Let’s Panic: ESXi failover not working, using Static LAG/etherchannel

There was once… a customer who was concernced about the network-wise failover on the ESXi-level, which was not working as he expected it to. To shed some light on the complete scenario…

Configuration

The configuration is pretty simple:

  • The switch is vSwitch0
  • As Failover order there are two vmnic adapters configured as active. (Let’s say vmnic0 and vmnic1)
  • Load balancing is Route based on IP hash (Static LAG/etherchannel/trunk set on physical switch)
  • Network failure detection is Link status only
  • Notify switches is Yes.

Taking above into consideration: When disabling one of the two active vmnic adapters on ESXi using esxcli network nic down -n vmnicX you would expect a failover to occur – don’t you? The truth is: Not necessarily. Let’s go into detail…

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Quick Tip: NSX-T 3.0: Removing VIBs manually from ESXi host

NSX-T 3.0 Main Site

Due to some experiments with NSX-T 3.0 in my lab with ESXi 7.0 hosts I was in need removing the VIB files manually from the host, as the NSX Manager failed doing so.

Just to be very clear: This is NOT officially supported by VMware! Do that at your own risk. If unsure, reach out to the support first.

Should you ever be in similar situation, here a few takeaways and lessons learned so far:

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Horizon Agent: Installation fails at VM_BlastUDPReservePorts

I’m building customized and optimized Windows 10 images for my VDI, removing unnecessary stuff from the Windows installation (to name a few: unneeded drivers, retail/demo files, Hyper-V components). This reduces the disk and memory footprint. Once the customized Golden Image for the Linked Clones is finally installed in a virtual machine and optimized (with the OS Optimization Fling) accordingly, you need to install the VMware Horizon Agent at some point before rolling it out.

All preparations done. So guess what failed after days of optimization and dozens of Windows 10 image customizations? Yep, the VMware Horizon Agent installation…

Horizon Agent: The Rollback.

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VMware FAH Appliance: Making Of F@H-Stats

You might have seen my previous blog post about the VMware Appliance for Folding@Home. This article is about how the local console was made underneath – and actually how simple it is.

Usually when powering on a Linux-based operating system, you just get the usual login console after boot. I thought that it would be handy to see what or if something is ongoing without actually logging in – so in other words: Seeing how busy the virtual machine is, and what the Folding@Home software is doing.

So I went ahead figuring out a simple, fast and easy way showing both. Ending up with the idea: Using a terminal multiplexer, and showing the classic top and tail -f /var/lib/fahclient/log.txt.

That’s how it looks like (when Enable F@H Stats in VM Console was enabled during deployment):

Local Console / F@H Stats

This is how it works…Read full article »

VMware Appliance for Folding@Home

The PhotonOS-based appliance allows you quickly deploying the software by Folding@Home running protein folding calculations using your available CPU/GPU resources to help fighting COVID-19.

Deploying the OVA gives you different set of options:

Deployment of OVA through vCenter HTML5 Client

In the end, looking like:

(Guess who made that local console! Also posted on Twitter here.)

Want to know more?
Read the official blog post from VMware: octo.vmware.com/vmware-appliance-fah/

Interested in contributing?
Check out the fling website at flings.vmware.com/vmware-appliance-for-folding-home#summary.

The most amazing and exciting part of this project for me: From the idea by William Lam, creating and intensive testing (including GPUs!), writing documentation, going through audits and reviews until the final publication of the appliance – in just about 72 hours. It was really great to see how people work together, turning an idea into reality in just such a short period of time.

In case you’re interesting in finding out how I’ve made the "Local Console/F@H Stats", you might want to read my post over here.