Douglas P. Smith

If you apply GPO’s to servers for ease of administration and security, you may want an easy way if all your servers are in the appropriate group(in this case “Virtual Servers”) and compare this list to a list of all running Windows machines.  The following script will do this:

########################################################################

# Title:			VM Groupmembership Script
# Filename:			vmgroup.ps1
# Created by:		Douglas Smith
# Date:				7/14/2010
# Version:    		0.1
# Description:		*This script requires the Quest AD cmdlets be installed.*
########################################################################

#### Pass through paramaeters ###################################################
param (
	[string]$vcserver,
)

#### Variables ##############################################################

$Date = Get-Date
#### Functions ##############################################################

#### Begin Script ############################################################

#### Validate Input Variables ####################################################
If ($vcserver -eq "") {
	$wscript = new-object -comobject wscript.shell
	$msgbox = $wscript.popup("You MUST enter the name or IP of your vSphere server",0,"Access Denied",1)
	exit
}

#### Check if Snapin loaded, if not load #############################################
if ((Get-PSSnapin -Name VMware.VimAutomation.Core -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue) -eq $null )
	 {Add-PSsnapin VMware.VimAutomation.Core -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue}
if ((Get-PSSnapin -Name Quest.ActiveRoles.ADManagement -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue) -eq $null )
	 {Add-PSsnapin Quest.ActiveRoles.ADManagement -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue}

#### Connect to vSphere
$VIServer = connect-VIServer $vcserver

$adlist = get-qadgroupmember "Virtual Servers" -type computer | Select-Object name |
    Sort-Object name | ForEach-Object{$_.name.tolower()}
$vms = Get-Vm | Where-Object {$_.powerstate -eq "PoweredOn"} |
    Where-Object {$_.name.length -gt 10} |
    Where-Object {$_.guest.osfullname -like quot;*indows*"} | Select-Object name |
    Sort-Object name | ForEach-Object{$_.Name.ToLower()}
$vmcount = $vms.count
$AddMachine = Compare-Object $vms $adlist -syncwindow $vmcount |
    Where-Object {$_.sideindicator -eq "<="} | Sort-Object InputObject
$RemoveMachine = Compare-Object $vms $adlist -syncwindow $vmcount |
    Where-Object {$_.sideindicator -eq "=>"} | Sort-Object InputObject
#### Create Spreadsheet
$excel = New-Object -comobject Excel.Application

#$excel.visible = $True #### Use for troubleshooting purposes
$excel.DisplayAlerts = $False
$excelfile = $excel.Workbooks.Add()
$WorkSheet = $excelfile.worksheets.item(1)
$Worksheet.Name = "Add to Group"
$Worksheet.Cells.Item(1, 1) = "Machines that need to be added to the
Group"
$WorkBook = $Worksheet.UsedRange
$WorkBook.Interior.ColorIndex = 8
$WorkBook.Font.ColorIndex = 11
$WorkBook.Font.Bold = $True
$Row = 2
$Addmachine | ForEach-Object {
	$Worksheet.Cells.Item($Row, 1) = $_.InputObject
	$Row ++
}
[void]$WorkBook.EntireColumn.AutoFit()
$WorkSheet = $excelfile.worksheets.item(2)
$Worksheet.Name = "Remove from Group"
$Worksheet.Cells.Item(1, 1) = "Machines that need to be removed from the
Group"
$WorkBook = $Worksheet.UsedRange
$WorkBook.Interior.ColorIndex = 8
$WorkBook.Font.ColorIndex = 11
$WorkBook.Font.Bold = $True
$Row = 2
$RemoveMachine | ForEach-Object {
	$Worksheet.Cells.Item($Row, 1) = $_.InputObject
	$Row ++
}
#### Adjust Columns
[void]$WorkBook.EntireColumn.AutoFit()
#### Save File
$excelfile.SaveAs("c:\temp\VirtualServerGroup-" + $date.month + "-" +
$date.day + "-" + $date.year + ".xls", 1)
#### Quit Excel
$excel.Quit()
#Disconnect from vCenter Server
$VIServer | Disconnect-VIServer -Confirm:$false 

Use datastore resignaturing if you want to retain the data stored on the VMFS datastore copy.

To resignature a mounted datastore copy, first unmount it. Before you resignature a VMFS datastore, perform a storage rescan on your host so that the host updates its view of LUNs presented to it and discovers any LUN copies.

Procedure

1. Log in to the vSphere Client and select the server from the inventory panel.
2. Click the Configuration tab and click Storage in the Hardware panel.
3. Click Add Storage.
4. Select the Disk/LUN storage type and click Next.
5. From the list of LUNs, select the LUN that has a datastore name displayed in the VMFS Label column and click Next.  The name present in the VMFS Label column indicates that the LUN is a copy that contains a copy of an existing VMFS datastore.
6. Under Mount Options, select Assign a New Signature and click Next.
7. In the Ready to Complete page, review the datastore configuration information and click Finish.

