Category Archives: vcloud

Change vCloud vApp/VM Storage Profile with PowerCLI

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VMware has done a lot to open up the APIs for vCloud with the 5.1 release, however it still leaves much to be desired. One of the nicer things is the ability to change a storage profile for a VM. However, you need to know the HREF for the storage profile that you want to change to. This wasn’t so easy to get (I would love to be able to use a “get-storageProfile” PowerCLI cmd-let), but thankfully, Jake Robinson (@jakerobinson) and the VMware Community to the rescue:

http://communities.vmware.com/message/2163559#2163559

This script uses PowerCLI for Tenants (which cannot be installed on the same box running the ‘regular’ PowerCli). Taking his prompt to build an XML file from an HTTP GET to a vCloud HREF, we can retrieve storage profiles from any OrgvDC you have rights to. From this XML, we can assign a storage profile to a VM (or in this case, every VM in a vApp) based on it’s name and the Org you’re logged into. I modified his script a little bit, because if we pass an Org to the function, we don’t get the storage profiles, but if we pass an OrgvDC HREF, we automatically get the storage profiles (because storage profiles are assigned to Org vDCs and not globally to an Org). This reduces the number of function calls needed.

All this script needs is your vApp name and desired Storage Profile name.

What this also addresses is the ability to migrate all vCloud VMs off of the “*Any” Storage Profile.

# This function does a HTTP GET against the vCloud 5.1 API using our current API session.
# It accepts any vCloud HREF.
function Get-vCloud51($href)
{
 $request = [System.Net.HttpWebRequest]::Create($href)
 $request.Accept = "application/*+xml;version=5.1"
 $request.Headers.add("x-vcloud-authorization",$global:DefaultCIServers[0].SessionId)
 $response = $request.GetResponse()
 $streamReader = new-object System.IO.StreamReader($response.getResponseStream())
 $xmldata = $streamreader.ReadToEnd()
 $streamReader.close()
 $response.close()
 return $xmldata
}

# This function gets an OrgVdc via 1.5 API, then 5.1 API.
# It then returns the HREF for the storage profile based on the $profilename and

function Get-storageHref($orgVdc,$profileName)
{
 $orgVdc51 = Get-vCloud51 $orgVdc.Href
 $storageProfileHref = $orgVdc51.vdc.VdcStorageProfiles.VdcStorageProfile | Where-Object{$_.name -eq "$profileName"} | foreach {$_.href}
 return $storageProfileHref
}

# Get vApp, Storage Profile and OrgvDC names

$vappName = read-host "vApp name"
$profileName = read-host "Storage Profile"
$orgVdcName = read-host "Org vDC Name"

$orgVdc = get-orgvdc $orgVdcName

#Get storage profile HREF

$profileHref = Get-storageHref $orgVdc $profileName

# Change each VM's Storage Profile in the vApp

$CIvApp = Get-CIVApp $vappName
Foreach ($CIVM in ($CIvApp | Get-CIVM)) {
 $newSettings = $CIVM.extensiondata
 $newSettings.storageprofile.name = "$profileName"
 $newSettings.storageprofile.Href = "$profileHref"
 Write-Host "Changing the storage profile for $CIVM.name to $profileName"
 $newSettings.UpdateServerData()
}

Solving vShield Edge Gateways Not Upgrading/Re-deploying after vSM 5.0.1 to 5.1.2 Upgrade

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After upgrading from vCloud Director 1.5.1 to 5.1.2, vShield Manager 5.0.1 to 5.1.2 and vSphere 5.0 to 5.1.0 following all of the Best Practices KBs for each, the time came to upgrade off the vShield Edge Gateways to take advantage of some of the advanced capabilities and performance. When I attempted this via vCloud Director (right-click Edge Gateway and choose ‘Re-deploy’), I was met with this error message:

Cannot redeploy edge gateway BizDev External Network (urn:uuid:f1e69daa-7b56-4e8b-8713-549cfbe8c9f7) org.springframework.web.client.RestClientException: Redeploy failed: Edge connected to ‘dvportgroup-9622’ failed to upgrade.

