ESXi

There are 2 posts tagged ESXi (this is page 1 of 1).

Multi-writer Shared / Clustered Disk for Windows or Oracle Cluster – vSphere / ESXi / vSAN 6.7.x

For the sake of this blog, it will be a Two VM’s Use Case, running on separate ESXi Hosts (Anti-Affinity Rule in Place)

The step of second node will apply on third / fourth node if to be introduced.

Environment

FS-VM1 – OS = Windows 2019 OS Disk 1 = 100 GB

FS-VM2 – OS = Windows 2019 OS Disk 1 = 100 GB

Created a thick provisioned eager zeroed storage policy as I was configuring on this setup on vSAN, thick disk is required for this setup to work as expected

Required disk for clustering:
Shared Disk 1 = 70 GB
Shared Disk 2 = 140 GB

Configuration Steps:

Shutdown Guest OS or Power Off FS-VM1 & FS-VM2

FS-VM1

  • Edit Settings – FS-VM1
  • Add New Devices > SCSI Controller
    • Select type: VMware Paravirtual
    • Select SCSI Bus sharing mode: Physical
  • Add New Disk
    • Size: 70 GB (1:0)
    • Type: Thick provisioned eager zeroed (using thick policy)
    • Sharing: Multi-writer
    • Disk Mode: Independent – Persistent
    • Virtual Device Node: SCSI controller 1 = SCSI(1:0)
  • Add New Disk
    • Size: 140 GB (1:1)
    • Type: Thick provisioned eager zeroed (using thick policy)
    • Sharing: Multi-writer
    • Disk Mode: Independent – Persistent
    • Virtual Device Node: SCSI controller 1 = SCSI(1:1)

Save Settings for VM by Pressing OK

FS-VM2

  • Edit Settings – FS-VM2
  • Add New Devices > SCSI Controller
    • Select type: VMware Paravirtual
    • Select SCSI Bus sharing mode: Physical
  • Add “Existing Hard Disk”
    • Find for FS-VM1 Folder in Search Browser
    • Select 70 GB .vmdk
    • Sharing: Multi-writer
    • Disk Mode: Independent – Persistent
    • Virtual Device Node: SCSI controller 1 = SCSI(1:0)
  • Add “Existing Hard Disk”
    • Find for FS-VM1 Folder in Search Browser
    • Select 140 GB .vmdk
    • Sharing: Multi-writer
    • Disk Mode: Independent – Persistent
    • Virtual Device Node: SCSI controller 1 = SCSI(1:1)

In case of vSAN it will be Storage Identifier ID with VM name and code.vmdk

Sample: [VxRail-Virtual-SAN-Datastore-8fe79a34-32432-45d4-affb-cdf6a37dd110] 62479960-6cf5-58d0-77bb-e4434bf848f0/FS-VM1-cXNb_1.vmdk

To further validate make sure it’s same path in FS-VM1 Disk File (VM Edit Settings > Hard Disk > Disk File)

Make sure configuration is identical on both VM’s such as SCSI Controller, SCSI Number, Multi-writer, Independent-Persistent etc.

Save Settings for VM by Pressing OK

Validation Steps

Power on both Virtual Machines

Login – FS-VM1 (RDP or Console Access)

  • Navigate to Disk Management
  • Validate Disks are Visible
  • Rescan Disk
  • Initialize Disk
  • Create Partition

Login – FS-VM2 – Repeat same steps

  • Navigate to Disk Management
  • Validate Disks are Visible
  • Rescan Disk
  • Initialize Disk
  • Create Partition

Servers are ready for you to configure your Clustering application

Using command line kill/power off a virtual machine

VMWARE ESXI CLI

Using the ESXi esxcli command to power off a virtual machine

The esxcli command can be used locally or remotely to power off a virtual machine running on ESXi 5.x or later. For more information, see the esxcli vm Commands section in the vSphere Command-Line Interface Reference.

  1. Open a console session where the esxcli tool is available, either in the ESXi Shell, the vSphere Management Assistant (vMA), or the location where the vSphere Command-Line Interface (vCLI) is installed.
  2. Get a list of running virtual machines, identified by World ID, UUID, Display Name, and path to the .vmx configuration file by running this command:esxcli vm process list
  3. Power off the virtual machine from the list by running this command:esxcli vm process kill --type= [soft,hard,force] --world-id= WorldNumberNotes:
    • Three power-off methods are available. Soft is the most graceful, hard performs an immediate shutdown, and force should be used as a last resort.
    • alternate power off command syntax is: esxcli vm process kill -t [ soft,hard,force] -w WorldNumber
  4. Repeat Step 2 and validate that the virtual machine is no longer running.

Using the ESXi command-line utility vim-cmd to power off the virtual machine

  1. On the ESXi console, enter Tech Support mode and log in as root. For more information, see Tech Support Mode for Emergency Support (1003677).
  2. Get a list of all registered virtual machines, identified by their VMID, Display Name, and path to the .vmx configuration file by running this command:vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms
  3. Get the current state of a virtual machine by running this command:vim-cmd vmsvc/power.getstate VMID
  4. Shutdown the virtual machine using the VMID found in Step 2 and run this command:vim-cmd vmsvc/power.shutdown VMIDNote: If the virtual machine fails to shut down, run this command:vim-cmd vmsvc/power.off VMID

Note: this article is for my quick reference, VMware KB reference (https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/1014165)