VMware Archives

Monitor your VMware vSphere environment remotely with the vSphere Mobile Watchlist Android App

Android, ESXi, VMware, vSphere 3 Responses »

Aug 182018

Did you know that you can monitor and manage your VMware vSphere environment (ESXi hosts, cluster, and VMs) remotely with the “VMware vSphere Mobile Watchlist” app on your Android phone? Well, you can!

Download link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vmware.beacon

Please note, shortly after this post, VMware removed the availability of this app. If you had it installed prior, you may continue to use it.

Update – June 12th, 2019: VMware released a new vSphere Mobile Client in alpha. For more information, see my new post at: https://www.stephenwagner.com/2019/06/12/vsphere-mobile-client-android-mobile-devices/

The VMware vSphere Mobile Watchlist (VMware Watchlist) Android App

For some time now, I’ve been using this neat little app from VMware (available for download here) to monitor and manage my vSphere cluster remotely. You can use the app while directly on your LAN, or via VPN (I use it with OpenVPN to connect to my Sophos UTM). I’ve even used it while on airplanes using the on board in-flight WiFi.

The reason why I’m posting about this, is because I’ve never actually heard anyone talk about the app (which I find strange), so I’m assuming others aren’t aware of it’s existence as well.

The app runs extremely well on my Samsung S8+, Samsung S9+, and Samsung Tab E LTE tablet. I haven’t run in to any issues or app crashes.

Let’s take a look at the app

vSphere Mobile Watchlist Login Prompt

The above screen is where you initially log in. I use my Active Directory credentials (since I have my vCenter server integrated with AD).

vSphere Mobile Watchlist Hosts and VM list

vSphere Mobile Watchlist Hosts and VMs

In the default view (shown above), you can view a brief summary of your ESXi hosts, as well as a list of virtual machines running.

vSphere Mobile Watchlist Host Information

After selecting an ESXi host, you can view the hosts resources, details, related objects, as well as flip over to view host options.

vSphere Mobile Watchlist Host Options

Under host options, you can Enter Maintenance mode, reboot the host, shutdown the host, disconnect the host, or view the hosts’ sensor data.

vSphere Mobile Watchlist Host Sensor List and Fan Data

vSphere Mobile Watchlist Host Sensor Data (Fans)

Checking the HPE Proliant DL360p Gen8 fan sensor data with VMware Watchlist.

vSphere Mobile Watchlist Host Sensor Data (Temperature)

Checking the HPE Proliant DL360p Gen8 temperature sensor data with VMware Watchlist. While not shown above, you can select individual items to pull the actual temperature values. Please Note that the temperature values are missing a decimal (Example: 2100 = 21.00 Celsius).

vSphere Mobile Watchlist VM Information View

When selecting a VM (Virtual Machine) from the default view, you can view the VM’s Resources (CPU, Memory, and Storage), Details (IP Addresses, DNS hostnames, Guest OS, VMWare Tools Status), related objects, and a list of other VMs running on the same host.

vSphere Mobile Watchlist VM Options

Flipping over to the VM options, we have the ability to power off, suspend, reset, shutdown, or gracefully restart the VM. We also have some snapshot functionality to take a snapshot, or manage VM snapshots.

Additional Notes

In my environment I have two HPE DL360p Gen8 Servers and the sensor data is fully supported (I used the HPE custom ESXi install image which includes host drivers).

VMware Horizon View: USB Redirection is not available for this desktop

Omnissa Horizon, VMware 9 Responses »

Aug 122018

On VMware Horizon view after updating the view agent on the VM, you may notice that USB redirection stops working with the error “USB Redirection is not available for this desktop”. This is due to an issue with the certificates on the VDI host (The VM running the VDI OS), after the VMware view agent upgrade is completed.

To resolve this you must use MMC, open the local computer certificate store, browse to “VMwareView\Certificates”, delete the agent certificates (for the local agent), and finally reboot for the agent to regenerate the certificates.

