gopher_49
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ESXi v4.1 booting into maintenance mode / powering on VM's automatically
I have a free version of ESXi v4.1 deployed and we noticed that if it drops due to power loss it comes back up in maintenance mode. We've only had one power outage that caused this but with my other ESXi hosts I've never seen this before. It's on a battery but the battery up time was shortly than the outage. Is this normal behavior? Also, how can I make it to where VMs power on automatically?
ASKER
okay.. I found out how to change the shutdown/startup settings right after I posted this... But.. I'm still puzzled about it entering into maintenance mode automatically. That's really odd.
If you do not fix the underlying issue having the auto start set will not do you much good. It is not going to work if the host is in MM. See this it might help.
http://communities.vmware.com/thread/443913?start=0&tstart=0
http://communities.vmware.com/thread/443913?start=0&tstart=0
ASKER
The onsite tech is going to see the ESXi version number... This was his first deployment and I suspect he downloaded an older Dell v4.1 image...
If you server fails, ie no controlled shutdown because you have no UPS, it could be in any state when it gets powered on.
It's also lucky, that it does not corrupy anything permanently.
It could be RAID controller write cache?
It's also lucky, that it does not corrupy anything permanently.
It could be RAID controller write cache?
ASKER
To my knowledge the RAID controller has write cache. I'm suggesting an APC battery with powerchute so the VM's can shut down properly. Is there a APC powerchute agent for ESXi?
Not exactly an agent, it has to be installed on the vMA, and it does *NOT* work with FREE version of ESXi!
ASKER
On Monday we plan on updating ESXi... I'll update then..
ASKER
We tried to update the ESXi host via vihostupdate.pl utility... We did this in a lab and it worked just fine.. But... We went on site and tried the same command and no luck. We get the error:
Unable to tar to bootbank DB to alt boot bank: Unable to read or write to database /bootbank/pkgdb.tmp
Unable to tar to bootbank DB to alt boot bank: Unable to read or write to database /bootbank/pkgdb.tmp
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ASKER
At this point it seems easier to download the newest ESXi build and reinstall to the SSD card... The import VMs...
just be careful the installer does not wipe the datastore.
ASKER
yea... that seems to be easily done... I warned the onsite tech. Does the latest ESXi v4.1 Dell image have all of the current bulletins or do I need to install bulletins after the clean install?
You will need to apply patches afterwards.
Auto Start and Shutdown Virtual Machines
Just log into your ESX server using the vSphere GUI Client, click on the host, then click the Configuration tab. In the 'Software' box, click the Virtual Machine Startup/Shutdown link. In the upper right click Properties.
http://www.vmadmin.co.uk/vmware/35-esxserver/111-esxautostartstop
also see this question
https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/26874904/Virtual-machines-automatically-start-back-up.html