vSphere Web Client - Unmount Datastore Grayed out.

It was time to decommission one of our iSCSI datastores.  I ensured the following:

• All VMs, snapshots and templates have been migrated off.
• Datastore is not used for HA heartbeat
• Not part of a datastore cluster.
• Not configured as a coredump partition
• Storage I/O Control disabled 

**Go through the complete unmounting a LUN checklist prior to unmounting a LUN: 

https://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2004605 

When I tried to unmount the datastore, using the vSphere Web Client, the option was grayed out...

Workaround: 
After going through the detailed checklist in VMware KB 2004605  I went OLD SCHOOL and used the VMware vSphere Client to log directly into the host using the Datastore.  Through the vSphere Client, I was able to successfully unmount the datastore.

FYI - You can still point your vSphere Client directly to an ESXi 6.5 host.

Jan 23rd 2018 Update:

It happened again, this time I used the web client pointed directly at the ESXi host to perform the unmount function:

VMWare vCenter Converter 6.1.1 works with vSphere 6.5

** Confirmed - I have successfully P2V'd a production SQL server managed by a vCenter 6.5 server. No Biggie**

I recently received a request to P2V an old Windows Server 2008 R2 server.  I'll be honest, the last time I used Converter was with version 5.X.

I go to VMware.com and the latest version of VMware Converter is 6.1.1.  This version was released back in February of 2016. This predates the release of vSphere 6.5.

Sure enough, in the VMware Converter document, it states that it only supports up to vCenter Server 6.0.  I'm running vSphere 6.5, time to test...

** Perform the VM conversion at your own risk. This is not a VMware supported configuration **

Fortunately, this version is very similar to previous versions I've used.  I installed the Converter application on the source VM and "let er run".  Nothing fancy, the default options were taken

Well, I lucked out and was able to successfully perform the migration.  Good Luck!

vCSA 6.5: How to Find Which PSC your vCSA is pointing to, its SSO Domain Name and SSO Site Name

I was recently asked for some SSO and PSC config info for a vCSA running version 6.5.  Just SSH into your vCSA and run the following one-liners:

To find your SSO Domain Name:

/usr/lib/vmware-vmafd/bin/vmafd-cli get-domain-name --server-name localhost

To find your SSO Site Name:

/usr/lib/vmware-vmafd/bin/vmafd-cli get-site-name --server-name localhost

To find you which PSC your vCSA is pointing to:

/usr/lib/vmware-vmafd/bin/vmafd-cli get-ls-location --server-name localhost

How to log all PuTTY sessions

Here's a quick tip on how to set up logging in PuTTY.  It's great for reviewing the changes made and for documentation purposes. 

1. Launch PuTTY and go to Logging.  I personally select All Session Output and also like to specify the Host, Month, Date, Year and Time of each log.  It makes the management of the logs easier.

ex.   E:\PuTTYLogs\&H_&M&D&Y_&T.log

2.  Now go up to Session, select Default Settings and click Save.

3. Test - SSH into a host and confirm a log files has been automatically created.

vCenter 6.5 upgrade: A problem occurred while - Starting VMware vCenter Server...

After an initial failed attempt at migrating a Windows based vCenter 5.5 to vCSA 6.5, I received the following error during the subsequent retry:

A problem occurred while - Starting VMware vCenter Server

The \var\log\firstboot\vpxd_firstboot.ph_xxxxx_stdout.log within the vm-support bundle revealed that a service was already registered in component manager.  

This was  due to a previously failed upgrade attempt:

Make note of the id number in red in the example above.  Launch JXplorer and connect to your PSC.  Details regarding JXplorer can be found here:

http://kenumemoto.blogspot.com/search?q=Jxplorer

Drill down to the following location.  Select the offending service and view the details.  As you can see,  it's incorrectly showing as Version 6.5.

Right-Click on the offending service, then click Delete.   Now restart the upgrade\migration process.

How To Find Your vCSA Embedded Database Password

To perform an export of your vCSA VCDB you need to supply the user and password to the PostgreSQL Database.  During the vCSA setup process, we were not prompted to provide one and there is no default password for the VCDB.

Fortunately, there is an easy way to access the password.  (It's actually FRIGHTENINGLY easy....).  Run the following command on your vCSA:

cat /etc/vmware-vpx/vcdb.properties

This will provide the VCDB password along with other details about your VCDB.

WinSCP and vCSA - Host is not communicating for more than 15 seconds. Still waiting...

I recently needed to pull a backup of the VCDB off a vSphere 6.5 vCSA.  I started WinSCP and received the following error:

To resolve this issue, SSH into your vCSA and run the following command to change the user's login shell to BASH:

chsh -s /bin/bash root

You will now be able to successfully connect to the vCSA.

To reverse the change run the following:

chsh -s /bin/appliancesh root