See below for instructions:

While connected to the VM running the VDI OS, click Start, type “mmc.exe” (without quotations), and open the Microsoft Management Console.
Open MMC by running mmc.exe
Open the “Add/Remote Snap-in” wizard.
Open the Add/Remove Snap-in Wizard
We must now open the local certificate store on the local computer. Select “Certicates” on the Available Snap-ins, click “Add”, select “Computer Account”, then proceed to choose “Local Computer” and complete the wizard.
Select the Computer account certificate store on the local computer
Expand the “Certificates (Local Computer)” on the left underneath “Console Root”. Expand “VMwareView”, then expand and select “Certificates”. Select the certificate on the right that matches the local computer name of the VDI host, right click and select “Delete”. You may have to do this multiple times if multiple certificates exist for the local computer.
Delete the VMwareView local agent certificate
Restart the VDI host. And USB redirection should now be working!
VMware View USB Redirection issue resolved

Cheers to VDI!

Microsoft Windows Server booting to Safe Mode and Directory Services Restore mode with Veeam Backup

ESXi, Microsoft, Veeam Backup and Replication, VMware, Windows Server 41 Responses »

Apr 292018

Running Veeam Backup and Replication, a Microsoft Windows Server Domain Controller may boot in to safe mode and directory services restore mode.

About a week ago, I loaded up Veeam Backup and Replication in to my test environment. It’s a fantastic product, and it’s working great, however today I had a little bit of an issue with a DC running Windows Server 2016 Server Core.

I woke up to a notification that the backup failed due to a VSS snapshot issue. Now I know that VSS can be a little picky at times, so I decided to restart the guest VM. Upon restarting, she came back up, was pingable, and appeared to be running fine, however the backup kept failing with new errors, the event log was looking very strange on the server, and numerous services that were set to automatic were not starting up.

This specific server was installed using Server Core mode, so it has no GUI and is administered via command prompt over RDP, or via remote management utilities. Once RDP’ing in to the server, I noticed the “Safe Mode” branding on each corner of the display, this was very odd. I restarted the server again, this time manually trying to start Active Directory Services manually via services.msc.

This presented:

Event ID: 16652
Source: Directory-Services-SAM
General Description: The domain controller is booting to directory services restore mode.

Screenshot:

The domain controller is booting to directory services restore mode.

This surprised me (and scared me for that matter). I immediately started searching the internet to find out what would have caused this…

To my relief, I read numerous sites that advise that when an active backup is running on a guest VM which is a domain controller, Veeam activates directory services restore mode temporarily, so in the event of a restore, it will boot to this mode automatically. In my case, the switch was not changed back during the backup failure.

Running the following command in a command prompt, verifies that the safeboot switch is set to dsrepair enabled:

bcdedit /v

To disable directory services restore mode, type the following in a command prompt:

bcdedit /deletevalue safeboot

Restart the server and the issue should be resolved!

Upgrading to VMware vSphere 6.7? Remember that vSphere vDP is no longer supported!

VMware, vSphere No Responses »

Apr 232018

Ready to jump the gun and upgrade to vSphere 6.7? Hold on a moment…

You’ll remember some time ago VMware announced they are dropping support for vSphere vDP (vSphere Data Protection). If you’re running this in your environment, it will break when upgrading to vSphere 6.7.

A better idea would be to migrate over to a product like Veeam, however please note that as of this date, Veeam does not officially support vSphere 6.7. Support should be coming in the next major update.

VMware vSphere 6.7 released! Here’s the download link…

ESXi, HPE, VMware, vSphere 21 Responses »

Apr 172018

With the news of VMware vSphere 6.7 being released today, a lot of you are looking for the download links for the 6.7 download (including vSphere 6.7, ESXi 6.7, etc…). I couldn’t find it myself, but after doing some scouring through alternative URLs, I came across the link.

VMware vSphere 6.7 Download Link