vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 17 APR 2018 VMware vSphere 6.7 VMware ESXi 6.7 vCenter Server 6.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration You can find the most up-to-date technical documentation on the VMware website at: https://docs.vmware.com/ If you have comments about this documentation, submit your feedback to docfeedback@vmware.com VMware, Inc. 3401 Hillview Ave. Palo Alto, CA 94304 www.vmware.com Copyright © 2009–2018 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved. Copyright and trademark information. VMware, Inc.
Contents About vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 6 1 Introduction to VMware vSphere Virtual Machines 7 Virtual Machine Files 7 Virtual Machines and the Virtual Infrastructure Virtual Machine Lifecycle 8 9 Virtual Machine Components 9 Virtual Machine Hardware Available to vSphere Virtual Machines Virtual Machine Options vSphere Web Client 11 13 14 Where to Go From Here 14 2 Deploying Virtual Machines 16 Create a Virtual Machine with the New Virtual Machine Wizard Clone a Virtual Machine t
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Creating Virtual Machines and vApps from Templates in a Content Library Working with Items in a Library 67 74 5 Configuring Virtual Machine Hardware 79 Virtual Machine Compatibility Virtual CPU Configuration 79 87 Virtual Memory Configuration Virtual Disk Configuration 95 100 SCSI and SATA Storage Controller Conditions, Limitations, and Compatibility Virtual Machine Network Configuration 112 119 Other Virtual Machine Device Configuration 134 USB Configur
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 9 Managing Virtual Machines 211 Installing a Guest Operating System 212 Customizing Guest Operating Systems 214 Edit Virtual Machine Startup and Shutdown Settings in the vSphere Web Client Edit Virtual Machine Startup and Shutdown Settings 234 Install the VMware Enhanced Authentication Plug-in 236 Using a Virtual Machine Console 237 Answer Virtual Machine Questions 238 Removing and Reregistering VMs and VM Templates Managing Virtual Machine Templates 239
About vSphere Virtual Machine Administration vSphere Virtual Machine Administration describes how to create, configure, and manage virtual machines ® in the VMware vSphere environment. This guide provides introductions to the tasks that you can perform within the system and also crossreferences to the documentation that describes the tasks in detail. This information focuses on managing virtual machines and includes the following information.
Introduction to VMware vSphere Virtual Machines 1 A virtual machine is a software computer that, like a physical computer, runs an operating system and applications. The virtual machine consists of a set of specification and configuration files and is backed by the physical resources of a host. Every virtual machine has virtual devices that provide the same functionality as physical hardware but are more portable, more secure, and easier to manage.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Table 1‑1. Virtual Machine Files (Continued) File Usage Description .vmdk vmname.vmdk Virtual disk characteristics -flat.vmdk vmname-flat.vmdk Virtual machine data disk .nvram vmname.nvram or nvram Virtual machine BIOS or EFI configuration .vmsd vmname.vmsd Virtual machine snapshots .vmsn vmname.vmsn Virtual machine snapshot data file .vswp vmname.vswp Virtual machine swap file .vmss vmname.vmss Virtual machine suspend file .log vmware.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration In the vCenter Server hierarchy that you see in the vSphere Client, a data center is the top-level container of ESXi hosts, folders, clusters, resource pools, vSphere vApps, virtual machines, and so on. Datastores are virtual representations of underlying physical storage resources. Datastores hide the idiosyncrasies of the underlying physical storage and present a uniform model for the storage resources required by virtual machines.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration After installation, you are responsible for securing and patching the operating system. VMware Tools VMware Tools is a suite of utilities that enhances the performance of the virtual machine's guest operating system and improves management of the virtual machine. It includes device drivers and other software that is essential for your VM. With VMware Tools, you have more control over the virtual machine interface.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration A vSphere administrator or other privileged user can determine who can access or modify a virtual machine by setting permissions on the virtual machine. See the vSphere Security documentation. Virtual Machine Hardware Available to vSphere Virtual Machines VMware provides devices, resources, profiles, and vServices that you can configure or add to your virtual machine. Not all hardware devices are available to every virtual machine.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Table 1‑2. Virtual Machine Hardware and Descriptions (Continued) Hardware Device Description Keyboard Mirrors the keyboard that is connected to the virtual machine console when you first connect to the console. Memory The virtual hardware memory size determines how much memory applications that are running inside the virtual machine have available to them.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Table 1‑2. Virtual Machine Hardware and Descriptions (Continued) Hardware Device Description VMCI Virtual Machine Communication Interface device. Provides a high-speed communication channel between a virtual machine and the hypervisor. You cannot add or remove VMCI devices. NVMe controller NVM Express controller.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration VMware Tools Manage the power controls for the virtual machine and run VMware Tools scripts. You can also upgrade VMware Tools during power cycling and synchronize guest time with the host. Virtualization Based Security (VBS) Enable VBS to provide an additional level of protection to the virtual machine. VBS is available on the latest Windows OS versions. For more information, see the vSphere Security documentation.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration After you provision and deploy virtual machines into the vSphere infrastructure, you can configure and manage them. You can configure existing virtual machines by modifying or adding hardware or install or upgrade VMware Tools. You might need to manage multitiered applications with VMware vApps or change virtual machine startup and shutdown settings, use virtual machine snapshots, work with virtual disks, or add, remove, or delete virtual machines from the inventory.
Deploying Virtual Machines 2 VMware supports several methods to provision vSphere virtual machines. What works best in your environment depends on factors such as the size and type of your infrastructure and the goals that you want to achieve. Create a single virtual machine if no other virtual machines in your environment have the requirements you are looking for, such as a particular operating system or hardware configuration.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration n Deploy a Virtual Machine from a Template in the vSphere Web Client n Clone an Existing Virtual Machine n Clone an Existing Virtual Machine in the vSphere Web Client n Cloning a Virtual Machine with Instant Clone n Clone a Template to a Template n Clone a Template to a Template in the vSphere Web Client n Convert a Template to a Virtual Machine Create a Virtual Machine with the New Virtual Machine Wizard You can create a single virtual machine if no vir
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration n Resource.Assign virtual machine to resource pool on the destination host, cluster, or resource pool. n Datastore.Allocate space on the destination datastore or datastore folder. n Network.Assign network on the network that the virtual machine will be assigned to. To verify the privileges assigned to your role, click Menu > Administration > Roles and select the role.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 5 On the Select storage page, choose the storage type, the storage policy, and a datastore or datastore cluster where to store the virtual machine files. Option Description Create a virtual machine on a host that has PMem resource a Choose the type of storage by selecting the Standard or the PMem radio button. With the PMem storage option, every virtual machine disk file is stored on the host-local PMem datastore by default.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 8 (Optional) Enable Windows Virtualization Based Security. The Enable Windows Virtualization Based Security option is available for the latest Windows OS versions, for example Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016. For more information about VBS, see the vSphere Security documentation. 9 On the Customize hardware page, configure the virtual machine hardware and options and click Next.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Procedure 1 Start the Clone Virtual Machine To Template wizard. Option Description Open the Clone Virtual Machine To Template wizard from any object in the inventory a Right-click any inventory object that is a valid parent object of a virtual machine, such as a datacenter, folder, cluster, resource pool, or host, and select New Virtual Machine. b On the Select a creation type page, select Clone virtual machine to template and click Next.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 4 On the Select storage page, select the datastore or datastore cluster in which to store the template configuration files and all of the virtual disks. Click Next. Option Description Clone a virtual machine that has vPMem hard disks a Choose the type of storage for the template by selecting the Standard, the PMem, or the Hybrid radio button. If you select the Standard mode, all virtual disks are stored on a standard datastore.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Option Description The Thin Provision format saves storage space. At first, a thin provisioned disk uses only as much datastore space as the disk initially needs. If the thin disk needs more space later, it can grow to the maximum capacity allocated to it. b (Optional) Select a VM storage policy or leave the default one. c Select a datastore or a datastore cluster.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Procedure 1 Start the Clone Virtual Machine To Template wizard. Option Description Start the Clone Virtual Machine To Templatewizard from any object in the inventory a Right-click any inventory object that is a valid parent object of a virtual machine, such as a datacenter, folder, cluster, resource pool, or host, and select New Virtual Machine > New Virtual Machine. b On the Select a creation type page, select Clone virtual machine to template and click Next.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 4 On the Select storage page, select the datastore or datastore cluster in which to store the virtual machine configuration files and all of the virtual disks. Click Next. a b Select the format for the virtual machine's disks. Option Action Same format as source Use the same format as the source virtual machine. Thick Provision Lazy Zeroed Create a virtual disk in a default thick format. Space required for the virtual disk is allocated during creation.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Option Action 3 Apply a virtual machine storage policy from the VM storage profile dropdown menu. The list shows which datastores are compatible and which are incompatible with the selected virtual machine storage policy.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Procedure 1 Start the Deploy From Template wizard. Option Description Open the Deploy From Template wizard from any object in the inventory a Right-click any inventory object that is a valid parent object of a virtual machine, such as a data center, folder, cluster, resource pool, or host, and select New Virtual Machine. b On the Select a creation type page, select Deploy from template and click Next.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 4 On the Select storage page, select the datastore or datastore cluster in which to store the virtual machine configuration files and all of the virtual disks. Click Next. Option Description Deploy a virtual machine from a template that has vPMem hard disks a Choose the type of storage for the template by selecting the Standard, the PMem, or the Hybrid radio button. If you select the Standard mode, all virtual disks will be stored on a standard datastore.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Option Description The Thin Provision format saves storage space. At first, a thin provisioned disk uses only as much datastore space as the disk initially needs. If the thin disk needs more space later, it can grow to the maximum capacity allocated to it. b (Optional) Select a VM storage policy or leave the default one. c Select a datastore or a datastore cluster.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 7 (Optional) On the Customize hardware page, configure the virtual machine hardware and options and click Next. You can leave the defaults and configure the virtual machine hardware and options later.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Procedure 1 Start the Deploy From Template wizard. Option Description Open the Deploy From Template wizard from any object in the inventory a Right-click any inventory object that is a valid parent object of a virtual machine, such as a data center, folder, cluster, resource pool, or host, and select New Virtual Machine > New Virtual Machine. b On the Select a creation type page, select Deploy from template and click Next.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 4 On the Select storage page, configure the datastore. a b Select the format for the virtual machine's disks. Option Action Same format as source Use the same format as the source virtual machine. Thick Provision Lazy Zeroed Create a virtual disk in a default thick format. Space required for the virtual disk is allocated during creation.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Option Action 3 Apply a virtual machine storage policy from the VM storage profile dropdown menu. The list shows which datastores are compatible and which are incompatible with the selected virtual machine storage policy.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Prerequisites If a load generator is running in the virtual machine, stop it before you perform the clone operation. You must have the following privileges to clone a virtual machine: n Virtual machine .Provisioning.Clone virtual machine on the virtual machine you are cloning. n Virtual machine .Inventory.Create from existing on the datacenter or virtual machine folder. n Virtual machine.Configuration.Add new disk on the datacenter or virtual machine folder.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 3 On the Select a compute resource page, select the host, cluster, resource pool, or vApp where the virtual machine will run and click Next. The Compatibility pane shows the result from the compatibility checks. Important If the virtual machine that you clone has an NVDIMM device and virtual PMem hard disks, the destination host or cluster must have available PMem resource. Otherwise, you cannot proceed with the task.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 4 On the Select storage page, select the datastore or datastore cluster in which to store the template configuration files and all of the virtual disks. Click Next. Option Description Clone a virtual machine that has vPMem hard disks a Choose the type of storage for the template by selecting the Standard, the PMem, or the Hybrid radio button. If you select the Standard mode, all virtual disks will be stored on a standard datastore.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Option Description The Thin Provision format saves storage space. At first, a thin provisioned disk uses only as much datastore space as the disk initially needs. If the thin disk needs more space later, it can grow to the maximum capacity allocated to it. b (Optional) Select a VM storage policy or leave the default one. c Select a datastore or a datastore cluster.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 7 (Optional) On the Customize hardware page, configure the virtual machine hardware and options and click Next. You can leave the defaults and configure the virtual machine hardware and options later.