VMWare Services Stopping Erratically on VCenter 5 OpenSUSE Virtual Appliance (with DB2 Database)
Hi,
We've recently upgraded our infrastructure from VMWare ESX 3 to 5 and decided to use the new prebuilt OpenSUSE VCenter virtual appliance. Everything was running smoothly for around 3 weeks, but the past few days we keep on getting disconnected from VCenter and it looks like VCenter services are stopping in the virtual appliance.
Unfortunately we're all Windows junkies here and don't know much about troubleshooting OpenSUSE.
Firstly, I'm wondering if any other IT departments have similar issues with the OpenSUSE VCenter VA that VMWare have rolled out with version 5?
Secondly, can any OpenSUSE guru explain step by step how to locate failed services, and how to restart the offenders.
Any information about locating event logs would be highly appreciated too.
Thanks,
Fin
We've recently upgraded our infrastructure from VMWare ESX 3 to 5 and decided to use the new prebuilt OpenSUSE VCenter virtual appliance. Everything was running smoothly for around 3 weeks, but the past few days we keep on getting disconnected from VCenter and it looks like VCenter services are stopping in the virtual appliance.
Unfortunately we're all Windows junkies here and don't know much about troubleshooting OpenSUSE.
Firstly, I'm wondering if any other IT departments have similar issues with the OpenSUSE VCenter VA that VMWare have rolled out with version 5?
Secondly, can any OpenSUSE guru explain step by step how to locate failed services, and how to restart the offenders.
Any information about locating event logs would be highly appreciated too.
Thanks,
Fin
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Login to the web portal of the appliance, and restart the services.
We're doing this over 10 times a day
Have you made sure you've allocated 2 vCPU and 8GB RAM to the appliance, it's very hungry for resources.
Yes, it currently has 2 vCPU and 8GB ram
Login to the appliance and logs are storted in /var/log/vmware
Any idea which logs I should be looking at, and what do I use to read the logs e.g. the VI Editor?
you can also download the Support Bundle, which contains all the logs.
just checking that out now!
We're doing this over 10 times a day
Have you made sure you've allocated 2 vCPU and 8GB RAM to the appliance, it's very hungry for resources.
Yes, it currently has 2 vCPU and 8GB ram
Login to the appliance and logs are storted in /var/log/vmware
Any idea which logs I should be looking at, and what do I use to read the logs e.g. the VI Editor?
you can also download the Support Bundle, which contains all the logs.
just checking that out now!
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To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
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@L4Net: This is the Linux Appliance, not vCenter for Windows!
Right, but vCenter directly interacts with AD domains and requires domain accounts to carry out it's work. I was recommending those domain accounts be checked.
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Well, I called VMWare support and it turns out that the issue was related to the OpenSUSE VA's embedded DB2 database. originally the vCenter VA was supported for 5 ESX hosts and up to 50 VMs, but as feedback was generally good for larger volumes of VMs, VMWare now support the VA to host huge multiples of this.
Our issue was caused by the embedded DB2 database having a fixed upper value for it's transaction log. When the log filled up, Apache crashed causing random user disconnects from vCenter.
Here's the VMWare article to fix this:
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2006812
NOTE: You need to physically restart the VA after the changes.
Our issue was caused by the embedded DB2 database having a fixed upper value for it's transaction log. When the log filled up, Apache crashed causing random user disconnects from vCenter.
Here's the VMWare article to fix this:
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2006812
NOTE: You need to physically restart the VA after the changes.
Good Feedback, due to it's lack of support for other features, e.g. Update Manager, it's a hard sell!
But some clients, like it because they do not need a Windows license!
But some clients, like it because they do not need a Windows license!
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VMWare support resolved the issue in my final post, but I really appreciate all the help from the Experts who helped troubleshoot the issue, and pointed me in the correct direction.
Thanks hanccocka and L4Net!!!
Thanks hanccocka and L4Net!!!
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It's not the Windows license we're too worried about (nearly every large company has a volume license key!), we had hoped that the OpenSUSE VA would make vCenter more stable (and secure)! That, and the fact that we just wanted to see what the VA itself was all about, just plain geeky curiosity :)
Login to the web portal of the appliance, and restart the services.