While attempting to add https://github.com/alanrenouf/vCheck-vSphere as an upstream something went awry and I was constantly presented with the error: fatal: remote upstream already exists OK, but when I tried to fetch the upstream it failed with: fatal: ‘upstream’ does not appear to be a git repository Being new to git this took a little while to figure out, but I thought I’d document it in case it would be helpful for someone else.

While I was removing some ESXi 5.0 hosts from a 5.1 vCenter I encountered the following issue with a couple of them: General system error: Invalid Fault In the vCenter vpxd log file this message was accompanied by msg = “vim.fault.AdminNotDisabled” It turned out to be a known fault where Lockdown Mode was out of sync between vCenter and the ESXi host. In vCenter it showed as enabled: However, in the ESXi host it was showing as disabled.

The unbelievably successful vCheck script from Alan Renouf which can be used to provide a daily report on your vSphere (and other technologies) environment is now available on GitHub. This is a great move since it more easily enables further community input to develop this tool further by allowing you to submit contributions via a central repository. If you’ve not used GitHub before then head over to the home page and create an account.

Having installed vCenter 5.1 U1a, it was time to replace certificates. Using the vCenter Certificate Automation Tool to replace self-signed SSL certificates with full certificates you will be taken through various menus to replace each certificate: When the time comes to replace the vCenter Server certificate, you will firstly be in Menu 4 and then selecting Option 2, Update the vCenter Server SSL Certificate (starting to sound like a dreaded phone call to a utilities or government call centre yet?

While installing vCenter 5.1 recently I experienced the following error at the point where you confirm the AD account to use for the vCenter service: Failed to verify the service account. Error code: [87] At first I figured I was mis-entering the credentials, but it turns out to be an issue if the user AD account for the vCenter service is the same name as the vCenter computer account. Renamed the AD account and started the install again.

While installing a fresh vCenter 5.1 recently I was presented with this really helpful error message at the point where you are registering a vCenter Server administrator user or group with vCenter Single Sign On: Wrong input - either a command line argument is wrong, a file cannot be found or the spec file doesn’t contain the required information, or the clocks on the two systems are not synchronized. Check vm_ssoreg.

I sincerely hope this saves somebody else some time because I had a fair amount of head scratching with this today. Installed a Windows Server 2012 VM on vSphere 5.0 U2, pretty standard install with a C:\ drive for OS, Software etc and D:\ for data. This particular server needed to run SQL Server 2012, however the install kept repeatedly failing with the error “Could not find the Database Engine startup handle”.

The next London VMUG will take place on July 4th 2013 and it looks like a great line up as usual. I’m particularly looking forward to hearing the session about some real world experiences with vCenter SSO. I also heard a rumour that there may be a few copies of a new vCloud book given away……. .

Event 4 for the PowerShell Scripting Games 2013 has closed, here are a few learning points I picked up on from entries submitted. 1) Random AD Users The first part of this event is to work with 20 randomly selected users from Active Directory. Initial thoughts might be that this is pretty straightforward. If you use the Get-ADUser cmdlet from the AD module then you could do something like this:

Event 3 for the PowerShell Scripting Games 2013 has closed, here are a few learning points I picked up on from entries submitted. 1) Filter to the left Some cmdlets in PowerShell have their own filtering capabilities, which can make queries of large data sets more efficient. However, not all cmdlets do have this capability and you will need to pipe the results to Where-Object instead. It’s always worth checking the help and examples for a cmdlet first to see the best way to filter and if it has an option to do so then use it!