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration n Virtual machine .Provisioning.Read customization specifications on the root vCenter Server if you are customizing the guest operating system. Procedure 1 Open the Clone Existing Virtual Machine wizard.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 4 On the Select storage page, select the datastore or datastore cluster in which to store the virtual machine configuration files and all of the virtual disks. a b Select the format for the virtual machine's disks. Option Action Same format as source Use the same format as the source virtual machine. Thick Provision Lazy Zeroed Create a virtual disk in a default thick format. Space required for the virtual disk is allocated during creation.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Option Action 3 Apply a virtual machine storage policy from the VM storage profile dropdown menu. The list shows which datastores are compatible and which are incompatible with the selected virtual machine storage policy.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 7 (Optional) On the Customize hardware page, configure the virtual machine hardware and options and click Next. You can leave the defaults and configure the virtual machine hardware and options later.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Clone a Template to a Template After you create a template, you can clone it to a template. Templates are master copies of virtual machines that let you create ready-for-use virtual machines. You can make changes to the template, such as installing additional software in the guest operating system, while preserving the state of the original template. Prerequisites Verify that you have the following privileges: n Virtual machine .Provisioning.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 3 On the Select a compute resource page, select a host or cluster resource for the template. The Compatibility pane shows the result from the compatibility checks. Note The template must be registered with an ESXi host. The host handles all requests for the template and must be running when you create a virtual machine from the template.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 4 On the Select storage page, select the datastore or datastore cluster in which to store the virtual machine configuration files and all of the virtual disks. Click Next. Option Description Clone a virtual machine that has vPMem hard disks a Choose the type of storage for the template by selecting the Standard, the PMem, or the Hybrid radio button. If you select the Standard mode, all virtual disks will be stored on a standard datastore.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Option Description The Thin Provision format saves storage space. At first, a thin provisioned disk uses only as much datastore space as the disk initially needs. If the thin disk needs more space later, it can grow to the maximum capacity allocated to it. b (Optional) Select a VM storage policy or leave the default one. c Select a datastore or a datastore cluster.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Procedure 1 Start the Clone Template to Template wizard. Option Description Open the Clone Template to Template wizard from any object in the inventory a Open the Clone Template to Template wizard from a template 2 Right-click any inventory object that is a valid parent object of a virtual machine, such as a data center, folder, cluster, resource pool, or host, and select New Virtual Machine. b Select Clone Template to Template and click Next.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 4 On the Select storage page, select the datastore or datastore cluster in which to store the virtual machine configuration files and all of the virtual disks. Click Next. a b Select the format for the virtual machine's disks. Option Action Same format as source Use the same format as the source virtual machine. Thick Provision Lazy Zeroed Create a virtual disk in a default thick format. Space required for the virtual disk is allocated during creation.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Option Action 3 Apply a virtual machine storage policy from the VM storage profile dropdown menu. The list shows which datastores are compatible and which are incompatible with the selected virtual machine storage policy.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Procedure 1 Start the Convert Template to Virtual Machine wizard. Option Description Open the Convert Template to Virtual Machine wizard from an object in the inventory a Right-click any inventory object that is a valid parent object of a virtual machine and select New Virtual Machine. b On the Select a creation type page, select Convert template to virtual machine and click Next.
Deploying OVF and OVA Templates 3 You can export virtual machines, virtual appliances, and vApps in Open Virtual Format (OVF) and Open Virtual Appliance (OVA) . You can then deploy the OVF or OVA template in the same environment or in a different environment. Note In vSphere 6.5 and later, you cannot export OVA templates, OVF templates is the only option. In previous versions of vSphere, you needed to install the Client Integration Plug-in to deploy and export OVF or OVA templates. vSphere 6.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Deploying an OVF or OVA template allows you to add pre-configured virtual machines or vApps to your vCenter Server or ESXi inventory. Deploying an OVF or OVA template is similar to deploying a virtual machine from a template. However, you can deploy an OVF or OVA template from any local file system accessible from the vSphere Client, or from a remote Web server.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 6 On the Select storage page, define where and how to store the files for the deployed OVF or OVA template. a b Select the disk format for the virtual machine virtual disks. Format Description Thick Provision Lazy Zeroed Creates a virtual disk in a default thick format. Space required for the virtual disk is allocated when the virtual disk is created.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Prerequisites Power off the virtual machine or vApp. Required privilege: vApp.Export Procedure 1 Navigate to a virtual machine or vApp and select Template > Export OVF Template. 2 In the Name field, type the name of the template. For example, type MyVm. Note When you export an OVF template with a name that contains asterisk (*) characters, those characters turn into underscore (_) characters. 3 (Optional) In the Annotation field, type a description.
Using Content Libraries 4 Content libraries are container objects for VM, vApp, and OVF templates and other types of files, such as templates, ISO images, text files, and so on. vSphere administrators can use the templates in the library to deploy virtual machines and vApps in the vSphere inventory. Sharing templates and files across multiple vCenter Server instances in same or different locations results in consistency, compliance, efficiency, and automation in deploying workloads at scale.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration You can use the option to download content from the source published library immediately or only when needed to manage your storage space. n When you synchronize a subscribed library that is set with the option to download all the contents of the published library immediately, the process synchronizes both the item metadata and the item contents.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Libraries store content on a file system or a datastore. To ensure optimal performance, use file systems for libraries that are published, and use datastores for local and subscribed libraries.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 3 On the Configure content library page, select the type of content library that you want to create and click Next. Option Description Local content library A local content library is accessible only in the vCenter Server instance where you create it by default. Subscribed content library a Select Publish externally to make the content of the library available to other vCenter Server instances.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration You can also have subscribed libraries automatically synchronize with the content of the published library. To enable automatic synchronization of the subscribed library, select the option to Enable automatic synchronization with the external library in the subscribed library settings. Take into account that the automatic synchronization requires a lot of storage space, because you download full copies of all the items in the published library.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Procedure 1 2 Navigate to the Content Libraries list. Client Steps vSphere Client Select Menu > Content Libraries. vSphere Web Client a Select Home > Content Libraries. b Click the Objects tab. Right-click a content library and select the action that you want to perform. Client Task vSphere Client You can perform the following actions with a content library. n Select Edit notes to edit the content library description.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 3 If you want to edit the settings of a content library, right-click the content library and click Edit Settings. Task Action Edit local content library that is unpublished You can publish a local library to share its contents with other users. a Select the Publish this library externally check box to publish the local library and share its contents with other users. b Click the Copy Link button to obtain the URL of your library and distribute it.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration The direct parent for content libraries is the global root. This means that if you set a permission at a vCenter Server level and propagate it to the children objects, the permission applies to data centers, folders, clusters, hosts, virtual machines, and so on, but does not apply to the content libraries that you see and operate with in this vCenter Server instance.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration To let a user manage a content library and its items, an Administrator can assign the Content Library Administrator role to that user as a global permission. The Content Library Administrator role is a sample role in the vSphere Client. Users who are Administrators can also manage libraries and their contents.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration n Add Items to a Content Library You can import items such as VM templates and vApps to a content library from your local machine or from a Web server, and use them to create virtual machines and vApps. You can also import ISO images, certificates, and other files that you want to keep in the library and share with other users across multiple vCenter Server instances.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 3 In the Source section, choose the source of the item. Option Description Import from a URL Enter the path to a Web-server where the item is. Import from File Click Browse to navigate to the file that you want to import from your local system. You can use the drop-down menu to filter files in your local system. Note When you import an OVF template, first select the OVF descriptor file (.ovf).
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Clone a Virtual Machine or a VM Template to a Template in a Content Library You can clone virtual machines or VM templates from your vCenter Server inventory to templates in the content library and use them later to provision virtual machines on a cluster or a host. You can also clone a virtual machine or VM template to update an existing template in the library.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration When cloning a template between libraries, you can select the source library to also be a destination library in the clone wizard. A subscribed library can be the source of an item you want to clone, but you cannot clone items to a subscribed library. The subscribed libraries are filtered out from the list with destination libraries in the Clone Library Item dialog box.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Deploy VM to a Host or a Cluster from VM Template in the vSphere Client You can use a VM template from a content library to deploy a virtual machine to a host or a cluster in your vSphere inventory. Procedure 1 In the vSphere Client, select Menu > Content Libraries. 2 Select a content library and click the Templates tab. 3 Right-click a VM Template and select New VM from This Template. The New Virtual Machine from Content Library wizard opens.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 7 On the Select storage page, select the datastore or datastore cluster in which to store the virtual machine configuration files and all of the virtual disks. Click Next. Option Description Deploy a virtual machine from a template that has vPMem hard disks a Choose the type of storage for the template by selecting the Standard, the PMem, or the Hybrid radio button. If you select the Standard mode, all virtual disks will be stored on a standard datastore.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Option Description The Thin Provision format saves storage space. At first, a thin provisioned disk uses only as much datastore space as the disk initially needs. If the thin disk needs more space later, it can grow to the maximum capacity allocated to it. b (Optional) Select a VM storage policy or leave the default one. c Select a datastore or a datastore cluster.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 8 On the Review details page, verify the template details and click Next. VMware, Inc.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 9 On the Select storage page, configure the datastore. a b Select the format for the virtual machine's disks. Option Action Same format as source Use the same format as the source virtual machine. Thick Provision Lazy Zeroed Create a virtual disk in a default thick format. Space required for the virtual disk is allocated during creation.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Option Action 3 Apply a virtual machine storage policy from the VM storage profile dropdown menu. The list shows which datastores are compatible and which are incompatible with the selected virtual machine storage policy.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration A new task for creating the vApp appears in the Recent Tasks pane. After the task is complete, the new vApp is created. Working with Items in a Library You can perform various tasks with the items in a content library. You can synchronize an item from a subscribed library to download all its contents and use the item to deploy a virtual machine for example. You can delete items you no longer need to use, and so on.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration When you create a subscribed library, only metadata for the library contents is downloaded to the associated storage if you selected the option to download library content only when needed. When you need to use a library item, you synchronize it to download its content to your local storage. When you no longer need the item, you can delete the content of the item to free storage space.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 3 Select the type of file you want to export. n From the Templates tab, right-click a template from the library, and select Export Item. n From the Other Types tab, right-click a file from the library that is not a template, and select Export Item. 4 In the Export Library Item dialog box click OK. 5 If you are exporting an OVF template, you are prompted to save each file associated with the template to the browser download location (for example, .vmdk and .
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Delete Content Library Items or Item Contents If you use a subscribed library, and you synchronize it, you can later delete the library from storage but keep the metadata. You can also delete a library item such as a template completely. If a subscribed library is created with the option to download library content only when needed, only metadata for the library items is stored in the associated with the library storage.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 2 Click a content library, select the type of item, and select the task you want to perform with the item. Client Description vSphere Client In the vSphere Client, you can only delete the selected item. vSphere Web Client n From the Templates tab, right-click a template from the library, and select Delete . n From the Other Types tab, right-click a file from the library that is not a template, and select Delete .
