Can't login after running sysprep?

When running sysprep, the password usually doesn't change unless you get clever with unattended installation scripts.

However if you're using a non-standard (e.g. renamed) local admin account, you may be unable to log on to it after running sysprep.  This is because sysprep actually renames the local admin account back to "Administrator" but leaves the password unchanged.

Just login with Administrator and your password and you should be able to log in ok (tested with Windows 2008 R2 but I'm sure all versions of Windows are the same).

Error building from Windows 2003 media "virtual media session already exists"

Recently I've had to rebuild a 9th Gen III server (PERC6 controller) from scratch over  DRAC connection.  There are a few ways to achieve this.  The recommended way is to use the Dell installation helper CDs which have over the years gone by a few different names:
Dell Server Assistant
Installation and Server Management
System Build & Update Utility
They work by slipstreaming drivers into a Windows 2003 installation off a Windows CD or an ISO presented  over a DRAC connection virtual media session.

Unfortunately I needed to install Windows 2003 (in order to get SP1 installed).  This meant using the ISM version 5.2 and the only version that supported this was for 9th Gen I servers (with a PERC5 controller).  Booting resulted in no hard disks detected.

So the other way to get the OS installed is to boot off Windows media (or DRAC Virtual Media) and press F6 for an OEM driver disk.

The drivers are easily downloadable from the Dell drivers page - you just need the hard disk unzip package which contains the .cat, .sys, .inf and oemsetup.inf files.  These then need to be turned into a floppy image and mounted via the drac.

This is where the "virtual media session already exists" error pops up.  I'm not sure the root cause but a workaround is to use the virtual flash.

In order to do this you need to upload the floppy image to the virtual flash and enable it under the virtual media configuration tab with the tickbox.

Once this is done, you need to change the boot order to the virtual flash is higher than the physical floppy or virtual floppy.

Once you've done all this, the windows setup wizard should find the perc6 driver mapped as A: on the virtual flash when you press F6.

For this guide, I used the latest DRAC version (1.65) and the Java Virtual Media plugin.

Dell Openmanage Essentials shows cluster name instead of hostname

When you use Openmanage to discover servers that are part of a Microsoft HA cluster, by default it will use the cluster name for the active node instead of the hostname.

To get around this, add an exclusion against the Cluster VIP and Openmanage Essentials should ignore the cluster info and just connect to the host.

Vmware Update Manager Error code 15 when updating Dell OpenManage

The vmware update manager logfile (C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware Update Manager\Logs) may show the error “Could not find a trusted signer”

This can be resolved by removing the Dell VIBs for OpenManage and the Equallogic Multipath Module and reinstalling manually
esxcli software vib remove -n OpenManage -n dell-configuration-vib -n dell-eql-host-connection-mgr -n dell-eql-hostprofile -n dell-eql-routed-psp


Manually re-install the OpenManage VIB
esxcli software vib install -d /tmp/OM-SrvAdmin-Dell-Web-7.2.0-6945.VIB-ESX51i.zip

Reboot the host to remove the loaded VIBs from memory and load the new version of OpenManage

The equallogic module can be reinstalled with Update Manager with no reboot required

Access denied exporting event logs

The main reason for an access denied message exporting event logs even when you're logged on with an administration user is if you're trying to save them to a UNC path.

Just save the file locally and manually copy to the UNC path.

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Vmware esxupdate error code:8

The vmware update service can sometimes get confused about the installed/available updates in wierd and wonderful ways.

I recently got the following error while trying to update an extension and Vmware patches using VUM (Vmware update manager)

"The host returns esxupdate error code:8. The format of the VIB is invalid.  Check the Update Manager log files and esxupdate log files for more details."

A quick check of the esxupdate logfile (/var/log/vmware/esxupdate.log) didn't shed much light and running through an update again (which failed) didn't even show an error message /var/log/vmware/esxupdate.log

Googling the exact error message didn't bring up anything much either other than many hits for other error codes.

