Tag: esx 5

VMWare ESX Hardware Health monitor for Labtech

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Plugins4LabTech has created a new plugin that will monitor the CIM data announced by the hardware running VMWare ESX software. We can report on any hardware that follows CIM standards and makes it’s hardware statuses known to VMWare. This simple to use plugin deploys in just minutes and can be setup by anyone with little or no  knowledge of LabTech functions and processes. If you want to see in action the easiest ESX Hardware Health Monitor available for LabTech then have a peek at our video on our YouTube Channel.

 

Never be in the dark again over hardware health!

 

Get alerts and tickets when hardware failures are detected. Using the monitor agent supplied with the plugin get quick responses to failures and warnings directly from VMWare. When alarms happen get emails, tickets and messaging alerting you to the failure that is taking place on the hardware.

Plugins4LabTech’s VMWare Health Monitor plugin for Labtech uses an agent to talk to VMware ESX hosts and retrieves the CIM data for the hardware the ESX host is running on. The plugin processes this data and stores it in LabTech’s database to be used in the views and alarms the plugin issues when failures are seen. You will see data on your RAID arrays and SCSI controllers, Power Supplies failures and system overheats. If the hardware is reporting it to VMWare we can see it.

 

Main ESX Health Monitor Console

The main view lets you see all the ESX hosts under management sorted by Client. In this view you are able to turn on and off the collection of data, set the interval of how often the data is collected and enable alerting for any seen failures.

ViewMenu

 

 

ESX Health Monitor Client Console Tab

The Client Console tab is where you would add and delete the ESX Hosts you want to monitor. You are able to force the update of ESX CIM data by selecting to rescan ESX hosts and you can view the full CIM data list of any ESX Host.

Clienttab

 

 

ESX Health Monitor CIM Data

The CIM Data view shows all the collected CIM data on a given ESX host. If any data is in a state not considered ok then those lines will be represented with warning and alarming icons. You will also get the hardware manufactures data back and in the case of Dell that is the Hardware type and Service Tag.

CIMData

 

 

ESX Health Monitor Internal Agent

Under the main view you can select to enable alerts. When you do this agent is created in the internal monitors of LabTech. You can use this monitor to email, ticket, alert or message anyone when failures are picked up.

monitor

A simple plugin all self contained and easy to deploy.  Just a few clicks to configure and you have data. So easy to use anyone can setup and have it working in just a few minutes.

 

The plugin is currently with the Squid Squad getting a final review before we release the new plugin. Follow our release notes at http://support.plugins4labtech.com

download

 

Labtech – How to access and manage VMWare ESX 5 Hosts remotely using Application Redirect

Labtech VMWare vSphere Client Redirector

Wouldn’t it be really cool if you could somehow safely access any VMWare vSphere ESX 5 host directly just using the local vSphere 5 Client installed on your workstation without porting and NATing traffic through your customers firewalls? With Labtech that is no problem,  by setting up a Application Redirector you can create a new proxy that will pass all your traffic to any ESX or vCenter host and allow you to fully manage that host using your own installed vClient on your workstation, using the Labtech server and an agent, wow is it fast.

 

Let me show you how to do it.

I want to thank the guys over at www.labtechgeek.com for creating the outline I am following here.

 

1.) You will need to create a new redirected app named vSphere Client.
Goto [System Dashboard] -> [Config] -> [Redirected Apps]

LT-RedirectedApplication

2.) In the program field, enter the location of your local vShpere client like ->  C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\Infrastructure\Virtual Infrastructure Client\Launcher\VpxClient.exe

3.) Now we will redirect the following ports.

Local Port: 443 Local IP: 127.0.0.1 Remote Port: 443 Remote IP: %RemoteIP% Type: TCP Local Listen
Local Port: 902 Local IP: 127.0.0.1 Remote Port: 902 Remote IP: %RemoteIP% Type: TCP Local Listen
Local Port: 903 Local IP: 127.0.0.1 Remote Port: 903 Remote IP: %RemoteIP% Type: TCP Local Listen
Local Port: 8080 Local IP: 127.0.0.1 Remote Port: 8080 Remote IP: %RemoteIP% Type: TCP Local Listen
Local Port: 9443 Local IP: 127.0.0.1 Remote Port: 9443 Remote IP: %RemoteIP% Type: TCP Local Listen
Local Port: 10080 Local IP: 127.0.0.1 Remote Port: 10080 Remote IP: %RemoteIP% Type: TCP Local Listen
Local Port: 10443 Local IP: 127.0.0.1 Remote Port: 10443 Remote IP: %RemoteIP% Type: TCP Local Listen
Local Port: 902 Local IP: 127.0.0.1 Remote Port: 902 Remote IP: %RemoteIP% Type: UDP Local Listen

Redirector type should have the “Computer” box checked, this makes the redirector show up on computer consoles along side the other redirectors.