Configuring Virtual Machine Hardware 5 You can add or configure most virtual machine hardware settings during virtual machine creation or configure those settings after you create the virtual machine and install the guest operating system. When you configure the virtual machine hardware, you can view the existing hardware configuration and add or remove hardware. You can change nearly every setting that was selected during virtual machine creation.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration The compatibility setting determines the virtual hardware available to the virtual machine, which corresponds to the physical hardware available on the host. Virtual hardware includes BIOS and EFI, available virtual PCI slots, maximum number of CPUs, maximum memory configuration, and other characteristics. New virtual hardware capabilities are typically released once a year with major or minor releases of vSphere.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration When you create a virtual machine, consider the environment that the virtual machine will run in and weigh the benefits of different compatibility strategies. Consider your options for these scenarios, which demonstrate the flexibility inherent with each virtual machine compatibility selection. Objects in Environment Compatibility Results Cluster with ESXi 6.0, ESXi 6.5, and ESXi 6.7 hosts ESXi 6.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Procedure u Select a host, cluster, or data center in the inventory. Option Action Host a Click the Configure tab, and under Virtual Machines, select Default VM Compatibility. b Click Edit. The Edit Default VM Compatibility dialog box opens. c From the Compatible with drop-down menu, select the compatibility and click OK. Note You can set the compatibility only on hosts that are not part of a cluster.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Procedure 1 Right-click a virtual machine and select Compatibility > Schedule VM Compatibility Upgrade. 2 In the Schedule VM Compatibility Upgrade dialog box, confirm that you want to schedule a compatibility upgrade by clicking Yes. 3 From the Compatible with drop-down menu, select the compatibility to upgrade to. The virtual machine compatibility is upgraded the next time you restart the virtual machine.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 2 Change the default virtual machine compatibility setting. Client Tasks vSphere Client n vSphere Web Client Change the default compatibility setting of a virtual machine. n Right-click a virtual machine and click Compatibility > Upgrade VM Compatibility. n Right-click a virtual machine and click Compatibility > Schedule VM Compatibility Upgrade. n Change the default compatibility setting of a host or a cluster.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Table 5‑2. Supported Features for Virtual Machine Compatibility (Continued) ESXi 6.7 and later ESXi 6.5 and later ESXi 6.0 and later ESXi 5.5 and later ESXi 5.1 and later ESXi 5.0 and later ESX/ESXi 4.x and later ESX/ESXi 3.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Table 5‑2. Supported Features for Virtual Machine Compatibility (Continued) ESXi 6.7 and later ESXi 6.5 and later ESXi 6.0 and later ESXi 5.5 and later ESXi 5.1 and later ESXi 5.0 and later ESX/ESXi 4.x and later ESX/ESXi 3.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Table 5‑2. Supported Features for Virtual Machine Compatibility (Continued) ESXi 6.7 and later ESXi 6.5 and later ESXi 6.0 and later ESXi 5.5 and later ESXi 5.1 and later ESXi 5.0 and later ESX/ESXi 4.x and later ESX/ESXi 3.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration VMware uses the following terminology. Understanding these terms can help you plan your strategy for CPU resource allocation. CPU The CPU, or processor, is the component of a computer system that performs the tasks required for computer applications to run. The CPU is the primary element that performs the computer functions. CPUs contain cores. CPU Socket A CPU socket is a physical connector on a computer motherboard that connects to a single physical CPU.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration n Hyperthreaded hosts might affect virtual machine performance, depending on the workload. The best practice is to test your workload to determine whether to enable or disable hyperthreading on your hosts. Configuring Multicore Virtual CPUs VMware multicore virtual CPU support lets you control the number of cores per virtual socket in a virtual machine.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Prerequisites Required privileges: Virtual Machine.Configuration.Settings Verify that the virtual machine is running and is configured as follows. n Latest version of VMware Tools installed. n Guest operating system that supports CPU hot plug. n Virtual machine compatibility is ESX/ESXi 4.x or later. n Virtual machine is turned off. Procedure 1 Right-click a virtual machine in the inventory and select Edit Settings.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Allocate CPU Resources To manage workload demands, you can change the amount of CPU resources allocated to a virtual machine by using the shares, reservations, and limits settings. A virtual machine has the following user-defined settings that affect its CPU resource allocation. Limit Places a limit on the consumption of CPU time for a virtual machine. This value is expressed in MHz or GHz.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration For example, masking the AMD No eXecute (NX) and the Intel eXecute Disable (XD) bits prevents the virtual machine from using these features, but provides compatibility that allows you to migrate virtual machines to ESXi hosts that do not include this capability. When the NX/XD bit is visible to the guest operating system, the virtual machine can use this feature, but you can migrate the virtual machine only to hosts on which the feature is enabled.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Procedure 1 Right-click a virtual machine in the inventory and select Edit Settings. 2 On the Virtual Hardware tab, expand CPU, and select Expose hardware-assisted virtualization to guest OS. 3 Click OK. The Configure tab refreshes, and the Nested Hypervisor CPU option shows Enabled. Enable Virtual CPU Performance Counters You can use performance tuning tools in the guest operating system for software profiling.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Configure Processor Scheduling Affinity The Scheduling Affinity option gives you detailed control over how virtual machine CPUs are distributed across the host's physical cores. The option supports hyperthreading if hyperthreading is enabled. ESXi generally manages processor scheduling well, even when hyperthreading is enabled. These settings are useful only for fine-tuning critical virtual machines.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration You can use software MMU when your virtual machine runs heavy workloads, such as Translation Lookaside Buffers (TLBs) intensive workloads that have significant impact on the overall system performance. However, software MMU has a higher overhead memory requirement than hardware MMU. So, to support software MMU, the maximum overhead supported for virtual machine limit in the VMkernel needs to be increased.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration If the virtual machine memory is greater than the host memory size, swapping occurs, which can have a severe effect on virtual machine performance. The maximum for best performance represents the threshold above which the host’s physical memory is insufficient to run the virtual machine at full speed. This value fluctuates as conditions on the host change, for example, as virtual machines are powered on or off. The memory size must be a multiple of 4MB. Table 5‑3.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration The following user-defined settings affect the memory resource allocation of a virtual machine. Limit Places a limit on the consumption of memory for a virtual machine. This value is expressed in megabytes. Reservation Specifies the guaranteed minimum allocation for a virtual machine. The reservation is expressed in megabytes. If the reservation cannot be met, the virtual machine will not turn on. Shares Each virtual machine is granted a number of memory shares.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration n Verify that the virtual machine compatibility is ESXi 4.x and later. n Verify that VMware Tools is installed. Procedure 1 Right-click a virtual machine in the inventory and select Edit Settings. 2 On the Virtual Hardware tab, expand Memory, and select Enable to enable adding memory to the virtual machine while it is turned on. 3 Click OK. Managing Persistent Memory ESXi 6.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Virtual PMem Disks (vPMemDisk) In this mode, the virtual machine does not have direct access to the PMem resources of the host. You must add a virtual PMem hard disk to the virtual machine. A virtual PMem hard disk is a traditional SCSI disk to which the PMem Storage Policy is applied. The policy automatically places the hard disk on the host-local PMem datastore.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration n Verify that the virtual hardware version is 14 or higher. n Verify that you have the Datastore.Allocate space privilege on the virtual machine. n Verify that the host or the cluster on which the virtual machine resides has available PMem resources. Procedure 1 Right-click a virtual machine in the inventory and select Edit Settings. 2 On the Virtual Hardware tab, add a new NVDIMM device. click Add a new device and select NVDIMM from the drop-down menu.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration To accelerate virtual machine performance, you can configure virtual machines to use vSphere Flash Read Cache™. For details about Flash Read Cache behavior, see the vSphere Storage documentation. When you map a LUN to a VMFS volume, vCenter Server or the ESXi host creates a raw device mapping (RDM) file that points to the raw LUN.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration You can use Storage vMotion or cross-host Storage vMotion to transform virtual disks from one format to another. Thick Provision Lazy Zeroed Creates a virtual disk in a default thick format. Space required for the virtual disk is allocated when the disk is created. Data remaining on the physical device is not erased during creation, but is zeroed out on demand later on first write from the virtual machine.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration n You can move or clone disks that are greater than 2 TB to ESXi 6.0 or later hosts or to clusters that have such hosts available. n The datastore format must be one of the following: n VMFS5 or later n An NFS volume on a Network Attached Storage (NAS) server n vSAN n Virtual Flash Read Cache supports a maximum hard disk size of 16 TB. n Fault Tolerance is not supported. n BusLogic Parallel controllers are not supported.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Option Description Disk File Lists disk files on the datastore. Shares Shares is a value that represents the relative metric for controlling disk bandwidth. The values Low, Normal, High, and Custom are compared to the sum of all shares of all virtual machines on the host. Limit - IOPs Allows you to customize IOPs. This value is the upper limit of I/O operations per second allocated to the virtual disk.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 5 Click OK. Configure Flash Read Cache for a Virtual Machine You can configure a Flash Read Cache for your virtual machine. When you enable Flash Read Cache, you can specify the block size and cache size reservation. n Block size is the minimum number of contiguous bytes that can be stored in the cache. This block size can be larger than the nominal disk block size of 512 bytes, between 4 KB and 1024 KB.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration The thin provisioned disk starts small and at first, uses just as much storage space as it needs for its initial operations. After you convert the disk, it grows to its full capacity and occupies the entire datastore space provisioned to it during the disk’s creation. For more information about thin provisioning and available disk formats, see the vSphere Storage documentation. Procedure 1 2 Verify that the disk format of a virtual hard disk is Thin Provision.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration The following ways to add disks can help you plan your disk configuration. These approaches show how you can optimize controller and virtual device nodes for different disks. For storage controller limitations, maximums, and virtual device node behavior, see SCSI and SATA Storage Controller Conditions, Limitations, and Compatibility. Add an existing hard disk that is configured as a boot disk during virtual machine creation.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration During virtual machine creation, a hard disk and a SCSI or SATA controller are added to the virtual machine by default, based on the guest operating system that you select. If this disk does not meet your needs, you can remove it and add a new hard disk at the end of the creation process. If you add multiple hard disks to a virtual machine, you can assign them to several controllers to improve performance.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration d e From the Disk Provisioning drop-down menu, select the format for the hard disk. Option Action Same format as source Use the same format as the source virtual machine. Thick Provision Lazy Zeroed Create a virtual disk in a default thick format. Space required for the virtual disk is allocated during creation.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Add an Existing Hard Disk to a Virtual Machine You can add an existing virtual hard disk to a virtual machine when you customize the virtual machine hardware during the virtual machine creation process or after the virtual machine is created. For example, you might want to add an existing hard disk that is preconfigured as a boot disk.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Add an RDM Disk to a Virtual Machine You can use a raw device mapping (RDM) to store virtual machine data directly on a SAN LUN, instead of storing it in a virtual disk file. You can add an RDM disk to an existing virtual machine, or you can add the disk when you customize the virtual machine hardware during the virtual machine creation process.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 5 Select a compatibility mode. Option Description Physical Allows the guest operating system to access the hardware directly. Physical compatibility is useful if you are using SAN-aware applications on the virtual machine. However, a virtual machine with a physical compatibility RDM cannot be cloned, made into a template, or migrated if the migration involves copying the disk.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration How Storage Controller Technology Works Storage controllers appear to a virtual machine as different types of SCSI controllers, including BusLogic Parallel, LSI Logic Parallel, LSI Logic SAS, and VMware Paravirtual SCSI. AHCI, SATA, and NVMe controllers are also available. When you create a virtual machine, the default controller is optimized for best performance.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration n AHCI SATA is available only for virtual machines with ESXi 5.5 and later compatibility. n NVMe is available only for virtual machines with ESXi 6.5 and later compatibility. n BusLogic Parallel controllers do not support virtual machines with disks larger than 2TB. n Disks on VMware Paravirtual SCSI controllers might not experience optimal performance gains if they have snapshots or if the host's memory is overcommitted.