Dashboard and add a «New Endpoint» Choose vRealize Operations from the «Choose endpoint type» menu.
As you can see it is also possible to add other endpoints as well.
You would then need to add the following details (Name, FQDN, admin and root passwords for your vROps Appliance. Click next and configure policy settings.
Add vRealize Operations Manager as new endpoint.
Policy options
In the policy setting you can configure some details about your endpoint. For capturing dashboard we only need «Allow content to be captured from this endpoint»
Capture
When that is done go to the content menu and click add content, choose your newly added vRealize Operations endpoint. Capture is selected as action by default. click proceed.
List of content that can be captured
On the capture details page, click the dropdown «select capture endpoint» and select your newly added vROps endpoint. Select what content you want to capture and click done. You must also add a comment before you can hit and hit next and submit.
Now you can watch the progress under content pipelines and under content you will see a list of all the content captured.
If you click on the content, you’ll get to see more details and the option to deploy the content to your endpoints.
Deploy
Once you have captured your content you can from the content menu deploy it back to the same vROps instance or to another one if you have multiple environments.
Summary
Backup of your customized content is nice if something should happen to it or your vROps environment. This is just one small part of what the content management feature in vRSLCM can be used for.
Issues
During my testing of this feature I got some issues when I tried to capture dashboards owned by other users than the admin user. I’m not sure why this is but I was not able to get it to work.
20.04.2020 I have now tested this with a new clean installation on 8.1 and the issue is the same. It leads me to believe it is a «feature»
Error message was: "Dashboard <dashboardname> not found for user admin"
