• Unable to SCP into Platform Services Controller (PSC) or vCenter Server Appliance 6.0

    March 14, 2015 by: Sean Whitney in: VCSA 6 15 Comments

      SCP into PSC or VCSA   I just wanted to provide everyone with a quick problem and resolution I found when I was attempting to upload files via SCP to my PSC or VCSA. Every time I attempted to connect through SSH, or WinSCP I would receive the following error messages.   Unknown command: `scp’ or Host is not communicating for more than 15 seconds. If the problem repeats, try turning off ‘Optimize connection buffer size’.   This occurs because the login bash for root is /bin/appliancesh. To resolve this, you will need to change the login shell for root to /bin/bash using the […]

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  • Installing vSphere 6.0 Platform Services Controller (PSC) in High Availability mode

    March 14, 2015 by: Sean Whitney in: High Availability 24 Comments

    Note: In this example I am using appliances for my PSCs  and the BigIP F5 Load Balancer.   Step 1. Create 3 DNS Records. Platform Services Controller 1 Platform Services Controller 2 Load Balancer VIP   Step 2. Mount the vCenter Server 6.0 Appliance ISO to a Windows VM and Install the Client Integration Plugin.   Step 3. Open the vcsa-setup.html file   Step 4. Select the Install button   Step 5. Accept the terms of the license agreement, click Next.   Step 6.Select a target ESXi host to deploy the appliance. Accept the thumbprint by clicking “Yes”   Step […]

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  • vCenter Server 6.0 Deployment Models and Recommended Topologies

    March 13, 2015 by: Sean Whitney in: vSphere 6.0 9 Comments

    vSphere 6.0 has finally arrived! Many engineers and architects are wondering what are the new recommended topologies for the Platform Services Controller (PSC) and vCenter Server. I have compiled a list of recommended topologies in vSphere 6.0. For starters, you can think of the PSC as Single Sign-On + more. It provides the same functionality as SSO would have, but has additional services and functionality built in. All of these topologies can utilize either a Windows deployment, or an appliance for the PSC and  or vCenter Server.   vCenter Server with an Embedded PSC Multiple vCenter Servers with an External PSC     Multiple PSCs […]

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  • vSphere 6.0 and 6.5 SSL certificate Replacement / Implementation using the Certificate-Manager automation tool

    March 13, 2015 by: Sean Whitney in: Certificates 109 Comments

      vSphere 6.x Architecture   vSphere Certificate replacement and implementation is much easier than Center Server 5.1 or 5.5. In the past, you would have to replace each out of the endpoint certificates, for example vCenter Server, Single Sign On, Inventory Service, Web Client, and so forth. To simplify the process, VMware now uses a Reverse HTTP Proxy which will route traffic accordingly, meaning we only need to replace one certificate, instead of replacing all them in the previous version. There are 4 Solution Users in vSphere 6.x – vpxd, vpxd-extention, vsphere-webclient, and machine and you can replace each solution user […]

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  • Resetting a lost ESXi root password

    February 24, 2015 by: Sean Whitney in: Troubleshooting 2 Comments

    While VMware support’s official stance is that there is no supported way to reset a lost ESXi password; there are actually a few ways to do it, and I will show you the easiest process with the least risk. Keep in mind, this is an unsupported method, so please do so at your own risk, although in this case, the risk is very minimal. In order for you to use this method there are a couple prerequisites that must be met. The host is connected to vCenter Server and Responding You have Enterprise + licensing as we will leverage host profiles […]

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  • Unable to log into ESXi host with Active Directory Credentials “Invalid user name or credentials”

    February 21, 2015 by: Sean Whitney in: Troubleshooting 5 Comments

    Recently I had a couple of customers experience the same issue where they were unable to log into an ESXi host using AD credentials. Either the SSH session terminated unexpectedly after entering the password or the error received was “Invalid user name or credentials.” We noticed that the “Trusted Domain Controllers” were not populating correctly, or were blank. After enabling likewise logging on the hypervisor following KB 1026554 we were able to see the following log messages:   netlogond.log DEBUG:0x60140b70: Error code: 40121 (symbol: LW_ERROR_DOMAIN_IS_OFFLINE) 0xff942b70:DEBUG:[LWNetGetPreferredDcList()] Error at /build/mts/release/bora-2286303/likewise/esxi-esxi/src/linux/netlogon/server/api/lwnet-plugin.c:201 [code: 2453] 0xffdb6b90:ERROR:[LWNetDnsQueryWithBuffer() /build/mts/release/bora-1474033/likewise/esxi-esxi/src/linux/netlogon/utils/lwnet-dns.c:1185] DNS lookup for ‘_ldap._tcp.EDIS._sites.dc._msdcs.parent.vcloud.local’ failed with errno 0, h_errno = 1 […]

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  • Unable to vMotion, enable SSH – “Can’t Fork” or “Heap globalCartel-1 already at its maximum size”

    February 18, 2015 by: Sean Whitney in: Troubleshooting No Comment

    There has been a new trending issue with the HP AMS agent that causes vMotions to fail, enabling SSH on the host to fail, and overall host management functionality is lost. If you attempt to power on a virtual machine you may see an error message saying “VMK_NO_MEMORY.” When attempting to open a console you may see the error “Unable to contact the MKS: Could not connect to pipe\\.\pipe\vmware-authpipe.” When you log into the ESXi shell you will recieve the error message “can’t fork” and if you Press Alt + F12 to see a tail of the vmkernel logs you will see […]

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  • PreStaging SSL Certificates in vSphere 5.x. The quickest and easiest way to implement Custom certificates.

    February 13, 2015 by: Sean Whitney in: SSL 4 Comments

      PreStaging SSL Certificates   After endless troubleshooting sessions and implementing of CA certificates in customer environments I have decided to share what I feel is the easiest and most efficient way to implement custom certificates in vSphere 5.x. The method I am writing about is called Pre-Staging where you essentially take your CA certificates, place them in the correct service folder, and then install/reinstall the component. During installation, the installer recognizes pre existing certificates and the CA certificate that you staged will be used to install, register, and trust service(s) appropriately. This will work for Inventory Service, vCenter Server Service, […]

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  • About Me

    February 12, 2015 by: Sean Whitney in: Sean Whitney 1 Comment

      Sean Whitney   Hello, Virtual World! My name is Sean Whitney I graduated from Colorado State University in May 2012 with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration concentrating in Computer Information Systems. After graduation, I accepted a Job with VMware as a Technical Support Engineer. After a year, I was promoted to an Escalation Engineer and Senior Technical Support Engineer on the Systems Operations team. I have obtained my VCP, VCAP-DCA, CCNA, and CLA certificates during my time at VMware. Recently, I helped write the VCP 6 certifications and was invited back to write the VCIX (VMware Certified […]

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Sean Whitney

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