The information for this article was gathered from the ESX Configuration Guide.

Procedure

1. In the vSphere Client, select Administration > vCenter Server Settings.
2. In the settings list, select Advanced Settings.
3. In the Key text box, type a key.

• • config.vpxd.filter.vmfsFilter -> VMFS Filter
  • config.vpxd.filter.rdmFilter -> RDM Filter
  • config.vpxd.filter.SameHostAndTransportsFilter -> Same Host and Transports Filter
  • config.vpxd.filter.hostRescanFilter -> Host Rescan Filter

1. In the Value text box, type False for the specified key.
2. Click Add.
3. Click OK.

Information gathered from the ESX Configuration Guide.

Information for this article was gathered from the ESX Configuration Guide.

Requirements for Using NPIV

Procedure

This information was gathered from the Fibre Channel SAN Configuration Guide

VMDirectPath allows guest operating systems to directly access an I/O
device, bypassing the virtualization layer. VMDirectPath I/O device
access enhances CPU efficiency in handling workloads that require
constant and frequent access to I/O devices. It enables virtual
machines to directly access underlying hardware devices. Each virtual
machine can connect to up to two passthrough devices, which include
certain networking and storage PCI devices. If your server has support for
device pass-through you may be able to provide USB access to Virtual
Machines.

When using VMDirectPath you lose following features:

• VMotion
• Storage VMotion
• FT
• Device hot add
• Suspend and resume
• Record and replay

Configuring pass-through devices

To configure pass-through devices on an ESX host

1. Select an ESX host from the Inventory panel of VMware
   Infrastructure (VI) Client.
2. On the Configuration tab, click Advanced Settings. The
   Pass-through Configuration page lists all available pass-through
   devices. Note: A green icon indicates that a device
   is enabled and active. An orange icon indicates that the state of the
   device has changed and the host must be rebooted before the device can
   be used.
3. Click Edit.
4. Select the devices and click OK. Note: If you
   have a chipset with VT-d, when you click Advanced
   Settings in VI Client, you can select what devices are
   dedicated to the VMDirectPath I/O.
5. When the devices are selected, they are marked with an orange icon.
   Reboot for the change to take effect. After rebooting, the devices are
   marked with a green icon and are enabled. Note: The
   configuration changes are saved in the /etc/vmware/esx.conf file. The
   parent PCI bridge, and if two devices are under the same PCI bridge,
   only one entry is recorded. The PCI slot number where the device was
   connected is 00:0b:0. It is recorded as:

/device/000:11.0/owner = “passthru”

To configure a PCI device on a virtual machine

1. From the Inventory in VI Client, right-click the virtual machine
   and choose Edit Settings.
2. Click the Hardware tab.
3. Click Add.
4. Choose the PCI Device.
5. Click Next. Note: When the device is assigned,
   the virtual machine must have a memory reservation for the full
   configured memory size.

Information was gathered from the following resources:

• What Is New in VMware vSphere(tm) 4: Storage
• Configuration Examples and Troubleshooting for VMDirectPath
• VMware
  VMDirectPath I/O – Community Forum
• Configuring VMDirectPath
  I/O pass-through devices on an ESX host

ESX currently supports 10 unique disk formats.

-zeroedthick - This is the default format when creating a new virtual disk. The space is allocated durng the disk creation but is not zeroed out until the first write from the virtual machine.
-eagerzeroedthick – Same as the above, except the disk is zeroed during the creation process. SInce it does the zeroing at creation this takes longer to create. (Obviously)
-thick – The space is allocated during the creation, but does noto zero out any of the data. This type cannot be created by non-root users.
-thin – The required space is NOT allocated durng the creation, but is allocated and zeroed on demand
-rdm – Virtual compatibility mode for raw disk mapping
-rdmp – Physical compatibility mode for raw disk mapping (pass-through mode)
-raw – Raw device
-2gbsparse – the virtual disk is broken up into a series os files, none of which are larger then 2 GigaBytes in size. You cannot power this format up until you use vmkfstools to reimport it to a compatible format.
-monosparse – monolithic sparse disk
-monoflat – monolithic flat disk

Data obtained from VMware KB 1022242

VMware has announced an additional level of certification to that seems to fit in between VCP and VCDX. It is the VCAP or VMware Certified Advanced Professional. There will be two seperate certifications under this title, the The Datacenter Administrator (DA) and the Datacenter Design (DD). Currently on the exam blueprint fot the DA exam has been released and is available for download. This is exciting as it allows VCP’s to stand out from amongst there peers by advancing to the next step., much like with other vendor certifications.