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vCenter Server 6.0 Deployment Models and Recommended Topologies

March 13, 2015 by: Sean Whitney in: vSphere 6.0 10 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 116 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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