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Add a SATA Controller If a virtual machine has multiple hard disks or CD/DVD-ROM devices, you can add up to three additional SATA controllers to assign the devices to. When you spread the devices among several controllers, you can improve performance and avoid data traffic congestion. You can also add additional controllers if you exceed the thirty-device limit for a single controller.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Add a SCSI Controller to a Virtual Machine Many virtual machines have a SCSI controller by default, depending on the guest operating system. If you have a heavily loaded virtual machine with multiple hard disks, you can add up to three additional SCSI controllers to assign the disks to. When you spread the disks among several controllers, you can improve performance and avoid data traffic congestion.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Add a Paravirtualized SCSI Adapter You can add a VMware Paravirtual SCSI high performance storage controller to a virtual machine to provide greater throughput and lower CPU use. VMware Paravirtual SCSI controllers are best suited for environments, especially SAN environments, running I/O-intensive applications.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration NVMe controllers perform best with virtual disks on an all-flash disk array, local NVMe SSD, and PMem storage. Prerequisites n Verify that the virtual machine has a guest operating system that supports NVMe. n Verify that the virtual machine compatibility is ESXi 6.5 or later. n Verify that you are familiar with storage controller behaviour and limitations. See SCSI and SATA Storage Controller Conditions, Limitations, and Compatibility.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Procedure 1 Right-click a virtual machine in the inventory and select Edit Settings. 2 On the Virtual Hardware tab, expand SCSI controller, and select a SCSI controller type from the Change Type drop-down menu. Client Steps vSphere Client The vSphere Client displays information about what will happen if you change the controller type.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Network Adapter Basics When you configure a virtual machine, you can add network adapters (NICs) and specify the adapter type. Network Adapter Types The type of network adapters that are available depend on the following factors: n The virtual machine compatibility, which depends on the host that created or most recently updated it. n Whether the virtual machine compatibility has been updated to the latest version for the current host.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration VMXNET 3 A paravirtualized NIC designed for performance. VMXNET 3 offers all the features available in VMXNET 2 and adds several new features, such as multiqueue support (also known as Receive Side Scaling in Windows), IPv6 offloads, and MSI/MSI-X interrupt delivery. VMXNET 3 is not related to VMXNET or VMXNET 2. PVRDMA A paravirtualized NIC that supports remote direct memory access (RDMA) between virtual machines through the OFED verbs API.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Network Adapters and Legacy Virtual Machines Legacy virtual machines are virtual machines that are supported by the product in use, but are not current for that product. The default network adapter types for all legacy virtual machines depend on the adapters available and compatible to the guest operating system and the version of virtual hardware on which the virtual machine was created.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 3 (Optional) Change the Status settings. Option Description Connected Select or deselect this option while the virtual machine is running to connect or disconnect the virtual network adapter. This check box is not available when the virtual machine is turned off. Connect at power on Select this option for the virtual network adapter to connect to the network when the virtual machine turns on.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 2 On the Virtual Hardware tab, add a new network adapter. Client Steps vSphere Client Click the Add New Device button and select Network Adapter from the dropdown menu. vSphere Web Client a Select Network from the New device drop-down menu at the bottom of the wizard. b Click Add. The new network adapter appears at the bottom of the device list. 3 Expand New Netework and select the standard or distributed port group to connect to.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 8 9 (Optional) Select how to assign the MAC address from the drop-down menu. n Select Automatic to assign a MAC address automatically. n Select Manual to enter manually the MAC address that you want. Click OK. Parallel and Serial Port Configuration Parallel and serial ports are interfaces for connecting peripherals to the virtual machine. The virtual serial port can connect to a physical serial port or to a file on the host computer.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Server and Client Connections for Named Pipe and Network Serial Ports You can select a client or server connection for serial ports. Your selection determines whether the system waits for a connection or initiates it. Typically, to control a virtual machine over a serial port, you select a server connection. This selection lets you control the connections, which is useful if you connect to the virtual machine only occasionally.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration You can restrict VMCI usage to a subset of VMCI-based services on each virtual machine. For example, you can allow certain virtual machines to access VMCI services and deny access to others for security reasons. Currently, VMCI devices support guest to host communication.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Option Action Use named pipe Select this option to set a direct connection between two virtual machines or a connection between a virtual machine and an application on the host computer. Use Network a Type a name for the pipe in the Pipe Name field. b Select the Near end and Far end of the pipe from the drop-down menus. Select Use network to connect through a remote network. a b Select the network backing.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Authentication Parameters for Virtual Serial Port Network Connections When you establish serial port connections over the network, you can use authentication parameters to secure the network. These parameters can support an encrypted connection with a remote system using SSL over Telnet or Telnets, or an encrypted connection with a concentrator using SSL over Telnet or Telnets.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration verify Forces certificate verification. The virtual machine will verify that the peer certificate subject matches the specified peerName and that it was signed by a certificate authority known to the ESXi host. Verification is enabled if you specify a thumbprint or peerName cipherList=value Specifies a list of SSL ciphers. The ciphers are specified as a list separated by colons, spaces, or commas.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Add a Serial Port to a Virtual Machine in the vSphere Web Client You can connect the virtual serial port to a physical serial port or to a file on the host computer. You can also use a host-side named pipe to set up a direct connection between two virtual machines or a connection between a virtual machine and an application on the host computer. In addition, you can use a port or vSPC URI to connect a serial port over the network.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Option Action Use named pipe Select this option to set a direct connection between two virtual machines or a connection between a virtual machine and an application on the host computer. Use Network a Type a name for the pipe in the Pipe Name field. b Select the Near end and Far end of the pipe from the drop-down menus. Select Use network to connect through a remote network. a b Select the network backing.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Change the Parallel Port Configuration You can change the output file for peripheral device output and schedule the parallel port to connect when the virtual machine powers on. Note If you are changing the parallel port on a virtual machine that runs on an ESXi 4.1 or earlier host, you can send output to a physical parallel port on the host or to an output file on the host. This option is not available with ESXi 5.0 and later.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Prerequisites n Verify that the virtual machine is turned off. You cannot add or remove parallel ports if the virtual machine is turned on. n Verify that you have the Virtual machine.Configuration.Add or remove device privilege on the virtual machine. Procedure 1 Right-click a virtual machine in the inventory and select Edit Settings. 2 On the Virtual Hardware tab, select Parallel Port from the New device drop-down menu, and click Add.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration n Configure a Client Device Type for the CD/DVD Drive To install a guest operating system and its applications or other media on a virtual machine, you can connect the CD/DVD device to a physical DVD or CD device on the system from which you access the vSphere Web Client Configure a Datastore ISO File for the CD/DVD Drive To install a guest operating system and its applications on a new virtual machine, you can connect the CD/DVD device to an ISO file that is stored
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Prerequisites Verify that you have the Virtual machine .Interaction .Configure CD media privilege on the virtual machine. Procedure 1 Right-click a virtual machine in the Inventory and select Edit Settings. 2 Expand CD/DVD drive and select Content Library ISO File from the drop-down menu. The Choose an ISO image to mount dialog box opens. 3 Select the ISO file and click OK.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 3 (Optional) Select Connect At Power On to connect the device when the virtual machine powers on. 4 If more than one type of CD/DVD media is available on the host, select the media. 5 In the Virtual Device Node drop-down menu, select the node the drive uses in the virtual machine. The first available node is selected by default. You do not typically need to change the default. 6 Click OK. 7 Turn the virtual machine on and click the Summary tab.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration n You access the host CD-ROM device through emulation mode. Passthrough mode is not functional for local host CD-ROM access. You can write or burn a remote CD only through passthrough mode access, but in emulation mode you can only read a CD-ROM from a host CD-ROM device. Prerequisites n Verify that the virtual machine is turned off.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 4 (Optional) Specify additional settings for the CD/DVD drive. Option Description Connect At Power On Select this option to connect to the device when the virtual machine turns on. Device Mode Select Passthrough CD-ROM for a CD/DVD drive that is connected to the physical client machine. Select Emulate CD-ROM otherwise. Virtual Device Node Specify the location of the ISO that you are mounting.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 3 Select the device type to use for this virtual device. Option Action Client Device Select this option to connect the floppy device to a physical floppy device or a .flp floppy image on the system from which you access the vSphere Web Client. Use existing floppy image a Select this option to connect the virtual device to an existing floppy image on a datastore accessible to the host. b Click Browse and select the floppy image.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 3 Expand New Floppy drive and select the device type to use for this virtual device. Option Description Client Device Select this option to connect the floppy device to a physical floppy device or a .flp floppy image on the system from which you access the vSphere Web Client. Use existing floppy image a Select this option to connect the virtual device to an existing floppy image on a datastore accessible to the host.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 2 On the Virtual Hardware tab, add a SCSI device to the virtual machine. Client Steps vSphere Client Click the Add New Device button and select SCSI Device from the drop-down menu. vSphere Web Client a Select SCSI Device from the New device drop-down menu at the bottom of the wizard. b Click Add. The SCSI device appears in the Virtual Hardware devices list.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 2 On the Virtual Hardware tab, add a new PCI device. Client Steps vSphere Client Click the Add New Device button and select PCI Device from the drop-down menu. vSphere Web Client a Select PCI Device from the New device drop-down menu at the bottom of the wizard. b Click Add. 3 Expand New PCI device and select the passthrough device to connect to the virtual machine from the drop-down list and click Next. 4 Click OK.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 3D Rendering Options You can select the 3D rendering options for each virtual machine to be Hardware, Software, or Automatic. Table 5‑6. 3D Rendering Options Rendering Option Description Hardware The virtual machine must have access to a physical GPU. If the GPU is not available, the virtual machine cannot power on. Software The virtual machine's virtual device uses a software renderer and will not attempt to use a GPU, even if one is present.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration n To enable 3D graphics in virtual machines with Windows 8 guest operating systems, the virtual machine compatibility must be ESXi 5.1 or later. n To use a Hardware 3D renderer, ensure that graphics hardware is available. See Configuring 3D Graphics. n If you update the virtual machine compatibility from ESXi 5.1 and later to ESXi 5.5 and later, reinstall VMware Tools to get the latest SVGA virtual graphics driver and Windows Display Driver Model driver.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Reduce Memory Overhead for Virtual Machines with 3D Graphics Option Virtual machines with the 3D graphics option enabled can have higher memory consumption than other virtual machines. You can reduce the memory overhead by editing the configuration file (.vmx file) of your virtual machines and disabling certain memory-related settings. Reducing the memory overhead of virtual machines can help you increase the number of virtual machines per host.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 2 On the Virtual Hardware tab, add a shared PCI device to the virtual machine. Client Steps vSphere Client Click the Add New Device button and select Shared PCI Device from the dropdown menu. vSphere Web Client a Select Shared PCI Device from the New device drop-down menu at the bottom of the wizard. b Click Add. 3 Expand the New PCI device, and select the NVIDIA GRID vGPU passthrough device to which to connect your virtual machine.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Connecting a USB passthrough device to a virtual machine that runs on the ESXi host to which the device is physically attached requires an arbitrator, a controller, and a physical USB device or device hub. USB Arbitrator Manages connection requests and routes USB device traffic. The arbitrator is installed and enabled by default on ESXi hosts. It scans the host for USB devices and manages device connection among virtual machines that reside on the host.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration With autoconnect enabled, the device connection re-establishes in the following cases: n The virtual machine is cycling through power operations, such as Power Off/Power On, Reset, Pause/Resume. n The device is unplugged from the host then plugged back in to the same USB port. n The device is power cycled but has not changed its physical connection path. n The device is mutating identity during usage.