Inspecting the vCloud Director debug logs revealed this:

2013-05-29 07:42:56,316 | DEBUG | nf-activity-pool-192 | LoggingRestTemplate | Created POST request for "https://10.10.10.56:443/api/2.0/networks/dvportgroup-9622/edge/upgrade" |

2013-05-29 07:42:56,316 | DEBUG | nf-activity-pool-192 | LoggingRestTemplate | Request::URI:https://10.10.10.56/api/2.0/networks/dvportgroup-9622/edge/upgrade method:POST |
2013-05-29 07:42:56,316 | DEBUG | nf-activity-pool-192 | LoggingRestTemplate | Request body :<none> |
2013-05-29 07:42:56,406 | WARN | nf-activity-pool-192 | LoggingRestTemplate | POST request for "https://10.10.10.56:443/api/2.0/networks/dvportgroup-9622/edge/upgrade" resulted in 404 (Not Found); invoking error handler |
2013-05-29 07:42:56,406 | ERROR | nf-activity-pool-192 | NetworkSecurityErrorHandler | Response error xml : <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?><Errors><Error><code>70001</code><description>vShield Edge not installed for given networkID. Cannot proceed with the operation</description></Error></Errors> |
2013-05-29 07:42:56,407 | DEBUG | nf-activity-pool-192 | EdgeManagerSpock | Failed upgrading edge connected to dvportgroup-9622. |
com.vmware.vcloud.fabric.nsm.error.VsmException: vShield Edge not installed for given networkID. Cannot proceed with the operation

at com.vmware.vcloud.fabric.nsm.error.NetworkSecurityErrorHandler.processException(NetworkSecurityErrorHandler.java:95)
 at com.vmware.vcloud.fabric.nsm.error.NetworkSecurityErrorHandler.handleError(NetworkSecurityErrorHandler.java:70)
 at org.springframework.web.client.RestTemplate.handleResponseError(RestTemplate.java:486)
 at org.springframework.web.client.RestTemplate.doExecute(RestTemplate.java:443)
 at com.vmware.vcloud.fabric.net.utils.impl.LoggingRestTemplate.doExecute(LoggingRestTemplate.java:64)
 at org.springframework.web.client.RestTemplate.execute(RestTemplate.java:401)
 at org.springframework.web.client.RestTemplate.postForEntity(RestTemplate.java:302)
 at com.vmware.vcloud.fabric.net.utils.impl.RestClient.postForLocation(RestClient.java:108)
 at com.vmware.vcloud.fabric.nsm.services.spock.EdgeManagerSpock.redeployEdge(EdgeManagerSpock.java:728)
 at com.vmware.vcloud.fabric.net.activities.gateway.DeployGatewayActivity$GenerateBacking.invoke(DeployGatewayActivity.java:347)
 at com.vmware.vcloud.fabric.foundation.activity.executors.ActivityRunner.run(ActivityRunner.java:123)
 at java.util.concurrent.Executors$RunnableAdapter.call(Unknown Source)
 at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask$Sync.innerRun(Unknown Source)
 at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(Unknown Source)
 at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.runTask(Unknown Source)
 at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(Unknown Source)
 at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
2013-05-29 07:42:56,407 | ERROR | nf-activity-pool-192 | DeployGatewayActivity | [Activity Execution] Handle: urn:uuid:f1e69daa-7b56-4e8b-8713-549cfbe8c9f7, Current Phase: com.vmware.vcloud.fabric.net.activities.gateway.DeployGatewayActivity$GenerateBacking, ActivityExecutionState Parameter Names: [BACKING_SPEC, NDC, activitySupervisionRequest, com.vmware.activityEntityRecord.EntityId, REDEPLOY, DEPLOY_PARAMS] - Could not deploy gateway BizDev External Network |
org.springframework.web.client.RestClientException: Redeploy failed: Edge connected to 'dvportgroup-9622' failed to upgrade.
 at