A bit of digging eventually got me to this KB article and a very simple fix:

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2002854

• mv /etc/vmware/esxupdate/bulletins.zip /etc/vmware/esxupdate/bulletins.zip.old
• mv /etc/vmware/esxupdate/vibs.xml /etc/vmware/esxupdate/vibs.xml.old
• esxupdate syncdb

Rescan the host and you should be able to remediate the host.

Further reading - esxupdate error codes:

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1039063

 

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Setting up VMware Vmware Update Manager (VUM) & UMDS

Vmware Update Manager (VUM) is the preferred update tool for keeping Vmware ESX servers up to date.

Sadly in version 5 Vmware dropped the ability to patch VMs, but it's an essential part of the Vmware Sysadmin's toolkit none the less.

Installation of VUM is pretty straight forward.  You create an ODBC connection to either a local SQL Express installation or a remote dedicated SQL server (on a 64bit server this needs to be done with the 32bit odbc admin tool C:\Windows\SysWOW64\odbcad32.exe and remember to install the SQL client connectivity!).  You then run the setup wizard off the vCenter media and select your ODBC connection.

The UMDS (Update Manager Download Service) is an additional component of VUM which can be manually installed, again off the vCenter media.  It allows you to download the patches and metadata to an isolated VUM server which has no access to the internet (direct or via a proxy).

There are two stages - the download and getting the files into VUM:

1. Internet -> UMDS download -> staging box
2. Staging box -> IIS / USB drive / Local Drive -> VUM Shared Repository

Stage 1.

• Install UMDS on any box with internet access (direct or via proxy).  This will require the SQL client connectivity and setting up a 32bit ODBC connection.
• Configure internet access with the config utility in C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\Infrastructure\Update Manager\VMwareUpdateManagerUtility.exe (on 64bit windows)
• Once UMDS is running, you just run the command vmware-umds -D. This will download the patches and metadata to the data directory specified during setup.

Stage 2.

There are several methods for getting the data into VUM.  All require the data to be "exported" from the download folder. (this is per the vmware documentation but I can't see any different between the download folder and the exported folder)

• vmware-umds -S --default-export-store C:\UMDS_Export - this sets the export location.  The vmware docs say this needs to be only one folder deep to work
• vmware-umds -E this does the export.

If you're not planning to use IIS to serve up the files to VUM, you need to get this export folder onto your VUM server local disks (either with a USB drive or manually copying over CIFS to the VUM server disks) and use the "shared repository" feature to tell VUM where they are.  Click the "download now" button to get the metadata into VUM.

Using IIS is a nice way to automate the process (connectivity permitting).  

• First off, create a virtual directory in IIS pointing to the export folder.
• Grant permission to the export folder, subfolders and all files to at least the IIS_IUSRS user (the builtin users group includes this user)
• Then add the mime types from the VMware article here and enable directory browsing. 
• Restart IIS
• Add the URL to the shared repository section of VUM's configuration page and validate the URL - remember to include http or https as appropriate for your IIS setup
• Click download now

Finally, you need to either wait for a scheduled patch download, or modify your schedule to "once" and select "run now" to make VUM process the metadata otherwise you won't see any patches.

Here's a quick summary of the different roles

UMDS server

• Needs internet access (direct or via proxy)
• Requires a UMDS SQL database, either local or remote, connected via 32bit ODBC 
• Downloads patches to local disk
• Exports patches to either local disk or usb disk for transfer to VUM
• Optional: IIS can be installed to serve patches to VUM server

VUM Server

• Needs to be able to connect to vCenter
• Needs a VUM SQL database, either local or remote, connected via 32bit ODBC
• Downloads patches to local disk during remediation from either USB, another local folder or IIS.
• Optional: Needs to be able to access IIS port on the UMDS server

Additional reading:

http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-50/topic/com.vmware.vsphere.update_manager.doc_50/GUID-013BCF81-7F46-4EFF-BA67-40FA08C91037.html

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1004455

http://communities.vmware.com/message/2091767?tstart=0

http://virtuallymikebrown.com/2011/10/23/vcenter-update-manager-patching-guide/

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