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration If a host with connected USB devices resides in a DRS cluster with DPM enabled, you must disable DPM for that host. Otherwise DPM might turn off the host with the device, which disconnects the device from the virtual machine. Configuring USB Devices for vMotion With USB passthrough from a host to a virtual machine, you can migrate a virtual machine to another ESXi host in the same datacenter and maintain the USB passthrough device connections to the original host.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration n Before you change the state of the arbitrator, make sure that USB devices residing on the host are not attached to a virtual machine. If USB devices become unavailable to a virtual machine, a host administrator might have disabled the arbitrator. When an administrator stops or disconnects the arbitrator for troubleshooting or other purposes, USB devices attached to that host become unavailable to the virtual machine.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration USB Compound Devices For compound devices, the virtualization process filters out the USB hub so that it is not visible to the virtual machine. The remaining USB devices in the compound appear to the virtual machine as separate devices. You can add each device to the same virtual machine or to different virtual machines if they run on the same host.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration What to do next You can now add the device to the virtual machine. See Add USB Devices from an ESXi Host to a Virtual Machine. Add a USB Controller to a Virtual Machine USB controllers are available to add to virtual machines to support USB passthrough from an ESXi host or from a client computer to a virtual machine. You can add one virtual xHCI controller, one virtual EHCI controller, and one virtual UHCI controller per virtual machine.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Procedure 1 Right-click a virtual machine in the inventory and select Edit Settings. 2 On the Virtual Hardware tab, add a USB controller. Client Steps vSphere Client Click the Add New Device button and select USB Controller from the drop-down menu. vSphere Web Client a Select USB Controller from the New device drop-down menu at the bottom of the Edit Settingswizard. b Click Add. The controller appears in the Virtual Hardware devices list.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Procedure 1 Right-click a virtual machine in the inventory and select Edit Settings. 2 On the Virtual Hardware tab, add a USB passthrough device to the virtual machine. Client Steps vSphere Client Click the Add New Device button and select Host USB Device from the dropdown menu. vSphere Web Client a Select Host USB Device from the New device drop-down menu at the bottom of the Edit Settings wizard. b Click Add.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Remove USB Devices from an ESXi Host You can remove USB devices from the host if you must shut down the host for maintenance or if you do not want those devices to be available to virtual machines that run on the host. When you detach a USB device from the host, the device disconnects from the virtual machine. Caution If data transfer is taking place when you remove USB devices from a host, you can lose data. Prerequisites Verify that the USB devices are not in use.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration A USB device is available to only one powered-on virtual machine at a time. When a virtual machine connects to a device, that device is no longer available to other virtual machines or to the client computer. When you disconnect the device from the virtual machine or shut the virtual machine down, the device returns to the client computer and becomes available to other virtual machines that the client computer manages.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration The quality of the physical cables, hubs, devices, and power conditions can affect USB device performance. To ensure the best results, keep the client computer USB bus topology as simple as possible for the target USB device, and use caution when you deploy new hubs and cables into the topology.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration n Chaining hubs together increases the chance of port and hub error, which can cause the device to lose connection to a virtual machine. n Certain hubs can cause USB device connections to be unreliable, so use care when you add a new hub to an existing setup. Connecting certain USB devices directly to the client computer rather than to a hub or extension cable might resolve their connection or performance issues.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration For Mac OS X systems, the EHCI+UHCI controller is enabled by default and is required for USB mouse and keyboard access. For virtual machines with Linux guests, you can add one or both controllers, but 3.0 superspeed devices are not supported for passthrough from an ESXi host to a virtual machine. You cannot add two controllers of the same type. For USB passthrough from an ESXi host to a virtual machine, the USB arbitrator can monitor a maximum of 15 USB controllers.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Add USB Devices from a Client Computer to a Virtual Machine You can add one or more USB passthrough devices from a client computer to a virtual machine in the vSphere Client. The devices must be connected to a client computer that connects to the ESXi host on which the virtual machine resides. Note If you connect to a USB device on a Mac OS X client computer, you can add only one device to the virtual machine at a time.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Prerequisites n Verify that the virtual machine is powered on. n To minimize the risk of data loss, follow the instructions to safely unmount or eject hardware for your operating system. Safely removing hardware allows accumulated data to be transmitted to a file. Windows operating systems typically include a Remove Hardware icon located in the System Tray. Linux operating systems use the umount command.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Add a Shared Smart Card Reader to Virtual Machines You can configure multiple virtual machines to use a virtual shared smart card reader for smart card authentication. The smart card reader must be connected to a client computer on which the vSphere Client runs. All smart card readers are treated as USB devices. A license is required for the shared smart card feature. See vCenter Server and Host Management.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Securing Virtual Machines with Virtual Trusted Platform Module The Virtual Trusted Platform Module (vTPM) feature lets you add a TPM 2.0 virtual cryptoprocessor to a virtual machine. Virtual Trusted Platform Module Overview vTPMs perform cryptographic coprocessor capabilities in software. When added to a virtual machine, a vTPM enables the guest operating system to create and store keys that are private.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration n Virtual machine encryption (to encrypt the virtual machine home files). n Key Management Server (KMS) configured for vCenter Server (virtual machine encryption depends on KMS). For more details, see the vSphere Security documentation.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 4 Click OK. The virtual machine Summary tab now includes Virtual Trusted Platform Module in the VM Hardware pane. Remove Virtual Trusted Platform Module from a Virtual Machine You can remove Virtual Trusted Platform Module (vTPM) security from a virtual machine. Removing vTPM causes all encrypted information on the virtual machine to become unrecoverable. In addition, removing a vTPM initiates an immediate reboot of the virtual machine.
Configuring Virtual Machine Options 6 You can set or change virtual machine options to run VMware Tools scripts, control user access to the remote console, configure startup behavior, and more. The virtual machine options define a range of virtual machine properties, such as the virtual machine name and the virtual machine behavior with the guest operating system and VMware Tools.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Table 6‑1. Virtual Machine Options in the vSphere Client and the vSphere Web Client Options Description General Options In this section, you can view or change the following settings. n Virtual machine name n Virtual machine configuration file location n Virtual machine working location n Guest operating system and OS version Currently, you can only edit the virtual machine name. The information about the other settings is currently read only.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration The virtual machine name also determines the name of the virtual machine files and folder on the disk. For example, if you name the virtual machine win8, the virtual machine files are named win8.vmx, win8.vmdk, win8.nvram, and so on. If you change the virtual machine name, the names of the files on the datastore do not change.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Prerequisites Power off the virtual machine. Procedure 1 Right-click a virtual machine in the inventory and select Edit Settings. 2 Click the VM Options tab and expand General Options. 3 From the Guest OS drop-down menu, select the guest operating system family. 4 From the Guest OS Version drop-down menu, select the guest operating system version.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Add SSO users to Guest Operating Systems You can map a new SSO user to a guest user account by creating a new user map. Mapping can be established for any type of SSO users, such as solution as well as regular users. Prerequisites Power on the virtual machine. Procedure 1 In the View Guest User Mappings window, click Add new user mappings. 2 Select the SSO user from the list that you want to map. 3 Specify a guest OS user name. 4 Click OK.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration n To use the Guest OS lock option, verify that you have a Windows XP or later guest operating system. Procedure 1 Right-click a virtual machine in the inventory and select Edit Settings. 2 Click the VM Options tab, and expand VMware Remote Console Options. 3 (Optional) Select the Guest OS lock check box to lock the guest operating system when the last remote user disconnects.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 2 Right-click the virtual machine that you want to change and select VM Policies > Edit VM Storage Policies. You can set the storage policy for the virtual machine files, represented by VM home, and the storage policy for virtual disks. 3 Select the storage policy. n n vSphere Client (HTML5-based client): n To encrypt the VM and its hard disks, select an encryption storage policy and click OK.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Procedure 1 Connect to vCenter Server by using either the vSphere Client (HTML5-based client) or the vSphere Web Client. 2 Right-click the virtual machine that you want to change and select VM Policies > Edit VM Storage Policies. You can set the storage policy for the virtual machine files, represented by VM home, and the storage policy for virtual disks. 3 Select a storage policy.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Manage Power Management Settings for a Virtual Machine If the guest operating system is placed on standby, the VM can either remain powered on or be suspended. You can use the Power Management settings to control this behavior. Some desktop-based guests, such as Windows 7, have standby enabled by default, so that the guest goes into standby after a predetermined time.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 3 Customize the power management settings for the virtual machine. Client Steps vSphere Client In the Standby response section, select the standby response of the virtual machine. n The Suspend the virtual machine option stops all processes, which saves resources, and copies the contents of the virtual machine's memory to the virtual machine's .vmss file. Writing the memory to the .
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration You can modify many virtual machine configurations while the virtual machine is running, but you might need to change the virtual machine power state for some configurations. You cannot configure A Power on ( ) action. This action powers on a virtual machine when a virtual machine is stopped, or resumes the virtual machine and runs a script when it is suspended and VMware Tools is installed and available.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 5 6 Select an option for the Reset ( ) control from the drop-down menu. Option Description Restart Guest Uses VMware Tools to initiate an orderly restart. Soft power operations are possible only if the tools are installed in the guest operating system. Reset Shuts down and restarts the guest operating system without powering off the virtual machine. If VMWare Tools is not installed, a Reset action resets the virtual machine.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 2 Right-click the virtual machine and select Edit Settings. 3 Click the VM Options tab. 4 Check the Enable check box for Virtualization Based Security. 5 Click OK. Confirm that the virtual machine's Summary tab displays "VBS true" in the Guest OS description. What to do next See Enable Virtualization-based Security on the Guest Operating System.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Procedure 1 In the vSphere Client, browse to the VBS-enabled virtual machine. See Identify VBS-Enabled Virtual Machines for help in locating VBS-enabled virtual machines. 2 Right-click the virtual machine and select Edit Settings. 3 Click VM Options. 4 Deselect the Enable check box for Virtualization Based Security. A message reminds you to disable VBS in the guest OS. 5 Click OK.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration n A Microsoft certificate that is used for third-party code that is signed by Microsoft, such as Linux bootloaders. n A VMware certificate that is used only for booting ESXi inside a virtual machine.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Delay the Boot Sequence Delaying the boot operation is useful when you change BIOS or EFI settings such as the boot order. For example, you can change the BIOS or EFI settings to force a virtual machine to boot from a CD-ROM. Prerequisites n Verify that vSphere Client is logged in to a vCenter Server. n Verify that you have access to at least one virtual machine in the inventory. n Verify that you have privileges to edit boot options for the virtual machine.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 3 Select Disable acceleration. 4 Click OK. You can install or run the software successfully. Enable Virtual Machine Logging You can enable logging to collect log files to help troubleshoot problems with your virtual machine. ESXi hosts store virtual machine log files in the same directory as the virtual machine's configuration files. By default, the log file name is vmware.log. Archived log files are stored as vmware-n.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Change the Swap File Location When a virtual machine is powered on, the system creates a VMkernel swap file to serve as a backing store for the virtual machine's RAM contents. You can accept the default swap file location or save the file to a different location. By default, the swap file is stored in the same location as the virtual machine's configuration file. Procedure 1 Right-click a virtual machine in the inventory and select Edit Settings.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 2 Click the VM Options tab and expand Advanced. 3 Click Edit Configuration. 4 (Optional) To add a parameter, click Add Row and type a name and value for the parameter. 5 (Optional) To change a parameter, type a new value in the Value text box for that parameter. 6 Click OK.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 4 5 Select an option for assigning WWNs. n To leave WWNs unchanged, select Leave unchanged. n To have vCenter Server or the ESXi host generate new WWNs, select Generate New WWNs. n To remove the current WWN assignments, select Remove WWN assignment. Click OK. VMware, Inc.
