Calivirtualization

Requirements

1. Max file upload size should not be more then 500 MB
2. Supports only ESX 3.X [ No support for ESX 4.0 & ESXi (or any Hypervisor) ]
3. Only accepts EMCGrab for ESX v1.0, v1.1 & v1.2_beta (run on ESX 3.x) [ No VMSupport or Linux grabs ]
4. Download latest EMCGrab for ESX Servers from here

2.  Download the EMCGrab from EMC’s ftp site.  Once you have that downloaded transfer it to your ESX host.  There are many ways to do this I tend to use winscp and transfer the .tar to the /usr/local/src folder inside of the ESX server.

3.  Launch WinSCP and type in your hostname of your ESX server

4.  Navigate to your /tmp directory.  I like to use /usr/local/src

5.  Untar the emcgrab_ESX_vSphere_v1.2.1.tar file by issusing the command:

6. Navigate to the emcgrab directory.

cd /usr/local/src/emcgrab or cd /tmp/emcgrab

7.  Type:

Accept the license agreement and answer the questions.  When the script completes it asks “DO YOU WANT TO RUN VM-SUPPORT SCRIPT”, type in N and hit enter.

8.  Download the emcgrab (by using WinSCP) from the output directory i.e.  /usr/local/src/emcgrab/outputs/ SERVERNAME.FQDN_date_time_version.

9.  Upload the .tar.gz to EMC’s website, once it is done uploading it will spit back your heat report.  You can then use this to analyze your environment .

10.  Check driver versions and compatibility by going to VMWare’s HCL Website.

11.  Now, that you have an understanding on how to use the VMHeat tool, perform an upgrade on one of your test ESX servers and run the heat grab again.

12.  Login to your ESX server:

You can use Putty or any one of the other ssh clients.

13.  Login to your esx server, and input your username/password.  If permitrootlogin is enabled inside of your sshd.config file then go ahead and login as root.

14.  Navigate to:

Here is a list of files and directories that need to be backed up (esx 3.5).

ESX Files and Directories to be Backed Up

File	Description
/etc/passwd	The password file containing the local users for the VMware ESX Server host service console.
/etc/shadow	The shadow password file containing local users and encrypted passwords for the VMware ESX Server host service console.
/etc/group	The group file for containing local security groups for the VMware ESX Server host service console.
/etc/grub.conf	The boot information for the grub boot loader.
/etc/vmware	The configuration files for VMware ESX host.
/boot	The boot partition for VMware ESX host. It should be noted that these should be default.
/home/	Any user information that is stored on the home directory on the local machine.

15.  Now we need to perform a backup, and generate a back up file.

tar –cvf machinename-backup.date.tar /etc/shadow /etc/passwd /etc/group  /etc/pam.d /etc/vmware /home/

Optionally, you can include:  /etc/grub.conf and /boot although, I’m not sure why one might want to.

Note:  Replace the red highlighted text with the host’s machine name and for the date with today’s date.  For instance:  tar -cvf esx1-backup.041210.tar

16.  Use WinSCP and navigate to your /usr/local/src directory and download the backup tar file and store it in a safe place.

17.  Now upgrade your ESX server, if you have Virtual Center you can use “Update Manager”, or you can use the commandline esxupdate on the host itself.

18.  Once you have upgraded your host and have verified that everything is working as expected, it would be a good idea to take another back-up of the ESX configuration and store it in a safe place.  In the event that you need to restore your ESX server after a hard-drive crash etc, you can perform the following.

VMware ESX Server Host Restore

1.  Re-install VMware ESX Server and connect back to your shared storage. Once completed, perform the following steps:

1. Re-install ESX with the same partition configuration as the original host.
2. WINScp the files back to your ESX server and put them in your /usr/local/src directory.
3. The following two directories will need to be removed from the ESX host:/etc/vmware
   /boot
4. Launch putty and login to the ESX server.  Once logged in su – to root if needed and remove the directories by issuing the commands:

cd/

rm –Rf /etc/vmware

rm –Rf /boot

5.  With that completed it’s now time to restore the backup on to the new ESX host.  Type in the following:

cd /usr/local/src

tar –xvf machinename-backup.date.tar

6.  Reboot the ESX server.