ESX Commads

Hi  All,

In this post  I am going to publish Commands useful for the administration of ESX server

Change Hostname

$ esxcfg-advcfg -g /Misc/HostName

-g option shows the present hostname

Value of HostName is esx2cluster1.testdomain.com

esxcfg-advcfg -s esx2cluster2.testdomain.com /Misc/Hostname

-s Option sets the new Value

LIST Switches

esxcfg-vswitch –l

ADD New Switch

esxcfg-vswitch -a vSwitch5

ADD New PortGroup

esxcfg-vswitch -A "Backup Network" vSwitch5

Uplink a NIC

esxcfg-vswitch -L vmnic4 vSwitch5

Delete a NIC

esxcfg-vswitch -U vmnic4 vSwitch5

If ESX host fails, how do you get the logs?

Command : vm-support

To see the files collected, run: tar -tzf /root/esx-2008-12-08—20.23.15766.tgz

Monitor : CPU, Memory, Network and Storage

esxtop

Once esxtop is running,

press c to switch to CPU mode

press the m key to switch to memory mode.

press the d key to switch to storage mode.

press the n key to switch to network mode

Create VMKERNEL PORT

To create a Service Console port at the command line, you need to create

your port group first and then enable it as a Service console port.

Convert the portgroup “PortGroup123” as a service console port

Enter / Exit Maintenance mode :

To enter maintenance mode, use this command:

vimsh -n -e /hostsvc/maintenance_mode_enter

To exit maintenance mode, enter:

vimsh -n -e /hostsvc/maintenance_mode_exit

Change Time on ESX ?

Run these two commands to manually change the time on the ESX Server:

date 120715002009 (MMDDhhmmYYYY)

hwclock -systohc

Change Time on ESX ?

Run these two commands to manually change the time on the ESX Server:

date 120715002009 (MMDDhhmmYYYY)

hwclock -systohc

Restart vCenter agent

/etc/init.d/vmware-vpxa restart

Registering a Virtual Machine via the Command Line

vmware-cmd -s register /vmfs/volumes/datastore/NAME/NAME.vmx

Unregistering a Virtual Machine via the Command Line

vmware-cmd -s unregister /vmfs/volumes/datastore/NAME/NAME.vmx

Enabling SSH on ESXi

1. On your ESXi console, press Alt-F1 to open a command prompt. Next, enter

unsupported along with your system’s root password.

2. At the command line, edit the inetd.conf file, which maintains information

for various

services running on your ESXi console. The file is located at /etc/inetd.conf.

Look for the line that starts with #ssh and remove the pound sign (#). Save the

file

to finalize your changes.

3. You now need to restart the inetd service, because making the change in the

configuration

file does not do this automatically. To do so, enter the following command

at the command line:

/sbin/services.sh restart

If you are running ESX 3.5 Update 4, you will instead need to issue the

following

command to restart SSH:

kill – HUP inetd

FireWall Settings

To set the security level to low:

esxcfg-firewall --allowIncoming --allowOutgoing

To set the security level to medium:

esxcfg-firewall --blockIncoming --allowOutgoing

To set the security level to high:

esxcfg-firewall --blockIncoming -blockOutgoing

After making these changes, you’ll need to restart the VMware services in

order for the new rules to take effect:

service mgmt-vmware restart

Using the command line, add a new vSwitch and associate it with

a service console

1. Log into the ESX Server’s console and become the root user.

2. Find out what network adapters are available to use for a new vSwitch:

$ esxcfg-nics –l

3. Get a list of the current vSwitches on the ESX Server, if any exist:

$ esxcfg-vswitch –l

4. Create a new vSwitch (vSwitch 2)

$ esxcfg-vswitch -a vSwitch2

5. Once you’ve created the new vSwitch, you’ll need to add a port group with the

label "Service Console". Make sure you execute the command with the quotation

marks around the label:

$ esxcfg-vswitch -A "Service Console" vSwitch2

6. Attach a vmnic from step 1 to the new vSwitch to create an uplink. In this example we

choose to use vmnic49 because it was not already in use:

$ esxcfg-vswitch -L vmnic49 vSwitch2

7. Create the vswif (service console) interface on the newly created vSwitch. The -i

option allows us to specify the ESX Server’s IP address, -p allows us to provide a

label, and the -n option specifies the network mask:

$ esxcfg-vswif -a vswif0 -i 172.10.45.11 -n 255.255.255.0 -p "Service Console"

Create a VMkernelPort on vSwitch via command line:

esxcfg-vmknic --add --ip=x.x.x.x --netmask=x.x.x.x portgroup

esxcfg-vmknic --enable portgroup

Example:

esxcfg-vswitch –l (List vSwitch)

esxcfg-vswitch –a vSwitch1 (Create vSwitch)

esxcfg-vswitch –A “ISCSI” vSwitch1 (Create port group)

esxcfg-vmknic -a -i 10.10.10.33 -n 255.255.255.0 ISCSI

(Assign IP)

esxcfg-vmknic –l

(List VmkernelPort

Enable vMotion on vSwitch via command line:

Enable a VirtualNic to be used as the vMotion NIC.

Enable and Disable vMotion via SSH connection without VirtualCenter

vmware-vim-cmd hostsvc/vmotion/vnic_set [vnic] vmware-vim-cmd

hostsvc/vmotion/vnic_set vmk0 Disabling vMotion Port: vmware-vim-cmd

hostsvc/vmotion/vnic_unset [vnic]

vmware-vim-cmd hostsvc/vmotion/vnic_unset vmk0

Check vSwitch vMotion configuration:

vmware-vim-cmd hostsvc/vmotion/netconfig_get