Your Daily VMware quiz!

Deathmage

Would love some new quiz questions to keep my skills sharp!

Verities

An admin has an issue with a host and wants to generate a support log bundle from vCenter to send to VMware, but receive an error "Cannot generate diagnostic bundle". How else can the admin generate a support log bundle from his host?

a.) turn on Remote Tech Support service, SSH to the host, and run vm-bundlegenerate

b.) turn on Local Tech Support service, SSH to the host, and run vm-bundlegenerate

c.) turn on VMware vCenter Agent service, SSH to the host, and run the command vm-support

d.) turn on Remote Tech Support service, SSH to the host, and run the command vm-support

Answer: D

Bonus point (no multiple choice): What command can the admin run on the host to verify it has enough space available to generate the support log bundle?

Answer: df -h

Deathmage

OOO good one, need to give this one a try, BRB. I remember it from the exam I'm pretty sure its RTS but the syntax command I'm not sure about fuzzy now.

Verities

Deathmage wrote: »

OOO good one, need to give this one a try, BRB. I remember it from the exam I'm pretty sure its RTS but the syntax command I'm not sure about fuzzy now.

You had this on the exam? That's nuts! A co-worker of mine ran into this problem the day I posted it and I saw your request for more daily quizzes, so I posted my troubleshooting steps. I'll be posting more dailies next week and they are going to be based on problems I run into in the production environment as well as how to fix them.

Also, I put the answer to the question in white, so you just need to highlight them.

Deathmage

Verities wrote: »

You had this on the exam? That's nuts! A co-worker of mine ran into this problem the day I posted it and I saw your request for more daily quizzes, so I posted my troubleshooting steps. I'll be posting more dailies next week and they are going to be based on problems I run into in the production environment as well as how to fix them.

Also, I put the answer to the question in white, so you just need to highlight them.

Well it was either on the exam or when I read the ENTIRE 1200 page ESXi Troubleshooting guide, after reading that thing anyone mind would be in a haze!

azjag

You receive the following error when adding a host to vCenter.

"Adding ESX/ESXi Host to vCenter Inventory Fails with Error: Call "datacenter.queryconnectioninfo" Failed"

What three things should you check to resolve this issue?

There may be a problem in the network configuration, DNS resolution, or IP address of the ESX/ESXi host that is causing vCenter Server to try to connect to a different server.

This issue may occur if Lockdown mode is enabled on a host.

This issue may occur when adding an ESX/ESXi host to inventory and you have entered the incorrect root password.

Essendon

Thanks for contributing @azjag!

azjag

You are running vSphere 5.5 and need to add a new datastore running on an iSCSI connection. What are the discovery methods used?

Static Discovery and SendTargets

azjag

What is the name of the vSwitch or port group policy setting allows a virtual machine to listen to traffic that is destined for another VM?

Promiscuous Mode

Essendon

Great questions azjag!

tstrip007

To be eligible for binding to an iSCSI HBA, the VMkernel network adapter must have what?
exactly one active uplink and no standby uplinks

azjag

You have been asked to enable SNMP on each of your esxi 5.5 hosts in order to monitor using a 3rd party software.

The process you follow is:

1. Start the SSH service on the host.
2. Utilize putty to login to the host and run the following commands.
3. esxcli system snmp set -c public
4. esxcli system snmp set -e true
5. Exit the Putty session
6. Stop the SSH service on the host.

You are able to complete this process on 3 of your 5 esxi hosts.

On the remaining hosts you receive the following error message when connecting through Putty:
"Network connection refused"

Network issues have been ruled out.

How do you solve this problem?

Enable SSH Server service on the ESXi firewall.

azjag

ESXi 5 supports improved 3d graphics. However, what do you need to do first to enable it for a VM?

To allow the use of this feature, a VM needs to be running the latest version of VMWare tools and Virtual Hardware Version 8.

Essendon

An administrator creates a DRS "should" rule to keep VMs on certain hosts. One day, a host falls over and VMs from that host were restarted on another host and they remained on that host, causing the administrator deep anguish. What could be the possible reason for this unexpected behaviour?

dave330i

Essendon wrote: »

An administrator creates a DRS "should" rule to keep VMs on certain hosts. One day, a host falls over and VMs from that host were restarted on another host and they remained on that host, causing the administrator deep anguish. What could be the possible reason for this unexpected behaviour?

HA can violate DRS "should" rule. If the admin didn't want the VMs to move, should have created a "must" rule.