Managing Multi-Tiered Applications with vSphere vApp 7 A vSphere vApp allows packaging of multiple interoperating virtual machines and software applications that you can manage as a unit and distribute in OVF format.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Create a vApp A vApp allows you to perform resource management and certain other management activities such as power operations for multiple virtual machines at the same time. You can think of the vApp as the container for the virtual machines, and you can perform the operations on the container. When you create a vApp, you can add it to a folder, standalone host, resource pool, cluster enabled for DRS, or another vApp.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 5 6 Option Description Reservation Type Select the Expandable check box to make the reservation expandable. When the vApp is powered on, if the combined reservations of its virtual machines are larger than the reservation of the vApp, the vApp can use resources from its parent or ancestors. Limit Upper limit for this vApp's CPU allocation. Select Unlimited to specify no upper limit. Allocate memory resources to the vApp.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Procedure u Select your task. u Create an object inside an existing vApp. Client Steps vSphere Client vSphere Web Client u Right-click a vApp in the inventory and from the Actions submenu, select a task n Click New Virtual Machine to create a new virtual machine within the vApp. n Click New Resource Pool to create a new resource pool within the vApp.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 4 Configure vApp IP Allocation Policy If your vApp is set up to allow it, and if you have the required privileges, you can edit how IP addresses are allocated for the vApp. 5 Configure vApp Startup and Shutdown Options You can change the order in which virtual machines and nested vApps within a vApp start up and shut down. You can also specify delays and actions performed at startup and shutdown.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration In the Application properties section, you can view product information and assign values to custom properties. n View information that was specified in the Authoring section's Product field of the current vApp or in the OVF package from which the vApp was deployed. You can view that information in the Application properties section.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 2 3 Allocate CPU resources to the vApp. n In the vSphere Client, click the Resources tab and expand CPU. n In the vSphere Web Client, expand CPU resources under Deployment. Option Description Shares CPU shares for this vApp with respect to the parent’s total. Sibling vApps share resources according to their relative share values bounded by the reservation and limit. Select Low, Normal, or High, which specify share values respectively in a 1:2:4 ratio.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 2 Click Unrecognized OVF Sections in the Deployment section. 3 Click OK. Configure vApp IP Allocation Policy If your vApp is set up to allow it, and if you have the required privileges, you can edit how IP addresses are allocated for the vApp. By default, you cannot edit the IP application policy in the Deployment section when you create a vApp in the vSphere Web Client.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Prerequisites Required privilege: vApp.vApp application configuration on the vApp. Procedure 1 Right-click a vApp in the inventory and click Edit Settings. 2 Configure the start order for the virtual machines. 3 n In the vSphere Client, click the Start Order tab. n In the vSphere Web Client, expand Start order under Authoring.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration vApp Setting Description Full Version Full version of the vApp. Product URL If you enter a product URL, a user can click the product name on the virtual machine summary page and go to the product's web page. Vendor URL If you enter a vendor URL, a user can click the vendor name on the virtual machine summary page and go to the vendor's web page. Application URL From the vSphere Web Client and the vSphere Client, you can access the vApp summary page.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration n A cluster enabled for DRS is selected. Procedure 1 Navigate to a DRS-enabled cluster, right-click the cluster and click New vApp > New vApp ( 2 On the Select a creation type page, select Clone an existing vApp. 3 On the Select source vApp page, select an existing vApp to clone, and click Next.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 2 Select one of the power operation options. Task Action Power on Right-click the vApp and select Power > Power On . You can power on a vApp to power on all its virtual machines and child vApps. Virtual machines are powered on according to the startup order configuration. If a delay is set in the startup settings of a virtual machine in the vApp, the vApp waits for the set length of time before powering on that virtual machine.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Network protocol profiles also contain settings for the IP subnet, DNS, and HTTP proxy server. Note If you move a vApp or a virtual machine that retrieves its network settings from a protocol profile to another data center, to power on the vApp or virtual machine you must assign a protocol profile to the connected port group on the destination data center.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration e If you enable IP Pools, enter a comma-separated list of host address ranges in the IP pool range field. A range consists of an IP address, a pound sign (#), and a number indicating the length of the range. For example, 10.20.60.4#10, 10.20.61.0#2 indicates that the IPv4 addresses can range from 10.20.60.4 to 10.20.60.13 and 10.20.61.0 to 10.20.61.1. The gateway and the ranges must be within the subnet.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration d Enter the server name and port number for the proxy server. The server name can optionally include a colon and a port number. For example, web-proxy: 3912 is a valid proxy server. e 8 Click Next. On the ready to complete page, review the settings and click Finish. What to do next You can now associate a prot group with a network protocol profile. For more details, see Associate a Port Group with a Network Protocol Profile.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Prerequisites Verify that the virtual machine is connected to a port group that is associated with the network protocol profile. Procedure 1 Navigate to the virtual machine or the vApp. 2 Open the settings of the vApp or the vApp Options tab of the virtual machine. n Right-click a vApp and select Edit settings. n Right-click a virtual machine, select Edit settings, and in the Edit Settings dialog box, click the vApp Options tab. 3 Click Enable vApp options.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration If you enable vApp options and export a virtual machine to OVF, the virtual machine receives an OVF Environment XML descriptor at boot time. The OVF descriptor might include values for custom properties including network configuration and IP addresses. The OVF environment can be transported to the guest in two ways: n As a CD-ROM that contains the XML document. The CD-ROM is mounted on the CD-ROM drive. n Through VMware Tools.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Option Description DHCP A DHCP server is used to allocate the IP addresses. The addresses assigned by the DHCP server are visible in the OVF environments of virtual machines started in the vApp. Static - IP Pool IP addresses are automatically allocated from the managed IP network range of vCenter Server at power-on, and remain allocated at power-off.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 4 Edit OVF Settings for a Virtual Machine in the vSphere Web Client A virtual machine's OVF settings allow you to customize the OVF environment, OVF transport, and boot behavior after OVF deployment. You can edit and configure settings that affect the OVF environment in the Virtual Machine Properties dialog box.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Perform these tasks to customize your virtual machine or vApp with properties: 1 Define the OVF properties, for example a DNS address or gateway, in the virtual machine or vApp. 2 If you or planning to export to OVF: a Set up the OVF environment transport to carry the settings into the virtual machine. See Edit OVF Settings for a Virtual Machine in the vSphere Web Client. b Write some glue code to access and apply the information to the virtual machine.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 7 Click OK. Edit OVF Settings for a Virtual Machine in the vSphere Web Client A virtual machine's OVF settings allow you to customize the OVF environment, OVF transport, and boot behavior after OVF deployment. You can edit and configure settings that affect the OVF environment in the Virtual Machine Properties dialog box. Prerequisites vApp options must be enabled in order to access these options.
Monitoring Solutions with the vCenter Solutions Manager 8 In the vSphere Web Client, you can view an inventory of installed solutions, view detailed information about the solutions, and monitor the solution health status. A solution is an extension of vCenter Server that adds new functions to a vCenter Server instance. VMware products that integrate with vCenter Server are also considered solutions.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration You can navigate to the Solutions Manager from the home page of the vSphere Web Client. The Solutions Manager view displays information about the solution, such as the solution name, the vendor name and the version of the product. Procedure 1 From the vSphere Web Client home page, navigate to the Solutions Manager by selecting Administration > Solutions > vCenter Server Extensions. 2 Double-click a solution.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Table 8‑1. ESX Agent Manager health status Status Description Red The solution must intervene for the ESX Agent Manager to proceed. For example, if a virtual machine agent is powered off manually on a compute resource and the ESX Agent Manager does not attempt to power on the agent. The ESX Agent Manager reports this action to the solution, and the solution alerts the administrator to power on the agent.