-- snip --
2013-05-29 07:42:56,437 | DEBUG | LocalTaskScheduler-Pool-31 | JobString | Job object - Object : BizDev External Network(com.vmware.vcloud.entity.gateway:d21b172b-b926-46e7-8e8b-07fb71843b18) operation name: NETWORK_GATEWAY_REDEPLOY | vcd=83908311-0f60-48e3-a2ec-f10f07c4f187,task=b6261962-0d14-48b0-836b-45fc0d68df65
2013-05-29 07:42:56,486 | DEBUG | LocalTaskScheduler-Pool-31 | CJob | No last pending job : [BizDev External Network(com.vmware.vcloud.entity.gateway:d21b172b-b926-46e7-8e8b-07fb71843b18)], status=[3] | vcd=83908311-0f60-48e3-a2ec-f10f07c4f187,task=b6261962-0d14-48b0-836b-45fc0d68df65
2013-05-29 07:42:56,487 | DEBUG | LocalTaskScheduler-Pool-31 | CJob | Update last job : [BizDev External Network(com.vmware.vcloud.entity.gateway:d21b172b-b926-46e7-8e8b-07fb71843b18)], status=[3], [5/29/13 7:42 AM] | vcd=83908311-0f60-48e3-a2ec-f10f07c4f187,task=b6261962-0d14-48b0-836b-45fc0d68df65
2013-05-29 07:42:56,487 | DEBUG | LocalTaskScheduler-Pool-31 | TaskServiceImpl | Cleaning busy entities for task 'b6261962-0d14-48b0-836b-45fc0d68df65' | vcd=83908311-0f60-48e3-a2ec-f10f07c4f187,task=b6261962-0d14-48b0-836b-45fc0d68df65
2013-05-29 07:42:56,488 | DEBUG | LocalTaskScheduler-Pool-31 | BusyObjectServiceImpl | Unsetting 1 busy entitie(s) for task ref NETWORK_GATEWAY_REDEPLOY(com.vmware.vcloud.entity.task:b6261962-0d14-48b0-836b-45fc0d68df65) | vcd=83908311-0f60-48e3-a2ec-f10f07c4f187,task=b6261962-0d14-48b0-836b-45fc0d68df65
2013-05-29 07:42:56,492 | DEBUG | LocalTaskScheduler-Pool-31 | TaskServiceImpl | Recorded completion of task 'NETWORK_GATEWAY_REDEPLOY(com.vmware.vcloud.entity.task:b6261962-0d14-48b0-836b-45fc0d68df65)' (retry count: 1) | vcd=83908311-0f60-48e3-a2ec-f10f07c4f187,task=b6261962-0d14-48b0-836b-45fc0d68df65
2013-05-29 07:42:56,494 | INFO | LocalTaskScheduler-Pool-31 | LocalTask | completed executing local task NETWORK_GATEWAY_REDEPLOY(com.vmware.vcloud.entity.task:b6261962-0d14-48b0-836b-45fc0d68df65) |

What I quickly realized is that it also affected the ability to modify any existing Edge Gateway IP/NAT/Firewall/VPN settings. If it were just the upgrade that was affected, I probably would have left it for another day.

Through all my searching, I could not find anyone who had a solution that worked for me and most posts ended up saying “call VMware support”. Well, I’m a glutton for punishment and often don’t know when to give up, so I kept at it and I was able to get it working.

I shutdown the new vShield Manager VM and rolled back to the snapshot I took of original vShield Manager VM after the vCloud Director upgrade but before the vShield upgrade. I then started to go through the steps again in this VMware KB: Upgrading to vCloud Networking and Security 5.1.2a best practices guide with a few deviations.

Even though I had enough space to run the main upgrade bundle, I ran the space clearing VMware-vShield-Manager-upgrade-bundle-maintenance-5.0-939118.tar.gz bundle anyway. After that finished, I ran the main 5.1.2 upgrade bundle (VMware-vShield-Manager-upgrade-bundle-5.1.2-943471.tar.gz).

Before I did the backup, deploy new OVF, restore, maintenance bundle upgrade routine in the KB, I went through and did an upgrade of each edge gateway (under the Edges dropdown in the vShield Manager web UI) which worked! In essence, this is a simple re-deploy of a new OVF of the gateway and reconfiguration of the service template with the latest version from the new vShield Manager.

Then I installed the VMware-vShield-Manager-upgrade-bundle-maintenance-5.1.2-997359.tar.gz bundle. After that was all booted back up and stable, I stopped vCloud Director, took a backup of vSM, deployed the new vSM OVF, installed the VMware-vShield-Manager-upgrade-bundle-maintenance-5.1.2-997359.tar.gz bundle to the new install, restored the backup, re-registered vSM with vCenter, started vCD, re-registered vCD with vSM.

Hope this helps someone out.

Upgrading to vCloud Director 5.1 with Existing Nested ESXi VMs

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While my upgrade from vCloud Director 1.5.1 to 5.1 went on through out the day, I started to have a sinking feeling that I wasn’t going to be able to complete it with zero downtime for all of the VMs in the environment.

In our environment, a lot of training and product demos happen, and much of that relies on utilizing nested ESXi, similar to how VMware’s Hands On Labs are run at VMworld (and thankfully, now available online outside of the event).

William Lam has a great article on modifying your vCloud Director database to automatically pass the ‘nested hypervisor’ support flag to vCloud hosts as they’re brought into vCD to be used as a resource rather than having to modify each vSphere hosts’s config file.  http://www.virtuallyghetto.com/2011/10/missing-piece-in-creating-your-own.html

However, with vSphere 5.1, VMware changed how nested ESXi is enabled. It’s now on a per VM basis rather than a per host basis. William’s post “How to Enable Nested ESXi & Other Hypervisors in vSphere 5.1” covers the changes and the new process quite well, so I won’t cover that here.

The biggest kicker to this is that it requires the VM being VMware Hardware Version 9 which is new to vSphere 5.1. So, any current nested ESXi (or any other nested hypervisor) is running, at highest, Hardware Version 8. Continue reading →