Tag: VSphere

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vSphere Client Download – Direct Links

vSphere Client Download

I think everyone knows what a pain it can be to try and download the vSphere client – we therefore present the vSphere Client download links for ALL client versions to date! Although VMWare are steering people towards using the vCenter webui client which brings more functionality, 95% of standard day-to-day administration can be comfortably done with the standalone client.

Also, scroll to the bottom of the page for an overview of the vSphere client and how it works.

vSphere v6.0

vSphere v5.5

vSphere v5.1

vSphere v5.0

vSphere v4.1

It appears that VMware have removed the vsphere 4.1 client installer files, thank you Joe for letting me know! Please bear with me while I source these and link to them, in the meantime you can find them using the filemare ftp search engine. As these are not direct from VMware, please make sure you have scan these for virus / malware should you choose to download them.

  • 4.1 : VMware-viclient-all-4.1.0-258902.exe – file removed by VMware. You may be able to find it using the filemare ftp search engine.
  • Update 1 : VMware-viclient-all-4.1.0-345043.exe – file removed by VMware. You may be able to find it using the filemare ftp search engine.
  • Update 2 : VMware-viclient-all-4.1.0-491557.exe – file removed by VMware. You may be able to find it using the filemare ftp search engine.
  • Update 3a :VMware-viclient-all-4.1.0-925676.exe – file removed by VMware. You may be able to find it using the filemare ftp search engine.

Installation on Windows 8:

If you are having issues installing the client on Windows 8, click here for details.

What is the vSphere Client?

The vSphere Client is the principal interface for administering vCenter Server and ESXi; vSphere client download links are all listed above – make sure you have downloaded the correct version for your ESXi release! There’s no problem having more than one installed – the launcher, i.e. the login window you see when you open the client, will connect to your ESXi server and choose the correct version to carry on with – or prompt you to download another version!

The vSphere Client user interface is configured based on the server to which it is connected:

  • When the server is a vCenter Server system, the vSphere Client displays all the options available to the vSphere environment, according to the licensing configuration and the user permissions
  • When the server is an ESXi host, the vSphere Client displays only the options appropriate to single host management.

When you first log in to the vSphere Client, it displays a Home page with icons that you select to access vSphere Client functions. When you log out of the vSphere Client, the client application retains the view that was displayed when it closed, and returns you to that view when you next log in.

You perform many management tasks from the Inventory view, which consists of a single window containing a menu bar, a navigation bar, a toolbar, a status bar, a panel section, and pop-up menus.

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f5 VE on ESXi: “The requested media for interface 1.1 is invalid.”

This article addresses the following error: “The requested media for interface 1.1 is invalid” when using the f5 virtual edition on ESXi.

Once possible reason for this error is mentioned under “Known Issues” in the release notes for 11.x e.g. : http://support.f5.com/kb/en-us/products/big-ip_ltm/releasenotes/product/relnote-ve-11-4-0.print.html

The entry reads as follows:

ID 352856 “If an SCF is migrated between BIG-IP VE running on non-similar hypervisor software, a validation error may prevent configuration loading. Loading the configuration … BIGpipe interface creation error: 01070318:3: “”The requested media for interface 1.1 is invalid.”” When this condition is encountered on BIG-IP Virtual Edition, configuration may be fixed for import by removing the entire line that contains “”media fixed”” statements for each interface.”

If however, like me, you cannot find the “media fixed” anywhere in your bigip_base.conf file then it is most likely to be an issue with the vmxnet3 network adapters that are deployed by default.

My management adapter, also vmxnet3, came up fine but the other 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3 interfaces remained uninitialised and any attempts to edit just threw the error above.

My solution was to change the adapter types in the .vmx file for the virtual machine:

1. Shut down the machine2. SSH / console into your ESXi host and change directory to /vmfs/volumes/<datastore_name>/<vm_directory>f5 VE on ESXi: "The requested media for interface 1.1 is invalid."

 

 

 

 

 

3. Use the “vi” command to edit the <your_vm>.vmx file and change the “vmxnet3” entries to “e1000.” Note: you can generally leave the first interface (management) as vmxnet3.

f5 VE on ESXi: "The requested media for interface 1.1 is invalid."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4. Save the file and start up your machine – you should now be able to initialise and edit your interfaces under “Network” -> “Interfaces”

Job done, let me know if this works / doesn’t work for you!

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VMWare: How to Change the ESXi System Time and HW Clock on the CLI

This article details how to change the ESXi system time and HW clock on your ESXi hypervisor machine via the CLI.

Ideally we want to use NTP to set the system time but if your clock is too far out from the actual time then this will fail and you may see something like this in the syslog file:
ntpd[263140]: synchronized to <46.249.47.127>, stratum 1
ntpd[263140]: time correction of <54423> seconds exceeds sanity limit (1000); set clock manually to the correct UTC time.
[info 'ha-eventmgr'] Event 91 : NTP daemon stopped. Time correction 1206 > 1000 seconds. Manually set the time and restart ntpd.
The situation was that my VMs were synchronising their time to the ESXi host’s on every reboot, meaning that some important secure system services (in Windows 2008 in particular) were not starting. There isn’t the facility to do this on the DCUI (Direct Console User Interface – the yellow and black screen) so here’s the gen on how to achieve this using the command line.

My first endeavours were using the “date” command, as I’m used to doing in Linux, unfortunately these were met with the error:

~ # date 100410112014
date: can't set date: Function not implemented
Sat Oct  4 10:11:00 UTC 2014

OK, it’s being pernickety so lets use the “-s” flag to SET the time:

~ # date -s 041010112014
date: Setting date not supported; use <esxcli system time set>

Now we’re getting somewhere. The command takes the following parameters:

Usage: esxcli system time set [cmd options]
Description:
set                   Set the system clock time. Any missing parameters will default to the current time
Cmd options:
-d|--day=<long>       Day
-H|--hour=<long>      Hour
-m|--min=<long>       Minute
-M|--month=<long>     Month
-s|--sec=<long>       Second
-y|--year=<long>      Year

So, to set the system time to 10th April 2014, 10:18 (am):
~ # esxcli system time set -d 10 -H 10 -m 18 -M 04 -y 2014

Also, make sure that we also set the hardware clock time as the system time will revert to this on a reboot:

~ # esxcli hardware clock set -d 10 -H 10 -m 18 -M 04 -y 2014     <- sets the hardware clock to 10th April 2014, 10:18 (am)

To check the hardware and system time we can use the following commands:

esxcli hardware clock get
esxcli system time get

Job done! Now move on to setting the time automatically using NTP.