Managing Virtual Machines 9 You can manage individual virtual machines or a group of virtual machines that belongs to a host or cluster. From the virtual machine's console, you can change the guest operating system settings, use applications, browse the file system, monitor system performance, and so on. Use snapshots to capture the state of the virtual machine at the time you take the snapshot.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Installing a Guest Operating System A virtual machine is not complete until you install the guest operating system and VMware Tools. Installing a guest operating system in your virtual machine is essentially the same as installing it in a physical computer. The basic steps for a typical operating system are described in this section. See the Guest Operating System Installation Guide at http://partnerweb.vmware.com/GOSIG/home.html.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 2 Select an installation method. Option Action CD-ROM Insert the installation CD-ROM for your guest operating system into the CD-ROM drive of your ESXi host. ISO image a Right-click the virtual machine and select Edit Settings. The virtual machine Edit Settings dialog box opens. If the Virtual Hardware tab is not preselected, select it. b Select Datastore ISO File from the CD/DVD drop-down menu, and browse for the ISO image for your guest operating system.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 4 On the local computer, find the file and upload it. ISO upload times vary, depending on file size and network upload speed. 5 Refresh the datastore file browser to see the uploaded file in the list. What to do next After you upload the ISO image installation media, you can configure the virtual machine CD-ROM drive to access the file.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Linux Requirements Customization of Linux guest operating systems requires that Perl is installed in the Linux guest operating system. Verifying Customization Support for a Guest Operating System To verify customization support for Windows operating systems or Linux distributions and compatible ESXi hosts, see the VMware Compatibility Guide at http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 5 Click OK. You can select the option to use an application to generate computer names or IP addresses during guest operating system customization. Customize Windows During Cloning or Deployment in the vSphere Web Client You can customize Windows guest operating systems for the virtual machine when you deploy a new virtual machine from a template or clone an existing virtual machine.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 4 On the Computer Name page, enter a computer name for the guest operating system. The operating system uses this name to identify itself on the network. On Linux systems, it is called the host name. Option Action Enter a name a Type a name. The name can contain alphanumeric characters and the hyphen (-) character. It cannot contain periods (.) or blank spaces and cannot be made up of digits only. Names are not case-sensitive.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 8 (Optional) On the Commands to run once page, specify commands to run the first time a user logs in to the guest operating system and click Next. See the Microsoft Sysprep documentation for information about RunOnce commands. 9 On the Network page, select the type of network settings to apply to the guest operating system.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration c Click IPv6 to configure the virtual machine to use IPv6 network. n Select Do not use IPv6 if you do not want to use IPv6. n Select the Use DHCP to obtain an IP address automatically option if you want to use DHCP. n Select Prompt the user for an address when the specification is used if you want vCenter Serve to prompt you to enter an IP address. You can enter either an IPv4 or an IPv6 address.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration You return to the Deploy Template or to the Clone Virtual Machine wizard. The customization is finished after you complete the Deploy Template or the Clone Virtual Machine wizard. When the new virtual machine starts for the first time, the guest operating system runs finalization scripts to complete the customization process. The virtual machine might restart several times during this process.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 2 On the Computer Name page, enter a computer name for the guest operating system. The operating system uses this name to identify itself on the network. On Linux systems, it is called the host name. Option Action Enter a name a Type a name. The name can contain alphanumeric characters and the hyphen (-) character. It cannot contain periods (.) or blank spaces and cannot be made up of digits only. Names are not case-sensitive.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 6 If you chose to manually configure network settings, select a NIC from the list and edit its network settings. a Click the Edit the selected adapter icon ( ). The Edit Network wizard opens. b c Click IPv4 to specify IPv4-related settings. n Select Use DHCP to obtain an IP address automatically if you want to use DHCP. n Select Prompt the user for an address when the specification is used if you want vCenter Serve to prompt you to enter an IP address.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 8 Click Finish to save your changes. You return to the Deploy Template or to the Clone Virtual Machine wizard. The customization is finished after you complete the Deploy Template or the Clone Virtual Machine wizard. When the new virtual machine starts for the first time, the guest operating system runs finalization scripts to complete the customization process. The virtual machine might restart several times during this process.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 3 Click Finish. Creating and Managing Customization Specifications You can create and manage customization specifications for Windows and Linux guest operating systems. Customization specifications are XML files that contain guest operating system settings for virtual machines.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 4 On the Computer Name page, enter a computer name for the guest operating system. The operating system uses this name to identify itself on the network. On Linux systems, it is called the host name. Option Action Enter a name a Type a name. The name can contain alphanumeric characters and the hyphen (-) character. It cannot contain periods (.) or blank spaces and cannot be made up of digits only. Names are not case-sensitive.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration n Select Prompt the user for an address when the specification is used if you want vCenter Serve to prompt you to enter an IP address. You can enter either an IPv4 or an IPv6 address. n Select Use the following IPv6 addresses to choose an IPv6 address from the list. You can also add IPv6 addresses manually. Gateway is enabled by default, except when you choose Do not use IPv6 10 On the DNS settings page, enter DNS and domain settings information.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 5 On the Registration information page, type the virtual machine owner’s name and organization and click Next. 6 On the Computer Name page, enter a computer name for the guest operating system. The operating system uses this name to identify itself on the network. On Linux systems, it is called the host name. Option Action Enter a name a Type a name. The name can contain alphanumeric characters and the hyphen (-) character. It cannot contain periods (.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 9 On the Time Zone page, select the time zone for the virtual machine and click Next. 10 (Optional) On the Commands to run once page, specify commands to run the first time a user logs in to the guest operating system and click Next. See the Microsoft Sysprep documentation for information about RunOnce commands. 11 On the Network page, select the type of network settings to apply to the guest operating system.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration The customization specification that you created is listed in the Customization Specification Manager. You can use the specification to customize virtual machine guest operating systems. Create a Customization Specification for Windows Using a Custom Sysprep Answer File A custom sysprep answer file is a file that stores various customization settings such as computer name, licensing information, and workgroup or domain settings.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 6 7 8 On the Custom sysprep file, select the option to import or create a sysprep answer file and click Next. Option Description Import a Sysprep answer file Click Browse and browse to the file. Create a Sysprep answer file Type the contents of the file in the text box. On the Network page, select the type of network settings to apply to the guest operating system.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 9 d Click WINS to specify primary and secondary WINS information. e Click OK to save the configuration settings and exit the Edit Network wizard. f Click Next. On the Ready to complete page, review the details and click Finish to save your changes. The customization specification that you created is listed in the Customization Specification Manager. You can use the specification to customize virtual machine guest operating systems.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration The imported specification is added to the list of customization specifications. Edit Virtual Machine Startup and Shutdown Settings in the vSphere Web Client You can configure virtual machines running on an ESXi host to start up and shut down with the host or after a delay. You can also set the default timing and startup order for virtual machines.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Setting Description Shutdown delay When you power off the ESXi host, it starts powering off the virtual machines that run on it. The order in which virtual machines are powered off is the reverse of their startup order. After the ESXi host powers off the first virtual machine, the host waits for the specified shutdown delay time and then powers off the next virtual machine. The ESXi host shuts down only after all virtual machines are powered off.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration d For the selected virtual machine, click the default option in the VMware Tools column. Define whether the ESXi host waits for the delay to pass when VMware Tools is already installed on the virtual machine. If you select Continue if VMware Tools is installed, the ESXi host powers on the next virtual machine without waiting for the delay to pass. If you select Do not continue if VMware Tools is installed, the ESXi host waits for the delay to pass.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 4 5 (Optional) In the Default VM Settings pane, configure the default startup and shutdown behavior for all virtual machines on the host. Setting Description Startup Delay After you start the ESXi host, it starts powering on the virtual machines that are configured for automatic startup. After the ESXi host powers on the first virtual machine, the host waits for the specified delay time and then powers on the next virtual machine.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration d In the Virtual Machine Startup/Shutdown settings dialog box, configure the shutdown behavior of the virtual machine. You can decide to use the default shutdown delay or you can specify a new one. e 6 Click OK. Click OK. Install the VMware Enhanced Authentication Plug-in The VMware Enhanced Authentication Plug-in provides Integrated Windows Authentication and Windows-based smart card functionality. In the vSphere 6.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 7 On the External Protocol Request dialog box, click Launch Application to run the Enhanced Authentication Plug-in. The link to download the plug-in disappears from the login page. Using a Virtual Machine Console With the vSphere Client, you can access a virtual machine's console by displaying it in a separate Web browser, or from the VMware Remote Console (VMRC).
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 2 Click the Summary tab, and click the Launch Remote Console link. 3 Click Allow to confirm. The VMRC opens as a standalone application for the selected virtual machine. You can also launch more than one console to access several remote virtual machines at the same time. Launch the Web Console You can access a virtual machine's desktop from the vSphere Client by launching the web console. From the web console, you can perform various tasks in the virtual machine.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration You can answer the virtual machine questions from the vSphere Web Client. To save time and ensure the consistency of your virtual environment, you can apply the same answer to other or all virtual machines in your vCenter Server inventory that have the same pending question. Prerequisites Verify that the virtual machine hardware version is 11 or higher. Procedure 1 In the Answer Question dialog box, click Show virtual machines.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Prerequisites Verify that the virtual machine is turned off. Procedure u Log in to the vSphere Client and perform the task: Option Description Temporarily remove the VM or VM template a Right-click the virtual machine. b Select Remove From Inventory and click OK. Permanently delete the VM or VM template a Right-click the virtual machine. b Select Delete from Disk and click OK.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Change the Template Name If you move a template to another host or datacenter folder, you can change the template name to make it unique in that folder. Procedure 1 Right-click the template and select Rename. 2 Enter a new name and click OK. Deleting Templates You can delete a template by removing it from the inventory or deleting the template from the disk.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Procedure 1 In the vSphere Client, navigate to the datastore that contains the template. 2 Select the datastore and click the Files tab. 3 Locate the template folder and click it to display the template files. 4 Select the .vmtx file and click the Register VM icon. The Register VM Template wizard opens. 5 On the Select a name and folder page, specify a name and location for the template and click Next.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration A snapshot preserves the following information: n Virtual machine settings. The virtual machine directory, which includes the disks added or changed after you take the snapshot. n Power state. The virtual machine can be powered on, powered off, or suspended. n Disk state. State of all the virtual machine's virtual disks. n (Optional) Memory state. The contents of the virtual machine's memory.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Snapshot Behavior Taking a snapshot preserves the disk state at a specific time by creating a series of delta disks for each attached virtual disk or virtual RDM and optionally preserves the memory and power state by creating a memory file. Taking a snapshot creates a snapshot object in the Snapshot Manager that represents the virtual machine state and settings. Each snapshot creates an additional delta .vmdk disk file.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Database file A .vmsd file that contains the virtual machine's snapshot information and is the primary source of information for the Snapshot Manager. This file contains line entries, which define the relationships between snapshots and between child disks for each snapshot. Memory file A .vmsn file that includes the active state of the virtual machine. Capturing the memory state of the virtual machine lets you revert to a turned on virtual machine state.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration n Snapshots provide a point-in-time image of the disk that backup solutions can use, but Snapshots are not meant to be a robust method of backup and recovery. If the files containing a virtual machine are lost, its snapshot files are also lost. Also, large numbers of snapshots are difficult to manage, consume large amounts of disk space, and are not protected in the case of hardware failure. n Snapshots can negatively affect the performance of a virtual machine.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration When you take a snapshot, other activity that is occurring in the virtual machine might affect the snapshot process when you revert to that snapshot. The best time to take a snapshot from a storage perspective, is when you are not incurring a large I/O load. The best time to take a snapshot from a service perspective is when no applications in the virtual machine are communicating with other computers.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Required privileges: n Virtual machine .Snapshot management.Remove Snapshot n Virtual machine.Configuration.Modify device settings Procedure 1 Right-click a virtual machine in the inventory and select Edit Settings. 2 On the Virtual Hardware tab, expand Hard disk, and select an independent disk mode option. 3 Option Description Independent - Persistent Disks in persistent mode behave like conventional disks on your physical computer.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration n To quiesce the virtual machine files, verify that the virtual machine is powered on and that VMware Tools is installed. n Verify that you have the Virtual machine .Snapshot management. Create snapshot privilege on the virtual machine. Procedure 1 Right-click the virtual machine the inventory and select Snapshots > Take Snapshot. The Take Snapshot dialog box opens. 2 Type a name for the snapshot. 3 (Optional) Type a description for the snapshot.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration n Existing snapshots are not removed. You can restore those snapshots at any time. n If the snapshot includes the memory state, the virtual machine will be in the same power state as when you created the snapshot. Table 9‑1.