VMware ESX(i) 4.x/5.x VM seeing 2 datastores eventhough it has all the files in only 1 datastore.

Issue : After the svMotion of the VM to another datastore in the summary tab, under the datastore section of the VM the old and the new datastore are listed. All the disks and the files of the VM are in the new datastore and pointing to the new datastore. The svMotion was 100% successful.
Resolution: go to the edit settings of the VM, click on cd/dvd drive and unmount the iso image.

ESX(i) 4.x Corrupt/Bad switch port causes the vmnic to drop packets

Hardware Configuration:

Server Model: DL 380 G5

Storage :

Network : 2 onboard nics+3 add on cards 2 ports per card

total=8 ports

procurve 2810

Problem description/symptoms/errors:

vmnic0, vmnic1 and vmnic6 are assigned to vswitch0.

The default nic teaming policy is to keep the vmnic1 as standby but by doing so he gets an alert stating that the network redundancy is lost.

System board has been replaced for the onboard nic issue.

Actions taken:

There were no VMs in the host.

There were 3 nics for the vswitch 2 meant for vm traffic.

Moved one non critical VM to the problematic host1.

Removed all the nics from the vswitch2.

Added vmnic0 from vswitch0 to vswitch2 and the VM in it was able to ping other VMs.

Moved the vmnic0 back to vswitch0 and the vswitch2 became empty.

Added vmnic6 from vswitch0 to vswitch2 and the VM in it was able to ping other VMs.

Moved the vmnic6 back to vswitch0 and the vswitch2 became empty.

Added vmnic1 from vswitch0 to vswitch2 and the VM in it was able to ping other VMs but it was timing out intermittently with considerable amount of packet loss.

When added another known good vmnic it was able to ping continuously.

Updated the driver

http://downloads.vmware.com/d/details/dt_esxi40_broadcom_bcm_netxtreme/dHdlYnQlZXBidGRkKg

but no go.

When added vmnic1 only to the vswitch2 with the VM in it the VM was still timing out intermittently when pingig other VMs and it continued doing the same even with another vmnic2 being added.

Removed vmnic1 and retained vmnic2 only on vswitch2 with vm and the vm pinged continuously.

Issue with vmnic1.

The system board has been replaced for the onboard nic issue yesterday.

Suggested caller to try new cables for both the onboard nics but no go.

Told customer to switch the cables of vmnic0 and vmnic1 and the VM in the vswitch2 started pinging continuously.

Issue followed the port of the cable(switch port on which the cables are connected to the vmnic0 and vmnic1).

Now the switchport connecting to the vmnic0 is faulty.

Redirected customer to procurve team.

ESX 4.x VM in orphaned state

Issue: the vm was orphaned and unpingable.
Resolution: Open the datastore browser of the datastore which contains the VM files.
Remove the host from the inventory.
Right click on the cluster which contains the VM and rescan for datastores.
Right click on the .vmx file of the VM in the datastore browser and add to inventory.
Power on the VM.
Caution: It will fail once or twice when you try to add the VM to the inventory but try 2 to 3 times in different resource pools of the cluster if you have more than one resource pool and it will work.
Cause: interrupted power to the host or cluster will make the host lose its connection to the storage improperly and when the hosts are powered on we should always right click on the host and rescan for datastores and such issues can then be avoided.

Unable to add lun to an ESX (i) 4.x

Issue: Customer is unable to add a lun to an ESX(i) 4.x host.
when customer clicks on add storage and selects the particular lun to be added, chooses the block size and clicks on finish he gets the
Error: -

call hostdatastoresystem.CreateVmfsDatastore" for object on "<CLUSTER>" ESXi "<HOSTNAME>" failed. operation failed, diagnostic report: Unable to create Filesystem, please see VMKernel log for more details.

 

hostd logs below

 Resolution: There was a pre existing partition in the lun which was being presented. Deleted that partition using the fdisk command utility from the vCLI and we were able to successfully present the lun.

vmware kb: 2000454