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Questions tagged [vmware-esxi]

VMWare ESXi is an installable/embeddable virtualization platform based around the ESXi Hypervisor.

VMWare ESXi is a type 1 hypervisor based virtualization platform that installs on bare hardware (no host OS required) that allows running multiple guest virtual machines simultaneously.

ESXi is available freely with basic single-server functionality, but more advanced functionality requires licensing commercial versions of VMWare vSphere (formerly known as VMWare Infrastructure prior to version 4.0). ESXi lacks the linux-based service console included with VMWare ESX, further reducing install footprint and attack surface.

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How to [politely?] tell software vendor they don't know what they're talking about

Not a technical question, but a valid one nonetheless. Scenario: HP ProLiant DL380 Gen 8 with 2 x 8-core Xeon E5-2667 CPUs and 256GB RAM running ESXi 5.5. Eight VMs for a given vendor's system. Four VMs for test, four VMs for production. The four…
Simon Catlin
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vSphere education - What are the downsides of configuring VMs with *too* much RAM?

VMware memory management seems to be a tricky balancing act. With cluster RAM, Resource Pools, VMware's management techniques (TPS, ballooning, host swapping), in-guest RAM utilization, swapping, reservations, shares and limits, there are a lot of…
ewwhite
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Troubleshooting latency spikes on ESXi NFS datastores

I'm experiencing fsync latencies of around five seconds on NFS datastores in ESXi, triggered by certain VMs. I suspect this might be caused by VMs using NCQ/TCQ, as this does not happen with virtual IDE drives. This can be reproduced using…
exo_cw
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Is there still a use for irqbalance on modern hardware?

This question has been asked before, but I believe that the world has changed enough for it to be asked again. Does irqbalance have any use on today’s systems where we have NUMA-capable CPUs with memory sharing between their cores? Running…
espenfjo
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mount: unknown filesystem type 'linux_raid_member'

I have Suse Linux 12.1 and i am trying to mount a single RAID 1 disk, to explore the files in it. However when mounting it: # mount /dev/sdc1 /mnt/test mount: unknown filesystem type 'linux_raid_member' I started reading around and many…
user1092608
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Are VMware ESXi 5 patches cumulative?

This seems basic, but I'm confused about the patching strategy involved with manually updating standalone VMware ESXi hosts. The VMware vSphere blog attempts to explain this, but the actual process is still not clear to me. From the blog: Say…
ewwhite
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When deploying a single server on new hardware, do you virtualize it or not?

There are a few questions that I've found on ServerFault that hint around this topic, and while it may be somewhat opinion-based, I think it can fall into that "good subjective" category based on the below: Constructive subjective questions: * tend…
TheCleaner
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What happens when the USB key or SD card I've installed VMware ESXi on fails?

An SD (SDHC) card installed in an HP ProLiant DL380p Gen8 server running VMware ESXi just failed :( I encountered some ominous looking messages on the vCenter console and in the HP ProLiant ILO event log... Lost connectivity to the device ...…
ewwhite
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Is there a way to clone an existing VM on an ESXi server without having to re-import it?

I have imported a VM into an ESXi server using the VMware "Converter stand alone utility". However, this process is a little tedious. Since I eventually want several copies of this VM (or, to be more accurate, several more-or-less identical…
David Mackintosh
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Why VM snapshots are affecting performance?

I read in one of the VMware KB articles that snapshots will directly affect VM performance. But my team keeps asking me how snapshots can affect performance. I would like to give them solid reason behind the statement the snapshots are performance…
Samselvaprabu
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Move VMware ESXi VM to new datastore - preserve thin-provisioning

I'm looking for a good solution to a VMware ESXi environment issue where there's no vCenter available. What's the best way to move a VM from one datastore to another on a single ESXi host, while maintaining the VMDK thin-provisioning? This is a…
ewwhite
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Why are snapshots considered as temporary backups not real backups?

I am using VMware ESXi. In our team we use to provide snapshots for long term backup. Then we faced issues like memory spillover and the server got hang up. I started reading in VMware knowledgebase articles and everywhere. Everywhere it was…
Samselvaprabu
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VMWare ESXi free?

Much is made of the fact that VMWare's ESXi hypervisor is "free" As best I can tell, you can install the hypervisor on a host for "free". Because ESXi does not have a built in management console, you need a program, of some sort, to connect to the…
SvrGuy
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What kind of storage do people actually use for VMware ESX servers?

VMware and many network evangelists try to tell you that sophisticated (=expensive) fiber SANs are the "only" storage option for VMware ESX and ESXi servers. Well, yes, of course. Using a SAN is fast, reliable and makes vMotion possible. Great. But:…
Dirk Paessler
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How to run VMWare ESX or ESXi in a virtual machine?

Can VMWare ESX or ESXi be installed and used inside a virtual machine? It can be installed inside VMWare Workstation or Server, but then it doesn't work; the main symptoms are: It runs REALLY slowly. It lets you create VMs, but when powering up…
Massimo
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