LT-redirectors

4.) Now we need to create an entry in your hosts file for the redirector to work. Add -> “127.0.0.1 vsphere-redir” to your local host file. If you just use 127.0.0.1 or localhost when the client pops up then the client may actually try to connect to the NetBIOS name of your PC, which will not work.

5.) Reload your systems cache and you should see the redirector show up under Computer consoles Redirectors menu.

 

To connect directly to an ESXi host,  while holding the Shift click on the vSphere Client redirector from meun. This will prompt you for an IP address for the remote ESX host you want to control – enter the IP of the ESXi host.

redirect-IP

Once you place your IP of the ESX host in the IP for Redirection box click OK. Give it a few seconds to get the proxy up and app to launch then you should see your VMware client pop up.  You now type in to IPaddress/Name area “vsphere-redir” as the host IP and then the user and pass needed to log in to the ESX host.

vclient

***Note – When you’re connecting directly to a host, or to vCenter, you must always enter vsphere-redir as the IP Address/Name  in the VMWare vSphere client.

***Note – If you’re connecting to a vCenter server, you won’t be able to view the console of any VMs (MKS) – this is because the vSphere Client makes a direct connection to the ESXi server on port 902. If you connect directly to the ESXi host, MKS works fine.

 

Enjoy,

Cubert 😎

 

How-to get SNMP Data from VMWare ESXi 5 with Dell OpenManage, Cacti, Nagios, Munin or Ganglia

 

So you want to access your VMware ESX 5 host over SNMP? Here is the quick steps to get Dell OpenManage and SNMP on your ESX 5 host up and running fast.  You will need the VIB’s from Dell, also will need to download and install the VMware CLI client for accessing ESX hosts from remote. For the SNMP setups below we are using a generic password inside of quotes(“password”) you should remove the quotes and place the root password of the esx host where you see the quoted password text. We also are setting up SNMP to send traps to 192.168.24.120, you will need to change this to any host you want to receive traps. You will need to replace the server IP address with the address of your ESX5 host. If you use network monitoring applications like Cacti, Nagios, Munin or Ganglia then this is just what you need to start capturing network statistics and graphs.

 

Steps  to install OpenManage.

  1. Downloaded OpenManage VIB from Dell http://www.dell.com/support/drivers/us/en/g_5/DriverDetails/DriverFileFormats?DriverId=N3R0H&FileId=2773322235
  2. Uploaded VIB to ESX host and placed in /var/log/vmware/
  3. SSH to host as root
  4. ran command esxcli software vib install -d /var/log/vmware/OM-SrvAdmin-Dell-Web-6.5.0-542907.VIB-ESX50i_A02.zip
  5. After software install, I rebooted the host.

Steps to configure SNMP

  1. Started vmWare CLI
  2. vicfg-snmp.pl –server 192.168.24.10 –username root –password “password” -c public
  3. vicfg-snmp.pl –server 192.168.24.10 –username root –password “password” -t 192.168.24.120@161/public
  4. vicfg-snmp.pl –server 192.168.24.10 –username root –password “password” -E
    Current SNMP agent settings:
    Enabled  : 1
    UDP port : 161
    Communities :
    public
    Notification targets :
    192.168.24.120@161/public
    Options :
    EnvEventSource=indications

Openmanage Web Interface:

  1. Download OpenManage Server Administrator Managed Node http://www.dell.com/support/drivers/us/en/555/DriverDetails/DriverFileFormats?DriverId=R300521
  2. Navigate to https://localhost:1311, type in ESX host IP address, login and password.
  3. You should be able to view the all the good stuff like “Main System Chassis”, Software, Storage

 

I hope this helps someone out there in cyber space!

Cubert 😎