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration n If the snapshot includes the memory state, the virtual machine will be in the same power state as when you created the snapshot. Table 9‑2. Virtual Machine Power State After Restoring a Snapshot Virtual Machine State When Parent Snapshot Is Taken Virtual Machine State After Restoration Powered on (includes memory) Reverts to the parent snapshot, and the virtual machine is powered on and running.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Deleting a snapshot does not change the virtual machine or other snapshots. Deleting a snapshot consolidates the changes between snapshots and previous disk states and writes all the data from the delta disk that contains the information about the deleted snapshot to the parent disk. When you delete the base parent snapshot, all changes merge with the base virtual machine disk. To delete a snapshot, a large amount of information needs to be read and written to a disk.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration n Required Privilege: Virtual machine .Snapshot management.Remove Snapshot on the virtual machine. Procedure 1 Right-click the virtual machine and select Manage Snapshots. a To locate a virtual machine, select a datacenter, folder, cluster, resource pool, host, or vApp. b Click the VMs tab and click Virtual Machines. 2 In the Snapshot Manager, click a snapshot to select it. 3 Select whether to delete a single snapshot or all snapshots.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration A Yes status indicates that the snapshot files for the virtual machine should be consolidated, and that the virtual machine's Tasks and Events tab shows a configuration problem. A No status indicates that the files are OK. 2 To consolidate the files, right-click the virtual machine and select Snapshots > Consolidate. 3 Check the Needs Consolidation column to verify that the task succeeded.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration n If a virtual machine is in an EVC cluster and the per-VM EVC is also enabled, the EVC mode of the virtual machine cannot exceed the EVC mode of the EVC cluster in which the virtual machine runs. The baseline feature set that you configure for the virtual machine cannot contain more CPU features than the baseline feature set applied to the hosts in the EVC cluster.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 2 Under the Configure tab, select VMware EVC. The pane shows details about the EVC mode of the virtual machine and CPUID details. Important For newly created virtual machines, the EVC mode that shows in the VMware EVC pane is disabled. For powered-off virtual machines, the VMware EVC pane always shows the EVC status defined at the virtual machine level.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration For example, consider a cluster that contains hosts with Intel Xeon 45 nm Core two processors that are set to the Intel Merom Generation (Xeon Core 2) EVC mode. When you power on a virtual machine in this cluster, it runs in the Intel Merom Generation (Xeon Core 2) EVC mode. If the EVC mode of the cluster is raised to Intel Penryn Generation (Xeon 45 nm Core 2), the virtual machine remains at the lower Intel Merom Generation (Xeon Core 2) EVC mode.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration You can use cold or hot migration to move virtual machines to different hosts or datastores. Cold Migration You can move a powered off or suspended virtual machine to a new host. Optionally, you can relocate configuration and disk files for powered off or suspended virtual machines to new storage locations. You can also use cold migration to move virtual machines from one data center to another.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration In vSphere 6.0 and later, you can move virtual machines between vSphere sites by using migration between these types of objects. Migrate to another virtual switch Moving the network of a virtual machine to a virtual switch of a different type. You can migrate virtual machines without reconfiguring the physical and virtual network.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 3 4 Select the migration type and click Next. Option Description Change compute resource only Move the virtual machine to another host. Change storage only Move the virtual machine’s configuration file and virtual disks. Change both compute resource and storage Move the virtual machine to another host and move its configuration file and virtual disks.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 6 7 Select the format for the virtual machine's disks. Option Action Same format as source Use the same format as the source virtual machine. Thick Provision Lazy Zeroed Create a virtual disk in a default thick format. Space required for the virtual disk is allocated during creation. Any data remaining on the physical device is not erased during creation. Instead, it is zeroed out on demand on first write from the virtual machine.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 9 Select a destination network for all VM network adapters connected to a valid source network and click Next. You can click Advanced to select a new destination network for each VM network adapter connected to a valid source network. You can migrate a virtual machine network to another distributed switch in the same or to another data center or vCenter Server. 10 On the Ready to complete page, review the details and click Finish.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 4 If you change the compute resource of the virtual machine, select the destination compute resource for this virtual machine migration and click Next. Any compatibility problem appears in the Compatibility panel. Fix the problem, or select another host or cluster. Possible targets include hosts and DRS clusters with any level of automation. If a cluster has no DRS enabled, select a specific host in the cluster rather than selecting the cluster.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 7 Select the datastore location where you want to store the virtual machine files. Option Action Store all virtual machine files in the same location on a datastore. Select a datastore and click Next. Store all virtual machine files in the same Storage DRS cluster. a Select a Storage DRS cluster.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Prerequisites Verify that your hosts and virtual machines meet the requirements for migration with vMotion with shared storage. n Verify that your hosts and virtual machines meet the requirements for migration with vMotion. See the vCenter Server and Host Management documentation. n Verify that the storage that contains the virtual machine disks is shared between the source and target hosts.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 4 Select a destination network for all VM network adapters connected to a valid source network and click Next. You can click Advanced to select a new destination network for each VM network adapter connected to a valid source network. You can migrate a virtual machine network to another distributed switch in the same or to another data center or vCenter Server. 5 6 Select the migration priority level and click Next.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 3 4 Select the format for the virtual machine's disks. Option Action Same format as source Use the same format as the source virtual machine. Thick Provision Lazy Zeroed Create a virtual disk in a default thick format. Space required for the virtual disk is allocated during creation. Any data remaining on the physical device is not erased during creation. Instead, it is zeroed out on demand on first write from the virtual machine.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration vCenter Server moves the virtual machine to the new storage location. Names of migrated virtual machine files on the destination datastore match the inventory name of the virtual machine. Event messages appear in the Events tab. The data displayed on the Summary tab shows the status and state throughout the migration. If errors occur during migration, the virtual machines revert to their original states and locations.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 4 Select a virtual machine storage policy from the VM Storage Policy drop-down menu. Storage policies specify storage requirements for applications that run on the virtual machine. You can also select the default policy for vSAN or Virtual Volumes datastores. Important If the virtual machine hard disks use different storage policies, the new policy that you select only applies to non-PMem hard disks.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Simultaneous migration to a new compute resource and datastore provides greater mobility for virtual machines by eliminating the vCenter Server boundary. Virtual machine disks or content of the virtual machine folder are transferred over the vMotion network to reach the destination host and datastores. To make disk format changes and preserve them, you must select a different datastore for the virtual machine files and disks.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration If your environment has more than one vCenter Server instances, you can move virtual machines from one vCenter Server inventory to another. Important If the virtual machine that you migrate has an NVDIMM device and virtual PMem hard disks, the destination host or cluster must have available PMem resource. Otherwise, the compatibility check fails and you cannot proceed further with the migration.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 6 Select a virtual machine storage policy from the VM Storage Policy drop-down menu. Storage policies specify storage requirements for applications that run on the virtual machine. You can also select the default policy for vSAN or Virtual Volumes datastores. Important If the virtual machine hard disks use different storage policies, the new policy that you select only applies to non-PMem hard disks.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 9 Select the migration priority level and click Next. Option Description Schedule vMotion with high priority vCenter Server attempts to reserve resources on both the source and destination hosts to be shared among all concurrent migrations with vMotion. vCenter Server grants a larger share of host CPU resources. If sufficient CPU resources are not immediately available, vMotion is not initiated.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Procedure 1 Right-click the virtual machine and select Migrate. a To locate a virtual machine, select a data center, folder, cluster, resource pool, host, or vApp. b Click the Virtual Machines tab. 2 Select Change both compute resource and storage and click Next. 3 Select a destination resource for the virtual machine, and click Next. Any compatibility problems appear in the Compatibility panel. Fix the problem, or select another host or cluster.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 5 Select a virtual machine storage policy from the VM Storage Policy drop-down menu. Storage policies specify storage requirements for applications that run on the virtual machine. You can also select the default policy for vSAN or Virtual Volumes datastores. Important If the virtual machine hard disks use different storage policies, the new policy that you select only applies to non-PMem hard disks.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 8 9 Select the migration priority level and click Next. Option Description Schedule vMotion with high priority vCenter Server attempts to reserve resources on both the source and destination hosts to be shared among all concurrent migrations with vMotion. vCenter Server grants a larger share of host CPU resources. If sufficient CPU resources are not immediately available, vMotion is not initiated.
Upgrading Virtual Machines 10 You can upgrade virtual machines to a higher level of compatibility and a higher version of VMware tools. After the upgrade, your VMs can take advantage of new hardware options and new features. For a list of hardware features available to virtual machines with each ESXi hardware compatibility setting, see Hardware Features Available with Virtual Machine Compatibility Settings.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration In the vSphere Client, you can upgrade virtual machines manually, or schedule upgrades. vSphere Update Manager Manual Upgrade Use this procedure to upgrade one or more virtual machines to the latest supported virtual hardware version immediately. Schedule VM Upgrades Use this procedure to schedule an upgrade of one or more virtual machines at the next reboot of the virtual machine, and choose from all supported compatibility level upgrades.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Table 10‑1. Virtual Machine Downtime by Guest Operating System (Continued) Guest Operating System Upgrade VMware Tools Upgrade Virtual Machine Compatibility Solaris No downtime. Downtime to shut down and power on the virtual machine. FreeBSD No downtime. Downtime to shut down and power on the virtual machine. Mac OS X No downtime. Downtime to shut down and power on the virtual machine.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration n Verify that all virtual machines and their .vmdk files are stored on storage connected to the ESXi host or the client machine. n Determine the ESXi versions that you want the virtual machines to be compatible with. See Virtual Machine Compatibility. n Check whether the guest operating systems of the virtual machines that you upgrade require a power off.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Procedure 1 Log in to the vCenter Server from the vSphere Web Client. 2 Select the virtual machines. a Select a datacenter, folder, cluster, resource pool, or host. b Click the VMs tab and click Virtual Machines. 3 Power off the selected virtual machines. 4 Select Actions > Compatibility > Schedule VM Compatibility Upgrade.... 5 Click Yes to confirm the upgrade. 6 Select the ESXi versions for the virtual machines to be compatible with.
Required Privileges for Common Tasks 11 Many tasks require permissions on multiple objects in the inventory. If the user who attempts to perform the task only has privileges on one object, the task cannot complete successfully. The following table lists common tasks that require more than one privilege. You can add permissions to inventory objects by pairing a user with one of the predefined roles or with multiple privileges.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Table 11‑1. Required Privileges for Common Tasks (Continued) Task Required Privileges Applicable Role On the network that the virtual machine will be assigned to: Network Consumer or Administrator Network.Assign network Power on a virtual machine On the data center in which the virtual machine is deployed: Virtual machine .Interaction .Power On On the virtual machine or folder of virtual machines: Virtual Machine Power User or Administrator Virtual machine .
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Table 11‑1. Required Privileges for Common Tasks (Continued) Task Required Privileges Applicable Role On a datastore that contains the installation media ISO image: Virtual Machine Power User or Administrator Datastore.Browse datastore (if installing from an ISO image on a datastore) On the datastore to which you upload the installation media ISO image: Migrate a virtual machine with vMotion n Datastore.Browse datastore n Datastore.
Troubleshooting Overview 12 vSphere Troubleshooting contains common troubleshooting scenarios and provides solutions for each of these problems. You can also find guidance here for resolving problems that have similar origins. For unique problems, consider developing and adopting a troubleshooting methodology. The following approach for effective troubleshooting elaborates on how to gather troubleshooting information, such as identifying symptoms and defining the problem space.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration The first step in the troubleshooting process is to gather information that defines the specific symptoms of what is happening.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration n Develop and pursue a hierarchy of potential solutions based on likelihood. Systematically eliminate each potential problem from the most likely to the least likely until the symptoms disappear. n When testing potential solutions, change only one thing at a time. If your setup works after many things are changed at once, you might not be able to discern which of those things made a difference.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Table 12‑2.
Troubleshooting Virtual Machines 13 The virtual machine troubleshooting topics provide solutions to potential problems that you might encounter when using your virtual machines.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration 2 Re-add and enable vMotion for each affected USB device. Cannot Copy Data From an ESXi Host to a USB Device That Is Connected to the Host You can connect a USB device to an ESXi host and copy data to the device from the host. For example, you might want to gather the vm-support bundle from the host after the host loses network connectivity. To perform this task, you must stop the USB arbitrator.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Solution 1 Determine the datastore where the virtual machine configuration (.vmx) file is located. a Select the virtual machine in the vSphere Web Client inventory, and click the Datastores tab. The datastore or datastores where the virtual machine files are stored are displayed. b If more than one datastore is displayed, select each datastore and click the file browser icon to browse for the .vmx file. c Verify the location of the .vmx file.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration n n c Use the Reservation drop-down menu to increase the amount of memory allocated to the virtual machine. d Click OK. Alternatively, you can increase the amount of space available for the swap file by moving other virtual machine disks off the datastore that is being used for the swap file. a Browse to the datastore in the vSphere Web Client object navigator. b Select the VMs tab.
