Maintenance Mode ESX 2.5

Was this just a matter of stopping the service 'vmware' if no vcenter is available ?

I just cannot remember

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ESX 2.5... I feel for you right now...

Do you just want to restart the mgmt GUI? Then a "service vmware restart" should do it.

If you really want something akin to "maintenance mode" (which didn't exist in 2.5) to do patching or something:

Power off the VMs, then restart in Linux mode:
/sbin/lilo -R linux-up
/sbin/reboot

To get back to VMkernel mode:
/sbin/lilo -R esx
/sbin/reboot

jibbajabba

Ah found an old KB from vmware .. the KB was specific to an IBM server but surely that doesn't matter. It suggests turning off the vmware service for autostart and reboot.

VMware KB: Booting into Maintenance Mode for IBM x460 with ESX Server 2.5.4 or 2.5.5

I just heard that the customer just wants to perform some maintenance in general which requires subsequent reboots and wanted to avoid VMs starting up automatically .. Just pointed him to the settings in the GUI - job done

bertieb

astorrs wrote: »

ESX 2.5... I feel for you right now...

^^ this exactly.

I have to ask..... why 2.5?

jibbajabba

bertieb wrote: »

^^ this exactly.

I have to ask..... why 2.5?

Server is too old, VMs too important to risk an upgrade / migration or worse, downtime .. one of those old legacy standalone server no one wants to touch - also too many different customer involved ... one of those things .. better leave alone ... never touch a running system ... I tell you what though .. This 2.5 server is the most stable amongst the lot .. we have 100s of 3.x and 4.x esx server running and the 2.5 is the only one with an impressive 2.5 years uptime ... on younger versions we hit bugs left right and center (iSCSI bugs anyone ? )

bertieb

Gomjaba wrote: »

This 2.5 server is the most stable amongst the lot ..

Probably because no-one is ever allowed to touch it

jibbajabba

bertieb wrote: »

Probably because no-one is ever allowed to touch it

lol - true .... but with 3.5 we had more pink screens than Bill Gates BSODs on Windows Me

danielaB

I was surprised. Why 2.5? I suggest that you change it to 3.5.

jibbajabba

danielaB wrote: »

I was surprised. Why 2.5? I suggest that you change it to 3.5.

Nnnnope

Stays where it is at the moment. Basically it is a host which hosts a lot of customer VMs. We simply don't put any more on it

Like I say - never touch a running system. They already freak out because we have to move it to another datacenter so the customer throwing SLAs at us left right and center. Last thing we need is an upgrade - PLUS - 3.5 was a version which had so many ISCSI and Adaptec bugs it was unreal. (ok granted, there are patches out now) ...

bertieb

Gomjaba wrote: »

so the customer throwing SLAs at us left right and center.

Off topic I know, but will they throw the same SLAs at you if the box throws a wobbler and you can't get any support from VMware? No regular maintenance windows defined in the contract? Do they understand the risks of the current setup or benefits of the new version, or are they simply one of those customers that pays peanuts yet has the ear of the senior management?

I don't envy your situation, that sounds exactly like the hosting company I used to work for *sigh*. Maybe it'll still be running when ESXi95 is out

jibbajabba

Oh don't get me wrong - I am the VM monkey here. It is pretty much my decision but I just fear that some of those old VMs simply don't survive a virtual hardware upgrade.

Re SLA: technically not a big deal .. A hardware failure is one thing, an upgrade scenario which we have introduced and may could have been avoided, another.

Don't get me wrong, I wanted to get rid of the old box but I also don't want to "answer questions"

I may just P2V (well, V2V) those to one of our cluster ... one of these days that is

But like I say - this is one of the most stable server so far .. uptime of several years is certainly something you don't see on vSphere / 3.x ... well I haven't anyway ..