Essendon

The VMs however remained on that host. This is unexpected behaviour. Why could this have happened?

dave330i

Essendon wrote: »

The VMs however remained on that host. This is unexpected behaviour. Why could this have happened?

Ah, ok.

1. Not enough resource in the cluster to restart those VMs.
2. VMs have HA set to disable or off.
3. Enough resource, but fragmented and DRS turned off or set to manual.
4. Enough resource, fragmented & DRS set to auto, but 1 of the failed VM is vCenter.
5. VMs are pinned to the CPU of the failed ESXi host (not 100% sure about this one).

Can't think of anything else w/out doing research or sleep.

6. Too many DRS VM affinity/anti-affinity rules prevent DRS from consolidating resource fragments.

dave330i

@Essendon,

Which 1 of my 6 scenario were you thinking or did you have a different one in mind?

Essendon

Sorry for the delay mate. I was thinking of the 6th one (all other scenarios are valid of course). There was another one that happened at a remote site. HA restarted some VMs on other hosts, but those hosts didnt have the portgroup those VMs should've had. When the failed host was restored, the VMs remained on the new hosts (obviously not available on the n/w). Host profiles FTW!

tomtom1

I would add with the VM's have some kind of hardware added to them that is specific to that ESXi host. For example, DirectPath I/O.

tomtom1

With the definite launch of the VCP6-DCV last night I plan to reuse this thread to post some meaningfull questions for myself and others in preparing for the VCP6 exam.

#1: With vSphere 6.0, changes have been made to the lockdown mode. Lockdown allows users to further secure an ESXi host by setting either 1 of 2 lockdown modes.​

Which lockdown modes have been introduced by vSphere 6.0 and how do they differ? Answer is below in white.

Answer: vSphere 6 introduced normal lockdown mode and strict lockdown mode. In normal lockdown mode, the DCUI is not disabled and when a host loses it's connection to vCenter server, an administrator can login via the DCUI and disable lockdown mode. Users that are allowed to login are exception users with administrative privileges and users defined in the advanced setting DCUI.acces (default only root).

In strict lockdown mode, the DCUI is disabled. When the host loses it's connection to vCenter, you can login via SSH (if enabled - disabled by default) when exception users with administrative privileges are configured.

kj0

There are two types of lockdown modes.

Normal mode:
Normal mode does not stop the DCUI service. Only accounts in the Exception User list are allowed to access or Users defined in the DCUI.Access set under the Host Advanced options.

Strict Mode:
In Strict mode, DCUI access is blocked. This is it if you can't restore a connection between your vCenter and Host, which means you will need to start from scratch again with that host.


I'm hoping that close.

tomtom1

With strict mode, you can still login if the user is an exception user with administrative privileges and SSH is enabled. Other than that, you're spot on. By default, the only user in dcui.access is root.

tomtom1

Next one:

Mention 3 of the 4 services the new PSC architecture provides.

Bonus: Mention the last one too!

kj0

Glad you didn't throw in the answer too soon this time.

1. SSO
2. Licensing
3. Certificate Authority
4. Identity Management.


Are you doing these as you are reading through the blueprint?

tomtom1

Yes, mostly. As I'm doing the delta beta exam, I try to focus on what is new in vSphere 6.0. You're welcome to throw in some questions of your own.

For the question at hand, correct. You could have also mentioned the lookup service.

kj0

tomtom1 wrote: »

Yes, mostly. As I'm doing the delta beta exam, I try to focus on what is new in vSphere 6.0. You're welcome to throw in some questions of your own.

For the question at hand, correct. You could have also mentioned the lookup service.

Could have, but you asked for 3 + 1 more... Didn't want to push it :P

Yeah, I will have some to hopefully add. I've got to do the foundation and the full. So there might be some others.

kj0

Q:

What are the supported databases for the following:

Windows Embedded:
Windows External:
VCSA:

tomtom1

The VCSA Linux based appliance has an internal vPostgreSQL database since 5.5 but also supports Oracle external databases.

The Windows embedded (vCenter you mean?) has an internal vPostgreSQL database too.

External databases supported on the Windows vCenter are MSSQL and Oracle.

Next one:

What is the correct update sequence from a vSphere 5.0 environment to vSphere 6.0?

A) Hosts, vCenter, VUM, VM tools
vCenter, VUM, Hosts, VM tools
C) VUM, vCenter, Hosts, VM tools
D) VM tools, Hosts, VUM, vCenter

kj0

Nice.

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B. (See first question one page 1)